The Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June,
1864, by Various

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Title: Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864
       Devoted to Literature and National Policy

Author: Various

Release Date: January 15, 2007 [EBook #20363]

Language: English

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[Pg 609]

THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.

VOL. V.—JUNE, 1864.—No. VI.

CONTENTS

ERNEST RENAN'S THEORY.

Christianity is a fact. We sometimes hear of men who are said to 'deny' 'Christianity.' The expression is nonsense. Men cannot deny the sun. Christianity has been a visible thing, on this planet, for eighteen hundred years. It has done a heavy amount of work, which is very visible too. It is altogether too late in the day to 'deny Christianity.'

That is the first thing to be understood. There is no arguing against the fact. You must take the fact and make the best of it. If your theory requires the annihilation of the fact, it's a bad thing for your theory, for the fact insists on staying. What an amount of fearfully laborious stupidity we would have been saved, if only that plain principle had been remembered!

Christianity has stood face to face with the world, for ages, a hard, stern, uncompromising reality. With a pair of tremendous arms it has worked, fought, endured, conquered, destroyed, builded, all over the earth. It has burned its brand into time. It has stamped its footprints in fire and brightness on earth and sea. It so stands, a great, wonderful, triumphant, flaming fact, blazing through the ages, flaming to the stars, melting, moulding, enlightening humanity.

The first thing to be remembered, then, by Christian and unbeliever alike, when they come to speak of Christianity, is that these things are not the matters in debate. They are the facts to be explained, to be accounted for. In all argument they themselves must first be taken for granted.

That is to say, here is this religion, certainly to any thoughtful man the most wonderful thing, take it all in all, that history has to tell about. It starts in an obscure corner of an obscure province. Its founder dies as a felon among felons. Its teachers are stupid peasants, fettered by a narrow dialect of an almost unknown tongue. Its whole origin is barbarous, ignorant, disgraceful by any worldly judgment. So it begins. As it spreads, imperial Rome takes alarm, and turns to crush the barbarous fanaticism, in the pride of her learning, civilization, and power. She plants her iron heel on the neck of the creeping sect. She presses it down with her gigantic weight. Time passes. The little sect that began in an obscure city of an obscure province, 'the number [Pg 610]of the names together being an hundred and twenty,' in less than three centuries masters the world's crowned mistress, and plants its standard in triumph, to remain forever, on the Seven Eternal Hills. Resistless Rome is beaten to her knees, every national reverence, every national divinity trampled on, and spit upon, and the barbarous and disgraceful sect sets its ignominious mark, the cross of the condemned slave, on every monument of Roman reverence, on every trophy of Roman greatness.

There never was such an utter conquest. A pure idea, without a material hand or weapon, domineers over the greatest empire under the sun, in spite of the whole power of that empire armed to crush it.

And, after Rome fell, the huge carcase beaten to the dust, and torn to fragments by the wild creatures that hung upon her borders, this wondrous mystery, this barbarous, obscure faith alone remained, invincible among the powers of Rome. Roman civilization was crushed to the earth, as the Roman legions were. Roman law was trampled out of sight, as Roman art and literature were; but Christianity stood up and faced the Vandal and the Goth, the Frank and Saxon, as it had faced the Cæsars before, and dragged the conquerors of the empire suppliants at the feet of the church. It built a Christian Europe out of the savage hordes of Asia, and made an England, and a Germany, and at last an America out of wild Goth and Ungar, out of bloody Frank and savage Dane.

Now all this is simply matter of fact. My belief in Christianity does not add one jot to these facts. My disbelief does not take one tittle from them. So far as they are concerned, every man is a believer in Christianity. He believes it exists. He believes it has existed, has had such and such a history, has produced such and such results. 'Christian' and 'infidel' alike, to be reasonable, to have any ground for reasonable discussion, go thus far together.

They may differ in their explanations of the facts. That is the only ground of difference. There is the point of separation. It is perfectly logical too. Prima facie, we have no complaint to make that they do differ. And here lies the improvement in the modern type of 'unbeliever.' He does not take the line of his older brethren, and rudely assail Christianity as a mere imposture with Voltaire and Paine. That sort of work has had its day. He, on the other hand, freely admits its beneficent achievements. He has grown reasonable. He accepts Christianity, as the believer does, as a fruitful, beneficent, and conquering fact. He only holds that its existence and its achievements may be accounted for in a far more satisfactory way than we 'believers' have discovered.

Now all this is comprehensible, and it is really, now, the ground of difference between those who believe in Christianity as divine, and those who hold it to be merely human. It is a clear and simple issue. Christianity accounts for itself and its work on a certain plain, straightforward, and consistent theory. It holds that theory to be reasonable, complete, ample, for all the facts. A number of people join issue just here with Christianity. They admit its facts, but they deny its manner of explaining them. They claim to put forward other methods of explanation, which shall be more reasonable, more natural, and, at the same time, just as ample for the facts. We have had a number of these philosophers, with their theories, and they have had various fortunes. On the whole, the Christian world has gone on about as usual, accepting the old explanation, adopting the old theory, a hundred to one, and has dropped the new theories one after another, after more or less investigation, into profound oblivion.

Now we are free to admit the old theory has its difficulties. There are 'things in it hard to be understood.' There are mysteries and wonders which[Pg 611] it does not attempt to explain. There are 'hard sayings' which it leaves hard. And the new theories always claim to have no difficulties. They blame the old one bitterly because it tolerates them. They themselves claim to be 'reasonable,' they 'explain' everything.

They therefore challenge the trial. If they fail to be 'reasonable,' or if they can only be reasonable at the expense of some of the facts—that is to say, if they find no place for some of the authentic facts, and so have to explain them away; or if, on the whole, they make too large drafts on our credulity, and demand too great a power of faith—we have the logical right to dismiss them out of our presence with scant courtesy, and are bound to hold by the old explanation still.

The last man who has come forward with his theory of Christanity is Monsieur Ernest Renan, a Frenchman, a member of the Institute, and a Semitic scholar of some considerable pretensions. He broaches his theory in a book, which he calls 'The Life of Jesus.' He offers it to the world, through that book, as an improvement on the accepted one. We propose here to look at M. Renan's theory, and see whether it has any advantages to offer over that usually taught in churches in America, and which the present writer learned, some lustra ago, while catechized at the chancel veil, and which his children are learning now.

It makes the examination easier that M. Renan freely and fully admits the achievements of Christianity. Indeed he glories over them. The beneficence of Christianity, its hallowing and elevating power in the history of the world, its wondrous blessedness among men, the glory it has cast over human life and human aims, the nobleness it has conferred on human character, all these he takes a pride in confessing and appreciating. He will not be a whit behind the stanchest believer in acknowledging the power of these, or in the capacity of prizing these.

But he cannot accept the explanation Christianity gives of itself. He proposes another of his own. We may take his theory as the fruit and flower of all 'liberal' thought. Here, at last, is what unbelieving learning and philosophy have to offer in lieu of the divine origin of Christianity. After a good deal of loud boasting, after a large amount of supercilious sneering, we have here the result of that 'profound criticism' and that 'careful scholarship' which have been laboring for years, in Europe, to destroy the supernatural bases of faith. We are justified, from M. Renan's position and character, in taking it for granted, that his book is the best that modern unbelief has to offer, his theory the most satisfactory that the deniers of the divine origin of Christianity can frame.

In examining that theory, at the first, a suspicious thing strikes a calm observer. It is the reckless way in which M. Renan deals with his authorities. For, be it remarked that, with only one or two outside hints in Josephus and Tacitus, the Four Gospels contain all that we know of the 'Life of Jesus.' They are formally and professedly His biographies. They were expressly written to present the outlines of His life and teaching in connected form. All that we know of Him, His birth, life, and death, is contained in these four narrations. The utmost learning and the utmost simplicity here stand side by side. The most unlearned reader of The Continental is just as well informed, with the Four Gospels in his hand, as any 'member' of any 'Academy' under the sun. Out of these Four Gospels, M. Renan has to construct his 'Life of Jesus.' But he has a theory, and that theory does not seem to be the one set forth in the Four Gospels; so he just rejects whatever goes against his theory, garbles, clips, denies, assents, and colors, with an assurance, amusing for its impudence, if it were not so criminal for its recklessness.[Pg 612]

On the very threshold he asserts, in the teeth of his sole authorities, that Jesus was born in Nazareth! He refers his startled reader to a footnote. That footnote informs him that the 'assessment under Quirinus, by which He is sought to be connected with Bethlehem,' took place ten years after. We are to take this on M. Renan's sole authority. We are to fling the Gospels over on the strength of a footnote! Now it is simply impossible that M. Renan can be ignorant that there are very satisfactory ways of explaining this difficulty, otherwise than by charging a forgery. Josephus, whom he cites to prove the assessment to be ten years after, would have informed him that the preliminary enrolment took place at the time mentioned, and that it did extend over Herod's dominions. Moreover, the authorities for this last fact are not Christian only, as he says. They are Josephus, a Jew, and Suetonius, a pagan.

This is only an instance, on the threshold, of what occurs, a hundred times, in the book. Any statement which stands in the way of the writer's hypothesis, is swept out of existence at one pen-stroke. Calm historical relations, evidently most essential portions of the writings, are treated as forgeries, or deceptions, without a condescending why or wherefore, if they embarrass the writer.

That large portion of the Gospels, the miracles, is scarcely worth a thought from M. Renan. He dismisses the whole question of miracles with a bon mot. 'Many people followed Jesus into the desert. Thanks to their extreme frugality, they lived there. They naturally believed they saw in that a miracle.' Now is not that wonderful! The circumstantial relation of the miraculous feeding is supposed to be satisfactorily explained by people 'naturally believing' that frugality was 'a miracle'! But the great miracle of all, the miracle which seals the story, which gives ground of hope and faith to all Christian men, that miracle, without which they have always felt the Gospel would be preached in vain, that grand consummating and awful miracle, which flashed brightness into the sepulchre, which shot the light of immortality athwart the darkness of Death, and gave mortal man a sure grasp on immortality, that great crowning miracle, the resurrection of our Lord, on which so much depended, which so many jealous eyes were watching, which was so early asserted on the very spot where it claims to have occurred—this M. Renan treats as unworthy serious refutation. It is not even necessary to try to disprove it. It is simply sufficient for him to mention 'the strong imagination of Mary Magdalene,' and to exclaim so beautifully!—'Divine power of love, sacred moments in which the passion of a hallucinated woman gives to the world a resurrected God!'

There it is! The doctrine of the resurrection, and all that clings around it for humanity, the doctrine preached always as one of the foundations of the faith ('because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection'), and the fact of the resurrection, the fact always put forth as the clinching argument, the justification of the whole story, thrown into the face of Jew and Greek as a perpetual challenge—this doctrine and this fact are disposed of by a bit of sickly sentiment!

Now, this sort of thing may be very rhetorical, and very beautiful, when done up in approved, sentimental French, but it is certainly neither logical nor philosophical. We have a right to insist that M. Renan shall come with no theory which compels him to reject half the facts unexamined, and to garble and misuse half the rest. Those facts stand on the same ground as all the others. The same authority which tells us that Christ lived at Nazareth, tells us also that He fed five thousand with five loaves and two small fishes. M. Renan accepts the first statement,[Pg 613] without examination, and denies the second, without examination. He does this because he has made up his mind beforehand that prima facie a miracle is impossible. But that carries us out of the line of historical investigation altogether. That is a question of metaphysics. M. Renan's decision of the question is not admitted by an means universally, not even frequently. The truer decision as well as the more philosophical is that, prima facie, all things are possible, except contradictions.

At all events, we hold that the Four Evangelists stand on their own merits. They are not to be declared impostors, either in whole or in part, beforehand, in order to save a metaphysical theory.

The same logical viciousness shows itself in M. Renan's treatment of the Prophets. Daniel never could have written the book attributed to him, he says, because that book contains statements of fact which occurred long after Daniel! That is to say, M. Renan does not believe in such a thing as prophecy, and, by consequence, Daniel never wrote the book of Daniel! This is taking things for granted with a witness.

And, by the way, we may as well ease our minds just here concerning another trick of the school to which M. Renan belongs, and of which he furnishes many marked examples. We mean the trick of arbitrarily deciding by what they are pleased to call 'philological criticism,' all about all the books and nearly all the chapters in the Bible. 'Learned men are agreed that such and such chapters were not written by Isaiah.' 'It is clear, from internal evidence of style, that this book was made up of earlier scattered memoranda.' 'These chapters, it is evident, were not written till such and such a time.' 'The best critics are agreed that this narration was added long after the writing of the book.' This is the way they write, to the astonishment of the simple.

When we were younger, this sort of talk seemed to our simplicity to be exceedingly imposing. We actually believed that there were a set of people, in Germany, at least, who could look at a Hebrew chapter and tell you who wrote it, when he wrote it, how he wrote it, and why; and the who, when, how, and why, should be each different from those mentioned by the author of the book himself. As years removed the credulous simplicity of childhood, we found out that this was only a trick of the trade. We discovered that no two of these doctors agreed among themselves, that the line of argument they followed would disprove the authorship of any page ever written, that decisions from difference of style, wise as they might be, philologically, were, rationally and logically, nonsensical; for Burns, no doubt, wrote his letters as well as his poems, and Shakspeare's 'Sonnets' were written by the hand that wrote 'King Lear,' although, according to these wise doctors, it is assumed to be utterly impossible that the same man can use two styles, or that a man at seventy will write otherwise than he did at thirty. In short, we discovered that there is nothing more arbitrary, more opinionated, and more unphilosophical than this 'philological criticism.' Applied, as these wonderful German doctors apply it, to any book ever penned, and it can be shown, 'as the result of high critical ability,' that no author ever wrote his own book. It is the easiest thing in the world to prove that Shakspeare never wrote 'Shakspeare,' that Milton never wrote 'Paradise Lost,' that 'Johnson's Dictionary' just 'growed' like Topsey, and was never made at all, and, to name small things with great, that M. Renan never wrote the 'Life of Jesus.'

When we read, then, that 'it is certain that Isaiah never wrote this chapter,' that 'St. John could not possibly have written the fourth Gospel,' that 'this book is composed, undoubtedly, of fragments of earlier writings,' or that[Pg 614] 'this' other 'is the growth of a certain school,' we advise simple Christians to take it easy. They are to understand that the world goes on much as usual, and that their family Bibles still contain the old Table of Contents. There has been no wonderful discovery made, no ancient book catalogues have come to light, no files of ancient documents have been dug up. There are still just the old facts and the old evidence on which Christians made up their minds sixteen or seventeen hundred years ago. The amount of all this talk is only that 'the great Doctor Teufelsdroeck' or 'the learned Professor Von Baum' has hazarded a guess, and made an assertion, which every other 'great doctor' and 'learned professor' will contradict, and displace with another guess just as probable, in three months' time. There are men just as learned and just as honest who have examined their guesses, and find them poor inventions indeed. And we have a right to deny point blank the assertions so flippantly made by men like M. Renan. 'It is universally acknowledged that this book was never written by Daniel or Isaiah or Jeremiah,' 'It is certain this chapter is an addition of such and such a date,' etc. It is not universally acknowledged. It is not certain. The whole thing is pure guesswork. There is only one way to prove the authorship of a book, and that is by testimony. There is nothing under the sun more absurd, philologically, than that a common and very poor stock-actor should have written 'Hamlet.' We know he did write it, however, not by 'internal evidence,' or from 'philological criticism,' but by plain human testimony to the fact. We cite that, and leave the 'internal' critics to their profound babble on vowels and consonants, on long and short syllables, and let them do with the fact the best they can.

In other words, there is no way by which I can determine whether St. John wrote his Gospel except by testimony. I do not know beforehand how St. John would write. I can therefore judge nothing by 'style.' All I can do is to ask of competent witnesses. I do ask. I am told by such witnesses, straight up to his own day, that he did write this Gospel, that this is the very one which we now have, for they cite it and mention its peculiarities. I accept the fact, as I do in the case of Shakspeare, and let the wise 'critics' settle it among them.

The attempt, therefore, on the part of M. Renan, to get rid of those large portions of the Gospels which embarrass him in his theory, by attempting to discredit their authorship, while, at the same time, he accepts other parts, that stand on the same authority, and the supercilious way in which he ignores that large part which the miracles fill, turning them off with a small witticism, or a smaller bit of sentiment, suggest, at the start, decided suspicions of the honesty of his intentions and the sufficiency of his theory.

We only hint at these things here. They occur all through his book. They are not evidence of learning or critical skill. There are no secrets for deciding such matters. The whole data have been public for ages. All the 'members of the Institute' together do not possess one grain of evidence that any ordinary scholar in America does not possess as well. M. Renan rejects, or discredits, or garbles, or slips over silently, because he finds it necessary for his theory. That is all. He pettifogs with his witnesses to establish his theory.

That theory is, that He, whom all Christians have called Our Lord, was a mere man, of what race is uncertain, born in Galilee of a man named Joseph and of a woman named Mary; who taught in Galilee and a little in Judea, and who was at last killed and buried, and so an end of Him. This theory M. Renan has to find in the Gospels, and there is, as we have hinted, very little of the Gospels left when he gets through. It is so palpably against[Pg 615] them that he has to get rid of the most of them to make it stand.

Now this theory, like all others, must be put to the test. Will it explain the facts? We have seen how it is compelled to get rid of the Gospels. But we put that aside. Will it explain the history of Christianity? Will it explain its place to-day? Will it account for its effects?

The Jesus of M. Renan is a strange character. He is more difficult of comprehension than any mystery of orthodoxy. We ask where He gets His wondrous wisdom, this young carpenter, how He learned to speak 'as man never spoke?' and M. Renan sentimentalizes. We ask how He got this wondrous power over men, to lead them and control them, so that they followed Him and 'heard Him gladly,' and M. Renan goes off into ecstasies over the 'delicious climate' and 'the lovely villages,' and the Arcadian simplicity of Galilee, as he fancies they once were, and expects us to be answered. His influence over women is accounted for more readily. M. Renan tells us, in his peculiar way, that 'this beautiful young man' had great power over the 'nervous' susceptibilities of Mary Magdalene; and Pilate's wife, having once seen him, 'dreamed about him' the next night, and sent to her husband to save him in consequence!

However, He begins His teaching. Where He learned it, how He learned it, why it took the form it did, how He came to give moral law to the world, where He found the words of wisdom and consolation—the divine words of power—for all generations, there is positively not one sentence of explanation. Of all the young Jews of His day, how came He by these powers and this omnipotent wisdom? Now the Christian theory does attempt an explanation. It gives an ample answer to the question. M. Renan gives no answer whatever. He flies to sentiment. We have all sorts of adjectives—'delicious,' 'enchanting, 'beautiful,' 'sweet,' 'charming'—he beats a whole female seminary at the business, in attempting to describe how, like full-grown babes, everybody in Galilee lived, so innocent, so simple, so Arcadian were they all—and that is all! What shall a man do, whom this fine style of novel writing doesn't answer—to whom, in fact, it seems just a bit of disgusting nonsense? Is this wonderful power, this omnipotent wisdom, a production of the 'delicious' climate? Is this all 'philosophical criticism' has to offer, and is he to accept that as more reasonable than the Gospel theory that they were supernatural and divine?

In this wonderful romantic dialect, M. Renan describes the beginning of our Lord's ministry. He is embarrassed, however, by the fact that, as Jesus goes on, He Himself makes claims, and sets up pretensions, and exercises powers, which are totally at variance with the proposed explanation. M. Renan cannot deny that He claimed to be the Son of God, the Messiah, the Son of David, that He claimed to work 'miracles,' to possess supernatural powers, to be somewhat altogether different from the amiable, sentimental, young carpenter of his modern biographer.

How is this to be got on with? Why, by declaring boldly that Jesus was half deceiver and half deceived! by accepting the difficulty, and confessing that He cheated men for their good—that, as they wished to be deceived, He stooped to deceive them, and at last half deceived Himself!

We know nothing more thoroughly immoral than is M. Renan on this matter. This Jesus of his, about whom he sentimentalizes, whom he declares a thousand times to be so 'charming,' and so 'divine,' and the rest, turns out to be a deliberate cheat and quack, putting out claims He does not Himself believe, and acting in sham miracles which people coax Him, according to his biographer, to perform.

The raising of Lazarus, for instance, which M. Renan would like to turn[Pg 616] out of the Gospels, but which he is forced to confess must stay—according to him, was a deliberate, planned, stage performance, a gross piece of juggling imposition. Now we do not object per se to M. Renan's taking that view of it. He has a perfect freedom of choice. We do object to the immorality, the essential blindness to right and wrong, which lead him to apologize for the cheat, and try to prove it a perfectly innocent and justifiable thing. We protest against confounding eternal distinctions, against debauching conscience by proving wrong right, and a cheat an innocent bit of acting, against claiming an impostor and a liar as the high priest of the world's 'absolute religion'!

But few of us, in this part of the world, can appreciate the transcendental reasoning that makes an impostor half divine, or a cheat holy. 'Good faith and imposture,' to quote our author, 'are words which, in our rigid conscience, are opposed like two irreconcilable terms,' though, he says, it is not so in 'the East,' from which our religion came, and was certainly far from being so with our Teacher! We cannot admire M. Renan here. The writing is very fine. He exhausts himself in his 'charming' style to make it all right, and show us that we have profound reason to admire this lying teacher, this cheating miracle monger, whom he holds up between us and the pure 'Son of Mary.' But it does not answer. In this cold climate a lie is a lie, a cheat is a cheat, and a mountebank and impostor is not the teacher of 'the absolute religion of humanity!'

As M. Renan writes His life, that is the way in which the Founder of Christianity develops Himself. First we have the young man, amiable, sweet, 'charming,' enacting a 'beautiful pastoral' in the 'delicious climate of Galilee,' where it appears that nobody has anything to do save to enact 'pastorals,' although we are told 'brigandage was common in Galilee,' which seems a strange accompaniment to 'pastorals.' Where He got His wisdom, how He came by these 'transcendent utterances,' which, we are told, 'some few' only, even now, are lofty enough to appreciate, we are not informed. There they are. But, right in the midst of them, this wonderful young man, uttering these 'charming' lessons, and these 'delicious' sayings, sets to work miracle-mongering, trying His hand at thaumaturgy and legerdemain, becomes an impostor and a mountebank, pretending, among other things, to raise a man who puts on a shroud, gets into a grave, and shams dead! At last He is taken, and then, in view of death, becomes penitent, reforms, and recovers His purity!

Now Thomas Paine was, in a way, an honest man. We can say that of him. Voltaire was, in his degree, honest too. Having said what M. Renan says, they did not stultify themselves logically. They honestly pronounced Christianity a delusion. We have respect for their consistency. But our modern man says that a cheat in religion is no cheat, a lie no lie, that a true saving faith can be built on a foundation of deception and trickery! He says it, and undertakes to prove it by the convincing logic of sentimentality!

M. Renan here is just disgusting. There are a few things in this world that do not mix. Right and wrong have something of a ditch between them. A lie is not own brother to the truth. If he thinks it worth while to write the life of an impostor, very well; only, when he has declared him so, and insisted on his being so, we humbly beg he will not turn round and insist on it that the religion he taught is divine!

If the credulity of believers is great, what shall we say of the credulity of Messieurs the philosophers, the unbelievers? But what shall we say of their morality?

But if this new theory fails to account for Christianity as a true system of religion, what shall we say of its[Pg 617] coherence with Christianity as a successful system in action? This sentimental impostor conquers the civilized world. This 'charming' worker of sham wonders becomes a God to the millions who to-day lead mankind!

Here is where M. Renan's theory utterly breaks down, where it becomes not only utterly illogical and incoherent, but where it becomes too gross for any mortal credulity, and too blasphemously wicked for any ordinary sinfulness.

It is utterly incoherent, for it requires us to believe that a system, begun in fraud and deception, has proved itself the truest and most beneficent and sacred treasure to the world. M. Renan insists on both. From such a premise he drags such a conclusion.

Is there any plain Christian who dreads a sneer at Christian credulity? Let him be comforted. What credulity is like this? What miracle in the 'Four Gospels' begins to be wonderful compared with this miracle of the modern thaumaturge? The religion which has taught men truth—above all things, truth—which teaches utter horror of a lie, which insists on the bare, bald reality in heaven and earth, which has taught men hatred of the false as the meanest and most unmanly thing existing—this religion took its rise in claptrap miracles, was puffed into popularity by boasting pretensions, was born in trickery and nurtured by legerdemain! Its loftiest hopes, its deepest consolations are the offspring of clumsy jugglery and cheap prestidigitation!

But more: this religion, so born and nurtured, becomes the mistress of the earth. It is of no consequence that only a minority of men accept it. That minority hold the world in their hands. In fact, it seems from history, that any number of men, with this religion in their hearts, become half omnipotent—that twelve can take it and master humanity by its power. To-day the men who profess it can do what they will on the face of this planet. It has so seized temporal power, so moulded blind force, so mastered strength—it has so conferred wisdom and valor and might on men, that those who have accepted it have been crowned above their kind, that they go everywhere as the acknowledged leaders and lords of the race, the vanguard of humanity.

And a deception has brought all this to pass, a delusion has produced these stern realities! Here's where the wickedness stands out nakedly! Is there a true God in heaven, or is Ahriman rightful lord? Is the lying devil, after all, supreme? Is a lie as good as the truth? Why, the very earth reels beneath us! Is there any God at all? Are truth and good and God mere dreams, that a cunning fraud like this can so prosper and prevail under the white heavens!

M. Renan's 'Life of Jesus' offers me that as a most reasonable theory! Believing in a true God and a good God, being utterly incapable of believing in the lying devil it proposes to me, this pleasant theory, that, beneath the face and eyes of that true God, a poor imposture, a cheap delusion becomes, not only the holiest thing, the purest thing, the most sanctifying thing, but also the strongest thing, the most victorious thing in all the world! If ever theory so played sleight of hand with cause and effect, if it ever so mingled and mixed right and wrong, and so taught that lies and truth were about the same, we have failed to meet with it. And if ever any theory required power of gullibility like this last and newest, we have failed to hear of that.

The fact is there is no escaping the honest conclusion that, unless Jesus Christ is what He claimed to be, divine, 'God manifest in the flesh,' 'the Son of the Father,' then He was simply an impostor. (He could not have been a self-deceived fanatic.) Now any man is free to accept the last horn of this dilemma, if he chooses. It is a free country. But if he takes that, we insist that he is logically bound to[Pg 618] call Christianity a cheat, a delusion, a snare and a curse to humanity! He shall not ask us to swallow the monstrous and immoral proposition, that this outrageous lie and imposture is the glory, the blessing and hope of humanity!

And this is what M. Ernest Renan, in most melodious sentences, proposes. This is his theory of Christianity, its origin and its success.

This is the best thing philosophic and philologic unbelief has to offer, the most rational account it has to give in the year 1864. Surely unbelief must have large faith in human nature's capacity of spiritual swallow, if men are expected to take this down, as more reasonable than what they will hear in the next pulpit!

Nay, after all, the Christian theory of Christianity is the most rational yet. It has mysteries, but it calls them mysteries, things above reason. It accepts them, and so escapes absurdity—ends with no means, effects from no causes, wonders that spring out of the ground, divine teachers produced by a 'charming' climate, and impostures that are holy truths! Above all, it escapes moral idiocy, and holds there is a line between right and wrong! On the whole, it is, as yet, the only theory which explains all the facts, the only one of which the consequences may be logically accepted, which makes Christ or His religion reasonable or possible.

M. Renan's 'beautiful' young Galilean carpenter, with such power over 'hallucinated' Magdalens, conducting grand picnics in that 'charming' climate, and making life a May day, is not the world's mighty Deliverer; and his miracle-mongering demagogue, claiming to be the Son of David in lying genealogies, and the Son of God in blasphemous audacity, is not the world's Teacher of all Truth and Righteousness. The new Jesus is a poor substitute for the Divine Man whom we adore.

We cannot, therefore, accept the new theory. It is not logically competent to the facts. Established on garbled evidence with painful struggles, it will not, when completed, fulfil the conditions. It is not reasonable. It is not moral. We have desired to present this view of it. The details of criticism we leave to others, who can easily deal with M. Renan. We have aimed to show, what any plain reader can see, the unreasonableness and immorality of this theory of Christianity's origin.

As long as we have faith in a righteous God, so long can we never believe that the best, purest, and holiest religion is born in fraud and trickery. M. Renan's theory declares the purity and the holiness of Christianity, and yet insists on the trickery and the fraud: therefore we must reject his theory.

So long as we believe that a true God is omnipotent, we cannot believe that fraud and deception are masters of the world. But M. Renan insists that Christianity has mastered the world, and yet declares it founded upon fraud and deception. We must therefore reject M. Renan.

The fine writing, the sentiment, the abundant 'sweetness' of the book cannot make beautiful this monstrous perversion of reason, this insidious attack on the very distinction between God and Satan.

Voltaire's theory is comparatively honest, healthy, moral. Paine's is so. These men called things by their right names. They never undertook to upset the human conscience. Ernest Renan's theory is thoroughly immoral, and he only can accept it who denies that the world is governed by moral laws at all.

We reject his Jesus as a delusion and a dream. God never created such a creature. He exists nowhere save in M. Renan's pages.

In this blind, reeling world, in this weary, painful time, while the sobs of a dumb creation break along the shores of heaven in prayer, we cannot spare the real Jesus, the world's strong De[Pg 619]liverer, its conquering Lord! The vision He exhibited, of a stainless humanity, omnipotent in purity, loyalty, and truth, has flashed and flamed before the eyes of men, through the long night of the ages, their beacon fire of hope, their star of faith! We cannot spare Him now. In Him all is consistent, all is reasonable, all is harmonious. The Divine Man accounts for His wisdom, vindicates the origin of His power. In the vision of His face, Christianity and all its results are the natural works of His hand.

We turn to His Life. We leave M. Renan's little novel, and turn to the Godlike life of the typal Man, the Omnipotent and Eternal Man, who redeemed humanity, and bought the world, and conquered hell and death: we turn to that life, that death, that awful resurrection, and take heart and hope. No mere amiable, sentimental, 'beautiful,' or 'charming' young man will do. The world cries for its Lord! The race He ransomed looks to the 'Lion of Judah,' the 'Captain of the Lord's Host.' The mad, half-despairing struggle we have waged all these long centuries, can find only in 'the Son of Man,' in the omnipotent 'Son of God,' its explanation and its end: 'God was manifest in the Flesh, reconciling the World unto Himself!'

ÆNONE:
A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER VII.

For an instant only. When from Ænone's troubled gaze, the half-blinding film which the agitation of her apprehensive mind had gathered there, passed away, she no longer saw before her a proudly erect figure, flashing out from dark, wild eyes its defiant mastery, but a form again bent low in timorous supplication, and features once more overspread with a mingled imprint of sorrowful resignation, trusting devotion, and pleading humility.

That gleam of malicious triumph which had so brightened up the face of the slave, had come and gone like the lightning flash, and, for the moment, Ænone was almost inclined to believe that it was some bewildering waking dream. But her instinct told her that it was no mere imagination or fancy which could thus, at one instant, fill the heart with dread and change her bright anticipations of coming joy into a dull, aching foreboding of misery. It was rather her inner nature warning her not to be too easily ensnared, but to wait for coming evil with unfaltering watchfulness, and, for the purpose of baffling enmity, to perform the hardest task that can be imposed upon a guileless nature—that of repressing all outward sign of distrust, hiding the torture of the heart within, and meeting smile with smile.

But day after day passed on, and even to her watchful and strained attention there appeared no further sign of anything that could excite alarm. From morning until night there rested upon the face of the young Greek slave no expression other than that of tender, faithful, and pleased obedience. At the morning toilet, at the forenoon task of embroidery, or at the afternoon promenade, there was ever the same serene gaze of earnest devotion, and the same delighted alacrity[Pg 620] to anticipate the slightest wish. Until at last Ænone began again to think that perhaps her perception of that one fleeting look might, after all, be but a flickering dream. And when, at times, she sat and heard the young girl speak, not with apparent method, but rather as one who is unwittingly drawn into discursive prattle, about her cottage home in Samos, and the lowly lover from whom the invading armies had torn her, and watched the moistened eye and the trembling lip with which these memories were dwelt upon, an inward pity and sympathy tempted her to forget her own distrust; until one day she was impelled to act as she had once desired, and began to pour out her whole heart to the young slave as to a friend. The words seemed of themselves to flow to her lips, as, bidding the girl be comforted, she told, in one short sentence, how she too had once lived in a tranquil cottage home, away from the bustle and fever of that imperial Rome, and had had her lover of low degree, and that both were still innocently dear to her.

All the while that the story had been welling forth from her lips, that inner instinct which so seldom deceives, told her that she was doing wrong; and when she had ended, she would have given worlds not to have spoken. But the words were beyond recall, and she could only gaze stealthily at the listener, and, with a dull feeling of apprehension nestling at the bottom of her heart, endeavor to mark their effect, and to imagine the possible consequences of her indiscretion. But Leta sat bending over her embroidery, and apparently still thinking, with tearful eye, upon her own exile from home. Perhaps she had not even heard all that had been said to her; though, if the words had really caught her ear, where, after all, could be the harm? It was no secret in Rome that Sergius Vanno had brought his spouse from a lowly home; and it was surely no crime, that, during those years of poverty which Ænone had passed through before being called to fill her present station, she had once suffered her girlish fancy to rest for a little while upon one of her own class. And fortunately she had not gone further in her story, but at that point had left it to rest; making no mention of how that long-forgotten lover had so lately reappeared and confronted her.

Still there remained in her heart the irrepressible instinct that it would have been better if she had not spoken. And now, as she silently pondered upon her imprudence, it seemed as though her anxiety had suddenly endowed her brain with new and keener faculties of perception, so many startling ideas began to crowd in upon her. More particularly, full shape and tone seemed for the first time given to one terrible suspicion, which she had hitherto known only in a misty, intangible, and seldom recurring form—the suspicion that, if the passive girl before her were really an enemy, it was not owing to any mere ordinary impulse of fear, or envy, or inexplicable womanish dislike, but rather to secret rivalry.

That, within the past few days, Sergius had more and more exhibited toward her an indifference, which even his studied attempts to conduct himself with an appearance of his former interest and affection did not fully hide, Ænone could not but feel. That within her breast lurked the terrible thought that perhaps the time had forever passed for her to come to him as to a loving friend, and there fearlessly pour out her tribulations, her secret tears confessed. But throughout all this change, though it became each day more strongly marked, she had tried to cheat herself into the belief that the romantic warmth of a first attachment could not in any case be expected to last for many years—that in meeting indifference she was merely experiencing a common lot—that beneath his coolness there still lurked the old affection, as the lava will flow be[Pg 621]neath the hardened crust—and that, if she were indeed losing the appearance of his love, it was merely because the claims of the court, the exigencies of the social world, or the demands of ambition had too much usurped his attention.

But now a thousand hitherto unregarded circumstances began to creep into her mind as so many evidences that his affection seemed passing from her; not simply because the claims of duty or ambition were stifling in his heart all power to love, but because he had become secretly attached elsewhere. The interested gaze with which he followed the motions of the Greek girl—the solicitude which he seemed to feel that in all things she should be treated, not only tenderly, but more luxuriously than ever fell to the lot of even the highest class of slaves—his newly acquired habit of strolling into the room and throwing himself down where he could lazily watch her—all these, and other circumstances, though individually trivial, could not fail, when united, to give cogency to the one terrible conviction of secret wrong. Whether Leta herself had any perception of all this, who could yet tell? It might be that she was clothed in innocent unconsciousness of her master's admiration, or that, by the force of native purity, she had resisted his advances. And, on the other hand, it might be that not merely now, but long before she had been brought into the house, there had been a secret understanding between the two; and that, with undeviating and unrelenting cunning, she was still ever drawing him still closer within the folds of her fascinations. Looking upon her, and noting the humble and almost timorous air with which she moved about, as though seeking kindness and protection, and the eloquence of mute appeal for sympathy which lay half hidden in her dark eyes beneath the scarcely raised lids, and rested in her trembling lips, who could doubt her? But marking the haughtiness of pride with which at times she drew up her slight figure to its utmost height, the ray of scorn and malice which flashed from those eyes, and the lines of firm, unpitying determination which gathered about the compressed corners of those lips, who could help fearing and distrusting her?

Time or chance alone could resolve the question, and meanwhile, what course could Ænone take? Not that of sending the object of her suspicion to another place; for even if she had the power to do so, she might not be able to accomplish it without such open disturbance that the whole social world of Rome would learn the degrading fact that she had been jealous of her own slave. Not—as she was sometimes almost tempted—that of forgetting her pride, and humbling herself before her enemy, to beg that she would not rob her of all that affection which had once been lavished upon herself; for, if the Greek girl were innocent, useless and feeble pity would be the only result, while, if she were guilty, it would but lead to further secret wiles and malicious triumph. Nor that of accusing her husband of his fault; for such a course, alas! could never restore lost love. There could, indeed, be but one proper way to act. She must possess her soul in patience and prudent dissimulation; and, while affecting ignorance of what she saw and heard, must strive by kindness and attention to win back some, if not all, of the true affection of former days.

Thus sorrowfully reflecting, she left the room, not upon any especial intent, but simply to avoid the presence of the Greek, who, she could not help feeling, was all the while, beneath the disguise of that demure expression, closely watching her. Passing into another apartment, she saw that Sergius had there sauntered in, and had thrown himself down upon a lounge at the open window, where, with one hand resting behind his head, he lay half soothed into slumber by the gentle[Pg 622] murmur of the courtyard fountain. Stealing up gently behind him, with a strange mingling of affectionate desire to gain his attention, and a morbid dread of bringing rebuke upon herself by awakening him, Ænone stooped down and lightly touched his forehead with her lips.

'Ah, Leta!' he exclaimed, starting up as he felt the warm pressure. Then, perceiving his mistake, he lowered his eyes with some confusion, and perhaps a slight feeling of disappointment, and tried to force a careless laugh; which died away, however, as he saw how Ænone stood pale and trembling at receiving a greeting so confirmatory of all her apprehensions.

'It is not Leta—it is only I,' she murmured at length, in a tone of plaintive sadness, which for the moment touched his heart. 'I am sorry that I awakened you. But I will go away again.'

'Nay, remain,' he exclaimed, restraining her by the folds of her dress, and, with a slight effort, seating her beside him upon the lounge. 'You are not—you must not feel offended at such a poor jest as that?'

'Is it all a jest?' she inquired. 'Can you say that the greeting you gave me did not spring inadvertently from the real preoccupation of your mind?'

'Of the mind? Preoccupation?' said Sergius. 'By the gods! but it is a difficult question to answer. I might possibly, in some dreamy state, have been thinking carelessly of that Greek girl whom you have so constantly about you. Even you cannot but acknowledge that she has her traits of beauty; and if so, it is hard for a man not to admire them.'

'For mere admiration of her, I care but little,' she responded. 'But I would not that she should learn to observe it. And what could I do, if she, perceiving it, were to succeed in drawing your love from me? What then would there be for me to do, except to die?'

'To die? This is but foolish talk, Ænone,' he said; and he fastened an inquiring gaze upon her, as though wishing to search into her soul, and find out how much of his actions she already knew. Evidently some fleeting expression upon her countenance deceived him into believing that she had heard or seen more than he had previously supposed, for, with another faint attempt at a careless laugh, he continued:

'And if, at the most, there has been some senseless trifling between the girl and myself—a pressure of the hand, or a pat upon the cheek, when meeting by any chance in hall or garden—would you find such fault with this as to call it a withdrawal of my love from you? To what, indeed, could such poor, foolish pastime of the moment amount, that it should bring rebuke upon me?'

To nothing, indeed, if judged by itself alone, for that was not the age of the world when every trivial departure from correctness of conduct was looked upon as a crime; and had this been all, and the real affection of his heart had remained with her, Ænone would have taken comfort. But now she knew for certain that, in uncomplainingly enduring any familiarities, Leta could not, at all times, have maintained her customary mien of timorous retirement, and must, therefore, to some extent, have shown herself capable of acting a deceitful part; and that even though the deceit may have stopped short of further transgression, it was none the less certain that in future no further trust could be reposed in her. Gone forever was that frail hope to which, against all warnings of instinct, Ænone had persisted in clinging—the hope that in the Greek girl she might succeed in finding a true and honest friend.

Seeing that she remained absorbed and speechless, Sergius believed that she was merely jealously pondering upon these trivial transgressions, and endeavored, by kind and loving expres[Pg 623]sions, to remove the evil effects of his unguarded admission. Gathering her closer in his arms, he strove once more, by exerting those fascinations which had hitherto so often prevailed, to calm her disturbed fancies, and bring back again her confidence in him. But now he spoke almost in vain. Conscious, as Ænone could not fail to be, of the apparent love and tenderness with which he bent his eyes upon her, and of the liquid melody of his impassioned intonations, and half inclined, as she felt, at each instant to yield to the impulse which tempted her to throw her arms about his neck and promise from henceforth to believe unfalteringly all that he might say, whatever opposing evidences might stand before her, there was all the while the restraining feeling that this show of affection was but a pretence wherewith to quiet her inconvenient reproaches—that at heart he was playing with deceit—that the husband was colluding with the slave to blind her eyes—and that the love and friendship of both lord and menial had forever failed her.

'But hold to your own suspicions, if you will,' he said, at length, with testy accent, as he saw how little all his efforts had moved her. 'I have spoken in my defence all that I need to speak, even if excuse were necessary; and it is an ill reward to receive only cold and forbidding responses in return.'

'Answer me this,' she exclaimed, suddenly rousing into action, and looking him earnestly in the face; 'and as you now answer, I will promise to believe you, for I know that, whatever you may have done, you will not, if appealed to upon your honor, tell me that which is not true. About the trivial actions which you have mentioned I care little; but is there in your heart any real affection for that girl? If you say that there is not, I will never more distrust you, but will go out from here with a soul overflowing with peace and joy as when first you came to take me to your side. But if, on the contrary, you say that you love her, I will—'

'Will do what?' he exclaimed, seeing that she hesitated, and almost hoping that she would utter some impatient threat which in turn would give him an excuse for anger.

'Will pass out from this room, sad and broken hearted, indeed—but not complaining of or chiding you; and will only pray to the gods that they may, in their own time, make all things once more go aright, and so restore your heart to me.'

Sergius hesitated. Never before had he been so tempted to utter an untruth. If he now did so, he knew that he would be believed, and that not only would she be made once more happy, but he would be left unwatched and unsuspected to carry on his own devices. But, on the other hand, he had been appealed to upon his honor, and, whatever his other faults, he had too much nobility of soul to lie. And so, not daring to confess the truth, he chose the middle path of refusing any direct response at all.

'Now is not this a singular thing,' he exclaimed, 'that no man can ever let his eyes rest upon a pretty face without being accused of love for it? While, if a woman does the same, no tongue can describe the clamor with which she repels the insinuation of aught but friendly interest. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that mine is the only voice you ever listened to with love?'

'Can you dare hint to me that I have ever been unfaithful to you, even in thought or word?' cried Ænone, stung with sudden anger by the imputation, and rendered desperate by her acute perception of the evasiveness of his answer. 'Do you not know that during the months which you so lately passed far away from me, there was not one person admitted here into society with me who would not have had your firm approval—and that I kept your image so lovingly before my eyes, and[Pg 624] your memory so constant in my heart, as to become almost a reproach and a sarcasm to half who knew me?'

'But before that—before I came to you—can you say that no other eyes had ever looked lovingly into yours, and there met kindred response?'

'Have you the right to inquire into what may have happened before you met me? What young girl is there who, some time or other, has not modestly let her thoughts dwell upon innocent love? Is there wrong in this? Should there have been a spirit of prescience in my mind to forewarn me that I must keep my heart free and in vacant loneliness, because that, after many years, you were to come and lift me from my obscurity?'

'Then, upon your own showing, you acknowledge that there was once another upon whom your eyes loved to look?' he cried, half gladdened that he had found even this poor excuse to transfer the charge of blame from himself. 'And how can I tell but that you have met with him since?'

'I have met him since,' she quietly answered, driven to desperation by the cruel insinuation.

In his heart attaching but little importance to such childish affections as she might once have cherished, and having had no other purpose in his suggestion than that of shielding himself from further inquiry by inflicting some trifling wound upon her, Sergius had spoken hesitatingly, and with a shamefaced consciousness of meanness and self-contempt. But when he listened to her frank admission—fraught, as it seemed to him, with more meaning than the mere naked words would, of themselves, imply, an angry flush of new-born jealousy overspread his features.

'Ha! You have met him since?' he exclaimed. 'And when, and where? And who, then, is this fortunate one?'

Ænone hesitated. Now, still more bitterly than ever before, she felt the sad consciousness of being unable to pour out to her husband her more secret thoughts and feelings. If she could have told, with perfect assurance of being believed, that in so lately meeting the man whom she had once imagined she loved, she had looked upon him with no other feeling than the dread of recognition, joined to a friendly and sisterly desire to procure his release from captivity and his restoration to his own home, she would have done so. But she felt too well that the once-aroused jealousy of her lord might now prevent him from reposing full and generous trust and confidence in her—that he would be far more likely to interpret all her most innocent actions wrongly, and to surround her with degrading espionage—and that, in the end, the innocent captive would probably be subjected to the bitterest persecutions which spite and hatred could invent.

'I have met him,' she said at length, 'but only by chance, and without being recognized or spoken to by him. Nor do I know whether I shall ever chance to meet him again. Is this a crime? Oh, my lord, what have I done that you should thus strive to set your face against me? Do you not, in your secret soul, know and believe that there is no other smile than yours for which I live, and that, without the love with which you once gladdened me, there can be no rest or peace for me on earth? Tell me, then, that all this is but a cruel pleasantry to prove my heart, and that there has nothing come between us—or else let me know the worst, in order that I may die.'

Sliding down, until her knees touched the floor, and then winding one arm slowly about his neck, she hid her face in his breast, and, bursting into tears, sobbed aloud. It was not merely the reactionary breaking down of a nervous system strung to the highest point of undue excitement. It was the half consciousness of a terrible fear lest the day might come in which, goaded by injustice and neglect, she might learn[Pg 625] no longer to love the man before her—the wail of a stricken soul pleading that the one to whom her heart had bound her might not fail in his duty to her, but, by a resumption of his former kindness and affection, might retain her steadfastly in the path of love.

Touched by the spectacle of her strong agony—aroused for the moment to the true realization of all the bitterness and baseness of his unkindness toward her—moved, perhaps, by memories of that time when between them there was pleasant and endearing confidence, and when it was not she who was obliged to plead for love—Sergius drew his arm more closely about her, and, bending over, pressed his lips upon her forehead. If at that moment the opportunity had not failed, who can tell what open and generous confessions might not have been uttered, unrestrained forgiveness sealed, and future miseries prevented? But at the very moment when the words seemed trembling upon his lips, the door softly opened, and Leta entered.

THE DOVE.

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS PECULIARITIES.

Few of the people of the North have ever inquisitively considered the Mississippi River, and as a consequence its numerous peculiarities are not generally known. Indeed, its only characteristic features are supposed to be immensity of proportions rather than any specific variation from the universal nature of rivers. Many there are that have never seen the river, and have conceptions of its appearance merely in imagination; others have been more fortunate, have crossed its turbid flood, or have been borne upon its noble bosom the full breadth of the land, from beautiful Minnesota to its great reservoir in the South, the Gulf of Mexico. As the result of this experience, great have been the sensations of satisfaction or disappointment. Many have turned away with their extravagant anticipations materially chagrined. This might be expected in a casual observer. It is true, some portions of the Mississippi do not present that vastness which a person would very naturally expect, having previously accepted literally the figurative appellations that have been applied to it. The Mississippi is not superficially a great stream, but when it is recognized as the mighty conduit of the surplus waters of fifty large streams, some of which are as large as itself, besides receiving innumerable of less pretensions—when we consider, too, the great physical phenomena which it presents in its turbid waters, its islands, its bars, and its bayous, its vast banks of alluvial deposit, its omnipotent force, and the signal futility of all human endeavors to control it, in this phase is it truly the 'Father[Pg 630] of Waters,' and 'the most wonderful of rivers.'

In a commercial point of view is the Mississippi equally as remarkable as in its physical presentations. It is the aorta through which, from the heart of the nation, flow the bountiful returns of industrious and productive labor, which thus find an outlet to all parts of the world, opening an avenue of trade for millions of energetic men and fertile acres. Thus not only is it the life-supporting, but as well the life-imparting artery of a great section of the republic.

But it is unnecessary to speak of the commercial importance of the river. This is patent to everybody. Let us, however, unfold some of its remarkable and singular phenomena, which have never occurred to many, and may at this particular time be of interest to all, even those who have given the subject some study. Let us first briefly glance at its history.

In 1539, Ferdinand de Soto, Governor of Cuba, leaving that island in charge of his wife, set sail for Florida, where he soon safely disembarked, and sent his ships back, in order to leave no opportunity for relentment in the stern resolves of his followers. After a somewhat erratic journey, on his way passing through Georgia, Alabama, and Northern Mississippi, he struck the 'Great River' at the Lower Chickasaw Bluffs, as they are still called, and upon which now stands the city of Memphis. The expedition crossed the river at that point, and spent some time in exploring the country beyond, until they found themselves upon the White River, about two hundred miles from its entrance into the Mississippi. From there a small expedition set out toward the Missouri, but soon returned, bringing an unfavorable report. From the White the expedition moved toward the hot springs and saline confluents of the Washita. In this neighborhood they wintered. In the spring of 1542, De Soto and his followers descended the Washita in canoes, but became entangled in the bayous and marshes of the Red River, to which the Washita, through the Black, is tributary. At length, however, they reached the Mississippi. Here a number of explorations were conducted, but with no success as regards the object of the expedition, a search of gain. It was in the midst of these explorations, at the mouth of the Red, while surrounded by the most implacable Indian hostility, a malignant fever seized the spirit and head of the enterprise, and on May 21st, 1542, De Soto died. Amid the sorrows of the moment and fears of the future, his body was wrapped in a mantle, and sunk in the middle of the river. A requiem broke the midnight gloom, and the morning rose upon the consternation of the survivors. It has indeed been aptly said, that De Soto 'sought for gold, but found nothing so great as his burial place.'

The men now looked about them for a new leader. Their choice fell upon Luis de Moscoso. This man was without enterprise or capacity. After enduring every calamity, the party built seven brigantines, and in seventeen days, July, 1543, passed out of the mouth of the river, and followed the coast toward the east. Out of six hundred, but few over three hundred ever returned to Cuba.

From the expedition of De Soto more than a century elapsed before any further discoveries were made. In May, 1673, Marquette, a priest, and Jolliet, a trader, and five men, made some explorations of the river.

The great work of discovery was reserved for Robert Cavelier de la Salle, a Frenchman. By his commands, Father Louis Hennepin made the discovery of the Upper Mississippi, as far as the Falls of St. Anthony. In January, 1682, La Salle himself, with twenty-three Frenchmen and eighteen Indians, set out for the exploration of the Lower Mississippi, entering the river from the Illinois, and descending[Pg 631] it until he arrived at the Passes of the Delta. Here, to his surprise, he found the river divided into three channels. A party was sent by each, La Salle taking the western, and on April 9th the open sea was reached. The usual ceremonies attendant upon any great discovery were repeated here.

Enlivened by success, the party returned to Quebec. La Salle returned to France, and in 1684, aided by his Government, set sail with four vessels, for the discovery of the river from the sea. In this he was unsuccessful. After encountering several storms and losing one of his vessels, the expedition entered St. Louis Bay (St. Bernard) on the coast of Texas. The party disembarked, one of the vessels returned to France, and the others were lost on the coast. Thus cut off, La Salle made every effort to discover the river by land; but in every attempt he failed. At length he was assassinated by one of his followers on the 19th of March, 1687. Thus terminated the career of the explorer of the Mississippi.

The discovery of the mouth of the river from the sea, was an event of some years later, and was consummated by Iberville, in 1699. This person spent some time in navigating the river and the waters adjacent to its mouth. His brother, Bienville, succeeded him in these enterprises. A few years later, and we find settlements springing up upon the banks of the river. Since that time it has attracted a numerous population, and to-day, though desolated in parts by the contentions of armies, there is certainty in the belief that at some time these people of the great river will wield a mighty power in the political and commercial destiny of the American continent.

The Mississippi proper rises in the State of Minnesota, about 47° and some minutes north latitude, and 94° 54' longitude west, at an elevation of sixteen hundred and eighty feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico, and distant from it two thousand eight hundred and ninety-six miles, its utmost length, upon the summit of Hauteurs de Terre, the dividing ridge between the rivulets confluent to itself and those to the Red River of the North. Its first appearance is a tiny pool, fed by waters trickling from the neighboring hills. The surplus waters of this little pool are discharged by a small brook, threading its way among a multitude of very small lakes, until it gathers sufficient water, and soon forms a larger lake. From here a second rivulet, impelled along a rapid declination, rushes with violent impetuosity for some miles, and subsides in Lake Itasca. Thence, with a more regular motion, until it reaches Lake Cass, from whence taking a mainly southeasterly course, a distance of nearly seven hundred miles, it reaches the Falls of St. Anthony. Here the river makes in a few miles a descent of sixteen feet. From this point to the Gulf, navigation is without further interruption, and the wonders of the Mississippi begin.

It is not possible to give, with complete exactness, the outlines of the immense valley drained by the Mississippi, yet, with the assistance of accurate surveys, we can make an approximation, to say the least, which will convey some idea of the physical necessity of the river to the vast area through the centre of which it takes its course.

We will say:

Within this extensive limit we find, from surveys, the following aggregate area in square miles, estimated by valleys:

As a natural consequence of the drainage of this immense area, the Mississippi receives into its waters a large amount of suspended earthy matter. This, however, does not very strikingly appear on the upper river, its own banks and those of its tributaries being more of a gravelly character and less friable than lower down. The gravity of particles, therefore, worn from the bed and sides of the channel above, unless the current be exceedingly strong, is greater than the buoyant capacity of the water, and falls to the bottom, along which, sometimes, it is forced by the abrasion of the water, until it meets some obstruction, which gathers the particles into shoal formations. This fact causes much inconvenience in the navigation of the upper rivers.

It is not until we reach the confluence of the streams of Southern Illinois and Missouri, that the sediment of the river becomes striking. Those streams, freighted with the rich loam and vegetable matter of the prairies of the east and west, soon change entirely the appearance of the Mississippi. Above the Missouri, the river is but slightly tinged; and indeed, after that great current enters, for some distance the two run side by side in the same channel, and yet are divided by a very distinct line of demarcation. It is only after the frequent sinuosities of the channel, that the two waters are thrown into each other and fairly blend. The sedimentary condition of the Missouri is so great that drift floating upon its muddy surface, by accretion becomes so heavily laden with earthy matter that it sinks to the bottom. This precipitation of drift has taken place to such an extent, that the bed of the Missouri is in many places completely covered to a great depth by immense fields of logs. Of all the silt thrown into the Mississippi, the Missouri furnishes about one third.

After receiving the Missouri, next enters the Ohio. The water of this river is less impregnated than the Mis[Pg 633]souri, though not by any means free from silt. The country through which it flows is mountainous, and the soil hard, and does not afford the same facility of abrasive action as that of the other rivers.

From the mouth of the Ohio, the Mississippi pursues a course of nearly four hundred miles, when it receives the turbid waters of the White and Arkansas Rivers. In the intervening distance a large number of small currents, more or less largely sedimentary, according to the character of the country through which they run, enter the Mississippi, in the aggregate adding materially to the sediment of the receiving stream. The White and Arkansas carry in their waters a large amount of unprecipitated matter. In this vicinity, too, sets in that singular system of natural safeguards of the surrounding country, the bayous. The country here also changes its appearance, becoming flat and swampy, and in some parts attaining but a few feet above the flood of the river, whereas in other parts, as we approach the Gulf, the country is even lower than the river.

The miasmatic and poisonous water of the Yazoo next enters, about ten miles above Vicksburg. This river is more deeply impregnated with a certain kind of impurities than any other tributary of the Mississippi. The waters are green and slimy, and almost sticky with vegetable and animal decomposition. During the hot season the water is certain disease, if taken into the stomach. The name is of Indian origin, and signifies 'River of Death.' The Yazoo receives its supply from bayous and swamps, though it has several considerable tributaries.

Below the Yazoo, on the west side, enters the Red. The name indicates the peculiar caste of its water. This river carries with it the washings of an extensive area of prairies and swamps, and is the last of the great tributaries. Hence the tendency of streams is directly to the Gulf, and that network of lateral branches, of which we will hereafter speak, begins.

We have only considered the most prominent tributaries: the sediment also brought down by the numerous smaller streams is very great, and makes great additions to the immense buoyant matter of the Mississippi.

The river itself from its own banks scours the larger portion of the sediment it contains; and in so gigantic a scale is this carried on, that it can be seen without the exercise of any very remarkable powers of sight. It is not by the imperceptible degrees usually at work in other streams, but often involves in its execution many acres of adjoining land. It will be interesting to consider this more fully.

By a curious freak of nature, the tendency of the channel of the Mississippi is always toward one or the other of its banks, being influenced by the direction of its bends. The principle is one of nicely regulated refraction. If the river were perfectly straight, the gravity and inertia of its waters would move in a right line, with a velocity beyond all control. But we find the river very sinuous, and the momentum of current consequently lessened. For example, striking in an arm of the river, by the inertia of the moving volume, the water is thrown, and with less velocity, upon the opposite bank, which it pursues until it meets another repellent obstacle, from which it refracts, taking direction again for the other side. Above the Missouri, the river is principally directed by the natural trough of the valley. Below this, however, the channel is purely the work of the river itself, shaped according to the necessities of sudden changes or obstructions. This is proven by the large number of old and dry beds of the river frequently met with, the channel having been diverted in a new direction by the accumulation of sediment and drift which it had not the momentum to force out.[Pg 634]

Where the gravity of the greatest volume and momentum of water falls upon the bed of the river, there is described the thread of the channel, and all submerged space outside of this, though in the river, acts as a kind of reservoir, where eddies the surplus water until taken up by the current. And it always happens, where the channel takes one bend of the bed, a corresponding tongue of shallow water faces the indenture. Where the river, by some inexplicable cause, has been thrown from its regular channel, or its volume of water embarrassed by some difficulties along the banks, the effect is immediately perceived upon the neighboring bank. The column of water thus impinged against it at once acts upon the bank, and, singularly enough, exerts its strongest abrasive action at the bottom, undermining the bank, which soon gives way, and instead of toppling forward, it noiselessly slides beneath the water and disappears. Acres of land have thus been carried away in an incredibly short time, and without the slightest disruption of the serene flow of the mighty current.

This carrying away of the banks, immense as is the amount of earth thrown into the waters of the river, has no sensible effect in blocking or directing the current, though it imperceptibly raises the channel. The force of the water does not permit its entire settlement in quantities at any one place, but distributes it along the bottom and shores below. Were this not the case, it is easily to be seen, the abrasion of the river banks would be greatly increased, and the destruction of the bordering lands immense.

A singular feature resulting from the above may here be mentioned. By pursuing the course of the river, a short distance below, on the opposite bank, it will be seen that a large quantity of the earth introduced into the current by the falling of the banks, has been thrown up in large masses, forming new land, which, in a few seasons, becomes arable. That which is not thus deposited, as already stated, is transported below, dropping here and there on the way, until what is left reaches the Gulf, and is precipitated upon the 'bars' and 'delta,' at the mouth. It not unfrequently happens that planters along the river find themselves suddenly deprived of some of their acres, while one almost opposite finds himself as unexpectedly blessed with a bountiful increase of his domain.

From causes almost similar to those given to explain the sudden and disastrous changes of the channel of the river, are also produced those singular shortenings, known as 'cut-offs,' which are so frequently met with on the Mississippi. At a certain point the force of the current is turned out of its path and impinged against a neck of land, that has, after years of resistance, been worn down to an exceedingly small breadth. Possibly the river has merely worn an arm in its side, leaving an extensive bulge standing out in the river, and connected with the mainland by an isthmus. The river striking in this arm, and not having sufficient scope to rebound toward the other bank, is thrown into a rotary motion, forming almost a whirlpool. The action of this motion upon the banks soon reduces the connecting neck, which separates and blocks the waters, until, at last, no longer able to cope with the great weight resting against it, it gives way, and the river divides itself between this new and the old channel.

Nor do these remarkable instances of abrasive action constitute the entire washing from the banks. The whole length of the river is subject to a continual deposit and taking up of the silt, according to the buoyant capacity of the water. This, too, is so well regulated that the quantity of earthy matter held in solution is very nearly the same, being proportioned to the force of the current. For instance, if the river receive more earth than it can sustain, the surplus sediment drops[Pg 635] upon the bottom or is forced up upon the sides. If the river be subject to a rise, a proportionate quantity of the dropped sediment is again taken up, and carried along or deposited again, according to the capacity of the water. By this means a well-established average of silt is at all times found buoyant in the river.

Having briefly examined the sedimentary character of the Mississippi, some investigations as to the proportion of sediment to water may be of interest. And it is well to state here that a mean stage of flow is taken as the basis upon which to start the experiments. The experiments and analysis of the water were made by Professor Riddell, at intervals of three days, from May 21st to August 13, 1846, and reported to the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists.

The water was taken in a pail from the river in front of the city of New Orleans, where the current is rather swift. That portion of the river contains a fair average of sedimentary matter, and it is sufficiently distant from the embouchure of the last principal tributary to allow its water to mix well with that of the Mississippi.

As the table may be interesting, showing the height and temperature of the water as well as the result of the experiments at the different times, we introduce it complete:

Table showing the Quantity of Sediment contained in the Water of the Mississippi River.

The mean average of column A. is 6.32.
The mean average of column B. is 6.30.

[Pg 636]

'By comparison with distilled water,' says the same, 'the specific gravity of the filtered river water we found to be 1.823; pint of such water at 60° weighs 7,297.40.' Engineer Forehay says the sediment is 1 to 1,800 by weight, or 1 in 3,000 by volume.

Professor Riddell also comes to the following conclusions, after an analytic investigation of the sediment. He took one hundred grains from the river margin, dried it at 212° Fahrenheit, before weighing, and found it to contain:

The existence of so large a quantity of sediment in the water of the Mississippi, leads to divers formations in its bed. These formations are principally 'bars' and 'battures.' The banks are also much affected.

When the water of the river, aided by the current, has attained its full capacity of buoyant earth, as we have already said, the excess falls to the bottom. Instead, however, of remaining permanently where it first lodged, which would soon fill up the channel and cause the river to overflow, the scouring of the water on the bottom forces a large portion along with the current, though it be not suspended. Pursuing its course for a while, some irregularity or obstruction falls in the way—a sunken log, perhaps. This obstacle checks the progress of the moving earth—it accumulates; the next wave brings down more—the accumulation becomes greater; until, in the course of a few years, there is a vast field of deposit, and a 'bar' is formed. These 'bars' often divert the channel, and occasion the immense washings before alluded to.

Bars are generally found close to the banks, though there are examples in which they extend in a transverse direction to the current. Bars of this kind very much embarrass and endanger navigation in low water. At Helena, Arkansas, there is an instance of a transverse bar, upon which, in October, the water is less than six feet. These bars are formed of sand, which seems to have been the heavier and less buoyant of the components of the earth thrown into the current by abrasion, the lighter portions having been separated by the water and carried off.

It will not be necessary to consider further the subject of bars in the river, but those at its mouth deserve some attention. The subject is one that has led to much theorizing, study, and fear—the latter particularly, from an ill-founded supposition that they threaten to cut off navigation into the Gulf.

Near its entrance into the Gulf, the Mississippi distributes its waters through five outlets, termed passes, and consequently has as many mouths. These are termed Pass à l'Outre, Northeast, Southeast, South, and Southwest. They differ in length, ranging from three to nine miles. They also all afford sufficient depth of water for commercial purposes, except at their mouths, which are obstructed by bars. The depth of water upon one of these is sufficient to pass large vessels; a second, vessels of less size; and the rest are not navigable at all, as regards sea-going vessels. These bars, too, are continually changing, according to the winds or the currents of the river. It is a rather singular fact that when one of the navigable passes becomes blocked, the river is certain to force a chan[Pg 637]nel of navigable depth through one of the others, previously not in use; so that at no one time are all the passes closed.

In looking into the past, and noticing the changes, it is recorded that in 1720, of all the passes the South Pass was the only one navigable. In 1730, there was a depth of from twelve to fifteen feet, according to the winds, and at another time even seventeen feet was known. In 1804, upon the statement of Major Stoddard, written at that date, the East Pass, called the Balize, had then about seventeen feet of water on the bar, and was the one usually navigated. The South Pass was formerly of equal depth, but was then gradually filling up. (This pass, at present, 1864, is not at all navigated.) The Southwest Pass had from eleven to twelve feet of water. The Northeast and Southeast Passes were traversed only by small craft. Since 1830 the Southwest Pass has been gaining depth. This and Pass à l'Outre are now the only two out of the five of sufficient depth to admit the crossing of the larger class of vessels. The former, however, is the one in most general use. All the other passes, with the exception of the two mentioned, have been abandoned.

In regard to the changes and numerous singular formations at the mouths of the Mississippi, we give a statement made by William Talbot, for twenty-five years a resident of the Balize. He says:

We may say the bumps of which Mr. Talbot speaks are termed 'mud bumps,' from the fact of being composed of sediment. They present a curious spectacle as seen from a passing steamer. They are undoubtedly the result of subterranean pressure, but from what cause, whether volcanic, or the influence of the sea or river, or both, has not been determined. Many speculations have been entered into in regard to these phenomena, but as yet without fruitful result.

Leaving this digression, we proceed to notice that the theories set up to explain the causes of the bars at the mouth of the river, have been numerous and various. Some suppose them to be the result of the water of the river meeting the opposing force of the Gulf waves, checking the current, and causing a precipitation of the suspended sediment. Others are of the opinion that the bars are entirely the effect of marine action, and endeavor to show that the immense inward flow of the Gulf washes up from its bed the vast accumulations that are continually forming in the way of navigation.[Pg 638]

After a personal observation and investigation, and as well after frequent and free consultation with others, we are persuaded to discredit the above-mentioned theories. The resistance of the Gulf does not form the bars, though it exerts an influence. The immense volume and force of water ejected from the river receives no immediate repellent action from the Gulf, but extends into it many miles without the least signs of disturbance, as may be plainly discovered even in the most casual observation. It is known as well that the water of the river remains perfectly palatable at a very close proximity to the sea. This is a very good evidence of the superior force of the river's current. The two volumes of water mix a considerable distance out at sea.

An able engineer states that, upon examination, he found a column of fresh water seven feet deep and seven thousand feet wide, and discovered salt water at eight feet below the surface. As the result of his investigations, he divides the water into three strata, as follows:

1. Fresh water, running out at the top with a velocity of three miles an hour.

2. Salt water, beneath the fresh, also running out at about the same velocity.

3. A reflex flow of salt water, running in slowly at the bottom.

It is this inward current, he thinks, that produces the deposit, and in doing so carries with it no small degree of sea drift. The influx of the lower column flowing up stream, after it passes the dead point, is allowed time and opportunity for the sediment to deposit. The principle of the reflex current is somewhat that of an eddy, not only produced by the conflict of two opposing bodies of water, but also is much influenced in the under currents by the multitude of estuaries presented by the irregular sea front of the coast.

A gentleman, who seems to have taken a very statistical view of these bars, makes the following business-like and curious calculation as to their immensity: we introduce it on account of its originality. He says the average quantity of water discharged per second is five hundred and ten thousand cubic feet. The quantity of salt suspended, one in three thousand by volume. The quantity of mud discharged, one hundred and seventy cubic feet per second. Considering seventeen cubic feet equal to one ton, the daily discharge of mud is eight hundred and sixty-four thousand tons, and would require a fleet of seventeen hundred and twenty-eight ships, of five hundred tons each, to transport the average daily discharge. And to lift this immense quantity of matter, it would require about seven hundred and seventy-one dredging machines, sixteen horse power, with a capacity of labor amounting to one hundred and forty tons, working eight hours.

Another class of sedimentary formations met with along the banks of the Mississippi are the battures. There is one remarkable instance of these in front of New Orleans, which has led to much private dispute, and even public disturbance, as to ownership. Within sixty years, in front of the Second Municipality of the city, the amount of alluvial formations susceptible of private ownership were worth over five millions of dollars, that is, nearly one hundred thousand dollars per annum, and the causes which have produced them are still at work, and will probably remain so. As far back as 1847 these remarks were made upon the subject: 'The value of the annual alluvial deposits in front of the Second Municipality now is not less than two hundred thousand dollars, and, with the exception of the batture between the Faubourg St. Mary line and Lacourse street, all belongs to this municipality.' 'Such a source of wealth was never possessed by any city before. In truth, it may be said that nature is our taxgatherer, levying by her immutable laws tribute from[Pg 639] the banks of rivers and from the summits of mountains thousands of miles distant to enrich, improve, and adorn our favored city.' There are numerous other examples of the kind going on elsewhere along the river.

But the greatest exhibition of the wonderful character of the Mississippi, and in which all its singular effects are most distinctly shown, is in its Delta. For a long succession of years the immense quantities of sediment, of which we have already spoken, had gradually precipitated upon this portion of the river until it reached the surface. Drift now lodged upon it: the decomposition of drift and the accumulation of other vegetable matter soon furnished a suitable bed for the growth of a marine vegetation, and now a vast area, a level expanse of waste land and marsh, is seen extending a great distance into the Gulf, ramified here and there by the outlets of the river. Indeed, so rapid have been these formations, that upon the testimony of history, the Mississippi River to-day is twenty-nine miles farther in the Gulf than it was in 1754.

Mr. Forshey, an engineer, remarks that 'the superficial area of the true Delta formation of the Mississippi, or below Baton Rouge, where the last bluffs are found, is about fifteen thousand square miles, constituting a region of mean width seventy-five miles, and mean length two hundred miles. Probable depth of alluvion is about one fifth of a mile, by inference from the depth of the Gulf of Mexico.' In the vicinity of New Orleans, boring to a depth of two hundred feet, fossils, such as shells, bones, etc., have been found. And at thirty feet specimens of pottery and other evidences of Indian habitation have been discovered. The foundation upon which rest the alluvial formations has been found to consist of a hard blue silicious clay, closely resembling that met with in the bed of the Mississippi. The most recent of the alluvial fields of the Delta have been constituted a parish, termed Plaquemine. In 1800, according to one authority, there were but very few acres in cultivation in the entire parish. Since leveeing above, the deposit has been extremely rapid, until now we find some excellent plantations in Plaquemine. Fifty miles below New Orleans the tillable land is nearly a mile in width; below there, it becomes gradually less, until it is lost in the Gulf. Still the accumulations are going on, and it is impossible even to surmise what changes the great river may yet effect in the future geography of this section of the American continent.

Considering the multitude of streams and vastness of area drained by the Mississippi, it is natural to suppose the river is much affected in the stage of its water by the seasons. We have seen that the meltings of the Rocky Mountain snows, the mountain rills of the Alleghanies, the waters of the valleys of the upper river, of the Missouri, of the Ohio, the Arkansas, the Yazoo, and the Red, all find outlet through this one stream. There are certain seasons in the year when all these widely distant localities are subject to a gradual approach of warmth from the south, until they arrive at a sort of climatic average. This creates a maximum of the supply of water. The inverse then takes place, and a minimum results. For instance, in the latter part of December, the lower latitudes of the Mississippi begin to experience their annual rains. These by degrees tend northward as the season advances. In March commence the thaws of the southern borders of the zone of snow and ice; and during April, May, and June, it reaches to the most distant tributary fountain head. The river now is at its highest. The reverse then sets in. All the tributaries have their excess, the heats of summer are at hand, drought and evaporation soon exhaust the surplus of the streams, and the river is at its lowest.

To meet the great annual excess of[Pg 640] water in the Mississippi, nature has provided sure safeguards. These are termed bayous, and are found everywhere along the river, below the mouth of the Ohio. Additional preventives against inundation are the lagoons, or sea-water lakes, of the coast. Into these bayous and lagoons, as the river becomes high, the excess of water backs or flows. They are natural reservoirs, to ease the rise, and prevent the inevitable suddenness and danger which would result without them. In these reservoirs the water rises or falls with the river; and when the fall becomes permanent, the water in the bayous—the lagoons having outlet into the sea—falls with it, returning into the main stream, and finding entrance into the Gulf, from which it had been temporarily detained. Without the bayous the lands adjacent to the Lower Mississippi would, with very few exceptions, be subject to an annual overflow, and be perfectly worthless for certain agricultural purposes. In summer the bayous in numerous instances become perfectly dry, and give a very singular effect to the appearance of the country.

Below the mouth of the Red River the tributaries of the Mississippi cease, and the entire volume of the river is attained. As a protection against serious consequences arising out of such an immense mass of water, nature has again introduced a remedy. This consists in a number of lateral branches, which leave the river a short distance below the mouth of the Red, tending directly to the Gulf, through a continuous chain of conduits, lakes, and marshes.

The principal bayous, which exert so important a part in regulating the stage of this part of the river, are in length and distance from the Gulf as follows:

The course of the bayous, it will be seen, have a more direct route than the river. Their average width is one thousand feet, and fall twenty-two feet. Their average velocity is about three and two tenths miles per hour. Though the rise of the river at Baton Rouge sometimes attains a height of thirty feet, so great is the relieving capacity of these lateral branches, that at New Orleans the rise never exceeds twelve feet. At Point à la Hache the difference between the highest and lowest stage is but six feet; at Fort Jackson, four feet, while it falls to low water mark when it enters the sea.

Having briefly noted the peculiarities of the Mississippi, a few facts in recapitulation may place it in a more comprehensive attitude as regards its appearance and size. In the north, after leaving the Falls of St. Anthony, the river has but the characteristics of a single stream, but below the Ohio we find it combines the peculiarities of a number. The water here begins to show signs of almost a new nature and greater density. The river develops into a much wider channel, and its peculiarities become more marked and impressive.

Strange as it may seem, the greatest mean width of the Lower Mississippi is at the confluence of the Ohio, and from this point it gradually becomes narrower, until it is but little more than half that width as it draws near the Gulf. This gives the river a kind of funnel shape, and if it were not for the numerous bayous and lateral branches, which we have explained, the most violent convulsion and devastation would[Pg 641] arise. In the United States Engineer Reports we find this statement:

Above the Red River the range between high and low water is about forty-five feet, and thence to the Gulf it gradually diminishes to zero.

The greatest velocity of current is about five and a half miles per hour during floods, and about one and a half miles per hour during low water.

The river is above mean height from January to July, and below from August to December. The greatest height is attained from March to June, and the lowest from October to November.

The mud of the Mississippi is very yielding, insomuch that an allowance of several feet is often made where the draught of a vessel exceeds the clear depth of the water. We have heard of cases where steamers have ploughed successfully through four feet of it.

It is singular, too, and exhibits still more clearly what we have said of deposits, that the lower river for the most part runs along the summit of a ridge of its own formation, and annually this ridge is becoming more elevated. The inland deposits are made by the bayous and their overflow. The lands close to the river are disproportionately higher than those farther back. The average distance from the river to the swamp is about two and a half miles. And the slope in some places sinks to a depression of eighteen feet to a mile. It is upon this strip of tillable earth that the river plantations are located. By a system of drainage even much of the swamp lands now unconverted might soon be turned to profitable use.

The numerous islands and old channels of the Mississippi are also another source of wonder to the traveller. The 'cut offs,' previously explained, are mainly the cause of both. In the first instance, the river forces its way by a new route, and joins the river below; this necessarily detaches a certain amount of land from the main shore. As for the second, after the river has taken this new route, its main abrasive action follows with it. The water in the old channel becomes comparatively quiet, sediment is rapidly deposited, and in course of time the old bed loses its identity, or becomes a beautiful lake, numerous instances of which occur between the Ohio and the Red Rivers.

As the Mississippi reaches the neighborhood of the Balize the east banks slope to the sea level very rapidly, running off toward the end at a declination of three feet to a mile; after which, the land is soon lost in wet sea marsh, covered by tides. On the west side the land declines more slowly, and in some places is deeply wooded. The chenières begin where the declination ends, and the great reservoirs of the coast, the lakes and lagoons, begin.

The incessant changes in the channel and filling up of the Mississippi preclude the possibility of a table of distances mathematically accurate, yet we have taken from accepted authorities the number of miles from the Gulf to the principal points along its banks. The table may be of service to the many that are daily tending to the great Father of Rivers, and those at home may be able to form, perhaps, a better estimate of the immense length of the stream, by having before them these figures:[Pg 642]

Table of Distances and Altitudes on the Mississippi.

The Lower Mississippi presents another feature that should not be forgotten, and which sets forth a great design. Immense forests of cottonwood and ash are to be seen growing along its banks. These trees are of rapid growth, and afford excellent (in fact the best, with the exception of coal) fuel for steamers. Indeed, they constitute much the greater portion of wood consumed in river navigation. So suitable is the rich alluvion of the river banks to the growth of these trees, that in ten years they attain to a sufficient size for felling. Plantations lying uncultivated for a single year, in the second present a handsome young growth of cottonwood. This fact is now very well proven on the Mississippi; the war has ruined agricultural labor almost entirely. No apprehensions are ever felt by steamboat men on the subject of fuel; the supply is inexhaustible and reproducing.

The other woods found upon the river, but not, let it be said, to the extent of the cottonwood or the ash, are the live and water oak, swamp dog[Pg 643]wood, willow, myrtle, wild pecan, elm, and ash. The cypress tree is found in extensive forests back from the river in the swamps. This tree attains an enormous height, and is without branches until attaining the very top, and then they are short and crooked, presenting a very fine and sparse foliage. The wood of the cypress is very little used upon the river, not, perhaps, in consequence of its inferiority of quality, but the difficulty of access to it.

In conclusion, we cannot withhold a few words upon the singular typical similarity between the appearance of vegetation upon its banks and the river itself. Gray forests of cypress, the blended foliage of the oak, the cottonwood, and the ash, with a charming intermixture of that beautiful parasitic evergreen, the mistletoe, above Vicksburg, suggest the blooming grandeur of the stream. Below, the appearance of a new parasite, the Spanish moss, draping the trees with a cold, hoary-looking vegetation, casts a melancholy and matured dignity upon the scene. Like the gray locks of age, it reminds the passer by of centuries gone, when the red savage in his canoe toiled upon its turbid flood; it recalls the day of discovery, when De Soto and La Salle sought its mighty torrent in search of gain, and found death; and now looms before us the noblest picture of all, the existence of a maturing civilization upon its banks. Associated thus with an ever-present suggestion of a remarkable and ever-forming antiquity, the Mississippi becomes indeed the wonder of waters. Ponce de Leon, that most romantic of early Spanish explorers, traversed the continent in search of a 'fountain of everlasting youth;' the powerful republic of the West, has found in the 'Father of Waters' a fountain and a stream of everlasting, vigorous life, wealth, and convenience.

SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY.

IV.—MOUNTAIN WAYS.

Lucy D——. Aunt Sarah, did you ever read the Declaration of Independence?

Mrs. Grundy. What a question! In my youth it was read regularly, once a year, at every Fourth of July celebration.

Lucy D——. Did you ever, when listening to it, consider that your interest in its enunciation of principles was merely incidental, not direct?

Mrs. Grundy. How so?

Lucy D——. The 'all men' that are born 'equal,' and with an 'inalienable right to liberty,' does not include you, because, although you are white, you are a woman.

Mrs. Grundy. What covert heresy is this, Lucy, with which you are endeavoring to mystify my old-fashioned notions?

Lucy D——. I advocate no theory. I merely state a fact. My own belief is, that men are born very unequal (I do not mean legally, but really, as they stand in the sight of God), and that they, as well as we, are free only to do what is right in the fulfilment of inalienable duties. 'Life' and the 'pursuit of happiness' must both yield to the exactions of such duties. I must confess, however, that, let my abstract views be as they may, I have occasionally embraced in their widest extent[Pg 644] the generalizations of the Declaration of Independence; and nowhere has the right of 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness' seemed to me so precious and delightful a possession as, when seated on top of a stage coach, I have breathed the exhilarating atmosphere of some elevated mountain region. As to equality, I must also say, that there especially do I feel my inferiority to, and dependence on the driver, who, in his sphere, reigns a king.

Mrs. Grundy. In my day, ladies were always expected to take inside seats.

Lucy D——. Yes, and be shut up behind a great leather strap, so that if anything happened, they would be the last to reach the door! I have a few notes of a stage-coach journey, made last summer. If you like, I will read it to you while you work on that interminable afghan. By the way, Aunt Sarah, I do not think you have labored quite so energetically since the late decision made by the Metropolitan Fair in regard to raffling. How is that?

Mrs. Grundy. My dear, I must acknowledge that my ardor is a little lessened since I began this piece of work, for then I had not only a vision of the poor soldiers to be aided by my labor, but I also fancied that this warm wrapping, instead of adding a new lustre to the carriage of some luxurious lady, might perchance fall to the share of some poor widow; and these beautiful embroidered leaves and blossoms might delight some sickly child, whose best covering had hitherto been a faded blanket shawl, and whose mother was too poor to afford the indulgence of real flowers, purchased from some collection of exotics, or plucked by the pale fingers from some fragrant country wayside. However, I know that was an idle fancy, and the imagination is a dangerous guide. I surely would never call in question the soundness of a decision made by so many excellent and respectable people. Read on, if you please. You know me to be a patient listener.

Lucy D——. Yes, dear aunt, and I know, too, that charity—that crown of virtues—can warm and expand the primmest conventionality, and lend bright wings of beauty to the most commonplace conception. The same Divine Love that fringes dusty highways with delicate, fragrant blossoms, can cause even the arid soil of worldliness to teem with lovely growths and refreshing fruits. But, a truce to this digression, to which, as I foresaw, you give no heed; and now to my notes:

One cool, sunshiny morning in August, a lady traveller, bent for once on gratifying the whim of seeing what lay beyond the blue hills in the far distance, left the Laurel House (Catskill Mountains), and took her way toward Tannersville. Two ladies, charming companions, accompanied her as far as the bridge over the mill stream, where she struck into a neglected byway, leading past a melancholy graveyard. The air was delicious, the mountains were clear, but softened by a dreamy haze; each cottage garden was bright with phlox, bergamot, mallows, and nasturtiums, and the soul of the traveller was filled with gratitude that this earth had been made so beautiful, and she had been given health, strength, opportunity, and a stout heart to enjoy it.

Tannersville reached, an outside seat was secured on the Lexington stage. The sharers of my lofty station were a gentleman on his way to join wife and children at Hunter, and a tattered, greasy-looking Copperhead.

The 'sunny hill' (Clum's) was soon left behind; the opening of the Plattekill Clove, with its beautiful mountains and deep hollows (Mink and Wildcat), passed, and the distant peaks beyond Lexington loomed up fair as the enchanted borders of the land of Beulah. The hay was nearly gathered in, and the oats were golden on the hillsides.[Pg 645] Men for farmwork were evidently scarce, and the driver said they had nearly all gone to the war. The Copperhead remarked: 'I was always too smart for that, I was.'

The driver told him his turn would come yet, for he would certainly be drafted. Copperhead said he had the use of only one arm. Driver opined that would make no difference; they took all, just as they came. Copperhead grumbled out: 'Yes; I know we ha'n't got no laws nohow!'

At Hunter, the wife and two ruddy little boys came out to meet the expected head of the family. A bright and happy meeting! The Copperhead also got down, and took seat inside the stage, where he was soon joined by a country lassie, whose merry voice speedily gave token of acquaintance and satisfaction with her fellow traveller.

Opposite Hunter is the most beautiful view of the Stony Clove. The high and narrow cleft opens to the south, and I thought of loved ones miles and miles away.

Beyond Hunter, a long, straggling village, with some neat houses, the road becomes smoother, and gradually descends along the east bank of the Schoharie, which it rarely leaves. The meadow lands widen a little, and the way is fringed by maples, beeches, alders, hemlocks, birches, and occasional chestnuts. The stream is rapid, clear, and, though without any noteworthy falls, a cheerful, agreeable companion. The mountains on the left bank are steep and rugged; near Hunter, burnt over; afterward, green to the top, and, while occasionally curving back from the stream, and thus forming hollows or ravines, still presenting not a single cleft between Stony Clove and the clove containing the West Kill, and opening out from Lexington toward Shandaken. The West Kill enters the Schoharie a little below Lexington, and the East Kill flows in above, near Jewett.

Every farm glittered with golden sunflowers. I saw one misguided blossom obstinately turning its face away from the great source of light and heat. Every petal was drooping, and I wondered if the dwellers in the neighboring cot heeded the lesson. The buckwheat fields were snowy with blossoms and fragrant as the new honey the bees were industriously gathering.

Lexington is a lovely village, with pretty dwellings, soft meadows, and an infinite entanglement of mountains, great and small, green and blue, for background in every direction. I had already been warned that the stage went no farther; and, as my destination that evening was Prattsville, some means of conveyance was of course necessary. The driver feared the horses would all be engaged haying, and asked what I would do in case no wagon could be found. I replied that, as the distance from Lexington to Prattsville was only seven miles, and I had no luggage, it might readily be accomplished on foot. He opened his eyes, and, perhaps, finding the Lexington hotel not likely to be benefited by my delay, cast about for some way of obliging me. As we drove up to the post office, the door was found locked, and Uncle Samuel's agent absent, which circumstance, taken in connection with the fact that the mail comes to Lexington only twice per week, struck me as decidedly 'cool.'

By six o'clock I found myself seated in a comfortable buggy, behind a sleek, fleet pony, and beside an old gentleman, whose upright mien and pleasant talk added no little to the enjoyment of the hour. The evening lights were charming, the hills wound in and out, the Schoharie rippled merrily over the cobble stones or slate rocks forming its bed, and the clematis and elder bushes gently waved their treasures of white blossoms, silky seeds, or deepening berries, in the soft summer air. By and by the slate cliffs rose precipitously from the river shore, leaving only room[Pg 646] sufficient for the road, which, is in fact, sometimes impassable, when the rains or melting snows have swollen the singing river to an angry, foaming, roaring flood. My companion told me of the agriculture of the district, of the wild Bushnell Clove, of bees and honey making, and of the Prattsville tanneries, which he stigmatized as a curse to the country, cutting down all the trees, and leaving only briers and brambles in their stead. He also told me of two brave sons in the Union army, and of a married daughter far away. The oldest boy had been wounded at Gettysburg, and all three children had recently been home on a short visit. 'Children,' said the old man, 'are a heap more trouble when they are grown than when they are little; for then they all go away, and keep one anxious the whole time.'

We drove under the steep ledges, the hills of Beulah were passed, and Prattsville reached.

The following morning was bright and clear, but warm. I rose early, and went up on the high bluffs overlooking the town. Below was a pretty pastoral view of stream, meadow, hop fields, pasture lands with cattle, sundry churches, and neat white houses, shut in by great hills, many bare, and a few still wooded. Passing beneath the highest ledge, I came upon an old man, a second Old Mortality, chipping away at the background for a medallion of the eldest son of Colonel Zadoc Pratt, a gallant soldier, who fell, I believe, at the second battle of Manassas. On a dark slab, about five hundred and fifty feet above the river, is a profile in white stone of the great tanner himself. An honest countryman had previously pointed it out to me, saying: 'A good man, Colonel Pratt—but that looks sort of foolish; people will have their failings, and vanity is not one of the worst!' On the above-mentioned ledges are many curious carvings, a record of 'one million sides of leather tanned with hemlock bark at the Pratt tanneries in twenty years,' and other devices, such as niches to sit in, a great sofa wrought from the solid rock, and a pretty spring.

At ten o'clock the stage came from Delhi, which place it had left at two in the morning. Seventy miles from Delhi to Catskill—a good day's journey! It was full, and our landlord put on an extra, giving me a seat beside the driver, and filling the inside with men. Said driver was a carpenter, and an excellent specimen of an American mechanic—intelligent and self-respecting. This is a great cattle and dairy region, and we passed several hundred lambs on their way to the New York market. The driver pitied the poor creatures; and, when passing through a drove, endeavored to frighten them as little as possible. 'Innocent things!' said he, 'they have just been taken from their mothers, and know not which way to turn. I hate to think of their being slaughtered, for what is so meek and so joyous as a young lamb!'

I thought:

—the 'nobis' to include the poor lambs.

At the first turn in the road we passed a great bowlder, known throughout the country as 'the big rock.' Beside the highway flows the Red Kill, a tributary of the Schoharie. There are some trout in it, but a couple of cotton factories have frightened them nearly all away. A hot political discussion soon arose among the inside passengers. Our driver seemed to think loud and angry words quite out of place, and said: 'I am a Democrat myself, but the other day I had a talk with the Republican tax collector of our place, and I concluded we both wanted about one thing—the good of[Pg 647] our country. Honest Republicans and honest Democrats are not so far asunder as people usually think.'

Mountain after mountain stretched away to north, south, east, and west, blue or green, bright or dark, as distance or the shadows of the beautiful cumulus clouds severally affected them. Up, up we wound, the merry kill dancing beside us, and the air growing fresher and more elastic with every foot of ascent. The country is quite well settled, and we rose through Red Falls and Ashland to Windham, a long, peculiar-looking town, where we dined, and exchanged our two stages for a large one seating eighteen persons (inside and out), and drawn by four fresh steeds. The mountains grew wilder, the air cooler, and finally Windham High Peak or Black Head, a great round-topped peak, appeared on the right. A party from Albany had that day gone up. No water can be found near the top. This is thought to be the loftiest summit of the range (3,926 feet), but our new driver said there was another peak toward the southwest, which he fancied higher.

In the cleft between Windham High Peak and the mountain to the north, runs the road, which suddenly emerges from the defile and overlooks the open country. We here find no long cleft as in the Kauterskill, Plattekill, and Stony Cloves, but the highway descends along the face of the mountain slope. The first view is toward the northeast, and, of a clear day, must be very fine. The distance was hazy, but the atmospheric effects on the near mountains only the more beautiful. The road is generally through cleared lands, so that the view is constantly visible, and continually opening out toward the south. Acra, Cairo, and Leeds were all passed through, and Catskill reached about half past six in the evening. Kiskatom Round Top rose round and dark to the south of Cairo, whence also the entire western slope of the Catskills was plainly visible, a soft, flowing, and tender outline. Near Leeds, on the Catskill Creek, are some curious rocks. We had changed drivers at Cairo. The new one was a jollier specimen of humanity than any I had yet seen; he evidently loved good living, and would not refuse a glass of grog when off duty. His team was named Lightfoot, Ladybird, Vulture, and Rowdy, and was coaxed along with gentle words, as: 'Go on, little ones!' 'Get up, lambs!' and similar endearing appellations.

The sunset was glorious. Round Top and Overlook were bathed in purple red; crimson clouds hung over the North and South Mountains, while Black Head and the surrounding summits were partly obscured, partly thrown out by heavy storm clouds.

The night was sultry, and the succeeding morning opaque with an August fog. Rising early, I sat upon the upper gallery of the little Catskill inn, and watched the manners and customs of the street corners. An old, one-armed man, with a younger and more stalwart, appeared at a sort of chest counter, covered by a bower of green boughs, and drew out two tables, which were then placed at the edge of the pavement. The chest was unlocked, and forth came several bushels of potatoes, three or four dozen wilted ears of corn, two squashes (one white and one orange), three half-decayed cabbage heads, a quantity of smoked sturgeon, a dish of blueberries, and a great pan of blackberries. These dainties were arranged and rearranged upon the tables, to make them look as attractive as possible, and then left to the sun, the dust, and the flies, to improve as they best might. Weary hours passed, and customers came slowly in. At one o'clock, when I left, about half the original stock remained. On the opposite corner was a group of children struggling for the possession of two lively kittens: wrangling, coaxing, defying, yielding, and pouting, gave animation to a scene, in which a pretty,[Pg 648] saucy girl, and a lazy, lordly lad were the principal actors. Down came the lawyer to the fat, sleek, clean-looking negro barber, to be shaved, and then away up to the court house, with a jaunty, swinging, self-satisfied air, that said plainly enough—'Find me a smarter man than I, will you?' A tipsy porter came staggering under a load for the down boat; a dusty miller wended his way to a flour store; a little contraband carried home a fish as long as himself; an indignant, dirty, black-bearded mulatto cursed at his recent employer, whom he accused of having defrauded him of his wages; a neat, trig damsel tripped by in cool morning dress; a buxom dame, unmistakeably English, in great round hat, brim about a foot radius, swept past the humble market stand; a natty storekeeper came to his door, and looked out for customers; a servant lass, sent out with a pretty child in a little wagon to purchase a newspaper, stopped at a milliner's to read some interesting item to the shop girl; two young officers, in gay new uniforms, sauntered by; a crippled soldier hobbled along on a crutch, stages rushed down from the mountains, parties in buggies and on horseback flew past, the dust thickened, the sun came out clear and burning, the din increased, and I went down to the little parlor in search of shade and quiet.

At one the stage for the Mountain House started. The passengers had already waited three hours for the arrival of the down boat, delayed by the fog. They were consequently in no very cheerful frame of mind, and grumbled and growled all the way up the mountain. The day was very warm (94° in the shade), the horses were wearied out by so many journeys up and down, and the five outside and two inside gentlemen seemed by no means willing to relieve their aching limbs and panting hearts. When we reached the steep portion of the ascent, not a single one offered to walk. I felt ashamed—three were Germans, and four my own countrymen. Of the inside ladies, one was German, and four were Americans. In vain did the mountains, with alternate sun and shadow, shining slopes and passionate thunder clouds, don their loveliest aspect. Though never up before, the young German lady and one of the New Yorkers read nearly the whole way to the summit; another lady kept down her veil, and refused to look out, because it was so sunny; the German youth slept, and one only of the inside passengers seemed to feel any real interest in the beautiful and gradual unveiling of the mysteries of these noble hills. When about half a mile above the toll-gate, the horses stopped to rest, and I could no longer endure the idea of their straining up the steep declivity under so heavy a load. I asked a gentleman to open the door for me, as I would walk a way, and thus relieve the poor animals of at least one hundred and ten pounds. Walk I did, but not a single individual followed my example. Heavy drops began to fall, the thunder muttered, and I reached Rip Van Winkle's fabled retreat barely in time to escape a wetting. As the stage came lumbering up with its load of stout, well-fed men, a young woman in the little hut called out: 'Just see them hogs on top of that coach!'

Whether the gentlemen heard her, I know not, but the rain having ceased, all left the top of the vehicle and walked thence to the Mountain House.

I reached the Laurel House in the early twilight, and thus happily ended my three days' journey.[Pg 649]

THE MARCH OF LIFE.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY AND HIS WRITINGS.

No more signal service, during the last half century, has been rendered to the lovers of genuine books, than the collection and republication of the fragmentary writings of Thomas de Quincey. Cast, for the most part, upon the swollen current of periodical literature, at the summons of chance or necessity, during a career protracted beyond the allotted threescore years and ten, the shattered hand of the Opium Eater was powerless to arrest their flight to silence and forgetfulness; increasing remoteness was daily throwing a deeper shadow upon ancient landmarks, and consequently upon the possibility of their recovery. When Mr. de Quincey was urged to attempt the collection himself, his emphatic reply was: 'Sir, the thing is absolutely, insuperably, and forever impossible. Not the archangel Gabriel, nor his multipotent adversary, durst attempt any such thing!' From that quarter, then, nothing could be expected; but the intervention of other parties averted a catastrophe melancholy to contemplate—restoring to us a vast body of literature, unique in character and supreme in kind. We do not pretend that De Quincey has yet been awarded by any very general suffrage the foremost position among modern littérateurs; we expect that his popularity will be of slow growth, and never universal. Universal popularity a writer of the highest talent and genius can never secure, for his very loftiness of thought and impassioned eccentricity cut him off from the sympathy, and hence from the applause, of a vast section of humanity. But when contemporary prejudice and indifference shall clear up, and the question be summoned for final arbitration before the dispassionate tribunal of the future, we suspect that the name of Thomas de Quincey will head the list of English writers during the last seventy-five years. If we should apply to our author the rule which he remorselessly enforces against Dr. Parr, that the production of a complete, first-class work is the only absolute test of first-class literary ability, our position would be untenable, for it is notorious that De Quincey's writings are entirely fragmentary. But it will never do to lay down a canon of that sort as the basis of calculation in estimating the intellectual altitude of literary men. The wider the field the greater the scope for grandeur of design and the pomp of achievement; but it is seldom that a writer who can produce an essay of the highest order cannot also meet successfully the demands of a more protracted effort. Narrowness of bounds, want of compass for complete elaboration, is often no slight obstacle. The more minute the mechanism, the more arduous the approach to perfection. The limits of the essay are at best cramped, and the compression, the adjusting of the subject to those limits, so that its character and bearings may be naturally and perspicuously exhibited, imply no ordinary skill. Besides, the advisability, or rather the possibility of undertaking a literary work of the first magnitude is dependent not less upon circumstances beyond the range of individual control than upon intellectual capacity.

In asserting for De Quincey the leading position among the writers of this century, we are clothing him with no ordinary honors—honors which no man can rightfully enjoy without mental endowments at once multiform and transcendent. Our age thus far has been prolific in genius, inferior, indeed, to no other, except, perhaps, the Elizabethan; and, even here, inferior only at two points, tragedy and that section[Pg 651] of poetry in which alone is found the incarnation of the sublime—the divine strains of John Milton. But in range of achievement our epoch has scarcely a rival. Mighty champions have arisen in almost every department of letters, and it is plain that, amid merits so divergent and wide removed, we can justly ascribe absolute precedence to no man without establishing, at the outset, a standard of ideal excellence, and by that adjusting the claims of all competitors.

We may remark, then, in general, that few first-class writers have appeared who did not require as a condition of success varied and profound learning. Kant, indeed, won immortality by the efforts of blank power. It is said that he never read a book; so wonderful was his synthetical and logical power, that if he could once discover the starting point, the initial principles of a writer, there was no occasion for his toiling through the intermediate argumentation to reach the conclusions—he grasped them almost intuitively, provided, of course, the deductions were logical. But even Kant, had his acquaintance with the literature of metaphysics been more extensive, would have avoided many errors, as well as the trouble of discovering many truths in which he had been long anticipated. Herder thought that too much reading had hurt the spring and elasticity of his mind. Doubtless we may carry our efforts to excess in this direction as well as any other, by calling into unduly vigorous and persistent action the merely receptive energies of the mind. Perhaps this was the case with Herder, as the range of his reading was truly immense; but if so, it argues with fatal effect against his claims to the highest order of intellect; if the weight of his body was too great for his wings, there lurked somewhere a sad defect. In the vast plurality of cases success lies in, and is graduated by, the intensity of mental reaction upon that which has been acquired from others. The achievements of the past are stepping stones to the conquests of the present. New truths, new discoveries, are old truths, old discoveries remodelled and shifted so as to meet the view under a different angle; new structures are in no proper sense creations, but mainly the product of a judicious eclecticism. Sir William Hamilton was a vast polyhistor long before he could be called a philosopher, or even thought himself one. Researches the most persistent in nearly every department of letters were with him the indispensable prelude to his subsequent triumphs.

But all this is simply conditional. What, then, are the powers which nature alone can bestow? What must she have done before the highest results can arise from literary effort, however immense the compass of our information? There must be powerful analytic and discursive ability, combined with a commensurate reach of constructive and imaginative capacity. An intellect thus endowed, approaches the perfection of our ideal. If one of these elements is deficient, we shall lack either depth or brilliance, acuteness or fancy; our structures may be massive, titanic, but hostile to the laws of a refined taste; colossal and dazzling, but too airy and unsubstantial except for the few who are

'With reason mad, and on phantoms fed.'

Before some such ideal tribunal as this let us summon the aspirants to the dictatorial honors which seem to have slumbered since the day of Dr. Johnson, and arbitrate their claims.

Who shall combat the succession of Thomas de Quincey to this vacant throne? Shall it be Coleridge, 'the noticeable man with large, gray eyes,' or the stately Macaulay, or Carlyle, with his Moorish dialect and sardonic glance, or hale old Walter Scott, or Lamb, or Hazlitt, or Christopher North? The time was when Coleridge's literary fame was second to that of no other[Pg 652] man. But he has suffered a disastrous eclipse; it has been articulately demonstrated that the vast body of his most valuable speculations, both in the department of philosophy, and also in that of poetry and of the fine arts generally, were so unblushingly pirated from Schelling and other German writers, that all defence, even that which was merely palliative, has signally failed. That fact silences absolutely and forever his claim. Nor can the pretensions of Macaulay or Carlyle be tolerated; in neither of them is found in any marked degree what has been aptly called 'double-headed' power—in neither are combined the antagonistic resources of profound thought and brilliant imagination. Macaulay, unapproachable in the delineation of character and in the mastery of stately narrative, seems to be shorn of his wonted power in the presence of the higher philosophical and moral questions—the flight that is elsewhere so bold and triumphant, droops and falters here. As for Carlyle, to say nothing of other faults, we vainly search his writings for anything positive; he is a blank destroyer, breathing out everlasting denunciation and regret. No man can possess the highest order of talent or genius whose powers are essentially negative. Mere demolition—demolition which is not the first step in the advance of reform and reconstruction, the preliminary removal of ancient rubbish for the erection of newer and nobler structures—is worse than futile. But we will not pursue farther this phase of our subject. We take our stand upon the position, and think it can be maintained against all comers, that these writers, and others which might be named, although supreme in certain departments, fail in range of power; in other words, that they have specialities outside of which they attain no remarkable excellence. Scott, for instance, is unsurpassed in the drama of fiction; but in the more transcendent sphere of poetry his success is open to a very serious demur. But how is the case with De Quincey? Did he ever write a poem? No; but he was nevertheless a poet of the first rank. Did he ever publish a treatise on metaphysics? No. His great work 'De Emendatione Humani Intellectus,' was never completed, but he was, notwithstanding, an acute philosopher. The author of no complete history, he was not the less a divine master of historic narration, grave or gay, sententious or impassioned. No one is more profoundly convinced than ourselves that mere rhetorical declamation, and the sepulchral voice of fulsome eulogy can never establish claims of such vast magnitude. What has Mr. de Quincey achieved, what range of capacity has he exhibited in the memorials he has left behind, in the grand conceptions that have arisen upon his mind, whether completely projected into the sphere of tangible reality or not?—these are the crucial questions upon which hang for him the trophies of renown or the dark drapery of oblivion.

Every person who is competent to form an opinion on the subject, very readily allows that political economy, so infinite and subtile are the forces that enter into its shifting phenomena, is a science of no slight complexity, and that the successful unveiling of its disordered tissue demands, in the first instance, the highest intellectual acuteness and profundity. We here encounter the same obstacles as in metaphysics, except that in the one case the phenomena investigated are subjective, in the other objective. Both conditions have peculiar advantages; both are open to peculiar difficulties, which it is unnecessary to discuss at present. But the power which can grapple successfully with the vexed complications of the one will be no less potent in piercing those of the other; acuteness of analysis, sleepless insight, subtile thought, ample constructive or synthetic ability, these are the only endowments out of which any original suc[Pg 653]cess can arise in either case. What has Mr. de Quincey achieved for the science of political economy? We might answer by asking, What has Mr. Ricardo achieved in that department? Ricardo and De Quincey had independently arrived at the same conclusions on the subject at about the same time. The fact that Ricardo first proclaimed to the world his revolutionary doctrines of rent and value has won for him the lion's share of the applause they compelled; but that rendered De Quincey's independent conclusions none the less real discoveries, subtracted nothing from the aggregate of his real merit. The vast obstacles which lay in the path of these discoveries can never be fully appreciated, until we apprehend, to some extent, the apparently hopeless and inextricable confusion with which the whole subject was at that time invested: out of the blackness of darkness, out of the very heart of chaos and anarchy rose two mighty luminaries, that have been polar beacons to all subsequent explorers. De Quincey's writings on political economy are partially fragmentary; that is, they do not exhaust the subject as a whole, although thoroughly probing several capital points upon which the entire subject turns. Sometimes he ostensibly limits himself to elucidating and defending Ricardo's views; but the discussion is conducted with so much ease and force and fertility of resources, disclosing at times a depth of insight far outstripping that of his pretended master, that we cannot resist the conclusion that the doctrines which he defends are in fact discoveries of his own—discoveries which, finding himself anticipated in their publication, he generously turns to the advantage of his fortunate rival. Although De Quincey gravely assures us that in his opinion Ricardo is a 'model of perspicuity,' we suspect that few will agree with him, as his thought is always subtile and sometimes perplexed; but De Quincey—while not at all inferior in acuteness and power of thought, in perception of shy differences and resemblances between contrasted objects, winning at this point even the praise of John Stuart Mill—in elasticity, force, and elegance of style, infinitely surpasses the whole race of political economists. We know of nothing throughout the vast range of economic investigation more admirable, being at once clear and conclusive, simple and profound, culminating in the utter razing and dismantling of the Malthusian theory, than the discussion of value in the 'Templars' Dialogues.' There is no faltering, no hesitation, no discursiveness; the arrow flies swiftly and fatally to the mark. It is not possible, or desirable, at the present time, to discuss minutely De Quincey's achievements as exhibited in his 'Logic of Political Economy' and 'Templars' Dialogues:' in these works he laid the foundation of a colossal structure, which the distraction of nervous misery never allowed him to complete. He had laboriously gathered the materials out of every nation and tongue; he had painfully perfected the vast design; but, when standing on the very verge of triumph, he was doomed to see life-long hopes extinguished forever, success slipped from his nerveless grasp in the moment of victory. Surely he might join in the passionate lament:

The subjects which De Quincey has critically investigated are very numerous, and it cannot be expected that our limits will permit any exhaustive enumeration of them. We propose to select a few of the more prominent, which will serve as exponents of the whole.

De Quincey's views on war will doubtless be astounding to most persons who have never given the subject any very particular attention. Deluded by the false doctrines of peace societies, they doubtless regard war as an evil, at once inhuman and unneces[Pg 654]sary. Altogether hostile to this idea is the position of De Quincey; he solemnly declares that war neither can be abolished nor ought to be. 'Most heartily,' says he, 'and with my profoundest sympathy, do I go along with Wordsworth in his grand lyrical proclamation of a truth not less divine than it is mysterious, not less triumphant than it is sorrowful, namely, that among God's holiest instruments for the elevation of human nature is 'mutual slaughter' among men; yes, that 'Carnage is God's daughter.'' 'Any confederation or compact of nations for abolishing war would be the inauguration of a downward path for man.' 'There is a mystery in approaching this aspect of the case which no man has read fully. War has a deeper and more ineffable relation to hidden grandeurs in man than has as yet been deciphered. To execute judgments of retribution upon outrages offered to human rights or to human dignity, to vindicate the sanctities of the altar and the sanctities of the hearth—these are functions of human greatness which war has many times assumed, and many times faithfully discharged. But behind all these there towers dimly a greater. The great phenomenon of war it is—this, and this only—which keeps open in man a spiracle—an organ of respiration—for breathing a transcendent atmosphere, and dealing with an idea that else would perish—viz., the idea of mixed crusade and martyrdom, doing and suffering, that finds its realization in such a battle as that of Waterloo—viz., a battle fought for interests of the human race felt even where they are not understood; so that the tutelary angel of man, when he traverses such a dreadful field, when he reads the distorted features, counts the ghastly ruins, sums the hidden anguish, and the harvests

'Of horror breathing from the silent ground,'

nevertheless, speaking as God's messenger, blesses it, and calls it very good.'

Startling as these assertions may appear at first sight, they are, notwithstanding, profoundly philosophical; all history proclaims their solemn truth—is, in fact, totally inexplicable and confused on any other supposition. History is by no means merely biography condensed; far from it; biography is concerned with the shifting and ephemeral career of individual men; but history, far transcending that lowly sphere, records the revolution and progress of principles; these succeed each other in everlasting succession, like the revolution of day and night; and individuals rise into importance only as they stand related to, are the agents of, this progress. The future is forever supplanting the present; the feud is immortal—the antagonism inevitable; if effete ideas and principles, which have accomplished their mission, refuse to retire and peaceably give place to their legitimate successors, conflict arises of necessity—a conflict in which the usurper must finally triumph, or the wheels of human progress will be effectually blocked. War, then, is necessary to the advance of humanity. Although De Quincey discerns the absolute extinction of war only at the 'infinite and starry distance of the Millennium,' still, as its enginery is becoming more and more destructive, its danger and expense increasing, as the progress of civilization is gradually effacing the darker stains from human society, and luring it from the path of violence by the charm of luxurious repose, the necessity of war will gradually disappear—its total decline approach. We would remark in passing that De Quincey is altogether too captious in his criticisms upon French ideas of war. So far as the majority of men are concerned, whether Englishmen or Frenchmen, little pain is taken to search out the philosophy of events. But Cousin, in his 'Course of History,' has asserted, even more peremptorily than De Quincey himself, the divine mission of war. He essentially declares that car[Pg 655]nage is always and of necessity God's daughter: to this extreme doctrine Mr. de Quincey would doubtless demur, averring that 'by possibility' such might not be the case.

Still profounder insight is disclosed in the article on 'Christianity as an Organ of Political Movement.' It was a chance perusal of this essay that first turned our attention to De Quincey's writings, and we involuntarily exclaimed, as did he when first falling upon Ricardo's work, 'Thou art the man!' The object in view is to distinguish accurately between the Christian and pagan idea of religion. There has been great confusion on this point. What is involved in the term religion as used by a Christian? According to De Quincey there are four elements: 1st. A form of worship; 2d. An idea of God; 3d. The idea of a relation subsisting between God and His creatures; 4th. A doctrinal part. Now, of these cardinal elements, only one, that of worship, was present in pagan religions, and even this was so completely distorted, arose from impulses so utterly despicable, as to be positively immoral in its tendencies. The gods were, to their worshippers, dreadful realities—monsters of crime, at once powerful and vindictive—the very footballs of unhallowed passion; hence worship was not the result of love or reverence, or even of a regard to future interests, but it was simply an expedient to shun danger immediately behind—a mock truce between immortal foes, which either party might violate at pleasure. 'Because the gods were wicked, man was religious; because Olympus was cruel, earth trembled; because the divine beings were the most lawless of Thugs, the human being became the most abject of sycophants.' Even in the most solemn mysteries no such thing as instruction was known—'the priest did not address the people at all.' Hence all moral theories, all doctrinal teaching was utterly disjoined from ancient religions—that was resigned to nature—and, consequently, powerless alike to instruct men or command their respect, they had no inherent, self-sustaining energy, but were built upon a mere impulse, and that impulse was the most abject terror. Where, then, lurks the transcendent power of Christianity as an organ of political movement? Simply in the fact that it brings men into the most tender and affecting relations with God, and, over and above this, that it rests upon a dogmatic or doctrinal basis. These features were never suspected even as possible until Christianity revealed them. Hence Christianity 'carried along with itself its own authentication; since, while other religions introduced men simply to ceremonies and usages, which could furnish no aliment or material for their intellect, Christianity provided an eternal palæstra, or place of exercise, for the human understanding vitalized by human affections: for every problem whatever, interesting to the human intellect, provided only that it bears a moral aspect, immediately passes into the field of religious speculation. Religion had thus become the great organ of human culture.' Of this profound distinction De Quincey was the original discoverer.

It is known, of course, to every literary person, that Bentley attempted to amend Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' and that, on the whole, he made a very signal failure. It has been a matter of great surprise on the part of many, that one who is so confessedly superior in the criticism of classical poetry, whose ear was so exquisitely sensitive and accurate when awakened by ancient lyres, should prove himself such a driveller in the presence of the grandest cathedral-music of modern times. Coleridge took occasion to observe that it was only our ignorance that prevented Bentley's emendations and innovations from appearing as monstrous and unnatural in the poetry of the ancients as in that of John Milton. The charge appears very plausible and[Pg 656] damaging at first sight. We notice it in order to exhibit De Quincey's marvellous sagacity in detecting the true relation of things: he utterly dissipated the force of the cavil by simply stating the actual bearings of the two classes of poetry. Ancient poetry was darkly austere and practical; the imagination was fettered by a grim austerity; the merely passionate—that which proceeds from the sphere of the sensibilities alone—finds no resting place in its vast domain; but in the poetry of Milton the element of passion is triumphant; hence Bentley, with his icy, critical, matter-of-fact temperament, could never appreciate Milton's majestic flights. We cannot refrain from quoting, at this point, De Quincey's acute and beautiful parallel between Grecian and English tragedy:

It is not to be expected that we can fully traverse and explore this vast section of De Quincey's writings; that would be a task beyond our present resources; and, consequently, we are compelled to pass unnoticed keen dissections of history; ingenious, although sometimes untenable, theories regarding the Essenes, the supposed expressions for eternity in the Scriptures, the character of Judas Iscariot, the doctrine of demons, the principles of casuistry, style, and rhetoric; the discussions of various points in philosophy and logic; the prodigality of erudition displayed in the articles on Plato, Homer, Dinner Real and Reputed, Bentley; the transcendent critical skill revealed in the little paper entitled 'The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth,' in the essays on Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Lamb, and others; the minute dissections of feeling and passion scattered broadcast throughout his writings. We shall content ourselves with merely adducing another illustration of our author's extremely speculative and metaphysical cast of mind, and then close this section of the review. This is taken from that touchingly beautiful chapter in the 'Autobiographic Sketches,' entitled 'The Afflictions of Childhood.' De Quincey, even in his childhood, was profoundly sensitive, and capable[Pg 657] of forming the most ardent attachments. Tender and absorbing was the love which had sprung up between himself and his sister Elizabeth; she was the joy of his life—she was supreme in his affections. At the age of nine years she suddenly sickened and died; De Quincey, although younger by three years, was overwhelmed with unspeakable agony. When his sister had been dressed for the grave, he stole silently and alone into her chamber to look once more upon her beautiful face, to kiss once more her sweet lips: while standing by the bedside he is suddenly struck down in a trance, and his description of the scene is one of the noblest prose poems in the English language. But even here, amid the absorbing disclosures of a frantic sorrow, when the mighty swell of passion had reached its culmination, and a solemn Memnonian wind, 'the saddest that ear ever heard,' began to arise, and the seals of a heavenly vision were about to be unloosed—even here he pauses, philosophically to 'explain why death, other conditions being equal, is more profoundly affecting in summer than in other parts of the year'!

We have said that De Quincey was an eminent master of the historic art. His power in this direction is signally displayed in his account of 'The Household Wreck,' 'The Spanish Nun,' 'The First Rebellion,' and the 'Flight of a Tartar Tribe.' 'The Household Wreck' is a powerful and dramatic narrative, but the plot is somewhat confused; on the whole, it is decidedly inferior to the 'Spanish Nun.' The nun is a bona-fide historical personage, and her career is delineated with surprising effect. She was the daughter of a Spanish hidalgo, who pitilessly carried her in infancy to the Convent of St. Sebastian, where she remained until the age of fifteen; the quietude of that cloistered life her stormy spirit could no longer brook; she eloped, assumed male attire, became the page of a nobleman, at whose house she saw that 'old crocodile,' her father, who was now searching with mock solicitude for his absconded daughter; exposure was imminent; no safety remained until the ocean divided her from Spain, and her plans were formed at once; the nun embarked for South America, doubled Cape Horn, was shipwrecked on the coast of Peru; finally arrived at Paita; killed a man in a street encounter; escaped death only by promising to marry a lady who had fallen in love with her; once again there was no security but in flight; she joined a cavalry regiment commanded by her own brother, to whom she was unknown; him she unwittingly killed in a midnight duel; then follow the terrific passage of the Andes, the fearful tragedies at Tucuman and Cuzco, her return to Europe in compliance with royal and papal commands; she approaches the port of Cadiz; myriads upon myriads line the shore and cover the houses to catch a glimpse of the martial nun; cardinals and kings and popes hasten to embrace her; the thunders of popular welcome arise wherever she appears; but the nun finds no rest; terrific memories rankle in her bosom, and blast her repose; again she embarks for America; but then, how closed that career, so tragically tempestuous? The nun reached Vera Cruz; she took her seat in the boat to go ashore; no more is known; her fate is concealed in impenetrable mystery; 'the sea was searched for her—the forests were ransacked. The sea made no answer—the forests gave up no sign.' These incidents, which are historical verities, are wrought up into a narrative of absorbing power.

In De Quincey's brief sketch of the 'First Rebellion' are found some graphic historical paintings. The following is his description of the panic at Enniscorthy, at the moment when the rebels had carried the place by assault:[Pg 658]

'Now came a scene, which swallowed up all distinct or separate features in its frantic confluence of horrors. All the loyalists of Enniscorthy, all the gentry for miles around, who had congregated in that town, as a centre of security, were summoned at that moment, not to an orderly retreat, but to instant flight. At one end of the street were seen the rebel pikes and bayonets, and fierce faces already gleaming through the smoke; at the other end, volumes of fire, surging and billowing from the thatched roofs and blazing rafters, beginning to block up the avenues of escape. Then began the agony and uttermost conflict of what is worst and what is best in human nature. Then was to be seen the very delirium of fear, and the very delirium of vindictive malice; private and ignoble hatred of ancient origin, shrouding itself in the mask of patriotic wrath; the tiger glare of just vengeance, fresh from intolerable wrongs, and the never-to-be-forgotten ignominy of stripes and personal degradation; panic, self-palsied by its own excess; flight, eager or stealthy, according to the temper and means; volleying pursuit; the very frenzy of agitation under every mode of excitement; and here and there, towering aloft, the desperation of maternal love, victorious and supreme over all lower passions.'

There is a species of narrative in the 'Autobiographic Sketches,' of a somewhat different cast from that which we have been contemplating, less grand and passionate, perhaps, but more tender and exquisite—overspread with a quieter and mellower humor. We refer to the account of his brother William. He was a youth of the stormiest nature, a genuine cloud-compeller, forever raising storms and whirlwinds merely for the pleasure of directing them; 'haughty he was, aspiring, immeasurably active; fertile in resources as Robinson Crusoe; but also full of quarrel as it is possible to imagine; and in default of any other opponent, he would have fastened a quarrel upon his own shadow for presuming to run before him when going westward in the morning; whereas, in all reason, a shadow, like a dutiful child, ought to keep deferentially in the rear of that majestic substance which is the author of its existence.' He hated books, except those which he chanced to write himself; he was especially great on the subject of necromancy; was even the author of a profound work, entitled 'How to Raise a Ghost, and when You have Got Him Down, how to Keep Him Down.' 'To which work, he assured us, that some most learned and enormous man, whose name was a foot and a half long, had promised him an appendix, which appendix treated of the Red Sea and Solomon's signet ring, with forms of mittimus for ghosts that might be refractory, and probably a riot act for any émeute among ghosts;' for he often gravely affirmed that a confederation, 'a solemn league and conspiracy, might take place among the infinite generations of ghosts against the single generation of men at any one time composing the garrison of death.' Deeming this subject too recondite for his juvenile audience, he dropped it, and commenced a course of lectures upon physics. 'This undertaking arose from some one of us envying or admiring flies for their power of walking upon the ceiling. 'Poh!' said he, 'they are impostors; they pretend to do it, but they can't do it as it ought to be done. Ah! you should see me standing upright on the ceiling, with my head downward, for half an hour together, and meditating profoundly.' My sister Mary remarked that we should all be very glad to see him in that position. 'If that's the case,' he replied, 'it's very well that all is ready except as to a strap or two.' Being an excellent skater, he had first imagined that, if held up till he had started, he might then, by taking a bold sweep ahead, keep himself in position through the continued impetus of skating. But this he found not to answer; because, as he observed, 'the friction was too retarding from the plaster of Paris; but the case would be very different if the ceiling were covered with ice.' But as[Pg 659] it was not, he changed his plan. The true secret, he now discovered, was this: he would consider himself in the light of a humming top; he would make an apparatus (and he made it) for having himself launched, like a top, upon the ceiling, and regularly spun. Then the vertiginous motion of the human top would overcome the force of gravitation. He should, of course, spin upon his own axis, and sleep upon his own axis—perhaps he might even dream upon it; and he laughed at 'those scoundrels, the flies,' that never improved in their pretended art, nor made anything of it. The principle was now discovered; 'and, of course,' he said, 'if a man can keep it up for five minutes, what's to hinder him from doing so for five months?' 'Certainly, nothing that I can think of,' was the reply of my sister, whose scepticism, in fact, had not settled upon the five months, but altogether upon the five minutes. The apparatus for spinning him, however, perhaps from its complexity, would not work—a fact evidently owing to the stupidity of the gardener. On reconsidering the subject, he announced, to the disappointment of some among us, that, although the physical discovery was now complete, he saw a moral difficulty. It was not a humming top that was required, but a peg top. Now, in order to keep up the vertigo at full stretch, without which, to a certain extent, gravitation would prove too much for him, he needed to be whipped incessantly. But that was what a gentleman ought not to tolerate: to be scourged unintermittingly on the legs by any grub of a gardener, unless it were Father Adam himself, was a thing that he could not bring his mind to face.' Attempted improvements in the art of flying, which, he alleged, was then 'in a condition disgraceful to civilized society;' the composition and exhibition of that bloody tragedy, 'Sultan Amurath;' the conduct of a protracted war which arose out of a fancied insult from a factory boy, whom, surveying with intense disdain, 'he bade draw near that he might 'give his flesh to the fowls of the air!'' the government of the imaginary kingdom of 'Tigrosylvania'—occupied the attention of this hundred-handed youth until his death, at the age of sixteen—all of which is narrated with unequalled pathos and humor. But there is still another section of the narrative art, yet more sublime and unapproachable, where De Quincey stands alone—the section in which are recorded his dreams. These are without a rival or even a precedent in the English language; nay, purely impassioned prose as 'The Confessions' and 'Suspiria de Profundis' is scarcely to be found in any language; but the narration of dreams, while exposed to all its difficulties, is invested with superadded difficulties, arising from the shifting, visionary character of the world in which its scenes are laid, 'where a single false note, a single word in a wrong key, will ruin the whole music.' De Quincey's habit of dreaming was constitutional, and displayed itself even in infancy. He was naturally extremely sensitive, and of a melancholy temperament; he was so passionately fond of undisturbed repose, that he willingly submitted to any amount of contempt if he could only be let alone; he had that weird faculty which is forever peopling the darkness with myriads of phantoms; then came the afflictions of childhood—that night, which ran after his footsteps far into life—and finally came opium, which is a specific 'for exalting the dream scenery, for deepening its shadows, and, above all, for strengthening the sense of its fearful realities:' all these allied characteristics and circumstances, combined with his vast intellectual capacity, imparted to De Quincey's dreams a terrific grandeur. They were sometimes frightful, sometimes sublime, but always accompanied by anxiety and melancholy gloom. 'I seemed,' says he, 'every night to de[Pg 660]scend—not metaphorically, but literally to descend—into chasms and sunless abysses, depths below depths, from which it seemed hopeless that I could ever reascend. Nor did I, by awaking, feel that I had reascended. This I do not dwell upon; because the state of gloom which attended these gorgeous spectacles, amounting, at least, to utter darkness, as of some suicidal despondency, cannot be approached by words.' De Quincey's most elaborate dreams are: 'The Daughter of Lebanon,' 'Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow,' 'The Vision of Sudden Death,' and 'Dream Fugue.' The last named is the most perfect in its conception, the most powerful in its execution. It is too long to quote, too sublime to be marred by abbreviation. If any one desires to see what can be done with the English language in an 'effort to wrestle with the utmost power of music,' let him read that dream. We shall, meanwhile, present one from the year 1820, and leave the reader to form his own estimate of it:

O mighty magician!

In point of style and general method of treating subjects, De Quincey's greatest faults are pedantry and discursiveness. Of the former we have no defence to make; we think that, in writing avowedly for the public, and not for any particular class, the use of technical terms merely because they are technical, and of learned terms merely because they are learned, is a positive blemish. But still greater offence is given to many readers by the occasional practice of discursiveness; we employ the epithet intentionally, for the habit is by no means so inveterate as many seem to suppose. Yet even where it is most triumphant, there is, nevertheless, a goal to be reached—a goal which will finally be reached, despite interminable zigzags and 'harsh angles.' This peculiarity was, doubtless, in a great degree occasioned by the use of opium. Opium, even amid the very delirium of rapture it produces, nay, in consequence of that delirium, is hostile to strictly logical thought; the excitation approaches the character of an intuition; the glance, however keen and farsighted, is not steady; it is restless, fitful, veering forever with the movements of an unnatural stimulation; but when the exaltation has subsided, and the dread reaction and nervous depression succeeded, this result is in[Pg 661]tensified a hundred fold, and gradually shapes itself into a confirmed habit. Even if the use of opium was positively beneficial to the intellect, still its dreadful havoc with the physical system would far more than outweigh its contributions in that direction. But, so far is that from being the truth in the case, that opium, at best, has only a revealing, a disclosing power; it cannot, even in the lowest sense of the term, be called a creative lower. Let a man dream dreams as gorgeous as De Quincey's, it does not at all follow that he can write like De Quincey; as related to literature, the grandeur of dreams depends absolutely upon the dreamer's mastery of the narrative art, which the dreaming faculty itself does not either presuppose or bestow. But, over and above all this, universal experience has declared that the use of opium is fatally hostile to any very protracted mental power. It ravages the mind no less fearfully than it does the body—precipitates both in one common ruin; by it ordinary men are speedily degraded to hopeless impotence, and the most mighty shorn of half their power—a swift-pursuing shadow closes suddenly and forever over the transient gleam of unnatural splendor. These considerations account in part for De Quincey's discursiveness, but perhaps not wholly. Discursiveness is not without its beauties. We believe in logic, but still it is pleasant, at times, to see a writer sport with his subject, to see him gallop at will, unconfined by the ring circle of strict severity. Nor is this all. Possibly the apparent discursiveness may be only the preliminary journeying by which we are to secure some new and startling view of the subject. Perhaps you may consider these initial movements needlessly protracted and fatiguing; but trust your guide; whatever your private opinion, at the time, may be, he will never miss the road, and when at last you are in the proper position for observation, the thrill of unwonted pleasure will swallow up all memory of former efforts and former misgivings. Occasionally such is not the case; for instance, in the papers on Sir William Hamilton. They are three in number. Nearly half of the first is taken up in describing the difficulties under which the writer suffers of communicating with his publishers; the nervous maladies that torment his happiness; the limits of time and space so narrowly circumscribed. The same strain is taken up in the second paper. We have short dissertations on the deadly 'hiatus in the harness which should connect the pre-revolutionary with the post-revolutionary commonwealths of England;' on the adjective old, and the aged noun civilation; then comes a general belaboring of athletes and gymnasts, at which point Sir William fairly emerges into view; suddenly our author seems to recollect that his space is fast diminishing, and concludes to 'take a rise out of something or other' at once; sets down Sir William as a genuine logician, and immediately commences the consideration of several ancient word puzzles, one of which is stated in a very business-like manner: 'Vermin in account with the divine and long-legged Pelides.' Logic is pretty uniformly the subject of the third paper, and no inferior acquaintance with the topic is displayed; but we see very little of Sir William Hamilton in this miscellaneous collection. But unpardonable wandering is of extremely rare occurrence; and, on the whole, the evils of discursiveness are altogether outweighed by the positive advantages and beauties to which we have referred. To this characteristic trait must be added another—the dramatic and cumulative manner in which the subjects discussed are treated. That gives to De Quincey's style increased power and increased beauty; artistic symmetry is superinduced upon solid excellence. This peculiarity is especially noticeable in narratives where the element of horror is central, as in[Pg 662] 'The Avenger.' The gentle whisper rises, gradually and by insensible degrees, to the awful voice of the thunderbolt. The prelude is calm enough, sweet enough, but soon the music ascends to a fiercer key; the plot darkens; the crisis gathers; louder and more tumultuous waxes the fiendish tumult, until all lesser passions are swallowed up, and the empire of a blank, rayless revenge is triumphant; we are spellbound amid the successive stages of the demoniac tragedy; we start up convulsively, as from the horrors of nightmare, at its ghastly catastrophe. But, over and above all this, in that melody, in that music of style, which exalts prose to the dignity of poetry, De Quincey is absolutely without a rival. Read the 'Confessions,' or the 'Autobiographic Sketches,' or the touching tribute to the Maid of Orleans, and all doubt upon that point will disappear. Besides, over the surface of his writings there ripples a quaint, genial humor, which is, for the most part, kept within the limits of propriety by an exquisite taste. In marked contrast to many of our most illustrious writers, De Quincey always exhibits a profound respect for Christianity. Listen to his indignant rebuke of Kant, who, in his work on 'Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason,' had expressed opinions so utterly atheistical as to draw forth severe menaces from the reigning King of Prussia, Frederic William the Second: 'Surely, gray hairs and irreligion make a monstrous union; and the spirit of proselytism carried into the service of infidelity—a youthful zeal put forth by a tottering, decrepid old man, to withdraw from desponding and suffering human nature its most essential props, whether for action or suffering, for conscience or for hope, is a spectacle too disgusting to leave room for much sympathy with merit of another kind.' Finally, we love De Quincey for his abhorrence of all knavish or quackish men, and his deep respect for human nature. We suspect that but few dignitaries of the past ever received so sound a 'knouting' as did that 'accursed Jew' Josephus, at his hands; nor do Grotius and Dr. Parr fare much better. He believes Josephus to be a villain, Grotius and Dr. Parr literary impostors, and he strips off their masks in a very summary manner. But with the trials, the struggles, the miseries of humanity, no man more profoundly sympathizes than Thomas de Quincey. 'Oftentimes,' says he, speaking of the daily police reports, 'oftentimes I stand aghast at the revelations there made of human life and the human heart; at its colossal guilt, and its colossal misery; at the suffering which oftentimes throws a shadow over palaces, and the grandeur of mute endurance which sometimes glorifies a cottage.' How touching is his memorial of those forlorn twin sisters, who 'snatched convulsively at a loving smile, or loving gesture, from a child, as at some message of remembrance from God;' how tender his tribute to 'poor Pink;' how affecting his devotion to unhappy Ann, whom, in the strength of his gratitude, he could 'pursue into the darkness of a London brothel, or into the deeper darkness of the grave'!

But we must close. We have found De Quincey a subtile philosopher, a mighty master of the historic art, a prose poet of unrivalled splendor. To powers so versatile and extraordinary, combined with learning so profound, and a style of such matchless brilliance, we believe that no other writer of the present age can lay any great claims. Still we take our leave of that eccentric, storm-tossed man of genius with feelings of profound regret. Great as his contributions to literature are, he might have done vastly more. But nervous maladies blasted his hopes, overthrew his colossal designs, and he evermore drifts down the ages a wreck—splendid, brilliant, the admiration of all beholders—but none the less a wreck.[Pg 663]

'FEED MY LAMBS.'

PART FIRST.

Harry has crept to his little bed, shivering with childish dread of the dark. Ungentle hands have placed him there, guardians careless of his comfort and chary of kind words and looks, and a coarse-voiced girl has said, as she took the light away, and banged the door behind her:

'Cry out loud, you little imp, and I'll send the black bears to catch you.'

So Harry is choking down his sobs, and crying silently, very silently. The chill and melancholy night wind, as it comes moaning through the casement and rustling the light leaves of the tall poplar as they rest against the window panes, and the great round tears as they fall with a dull, heavy drop, drop on his lonely pillow, are the only sounds that break the dismal stillness, excepting now and then, when a great sob, too mighty to be choked down, bursts from the little, overcharged heart. And then Harry fancies he feels, through the thin coverlet and torn night dress, the huge black paws of these same bears grasping the tender round shoulder, blue with the cold, while the little boy lies there shivering and shuddering in an agony of apprehension. Darkness above and around him, terrible, black, silent darkness; darkness which enwraps and enfolds him and takes away his breath, like the heavy, stifling folds of a hideous black mantle; darkness that the active imagination of the timid child peoples with phantom shapes, grotesque and horrible—forms made unnaturally visible by their own light, that mouth and leer, and stretch out distorted arms to seize him, whose appalling presence fills the room from floor to ceiling, and which eddy and circle around him in horrid demon dances, whirling gradually nearer and nearer, until myriads of hideous faces are thrust close to his own, or grin above him, while he chokes for breath—forms that make the cold sweat stand on his baby forehead, and freeze the blood in his veins, that he watches night after night, with his blue eyes starting from their sockets and his hair standing on end, that make of the desolate nighttime a dread and a horror! And there is no one to kneel beside his lonely bed and tell the frightened child, sick with dread, that there are no such things as odious black dwarfs, who drag young children off to dark and dismal dungeons by the hair of their head, nor great giants, who grow always bigger as you look at them, and who eat up, at a mouthful, little boys who cry in the dark. No tender mother bends low with all but divine compassion to listen to his little sorrows, or soothe his childish fears—to teach him his simple prayers, or tell him sweet stories of a little child like himself, before whose lowly cradle wise men bowed as at a shrine, and to do whom reverence shining ones came from a far-distant country. There is no one to pillow his curly head upon a loving bosom, and lull him to sleep with quaint old lullabies. Harry is worse than motherless.

So on the night in question, as on all other nights preceding, poor Harry, worn out with fright and weariness, is dropping to sleep from sheer exhaustion, closing his swollen eyes in troubled slumber, when, half unconsciously turning his curly head upon the pillow to find a dry place for the wet cheek to rest against, something bright and shining makes long lines of light in the tears still wet on Harry's lashes, and wakes him up again.

Such a bright, beautiful star it is. One that has been slowly rising, climbing the blue outside, until it reaches a[Pg 664] break in the foliage of the tree before the window, and shines straight into Harry's eyes. Something of that strange solemnity that fills minds of a maturer growth when gazing on the starry heavens, hushes that baby's soul into reverence as he looks upon it. The terrible shapes melt away into the gloom, he feels no dread of the dark now, and vaguely and gradually there arises the first dim consciousness of the deep spiritual want within him—the first awakened desire of the finite soul to see and find the Infinite Father and claim his protection. Fragments of childish hymns, parts of simple prayers, such poor and scattered crumbs of spiritual instruction as he has gleaned here and there somehow, and on which the infant soul has been but meagrely fed, crowd in upon him. Then come wondering thoughts of that great good Being, that strange, unfathomable mystery, whose name is God, Who lives up in the blue somewhere, and yet is everywhere. This problem of Omnipresence he has pondered and pondered over, and reasoned upon, in his childish fashion, but now it dawns with a newer and clearer light on Harry's mind. God is everywhere. To his awakened spiritual perception this holy, mysterious, and invisible presence seems pervading the sky, the air, the earth, filling and enfolding all things. Night after night, as he had lain there sobbing and crying and thought himself all alone in the darkness, this great good God had been with him all the time, and he had never known it, never felt it until now; and, overwhelmed by the mighty thought, powerfully felt, though imperfectly comprehended, awestruck Harry, tremulous with reverence, obedient to some childish fancy that the name of father is not holy and reverent enough for such a Being, folds his tiny hands, earnestly praying:

'Our Grandfather which art in heaven, stay near poor Harry in the dark, and keep the bears away!'

Is it faith or fancy, that soft, gentle, summery atmosphere that fills the room, and makes the little, lonely heart thrill as with the pleasant consciousness of a loving presence? It is real to Harry, with his child's undoubting faith. Stretching forth his rounded arms, and clasping the dark, impalpable air in a joyous embrace, he nestles closely to the wet pillow as if it were a loving bosom, and falls asleep with a smile upon his lip. A childhood robbed of childish joys and pleasures, the little, insignificant trifles which form its sum of happiness, denied the sympathetic love and tenderness which is the life of little hearts, deprived of the pleasures suited to its state, yet too immature to turn within itself for comfort in its need, its life without and within a dull, joyless, dreary blank—such was poor Harry's, for a shadow dark and terrible rested on his baby heart and home, a something that darkened and deepened day by day, and grew more and more insupportable as the weary time crept on. What it was, and how long it had rested there before he became conscious of its presence, and whether his miserable home had ever been free from it and ever been a happy one, little Harry never knew. All his brief life it had lain there. Its shadow had crept into the violet eyes with the first faint glimmer of intelligence, and when the new-born soul, mysterious breath of God, first woke from its mystic dreaming, and looked consciously out upon the world into which it had come, its baleful presence crept into that holy sanctuary, and darkened what should have been cloudless as well as sinless. He had drawn it in with every breath from the atmosphere of the little world around him; it rested on all he came in contact with, and gradually and sadly there arose in the mind too immature to comprehend the cause and the nature of this desolating power, yet feeling vaguely day by day its blighting effects, sorrowful and earnest questionings—questionings like the fol[Pg 665]lowing, to which there came back no answer to the little, suffering heart:

Why his home (if home it may be called in which the heart finds no resting place), the four walls that enclosed the place where he ate and slept, was such a dull, joyless, lonesome spot? What that dark something was that shadowed its light and took from it all joy and comfort, causing every face within it to wear a melancholy or forbidding aspect? Why there was no glad smile even on his father's lips, when he came to seek the sad young creatures that crept silently to his knee and looked wistfully up into the care-worn face; and why, though loving and kind, he was always kind with that sorrowful tenderness which makes sad hearts the sadder? Why this craving that he feels within him, this half-undefined, insatiable longing for maternal love and sympathy? What had sealed from the thirsting heart this purest fountain of earthly tenderness?

A mother's form was present to him day by day, but where was the maternal heart of love which should have beat within that bosom? 'Can a mother forget her children?' There is a fell and terrible destroyer, which murders peace in hearts and homes, whose very breath is a mildew and a blight, in whose desolating track follow woe, want, and ruin; a fierce, insatiable appetite, trebly cursed, that makes of life a loathsome degradation, and fills dishonored graves, blighting all that is divine and godlike in human nature, sealing the gushing fountain of maternal tenderness, and teaching even a mother's heart forgetfulness. O God! of what punishment shall thy justice deem those worthy, who, by cold neglect, cruelty, or shameful slavery to such a passion, shut out the light, and check the rich and limitless expansion of all that is divine in the souls committed to their charge? Ah! what did it matter that there were honorable titles affixed to the name so disgraced, that in the home thus blighted were all the luxuries and appliances of wealth, that rare pictures hung against its walls, carpets covered the floors whose velvet surface muffled the footfalls, costly curtains shut out the too garish light, that servants were at command, well paid to take care of the neglected children, paid to care for the house, and all fine things within it, and—paid to keep its secrets! What did all this matter to the miserable possessor of wealth and name, the disgraced husband, the heart-broken father? He could comprehend this woe in all its bearings, could measure the length, the breadth, the depth of the curse that had lighted upon him? Homes there were whose walls and floors were bare, whose windows were shaded by no costly curtains, but from which happy faces looked—lowly homes, poor in this world's wealth, but rich in domestic peace and love; and for the blessed quiet of their lowly hearthstones, he would joyfully have bartered wealth and fame, and all such dross as men call happiness. And Harry saw them too. The little, lonely heart, saddened by a shadow it could not comprehend, from its own gloomy home turned longingly to their homely cheerfulness, as flowers turn to the light.

One in particular had attracted his childish notice. It was just across the road; he could see it from the window of the nursery where he played, and he used to leave his play to watch it. Such glimpses of a happy home had streamed through its opening portals and fallen on the heart of the little solitary watcher like a benison. What hasty peeps he took at its homely brightness as the door opened and closed, and what long, long looks he bestowed upon it, when it stood open for hours together, as it did now in the fine June weather! It was only a simple cottage. Too unpretending for hall or entry, the little parlor opened into the street, and from the window where he stood, Harry could see straight into it. There it was, with its bright pa[Pg 666]pered walls, and gay red carpet, its deep low window seat looking like a garden, where flowers bloomed and frail exotics stretched forth their delicate leaves to bathe in the sunlight that came streaming in, and cunning little yellow birds, in quaint, tiny cages, sang the long day through. And there—oh, busy fingers! making neat and bright the little home—heart of love, shedding blessed sunlight around it—there, so busy and blithe, so happy and gay, sat the presiding genius of the place, with a face so bright and good—just such a face as you would expect to see in such a home; one that sad and disappointed mortals, meeting in the street, would turn to for a second look, and bless it as it passed; a face to which childhood cleaves instinctively, sure of ready sympathy with its little joys and sorrows; one that would never be disfigured by envy or malice; never grow black with passion, and oh! never, never look senseless, idiotic, and drivelling, as another face on which he looked so often did; but to Harry's fancy, it was like the sky on a calm summer's day, always pure and bright, and always the same. It was brighter and happier and better altogether when, in the fresh morning time, the little lady went tripping by on the pavement beneath the window with a small market basket on her arm. Then Harry, clambering to the sill, and leaning out, could see straight into it; and sometimes it happened that, attracted by that fixed gaze of earnest admiration, that happy face would be turned upward, and break into a beaming smile, as the sunny eyes met the large, blue, mournful orbs looking down upon them. Then there would be a smile on the lip and a song in the heart of the little watcher for the rest of the day. Cheering and dear as that face had ever been to him since he had first had the happiness of beholding it, much as he had watched and loved it, it had drawn him with a more potent attraction still and grown doubly dear of late. He had been within the sacred precincts of a true home; he had breathed that atmosphere of heaven; he knew how that small, snug, cosy room looked to its inmates now. Yes, he had been there, and his going in chanced in the following manner:

This lady, whose cheerful presence was fast becoming a benison to Harry, had, among her other bright possessions, a rosy-cheeked, laughing-eyed, frolicsome mischief, about Harry's age, and he had recently come from the country happier, merrier, and fresher than ever, having still, as it were, about him the fragrant breath of the wood-violets, the purity of the unvitiated air, the freedom of the broad, green fields, the fragrant atmosphere of all the delightful things with which he had been so recently in contact.

One morning, not long after his coming, the cross girl who put Harry to bed at night, marshalled him and his brother out (as was her wont in fine weather) for a dreary promenade, which usually agreeable exercise consisted in the present instance in marching down a dusty stone pavement, by a long, unbroken line of brick buildings, up one street, and down another (for they always went the same way), until they came to a huge, dreary-looking schoolhouse, where they left Charley, and came back more drearily than they went. Well, on this particular morning, Charley had forgotten his slate, and he and the girl returning to search for it left Harry at the gate to await their return. The little urchin, just at that precise moment, spying Harry solus, and impelled by the agreeable prospect of a playfellow, rushed across the street, at the imminent danger of being run over, to scrape acquaintance.

'Come, and play with me,' cried the little fellow, bounding up to Harry in all the ardor of a glowing anticipation, eagerly folding one thin hand in both his dimpled ones, and flashing a whole flood of sunlight into the sad young eyes that so timidly met his sunny ones.[Pg 667] 'Come, and play with me, do! and we'll play at horse and build mud houses, and ma'll give us lots of candy and raisins, and a great big doughnut, ever so big, as big as my hands and your hands, and all our hands put together.'

'I can't,' said Harry, sadly resigning all thought of these rare dainties. 'Betty'll scold so!'

'We'll sit on the bank under the willow at the back of the house,' pursued the tempter, folding the hand he held still tighter within his own, 'where she can't see us; and when she comes to take you away, I'll bite her.'

The youthful pleader had unconsciously used the most potent argument possible. Harry wavered. To sit on a green bank under a willow, with such a sunny-faced companion as that, and listen to the birds singing in the branches, and the rustling of the leaves—to look up through the green, and see patches of blue sky through breaks in the foliage—and then, too, oh, blessed hope! to see the lady whom he regarded with such enthusiastic and reverent devotion, and to whose love he clung with all the wild tenacity of a desolate heart—to see her smile, and hear her speak—to him, perhaps; all this rose like a glorious vision before Harry, and the possibility of its realization sent the light to his eyes and the color to his face.

The contemplated walk in the hot, dusty streets, with the cross Betty—(which tyrannical young female, having brought the children, as it were, under military rule, and being a rigid disciplinarian, seldom failed to punish some fancied dereliction of duty by sundry shakes and pinches as they went along)—this prospect, placed beside the bright, cool picture his fancy had conjured up, seemed more unendurable than ever. With one quick glance toward the house, to see if that ogre, having in custody that form a little taller and face a little older and sadder than his own, was making her appearance, Harry, seized by an irresistible impulse, and still holding fast the chubby hand that had taken his so confidingly, bounded from the pavement, dashed across the road, and both dashed through the garden and into the cosy parlor in a trice, panting like young racehorses. And there, in the brightest spot of the snug, bright room, by that bower of a window, sat the sunny-faced lady whom Harry's childish imagination had exalted into a superior being. Abashed at having so rudely rushed into that revered presence, Harry stood shyly by the door, trembling with embarrassment, while his more active companion, releasing his hand, bounded across the room, and, clambering up into his mother's lap and putting his arms around her neck and his rosebud of a mouth close to her ear, commenced a whispered explanation.

There was something strangely attractive in that mother's face, as she pushed back the clustering hair, after smilingly listening to the story, and pressed a fervent kiss upon that baby brow—a look which had never been on any face for him, but which he had dreamed of at night, and longed for by day, with a strange, undefined, half-conscious longing. It was as if he had found something he had been blindly searching, something for which the solitary heart had vaguely felt an ever-present need; and the timid child, forgetting his timidity, his awe of the presence into which he had come—forgetting all but his heart's great need—in a burst of pathetic longing, more sorrowful than tears, cried:

'Give me a kiss, too, just one!'

He was across the room and in her arms in a moment. Blessings on the true mother's heart! it gave not one kiss, but a dozen. Ah! feeling the blessing of those tears upon his head, pressed close against the breast throbbing with pure maternal sympathy, his own starved heart eagerly drinking from that overflowing fountain, the[Pg 668] word mother rose naturally to his lips then.—Alas for her from whom alone that beating heart, throbbing with a new delight, should have received that revelation! Alas for the heart thus robbed of its lawful heritage, to whom the highest and holiest of earth's affection had manifested itself but as a brutish instinct, which, in fits of maudlin tenderness, could fold the little form in a loathsome embrace, and smother the pure breath with drunken kisses! No other love, however high and pure it may be, can atone to the wronged heart that has been cruelly robbed of this.

In this new-found joy all heavy sorrows were forgotten. Pressed close against that sympathetic bosom, he was happy now, happier than he had ever been before; and when at last she wiped her tears away, and, lifting the hand on which his grateful tears were falling (for Harry cried too), and smilingly up-turning the tear-wet face to meet her own, that face was so changed by joy that she hardly knew it, and Harry wondered why it was that she laughed and cried together when she looked at it, and kissed him over and over again more times than he could count. Laughing and chatting gayly until she saw her own smiles reflected on the little, sorrowful features, she, with a tender mother's care, bathed the flushed face, combed out the bright silky hair, smoothed and arranged the rumpled dress, and, taking the small hand, went out to the garden gate to meet the expedition sent in search of Harry.

Now this was his red-letter day. Harry was in luck. Therefore it was not one of the many servants of the establishment, or any straggling acquaintance that had joined in the search. Luckily, it was not one of these, or the cross Betty, who first espied Harry and the lady: otherwise he would have been borne away from his friend and his recently discovered Eden in triumph, in spite of all cries and protestations. It was Harry's own papa; and it did not take many words, when the bright-faced lady was the pleader (backed by that little face, with that strange flush of joy upon it, that spoke more eloquently to the father's heart than any words could have done), to induce that gentleman to allow Harry to remain where he was all day; likewise to extort a promise that he might come to see the lady whenever and as often as she chose to trouble herself with the care of him: and this being nicely arranged, Harry's papa went his way and they went theirs. And Harry did that day what is seldom done in this world of disappointment—more than realized his anticipations. He sat on the bank and heard the birds sing; he played at horse until he was tired; and though he did not build mud houses, he ate sugar ones, which was, in every respect, a vast improvement on the original design; and, what was more than all, his little playfellow, whose temper was as sunny as his face, never gave him a cross word or look the whole day through. They had supper, when the time came, under the rustling leaves of a huge green tree; and there were raisins and nuts and candy, cakes grotesquely cut and twisted into every conceivable shape, and every imaginable dainty. All through that memorable day, Harry was the happiest of the happy. Other days succeeded this that were but a thought less bright. A time had come when the rough path seemed smooth to the little pilgrim's feet, and flowers sprang up by the lonely wayside, and golden sunlight fell through the rifted clouds and crowned the little head with its blessing, and light and warmth crept into the chilled and desolate life, and made existence beautiful: a brief and joyful time, on which was written, as on all bright things of earth, those words of mournfulness unutterable: 'Passing away!'

PART SECOND.

It is that hour of day's decline when the turbulent roar from the city's busy[Pg 669] mart is hushed into a lazy hum, when a peaceful, quiet calm breathes through the atmosphere and settles on the noisy earth, as if all things were hushed into tranquil silence at thought of the coming twilight's holy hour. The sun's red, slanting rays fall on the dusty pavement in front of that gloomy, stately mansion which Harry calls his home, enter a richly furnished room where the blinds are thrown open and the curtains looped back, and with their fervent glow rest compassionately upon a drooping female figure, upon a bent head bowed in shame, a head still young, whose wealth of rich black tresses passion and remorse have already marked with gray. Sin-stricken, woe-stricken, and remorseful, feeling how inefficient is even her mother's love, how powerless every earthly consideration to hold her back from ruin; stretching out palsied hands to Heaven for help; racked by the fierce fires of repentance, her tortured soul corroded by remorse, she mourns passionately but unavailingly.

Oh! there are hours like this in the hidden history of every fallen and degraded son of Adam, when the scales are removed from the spiritual eyes, and the sin-stained soul shiveringly beholds the depth to which it has fallen, and shrinks back appalled at the sight; when the demon has departed for a season, and evil thoughts and evil influences are cast out, and, feeling their power returning with repentance, angels come to minister unto the sorrowing one. Gentle guardians are there, who have watched it all its life through, striven with all the means that lie within the grasp of a spirit's power to stay it on its downward course and bring the lost soul back. Ah! 'Love's labor lost.' Ineffectual these oft-repeated efforts may be, ineffectual through all time they doubtless will be; but who shall say in the 'land of the undying' that the work of ministering love shall not continue? What man is that, that in an hour like this can look upon his brother, prostrate in spirit, racked with remorse, no matter how vile and polluted, and can say anguish like this shall be that soul's undying portion in the long hereafter; that God's justice requires infinite punishment for a finite crime; that, when freed from its earthly body, the ears of the All-Compassionate shut out that soul's despairing cry for pardon? Who shall limit infinite mercy? Who shall set bounds to Divine compassion, or think that, toiling painfully and slowly up the endless heights of progression, there shall not be a time away onward in the solemn future, hidden in the dim mists of ages yet to come, when that soul shall be cleansed from its pollution, freed from its mourning, sin entirely cast out, and God shall be all and in all?

The light breeze, as it sways the loose heavy tresses, wafts to her ear a strain of distant music. All the drowsy afternoon it has been playing, lost almost entirely at first in the busy hum of the streets and in the long lull of the lazy wind—a strain only caught at rare intervals when the breeze is strong enough to bear it to her. It has been slowly approaching as the hours creep on, advancing a few steps at a time. Ballads and simple ditties, dances, waltzes, grand old marches! with that unaccountable attraction for trifles which the mind often experiences in its hours of suffering, mechanically, one after another, she has traced them all. Now the varied tones cease to pervade the atmosphere, and there is a long resting pause. When the music begins again, it is on the pavement, almost beneath the window, and the old musician, perhaps unconsciously wrought upon by the silent influence of the hour, has merged from the gay to the pathetic, and plays only sad little pieces in the minor key. Presently from the multitude of sweet sounds there arises on the air a song lower and sadder than the others—a strange, pathetic melody, falling on the ear like a low, plaintive wail, broken by keen throbs of agony:[Pg 670] her whole nature beats in responsive echo. O God! gone so far down the dreary road which has darkly led her from that time of purity and peace when that song was nightly sung to her; after so many weary years of sin and suffering, to hear those notes again! It is but a simple thing which has the power so to move her, a mere nothing; half dirge, half hymn, familiar to her long-forgotten childhood, once sung by her mother as a cradle song! With her wretched face buried in her hands, she hears it, and clearly the past rises before her: her childhood in its innocence; her girlhood in its purity; her womanhood, her motherhood in its degradation! All the holier part of what was once herself; all that was true and noble, womanly and pure, from the deep waters of oblivion to which that damning appetite has consigned them, rise to haunt her now, pale, wan, and spectre-like. Oh! to sit down, side by side with her former self; to see herself as she used to be before the tempter crept into the Eden of her heart; to look despairingly up to the height whence she had fallen, so wrecked in moral strength that she had not the power to retrace a single step! Peace departed, virtue lost, health undermined, affection squandered, ruthlessly murdering the peace of one whose life through all the time of its sad earth-sojourning is linked with hers; cursing the home she should have blessed and brightened, making of that fair garden, wherein sweet domestic graces should have bloomed and blossomed as the rose, but a desolate and barren waste, knowing that hearts, little hearts, that had drawn their life-beat from her own, had starved and sickened for the love which is their rightful food;—with senses bleared and deadened, she had heard them piteously wailing but for a morsel of that bread of life without which even the footsteps of the self-reliant, the strong and brave of heart, faint and falter by the way, and she had cruelly denied them that precious nutriment; she had given them life, but had robbed them of all that makes life endurable. Life's duties unfulfilled, life's high and holy aims trampled under the foot of sensual indulgence, living to blight instead of to bless! O woman, wife, and mother, thy life when lived aright a crucifixion of the flesh, a sublime self-sacrifice—not for thee the pleasures of sense and time, not for thee may peal earth's songs of triumph! Fainting oft beneath the burden of the cross, we trace thy way by bloody footprints, suffering as a saint;—falling from thy estate, how terrible will be thy retribution as a sinner!

Hark! There is the patter of little feet ascending the staircase, coming down the long upper hall. To the repentant mother's ears what music so sweet as that? She listens breathlessly. Was it thought of her that had impelled them thither? Would they approach her room? Since she had grown more and more repulsive day by day, since those fits of drunken passion had become a thing of fearful frequency, and those little ones had suffered from their violence, and learned to fear her, they had come but seldom—never alone; but they are approaching now, shyly, hesitatingly, as if afraid to come, but still approaching—pausing at the very threshold. The burning tears force their way through the clenched fingers—the sound of the little feet has given her power to pray. Though angels fail in the work of redemption, there may yet be power in the little hands to hold her back. She does not rise to open the door, but sits choking down her sobs, and listening to the turning, twisting, shaking of the door knob, to a dozen failures in unskilful attempts to enter, every movement of the little hand sending a strange thrill of mingled pain and pleasure through the overburdened heart.

It opens at last, and Harry stands upon the threshold, looking timidly in.[Pg 671] Ah! no maudlin sorrow, no senseless, idiotic mirth, no disgusting stupor disfigures the face on which he gazes. Its depth of hopeless, despairing tenderness, so eloquently accompanied by the pathetic movement of the outstretched hands, almost frightens him by its intensity; but, in obedience to the motion, he comes forward, half-fearfully proffering the flower he holds in his hand.

'A flower sent to her by a lady who was so kind,' he tremblingly explains, 'one that he loves so dearly!'

It is the lily, the emblem of purity. She takes it from him, lays it on the table behind her, out of sight, a sullen glow of resentment at the gift mingling with the sorrow of her face as she does so. What mother had fathomed her shameful secret, and dared to send her child to her with a gift like that? Some one that is fast gaining the place she should have occupied in his heart! One that is fast winning away from her the love she so much needs to aid her in the desired reformation. She notes how the little face softens and brightens when he speaks of her, and a sharp pang of jealousy shoots through her heart. The fact that she has never sought to win that heart to herself by kindness, that she has forfeited her child's respect, and never deserved its love, only increases her resentment and adds poignancy to the pang. She feels the slight form start and shiver with a strange, fearful repulsion as she places it on her lap. Would the strong natural affection nature had implanted there, so cruelly crushed out, now nearly if not quite dead, arise anew to life, and grow stronger than this repulsion? That is the question to be answered now. Ah! if there were but a spark remaining, were it only a poor, feeble, smouldering flame, it would have the power, she felt, to light her to higher and better things. With a thrill of pure maternal love, a stranger to her heart, whose holiest impulses, deadened by reckless indulgence, have degenerated into instincts, she folds the little form closer to her, in spite of its shuddering, and, looking into the upturned face (O mother, miserably blind), reads understandingly for the first time the hunger of heart so legibly written on every speaking feature. With the sharp arrow of conviction that pierces her soul at the sight, comes a voice appealing to its inmost recesses, a voice speaking those words spoken by the great heart of Divine Compassion, eighteen hundred years ago; those words of tenderest pleading: 'Feed my lambs!' How had she fed those committed to her charge? The wan, thin, sorrowful face, the little heart finding no joy in life, grown weary before its time, best answer that question. Aided by her aroused spiritual perceptions, she reads now all too truthfully the sad, sad record of the heart-breaking loneliness of the life she has made desolate; and, pressing the wronged heart close against her own, the keen remorse of her soul bursts forth in a low moan of irrepressible anguish:

'Oh, my child! my little, little, little child!'

Studying the face bent over him as children learn to study the faces of those whom they have reason to fear, whose kindness is at best capricious, and finding nothing but sorrow and tenderness in it, he began to fear it less: thankful even for a brief season of kindness, the solitary child laid the pale cheek close against his mother's, and twined the thin arms about her neck. It was a strange and blissful sensation for that mother to feel them clinging there. In her softened mood it made the tears fall hot and fast, to think how strange it was.

'What made Harry think of coming to see ma to-day?' she said at last, brushing them hurriedly away.

'A lady gave me that flower, mamma, and told me to bring it to you.'

A pause and a closer pressure—then she questioned nervously:

'What lady is it, Harry? Where[Pg 672] does she live? How came you to know her, darling?'

Harry hesitated. He noticed the dark shadow that swept across her face at every reference to his new-found friend, and, with a child's intuitive perception, he saw the subject gave her pain. Striving with ready tact to draw her attention from it to himself, he went back to the beginning, to give her a sort of history of how he came to form the acquaintance.

'Mamma,' he said timidly, twining his arms still closer around her neck, and speaking in a slow, hesitating way, as if he feared that this would give her pain also, 'our house, you know, is a very lonesome place. Oh, so very lonesome!—just like a day when the sun won't shine, and the rain comes dark and slow. Well, ma, it was always bad enough, but when Charley went away to school, and you stayed up here more than ever, and Betty got crosser than ever, you can't think how lonesome it was! Pa used to bring me playthings at first, but I felt so bad I couldn't play with them. I felt all the time as if I wanted something, and,' glancing piteously up into his mother's face, and laying his little hand upon his heart, 'as if I was so hungry here. Well, I used to climb up at the window and watch the people going by, and wonder and wonder what the matter was.' He waited as if half expecting an answer; but a stifled sob was the only reply. 'Looking out the window and seeing other people, I found out after a while that we were different from everybody else. Other mothers who had little boys like me, always took their little boys with them when they went to walk. All the sunshiny days they went walking up and down—walking up and down; and the mothers were not cross like Betty, and the little boys were not lonesome like me, but had such red, chubby cheeks, and looked happy 'most all the time. The first day I found this out, when Betty took me away from the window, and stood me up before the glass to comb my hair, and I looked in and saw what a face I had, I cried and cried. Then the mothers would smile and look pleased whenever their little boys spoke to them, and seemed to love them so much, that I wanted them to love me too; and I used to throw little things out of the window sometimes, so that they would look up and smile at me.'

Ah! the young, tender heart, living, as yet, only by the affections, that required such a wealth of love to fill it! The little outcast heart depending on casual passers by for a stray word or look of comfort, striving to feed itself on such poor, miserable crumbs as these! It made the mother's face grow white with anguish to think of that.

'Well, about just such a time every morning, when Charley had gone to school, and I sat by the window as lonesome as lonesome could be, on the sidewalk under the window there always came a lady who was kinder to me than the other ladies, who always looked up and smiled. Such a beautiful lady, ma, with a face as kind as pa's, and a great deal more smiling; you'd love her if you saw her; I know you would—you couldn't help it. And ma,' and here Harry's enthusiasm died out, and his voice took a sadder tone, 'she's got a little boy, just about as big as I am, and she always takes him with her when she goes out, just like the other ladies. And—and ma'—the low voice had a frightened tone in it, as if the little one feared he was venturing too far.

'Yes, Harry.'

'I thought—that—that—'

'What, darling?'

'That if you would go out to walk yourself sometimes, and take us with you, Charley and me, that we shouldn't be so different from everybody else, and it wouldn't be quite so lonesome here.'

A long pause followed—a frightened pause on Harry's part. Venturing, after a little while, to look into his mother's face, its sadness, unmixed with[Pg 673] anger reassured him, and he proceeded:

'That was the lady who sent you the flower. She lives in a little white house just across the road. One day, when Betty took me out for a walk, I ran away and went there; and I have been there a good many times since. It's a little house, ma, a very little house. There are no bright pictures or beautiful carpets in it; but they are never lonesome there. She is as kind to her little boy every day as you are to me now. It's a long time, ma, since you kissed me and held me on your lap, and acted as if you loved me! Oh, mamma!' He laid the pale cheek, wet with grateful tears, close against her own. 'Why a'n't you good to me always? I love you now, but I don't love you always; I can't love you always, ma. That day when you frightened me so, when you pulled my hair, threw me down on the floor, and whipped me till the blood ran, I didn't like you for a long time then, you hurt me so.'

The grief of the wretched mother burst forth anew in sobs and tears.

'Oh, Harry! oh, my poor, poor child! Did ma do that?'

'Don't cry, ma, oh, don't cry; I don't think you meant to do it. There is something that changes you, that makes you cross and strange. And ma'—the timid voice sank away to a low, frightened whisper, broken and tremulous with tears.

'Yes, dearest.'

'You won't be angry, dear mamma?'

'No, love, no.'

He hid his face on her shoulder, sobbing:

'It's something that you drink. They never have it there, in that little house,' pursued Harry in a voice choked with rushing tears. 'They never have it anywhere where they are happy. Oh, mamma! If you'd only send it away, if you'd throw it away, if you would put it out of sight; oh, my dear, dear mamma, if you would never look at it, never taste it, never, never drink it any more!' In the energy of his supplication he twined the little arms still closer and closer about her neck—his tears fell like rain upon her bosom. That baby face, eloquent with entreaty and wet with tears! She could not bear to see it. Crimson with shame, she hid her own in her outstretched hands. 'She never drinks it. I've watched her; she drinks coffee sometimes, water sometimes, tea 'most always. Ma, if you must drink something, why wouldn't tea do just as well?'

She folded her arms about the little form, and clasped it to her bosom. Her face was lighted with a high resolve, the heart against which her child's was pressed was throbbing with a lofty impulse.

'It would, my darling, it would; with God's help, it shall. Here in His holy presence, I solemnly promise, if there is any strength in good resolutions, if there is any power of good left within me, if God will not utterly forsake one who has so long forsaken her better nature, never, never, from this time, henceforth and forever, to touch, taste, or look upon the accursed thing.'

That night, at the foot of the tall poplar, the flickering sunlight falling through the leaves on his head, making the brown hair golden where it fell, Harry sat watching the coming of his brother. He had not long to wait; in a little while the red, slanting rays fell on that other head of darker brown. The well-known form appeared at the gateway, and Harry went bounding down the gravel walk to meet him.

'Ma wants to see you,' panted the little brother. 'She wanted you to come up to her room as soon as ever you got home. She sent me to tell you so.'

The message was such an unusual one, he was so flushed and excited, so proud to give it, and the look of joy shining in the pale face was such a stranger to it, that the great brown eyes of the elder brother opened wide in[Pg 674] silent wonder, and the excited Harry had caught him by both hands, and was dragging him by main force toward the house before he had recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to speak.

'I don't want to go,' cried the unwilling Charley, ruefully drawing back. 'I don't want to go, Harry. Why does she want to see me? What makes her want to see me? I a'n't done nothing to be whipped for!'

'Oh! it isn't that,' returned the little fellow eagerly. 'We a'n't going to be whipped any more, unless we're real naughty, and then not very hard; and ma is going to send Betty away, and we a'n't going to be scolded any more; and she's going to take us to walk and ride with her sometimes, as the other mothers do. Why,' cried the eager child, all glowing at the delightful prospect, 'Why, Charley, we're going to be happy now.'

'Oh, I don't believe we are,' sadly sighed the more experienced Charley, scratching his curls disconsolately, and looking at his brother in a maze of perplexity and doubt. 'I've thought we were going to be happy a great many times, but we a'n't been never, and I don't believe we ever will be. The first thing I remember was being lonesome, and I've been as lonesome as could be ever since. No, no; we shall never be happy. Ta'n't no use thinking about being happy,' and the forlorn child threw himself upon the grass in a hopeless and dejected manner. 'But they do say, Harry,' he continued, looking up through the leaves at the blue vault above him, 'that there's a place up yonder somewhere where good people go when they die, and where everybody is happy. I've thought, since I heard about it, that perhaps some people went there without dying. If they do, Harry, and I can only find out the way, I'd leave this mean old place, and go there straight, this very minute. I'd like to have you and pa come, Harry; but ma is always scolding or whipping us for something. I don't like ma, and I don't care whether she ever gets there or not. Come to think of it,' pursued Charley, as a new thought seemed to strike him, 'I had a good deal rather she wouldn't come; for if she did find out the way, and come up there after a while, like as any way she'd bring a switch with her.'

'You shouldn't talk so about ma, Charley,' said his meek-eyed brother. 'She isn't cross always. She has been kind to me to-day, so kind,' said the little fellow, stemming with his fingers two great round drops that were slowly running down his cheeks, 'that it makes the tears come to think about it. I was with her a great long while, and she didn't scold or speak cross once. Why, only think, Charley,' he proceeded, opening his eyes, as if the fact about to be communicated could never be sufficiently wondered at, 'we were all alone together for ever so long, and she might have got angry and whipped me just as well as not, and pa would never know anything about it.'

'It's a wonder she didn't,' scornfully returned his brother; 'it would have been such a nice chance. She don't get such a chance as that every day. There wouldn't have been any fun in it if she had, though; for I tell you what it is,' he continued, looking about on his hands for sundry marks and dents left thereon by the nails of his mother, 'I tell you what it is, Harry, when she gets hold of a feller, she digs right in. She pounds us more than half the time for just nothing at all, only because she gets mad and likes to do it. To be sure, I get mad myself sometimes, and say ugly words, and ought to be whipped; but you, you never do anything to be whipped for, and she,' proceeded the indignant little fellow, with an emphasis of immeasurable scorn on that personal pronoun, 'she to go to work and pound a little, pale fellow like you! Why, she ought to be ashamed of herself. I get so mad sometimes when she gets to whipping us, and pa comes to take us away, that[Pg 675] I think if he would pound her just as hard as she pounds us, and just long enough to let us see how good it feels, I wouldn't care a bit—I'd just like it: but he don't never; he only trembles all over and gets very white, sets her down in a chair, and takes us out of the room—buys us playthings, or tells us stories to stop our crying, and that's the end of it until next time.'

Poor Harry! the color had faded from his face, the light from his eyes. That deep shadow of inexpressible mournfulness had again crept into them. Memory of such scenes, as are never garnered up in the breasts of happy childhood, shadowed his face and heart. His short-lived happiness was over. He made no reply to his brother, but sat motionless, gazing at the sky with a searching, yearning, far-off gaze. Looking at the two young faces turned upward, it would have been hard to say which was the saddest. Young as they were, traces of the working of the curse which had blighted their lives, were plainly visible in both. Both were equally pale and thoughtful, both robbed of the brightness and gayety belonging to their years, only varying in expression as they varied in temperament. The look of meek and patient endurance on the face of the younger spoke of a nature that wrong and suffering might crush, but could never rouse to anger or resentment—of a heart that would break, if must be, but would patiently lie down and die. The scornful defiance flashing ever and anon in the face of the elder brother, the immeasurable bitterness mingling with its sadness, showed a proud and fiery temperament that could be goaded to desperation.

'But she shall never strike me many times more,' continued Charley, with suppressed indignation. After a pause, during which, with compressed lip and clouded brow, he had been resentfully dwelling upon the pain and humiliation consequent upon the blows he had received: 'Never! never! for I don't care if it is wrong, if pa does tell me not to do it, I don't care if she is my mother; after I get just a little bigger, when she strikes me, I'm going to strike back again.'

These vengeful threats exciting no answering comments from his brother, Charley turned to look at him. A strange prophetic chill swept across the intuitional soul, and filled it with vague, shuddering apprehension.

'Harry, don't look that way; Harry, come back to yourself! Oh, Harry! take your eyes from the sky and look at me. You frighten me so!' cried Charley, in a voice tremulous with agitation.

The consciousness of his surroundings had dawned so slowly on the rapt soul, the patient face had turned toward his brother's so calmly, he was so meek and quiet, so undemonstrative usually, that he was totally unprepared for the wild burst of passionate weeping with which Harry threw himself upon his neck.

'Oh! Charley, Charley, I cannot find it, I cannot see the land you talk of. I know it must be there, where the sky is clear and the sun is shining; but I've been looking, and I can't see it anywhere. Oh! Charley, where is it? Where is the place up yonder where they are good and happy? Show me the way there, show me the way. I don't want to stay here,' sobbed Harry, coming back to his own hopeless self again; 'I want to go somewhere where folks don't have to be lonesome all the time; I don't know what dying is, but if dying will do it, I want dying to take me there.'

He had drawn his brother toward him, wiped his tears away with his own little apron, and soothed him as well as his agitation would permit, striving, amid the tumult of his thoughts, to gather up such meagre scraps of information as he had gleaned upon the subject, and put it into intelligible words, when, from a window almost hidden by the leaves of the tree under which they were sitting, they heard a[Pg 676] voice calling to them, a familiar voice, but with a new tone in it, which quickens their pulse-beat, and makes their hearts throb with a sweet joy. Dimly visible through the foliage, a familiar face is looking down upon them, loving and tender as any mother's face should be; and with that look, the strong instinctive love for her which nature had implanted in their hearts awoke in all its strength. Pride, anger, sorrow, were all alike forgotten. To her loving call there came from eager lips the ready response:

'Yes, mamma; we are coming, dear mamma.'

Those who are blessed with golden memories of a happy childhood, perchance but lightly prize Heaven's brightest, choicest gift. Those who have never felt the hungering and thirsting of a heart deprived of sympathy and kindness, the desolate pining of that state more sorrowful than orphanage, can but feebly, faintly guess how tender tones and soft caresses, loving words and looks, such common blessings as awaken in the happy thought of gratitude, were treasured up in these lonely hearts as gifts of priceless value, or measure the deep thankfulness which thrilled them as they knelt side by side at their mother's knee, and said their prayers in the deepening twilight that summer night.

They had a table spread before the open window, and had their supper in their mother's room, and, as the light sank into darkness, with an arm thrown around each little form caressingly, and a brown head resting on each shoulder, they sat beside her on the sofa, and listened as she told them, in language suited to their childish comprehension, of the coming joys in store for them, of what a happy home their future home should be, now that she had resolutely parted from the curse that had destroyed their peace, and forever turned her back against it;—listened as she drew glowing pictures of the walks and rides they would take, of the varied pleasures they would enjoy together, pleasures it should be her pleasing task to plan. They had nothing to damp their enjoyment, for she had dismissed Betty, and with her own hands undressed and bathed them, and robed them for the night; and they enjoyed it all, not with the keen zest, the careless hilarity of childhood, but with the subdued and thoughtful gravity seen in beings of maturer years, to whose lot has fallen more of the sorrows than the joys of life, and who receive happiness, when at rare intervals it comes to them, with a tremulous thankfulness, as if fearful of entertaining so strange a guest; and when at last it ended, as all happy seasons must, and both tired heads rested on one pillow, Harry whispered to his brother:

'There is nothing to be sorry for now, Charley. She will never drink that dark stuff any more—I know she never will; she will never forget the promise she has made.'

Then the drowsy eyes, ere they closed, sought the dim night sky for that star, the brightest in the blue above him, which had revealed itself through his tears, when alone in the darkness he had first learned to pray, and, gazing on it, and on the sky beyond, where a happier home than any earthly one is proffered, murmured to himself, with a peaceful smile:

'Oh! we shall be so happy, so very, very, very happy!'

PART THIRD.

She promised. Oh, frail and sandy foundation, on which to build bright hopes of earthly happiness! Only for four brief weeks, one happy month, that solemn promise was faithfully remembered. Of the effort that even this short period of abstinence had cost her, of the burning thirst which tortured her by day and night, the fierce desire that battled with and almost overcame her feeble resolution when the enthusiasm that had at first upheld her died away, of the suffering of those weary[Pg 677] weeks of conflict, only those can tell who, heroes every one, like her, have battled with this fierce spiritual Apollyon, and who, unlike her, have overcome. Hour by hour the maddening desire of gratification wasted little by little her moral strength. The thirst grew stronger, the will weaker.

The thought of the home she had brightened by her self-denial, the heart she had gladdened, the little ones who had drawn their life from hers, whose trust in her was growing stronger day by day, as evening came and showed the valued promise still remembered, and morning dawned and found her faithful, held her back at first; but gradually this also lost its power. Then that torturing, burning, maddening thirst swept over the doomed soul like a fierce simoom, drying up the fountains of maternal tenderness, bearing away all sense of duty, all tenderness and sympathy, the blessed hope of heaven itself, in its desolating track. One wretched day, when this thirst was so strong upon her that her priceless soul grew worthless in her eyes, and she would smilingly have bartered it but for a single draught; one well-remembered, miserable day, when the little faces were raised to hers, and found upon it no trace of motherly affection, only that dark foreboding look, and grew pale with fright when desire had reached that relentless climax which leaves the victim no choice but of madness or gratification, she had fiercely summoned her usual messenger, sent for her usual drink, and sat grimly waiting for it. In vain that trusty messenger, to whose care the wretched father had confided that pitiful remnant of family honor, the shame of public exposure, boldly setting fear of her aside, earnestly besought her to wrestle with the demon yet a little longer, were it but a single day; and implored her with tears to remember the little ones on whom this blow would fall so heavily. There was no tone of motherly affection within that raging breast to respond to that appeal. With parched, cracked lips, and burning eyes and bloated face fierce with desire, she had driven her from her presence. Fear lest the lack of this great need would drive her to distraction quite, and some worse evil yet befall them, she had gone her way, weeping as she went. She came back presently. There was enough of that terrible poison in the bottle she brought to make her mistress drunk a score of times. She may get drunk now, dead drunk; in a little while she may lie upon the floor a senseless, idiotic, disgusting creature. She almost prays it may be so, as she hands her the glass which she angrily calls for, for there is yet a greater evil to be dreaded. The liquor so long untasted, acting upon her naturally high temper, may arouse within her a wild tempest of passion; in her frenzy she may fall upon those little ones, beat, bruise, maim, murder them perhaps. It is not the first time their lives have been endangered by her violence. To get them from the room without exciting her opposition, so quietly and naturally that it shall hardly attract her observation, is her first care; hence, under pretence of arranging the window curtain, she says to Charley, who is standing near it:

'Charley, say you want some cakes—a drink of water—anything that's down stairs, and follow me out of this room.'

'I can't go, Maggie,' returned the child, in the same cautious whisper, glancing toward his mother with his large dark eyes wildly dilated, and his small face bleached with fright. 'Harry won't go, and I can't leave Harry.'

'Harry shall go,' energetically repeated the resolute Maggie, putting her head out of the window to say her say. 'He is not going to stay here to be mauled! Harry,' she continued, in the most insinuating tone imaginable, 'come down stairs with Maggie. There's a darling.'[Pg 678]

He was leaning out of the window, apparently looking at something in the street below, and did not move as she addressed him.

'Harry, Harry,' she called again, in an excited whisper, 'do you hear me? quick, child, quick!'

He turned toward her his face covered with tears.

'Don't cry, for heaven's sake, child; don't cry here,' returned Maggie, with a suppressed groan, 'or that mother of yours will pounce upon you in spite of me.'

At the mention of that word, what little self-possession he retained gave way, and he sobbed outright. It was a sob so passionate and long suppressed, and it burst forth in spite of him with such vehemence, that it shook the little form from head to foot, and sounded through the still room so miserably hopeless, so heart-broken, that it even aroused the stupefied being nodding in her chair, whom he had the misery to call by the name of mother. It awakened within her some vague thought of motherly sympathy; and, stupidly striving to comprehend what it meant, and idly muttering to her miserable self, she poured out a third glass, held it in her hand as well as she was able, and came tottering forward, swaying to and fro in maudlin efforts to keep her feet. She took up her position directly behind Harry, and looked vacantly out. She was trying to ask what was the matter, with a tongue whose palsied utterance made language incomprehensible, when Harry's friend, whom he had been watching, and whose figure he had, with love's delicate discrimination, picked out from a score of similar figures, and known to be hers, when it was but a mere speck in the distance, passed directly under the open window, and, startled by that sob and by that drunken voice in answer, looked wonderingly up. Oh, heavens! she read that fearful secret in one blank, horrified glance. She read it in the despairing hopelessness of the little face turned toward hers—that look so terrible in a face so young. She read it still more clearly in that fiery, bloated, senseless visage looking down upon her with a dull stare, in the swaying form feebly holding the tell-tale glass. She knew now why that delicate child, nursed in the lap of affluence, having all that wealth could purchase, had come so timidly to her lowly dwelling, and earnestly besought her for a single kiss; what had made the little face sorrowful and wan, and set that seal of suffering upon it. She saw it all, and, under the sudden weight of that astounding revelation, she literally staggered as under the weight of a blow. Looking down through his tear-dimmed eyes at the face he loved so well, Harry saw upon it no look of sympathy or recognition for him—only that blank, amazed, horror-stricken look at that something behind him, a look which embraced every item of the shameful scene, and showed all too clearly how plainly it did so. Then, without a word or glance of kindness, she gathered her veil closely about her pallid visage, and quickly hurried away. Alas for Harry! he feels that the truth has turned her heart from his, and she has gone forever. The anguish of that thought was too great for suppression, and he stretched forth his hands toward the retreating figure with a forlorn wail of supplication. That look of horror, that low, plaintive, heart-broken cry, like a child forsaken of its mother, had sobered her a little. She had been a proud woman once, and a remnant of the nobler pride which had once uplifted her was still left within her soul. To have eyes from which shone forth the pure, unsullied spirit of womanhood, discover her secret, and look upon her in her shame; to behold in a rival, whom unseen she hated, womanhood enthroned in excellence; to see its image in herself fallen and defaced, sunken in degradation; to know that a few kind and well-bestowed caresses[Pg 679] had won her child's love from her, that on that strange maternal bosom the little head rested more tranquilly and peacefully than on her own; to owe her a double grudge as discoverer and supplanter—this aroused the smouldering and now perverted pride yet alive within her bosom, and fanned it to a flame. She clinched her hands convulsively, her teeth shut together with a dull, grating sound, the unsteady form swayed to and fro, like a lithe tree shaken in the wind of a coming tempest, and the bloated face, dark with wrath, was terrible to look upon. It was a fearful thing to be alone with that half-drunken creature, and see wave after wave of passion rolling over her tempest-tossed soul, lashing it into fury. Maggie felt it to be so now. As a trusty confidant and able protector, one who, by some strange means, had gained an ascendency over her mistress that no other possessed, and wisely exercised this controlling power, she had been with these poor children through many similar scenes, sheltering them under the broad wing of her protection, but she had never beheld the gathering of so dark a storm, never felt the vague, shuddering dread, the chill apprehension which seized on her now. One glance at that terrible being showed her power lost, her protection insufficient, impotent. To stay with them and endeavor to breast the coming storm would be madness—to try to get the children from the room now would be both impolitic and dangerous; at the least demonstration of the kind that storm would be sure to burst upon them in all its resistless fury, and before its raging power she felt her strength would be utter weakness. She must fly for aid. Perhaps even now some invisible being, conscious of their danger, might be impelling their father to the rescue.

'Harry,' said Maggie, turning very pale, as she glanced at the dreadful figure rocking to and fro in fearful communing with itself, and bending down to whisper a parting injunction as she tied on her bonnet, 'don't speak to her, don't look toward her. Don't cross her in any way. She's the devil's own, now.'

A word, a look, a gesture of entreaty to Charley, placing in dumb show his brother in his charge, and she passed from the room hastily and noiselessly, but not unperceived. As she vanished, an evil smile of triumph at thus being so easily rid of an able antagonist, flashed across the terrible face, giving it almost the look of a demon. In passing out, Maggie has left the door ajar, which perceiving, the wretched woman totters across the room, shuts the door, locks it, throws the key upon the floor, and, tottering back to her seat, again takes a long, deep draught from the glass upon the table. Fixing her fiery eyes full on Harry, she calls out imperiously:

'Come here, sir!'

The tone in which the command is given is cruel, stern, and cold, unsoftened by maternal tenderness, untouched by womanly gentleness, and the bloated face has the same evil look upon it. Harry shrinks back affrighted.

'Are you deaf, you adder? Come here, I say, come here.'

There is a fierceness in the tone now which shows a longer delay will be dangerous; and so Charley, pale and trembling, comes forth from the corner in which he has been crouching, and, taking his smaller brother by the hand, they come forward together.

'What made you bawl after that woman—that woman in the street?' she says, viciously grasping the little shoulder, and giving it a shake. 'Answer me this minute. Speak, sir, speak!'

'I—I can't help loving her, ma,' falters the poor child deprecatingly, while the blue eyes fill, and the tears fall slowly down his face.

'There, none of your snivelling,' she cries fiercely, giving him another shake. 'Come up here; come closer. Here![Pg 680] Stand back, you,' pushing Charley from her with a force that makes him stagger. 'Now then,' she furiously demands, 'did you ever cry after me when I went away and left you?'

He is so faint with fright that he can hardly find his voice to answer, and the words are almost inarticulate as he falters forth:

'Sometimes, ma; sometimes, when you are kind to me.'

'You never did; you know you never did, you little liar,' shrieks the crazed creature, savagely dealing him a heavy blow which sends him reeling from her.

'Oh, ma! Oh, ma!' gasps the poor child, crouching down in the extremity of terror as the terrible figure comes flying toward him. 'Don't kill me, oh, don't kill me; I'm such a little boy!'

She pounces upon him like a tigress, lifting the fragile form high in the air, and dashing it down to the floor again with all her cruel force. She shakes, she bites him, she rains blows upon the poor, defenceless child, leaving prints of her vicious fingers all over the poor little body wherever she touches the tender skin, marks of her cruel nails on the delicate arms and hands, long, deep scratches from which the blood exudes slowly. One last cruel blow hushes the suppressed cries of pain and terror, the low moans for mercy, and lays the bruised and quivering form senseless at her feet. Then the mad creature, crazed with drink and passion, goes careering up and down the room, snatching from table and bureau the costly trinkets with which they are adorned, and wildly trampling them beneath her feet as she hurries to and fro. She is so terrible to look upon, with that scarlet, bloated face, distorted by passion, and the long, thick hair unbound hanging wildly about it, and that baleful light in her bloodshot eyes, so terrible in the frenzied excitement of look and motion, that Charley, who has crept to the side of his prostrate brother, and is tenderly holding the unconscious head, has no power to cry or move, but sits half frozen with horror, with his great brown eyes wildly dilated, fixed in a species of fascination upon the strange motions of that dreadful figure, and merely in obedience to the instinct of self-preservation endeavors to shield himself and his insensible charge from the heavy blows aimed at them as she comes flying past. A few brief moments pass in this way, moments which to that poor child, alone with that wild being, seem dreadful hours of torturing length. Then the blessed sounds of coming relief fall on his ear, footsteps are approaching, a man's firm, hurried tread and woman's lighter but no less rapid step are heard through the hall below, up the staircase—on, on they come, crossing the long upper hall, pausing at the threshold. Then they try the door; swift, crushing blows are rained upon it, the door is burst open, and they come rushing distractedly in.

'Oh, pa! pa!' The tongue is loosed whose utterance fear has palsied, and Charley stretches forth his hands to the strong arm of his earthly saviour. One hasty glance around the room strewn with fragments of costly toys, one look at the maniacal form in the centre with wildly dishevelled hair, and leering, vacant face, then the anguished eyes fall on that for which they are searching, see the outstretched arms of the little figure cowering in a corner half hid by the window curtain, see that other figure lying at its feet, so livid and motionless, so breathless, with the deathly face upturned, and the long brown lashes, still wet with tears, resting on the marble cheeks.

'O God! too late! too late!' The strong agony of that father's heart bursts forth from his bleached lips in that wild, irrepressible cry. He seizes the tottering form. He shakes it fiercely: 'Woman! fiend! blot on the name of mother! you have killed my boy!'

That momentary burst of passion past, he leaves the hapless creature to[Pg 681] her witless mumbling, and, with great waves of anguish rolling over his soul, the broken-hearted father kneels beside his boy.

'Not dead! oh, thank God! not dead.'

There is a slight throbbing motion of the heart, a faint, scarcely perceptible pulsation at the wrist. They raise the senseless form from off the floor. Up to his room they bear him; softly on his little bed they lay him—that little bed from which he is never more to rise. Gentle footsteps glide noiselessly about the room, loving eyes are bent above him, and tears fall upon the upturned face. Long days go and come, fragrant sunny days, bright with the bloom of summer, each day one less of earth, one nearer heaven. The loving watchers know it, and ever and anon there are sounds of smothered weeping there. But there are no answering tears from eyes soon to look on immortal things, for on the passing soul dawns a vision of a home beyond the shadow and the blight, where, in meadows fragrant with immortal flowers, the Great Shepherd feedeth His sheep, and, as He tenderly leads them beside the still waters, gathers the lambs to His bosom. In that clime glows the glory of unfading light, the bloom of undying beauty. Henceforth the beauty and the light of this transitory sphere seem wan and cold, and the fading things of earth grow worthless in the dying eyes, and the tranced soul longs to be gone, yet bides its time with patient sweetness. Patient amid all his pain, no groan escapes the parched lips, no complaining murmur. Bearing all his sufferings with meek endurance, quiet and very thoughtful he lies upon his little bed, smiling placidly upon those about him—grateful, very grateful for their love and care; watching with musing eyes the long hours through the changes of the day on the sky as seen from his window—gray dawn melting into morning, morning into mellow day, day, with its varied changes, sinking into night. The heaven beyond on which he muses as he gazes, the home for which he longs, baptizes him with its light beforetime. On the sinless brow the seal of a perfect peace is set, and the air about the child grows holy. A hush falls on the room mysterious and solemn, and they know that white-robed immortals are treading earthly courts, mingling in earthly company; for he murmurs in his dreams of radiant faces that bend above him; and the wan face, as they watch it in its slumbers, grows bright with the look of heaven. A few more hours of earth, a little longer tarrying of the immortal with the mortal part where it has lived and loved, suffered and rejoiced; a few more moans of pain, and the blue eyes open and look upon the day whose silent light will dawn upon us all. They had not thought the end so near at hand; and, worn out with grief and watching, the father and his faithful nurses had one by one retired to rest, leaving Charley, at his earnest solicitation, to sit beside the bed and watch his brother's fitful slumbers. Since that fatal day, a dread and horror of his mother had seized upon the child. Though surrounded by those he loved, her near approach would cause strong nervous chills, and her kiss or touch would throw him into frightful spasms, from which they could with difficulty recover him; hence, by the doctor's orders, she was forbidden the room, and it was only when utter exhaustion had steeped his refined spiritual sense into perfect oblivion of surrounding objects, that she was permitted to enter there and gaze for a little on the wan features of her sleeping child. That day, knowing his time on earth was short, and possessed by a restless and uncontrollable desire to be near him, even though she could not look upon his face, into the room of her dying boy she had stolen like a culprit, and noiselessly shrank into the farthest corner of the room, screened from his[Pg 682] observation by the heavy window-curtain and the high head-board of the bed. They had discovered her there after a time, but she, in terms which would have moved the coldest heart to pity, implored them with tears to allow her to remain; and they, seeing that the demon had departed from her for a season, and compassionating the forlorn being, had gone away and left her there. She sits motionless in the silent room, her despairing eyes fixed on the serene heaven to which her darling will soon be gone, and from which the stern justice of an accusing conscience tells her she may be forever excluded.

And oh! if this be truth, if in the world beyond there is no hope for sinful souls that have gone astray in this, and this parting is eternal, then, oh then, through the long, dark ages of suffering which may be her future portion, never to look upon her darling more, never more to kiss the sweet lips that have called her mother, never more to look upon him here till the silken lashes droop toward the marble cheek and the half-veiled eyes have lost their lustre, and they lead her in for a last look ere the little face is shut out from mortal gaze forever!—oh! the unutterable anguish of that thought, and the remorse which mingles with it! Not for that last dreadful act, for she never knew that she had killed him. No clear remembrance of that day lives within to curse her memory, but she knows that a strange and unaccountable dread of her has seized upon the child, that she is banished from his dying presence; and an undefined and vague remembrance, a misty horror, has fallen on her life, rests on her like an incubus, pursues her in a thousand phantom shapes through the long, dark watches of the terror-laden night, and through burdened days of ceaseless suffering. She knows, for they have told her, that when his consciousness returned, his first cry had been for the mother of his heart; that she had left everything and come to him; that she had taken her place beside his bed, a dearer place than she had ever occupied in his heart; that no hands like those chill, magnetic ones could soothe him in his pain, or charm him to his fitful slumbers; that on no bosom could the throbbing head rest so tranquilly as on her own. What the mother's heart suffered in that knowledge when her better nature prevailed, only the Being knows Who framed it. The hours of the long day wore heavily on. The sun, that had paused awhile in mid-heaven, was now sinking slowly toward the west. Yet, unmindful of food or rest, seated in the same corner into which she had shrunk on entering the room, ever and anon rocking herself to and fro, or wringing her hands in silent agony, there sits the wretched mother, hidden watcher by the bedside of her dying boy. The room has been chosen for its retired situation, and is removed from the noise of household occupations; and the bustle of the crowded street, even in its busiest hours, falls on the ear in a distant hum. It is quiet now, very quiet. Harry has awakened once from his slumbers, asked to be moved nearer the front of the bed, that they may be very near each other while he sleeps again, and, when that was done, has smiled lovingly upon the little, sorrowful watcher, and, with his wasted hand tightly clasped in his, has fallen into sounder slumbers. In the deathlike stillness which has fallen on the room, she can hear his breathing, and has ventured twice or thrice, while he slept thus, to steal softly to the bedside and look upon his face; but as at each successive attempt he has seemed almost immediately to feel the dreaded atmosphere, and his slumbers have become broken and uneasy, with a heavy heart she has crept silently back again. Charley has waited until the thin hand of the sick child has relaxed its clasp on his own, then, moved by a loving impulse, noiselessly busies himself in removing a littered mass of[Pg 683] vials, cups, and glasses, which have accumulated on the stand near the bed, to a table just at hand, and taxes his childish ingenuity in arranging thereon, in the prettiest possible form, a multitude of toys and trinkets, gifts sent by the servants of the house to his brother, putting the new ones in front, so that his eye may fall on them first when he wakes again. This done, he creeps back to his seat by the bedside, and silently watches his slumbers as before.

A ray of sunlight, bright and warm, creeps through the lattice and falls on the veined lids; the eyes open, and instinctively moving from the too dazzling light, rest placidly on a fragment of blue sky just visible through the half-closed window. With eyes fixed intently on that hazy distance, moment after moment, silent and motionless he lies, and the blue orbs grow lustrous as he gazes with the mystic beauty of eyes whose inner vision rests on unutterable things, and gradually there comes upon the little face the look that never comes on any face but once. Oh, mystic change! Oh, strange solemnity of death! The little watcher by the bedside, face to face with its mysterious presence for the first time, ignorant of its processes, feels a dread, half-defined idea of what it may be, and, with a piteous effort to recall his dying brother back to his old look and seeming, tremulously falters:

'See all the nice things they've sent you, Harry, all the pretty toys you've got! Here they are, spread out upon the table. Look, brother, look!'

The eyes are bright and clear, the shadow of death has not yet dimmed their light. They turn slowly, very slowly, and, just glancing at the toy-strewn table, rest upon his brother's face. Oh! what is that look within them that chills the warm life-current, and makes him cold and shivering in the heat of that summer day, as the sick child feebly says:

'You may have them all, all, Charley; I sha'n't never want them any more.'

'You've hardly looked at them at all, Harry,' quavers the young voice in reply, bravely trying to continue the subject. 'You don't know how handsome they are. The nicest ones, the very nicest ones Betty bought you! Poor Betty! she has done nothing but cry since you've been sick—cry, and buy you presents. She says when you get well, Harry—' and here the brave little voice, that has been tremulous and tear-laden all along, breaks down entirely, and he puts up his hand to check the tears that are running down his face. There are no tears in those other eyes looking into his; the mists of death are gathering within them. He cannot see the tear-wet face so plainly now, but he feebly strokes the hand that lies against his own, and says, in a weaker voice, pausing now and then for breath:

'Poor brother, dear brother! Don't cry, Charley, don't cry! You must tell Betty not to cry. Poor Betty! I haven't seen her once since I've been sick. And poor mamma'—the faint voice, forgetful of its weakness, grows stronger for a moment, and dwells on that name with measureless compassion—'poor, poor, poor mamma! I don't feel afraid of ma any more, and I want to see her. I DO so much want to see her! Where is ma, Charley?'

There is a movement in the lower part of the room, and a bent form comes tottering forward, with hair hanging wildly about a haggard, despairing, woeworn face. Her hands are outstretched in piteous supplication.

'Here I am,' a voice choked with sobs makes answer, 'Here's your poor, miserable, guilty mother, Harry. O Harry! my sins have barred me out from the heaven you are entering; say you forgive me before we part forever. Oh! my darling, it is the last time I shall ever ask it; give me one kiss before you go!' He smiled as only the dying can smile, and stretched out his feeble arms. 'He smiles upon me, he forgives!' shrieked the half-demented creature. 'O God! most merciful![Pg 684] Thou hast not quite forsaken me!' and with a step forward, and a gesture of embrace, the hapless being falls heavily upon the floor.

'Raise me up, raise me up,' pleads the sick child, after partially recovering from the shock the fall had given him; and, as he gazes upon the prostrate form, the white, haggard, insensible features, an angel's pity and compassion shine in the dying face. 'Oh, I can't kiss her, Charley. Tell poor mamma I couldn't kiss her,' he faintly moans. Then the fitful strength gives way again, and the tired head droops wearily on his brother's shoulder. The chilled form creeps closer to a warm embrace. A little while they hold each other thus—these little ones, brothers by the ties of blood, bound nearer to each other than any tie of blood can bind, by the sacred bond of suffering! Then the arm around poor Charley's neck relaxes its hold, and falls with a dull, lifeless sound back upon the pillow. The little form grows colder, colder yet. He has no power to lay it down, no power to cry for help, but sits holding it, half paralyzed, as he hears them rushing up the stairs, urged wildly on by the dreadful fear that they have come too late.

There is a piteous supplication in the large, dilated eyes, a mute prayer for help in the white face he turns upon them as they enter. To the hurried questions which come pouring forth, the bleached, white lips make answer:

'He got cold, and went to sleep again; and he has been getting colder ever since.'

Then the father, stooping, looks into the little face lying on Charley's shoulder, and, staggering back as if a blow had struck him, cries out: 'Dead!' and the friend that Harry had loved so well raises the curly head and lays it back upon the pillow. There are no tears in her gentle eyes for him, for she knows the little, weary heart is resting now on the great heart of Infinite Love—that he is gone to One who, with outstretched arms, stood ready to receive him—One who said long ago: 'Suffer little children to come unto Me!'

AN HOUR IN THE GALLERY OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN.

THIRTY-NINTH ANNUAL EXHIBITION.

Great is the variety in the different classes of men to be found in picture galleries. First in importance stand the artists, oftentimes oracular personages, dangerous of approach by outsiders having opinions (such must generally expect a direct snubbing, polite indifference, or silent scorn), knowing much but not everything, no single one infallible, highly honorable as members of a guild, secretive as doctors or lawyers, chary of talking shop to the uninitiated, hardworking, conscientious, half luring, half scoffing at the glorious visions of the creative imagination granted them chiefly of all men, wonder workers, world reformers, recorders of the past and prophets of the future, comforters of prose-ridden humanity, stewards of some of God's best gifts, openers of the gates of the beautiful, and hence ushers into the vestibule of the glorious 'Land of the Hereafter.' May they all remember their lofty calling, and never diminish their usefulness by unworthy contests among[Pg 685] themselves, or by sacrificing their own better judgment to the exigencies of popular requirement!

Next in order come the connoisseurs. Unmistakably one is that young man with near-sighted eyeglass, with Dundreary whiskers and jaunty air, who talks of breadth, handling, foreshortening, perspective, etc.; who perhaps quotes Ruskin, has seen galleries abroad, is devoted to genre pictures, and, after rattling through an exhibition for a half hour, pronounces definitely upon the merits of the entire collection, singly and en masse.

Equally recognizable is the older picture-fancier. He talks, if possible, even more learnedly, discoursing of balance, tone, chiaroscuro; he despises innovations, judges in accordance with names; is of course convinced the present can bear no comparison with the past; will look through a whole gallery, and finally be captivated by some well-executed conceit—a sun shining through a hole—three different sorts of light, of fire, candle, and moon, mixed in with monstrous shadows and commonplace figures—some meaningless countenance surmounting a satin whose every shining thread is distinguishable, and the pattern of whose lace trimming could be copied for a fashion plate; he is, in short, a fussy, loud individual, with money to buy and some out-of-the-way place to hang pictures.

Then there is the man who knows but one, or at most two or three artists, and will look at the works of none other; who sees, as travellers generally do, not that which is, but that which he had made up his mind to see before he left his own threshold. There are those attracted by nothing except brilliant color, and others who have heard so much of the vulgarity of 'high lights' and gaudy hues, that they will tolerate nothing but brown trees, russet grass, gray skies, slate rocks, drab gowns, copper skins, and shadows so deep that the discovery of the objects represented becomes a real game of 'hide and go seek.' There are also the timidly modest, who, although aware of their own preferences, are yet afraid to admire any new name until some recognized authority has given permission. Another division of this class consists of those who, knowing their own inability to draw or to color the simplest object, hesitate to refuse admiration to any art production that is even barely tolerable. Let us concede to this class our respect, as humility is the only solid basis for any human acquirement.

We also find the pretty young lady, who says 'lovely,' 'charming,' or 'horrid,' 'abominable,' in a very attractive, but most indiscriminating manner;—the individual who cares only for the design (to whom real depth or pathos and affected prettiness are too often one and the same), and the other, who looks only at the technical execution. Rare, indeed, are the imaginative analysts who, while considering the design, can comprehend its philosophy, tell why it pleases or displeases, why they like or dislike; and still rarer are they who add to impartiality, observation, common sense, imaginative perception, and analytic power, a sufficiency of technical knowledge to render their criticism useful, not only to outsiders, but even to artists themselves. Such a guide would indeed be an invaluable companion in any gallery of art. In default of him, let us do the best we can, and come to a consideration of some of the works offered us in this, the thirty-ninth annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design.

Before we begin, however, let us make a passing remark upon a custom that seems lately to have come in vogue, namely, to publish in the daily papers damaging criticisms upon pictures offered for sale at auction, such criticisms generally appearing one, or at most two days before the sale. The want of good taste, or even of abstract justice, in such a proceeding, must be apparent to every one who will pause[Pg 686] a moment to consider. To compare small things with great, for the sake of illustration, if our neighbor has made his purchase of spring drygoods, and spreads them upon the counter of his store, we may or may not admire his taste in the selection of patterns, but we surely should not think ourselves called upon to rush to the newspapers and blazon forth an opinion to his detriment, especially if our assertions were mere guesses, perhaps even untrue, or if we were ourselves concerned in the selling of similar wares. Among the public are many tastes to be gratified, and each man can judge for himself of that which pleases him. A case of impudent pretension or actual imposition will of course require honest people to give in their testimony, but the facts adduced in such a case must be susceptible of proof, and not mere matters of individual taste or opinion; neither must they be advanced at so late an hour as to render their refutation difficult, or indeed impossible. A regular exhibition, such as that of the Academy, offers fair ground for discussion, as all sides have a chance of obtaining a hearing; but even there, the scales of justice should be nicely poised, and great care taken that neither rashness, flippancy, nor prejudice be permitted any share in their adjustment, and 'good will toward men' be the only extra weight ever added to either side.

To begin with the landscapes, one of the most remarkable, and, to our individual taste, the most attractive in the whole collection, is No. 147, 'The Woods and Fields in Autumn,' by Jervis McEntee, N. A. The fine tree-drawing and the exquisite harmony of color in this poetic representation of autumn scenery are worthy of all praise. The clouds are gathering for dark winter days, a few pleasant hours are yet left to the dying year, the atmosphere is saturated with moist exhalations, with tender mists softening but not obscuring the beautiful forms of the leafless trees and shrubs. The springs are filling, the low grounds marshy, the leaves on the woodpaths crisp and of a golden brown. Far away in the west is a band of gray light, that tells of clearer skies and brighter seasons one day to come, of new hopes to dawn, when the earth, and the soul, shall have been purified by adverse blasts, by the baring of their nakedness to the unimpeded, searching light of heaven. No. 124, 'The Wanderer,' is a picture of similar character by the same skilful hand. Thoughtful, refined, and discriminating lovers of art cannot fail to find instruction and delight in these noble conceptions, and indeed it is chiefly in the possession of such persons that we find the truthful, conscientious, tenderly conceived, and poetical pictures of Jervis McEntee.

S. R. Gifford, N. A., exhibits two works, differing widely from each other, but both worthy of his reputation. Let the names now longer and more widely established in the estimation of the general public look to their laurels, for here is one who is destined successfully to enter an honorable contest for the possession of the very highest honors. Unity of design, and warmth as well as vividness of light, positive atmosphere, characterize the works of this artist, and render each one a satisfactorily completed poem. No. 226, 'South Mountain, Catskills,' presents a view doubtless well known to many of our readers. The far-away horizon, the winding Hudson with its tiny sails, the square dent where lies the lake in the Shawangunk range, the serrated ridges of the lower hills, the smoke from the lowlands outside the Clove, the shadowed, ridgy sides of the Round Top Mountain, the stunted pines of the South Mountain, so characteristically represented, the great rock overhanging the cliffs, and the whortleberry bushes and other low growth clustering about its base—all speak to us unmistakably of that very spot, and tell the story of the place as we scarcely thought it could have been told, yet so[Pg 687] simply, so naturally, that the art of the artist is almost forgotten in actual enjoyment of the scene portrayed. No. 250, 'A Twilight in the Adirondacs,' glows with an intensity of light suggestive of some secret art, and not of ordinary paint and canvas. A few brilliant cloud-specks float in a golden sky, which is reflected from the surface of a placid lake, high up among the hills, whose haze-flooded and light-crowned tops fade away into the far distance. To many this picture will prove more attractive than the view from the South Mountain: perhaps it is our familiarity with and love for the original of the last-mentioned view, which induce us to give to it our personal preference.

No. 158, 'The Old Hunting Grounds,' is by W. Whittredge, N. A. It gives a charming insight into the mysteries of the woods. The characteristic white birches, with their reflection in the quiet pool, the dark trunk and spreading branches of the great tree in the foreground, the tender foliage, and soft, hazy gleams into the depths of the forest, afford the materials for a delightful picture, the more precious in our sight that it is so truly a representation of our native land, so thoroughly American. The broken birch canoe adds to the beauty of nature a most effective and pathetic touch, by briefly figuring the melancholy history of a fast-departing race. Gone forever are the moccasoned feet that pressed that mossy soil, and the dusky forms that flitted to and fro among the white trunks that catch and hold the light so lovingly. That broken canoe has a stranger tale to tell than any ruined arch or fallen column of the Old World: the one speaks of some empire passed away, the other of the gradual extinction of an entire type of human beings, a race of men who seem to have accomplished the work assigned them, and who die rather than abandon their native instincts and habits of thought and life. The fortunate possessor of the 'Old Hunting Grounds,' when shut up within the confined streets and dreary walls of a city, need only lift his eyes to the picture to dream dreams of the freshness and freedom of the wild woods, of the scented breeze snuffed by the browsing deer, of the rocking branches glimmering gold and green against the clear summer sky. Mr. Whittredge's picture is suggestive and harmonious as nature itself, and one could never weary of it, as one infallibly must of weaker and more conventional productions, often highly prized by frequenters of galleries.

No. 153, 'The Iron-Bound Coast of Maine,' by W. S. Haseltine, N. A., has the freshness, brightness, and mistiness of such a shore. We have heard Mr. Haseltine's rocks complained of as too yellow; but, in the absence of knowledge, are content to presume he painted them as he saw them. The action of the dashing surf in washing away the lower strata, and strewing the beach with fragments, is one token, among many, of an actual observation of facts.

No. 236, 'An Artist's Studio,' and No. 131, 'Christmas Eve,' are by J. F. Weir. Both are well conceived and executed, the latter being especially interesting. The old wall, the great bell, the moonlight, and the elves set the fancy musing over many things in heaven and earth rarely dreamed of in our philosophy.

No. 12, 'The Argument,' is one of W. H. Beard's excellent fables. The attitudes of the two bears in discussion, of the sober-minded listener leaning with crossed paws upon the tree, and of the self-sufficient old fellow with his paw upon his breast, may read to many a good lesson, especially during the coming Presidential struggle, when the charities and bienséances of life will doubtless be but too often outraged. We have been surprised and pained to see attacks upon the works of this gentleman, coming from opposite quarters, said strictures being, in our opinion, unjust and uncalled for. If behind the[Pg 688] animal form we see proof of more than animal intellect, let us not quarrel with the addition. It is an evil mind that will go out of its way to fasten evil intentions upon the work of a man of genius. If human faults and follies so ill beseem the brute creation, should not such representation render us heartily ashamed of their existence among ourselves. Love and pity for the animal world, and a proper holding up to ridicule and scorn of the brutish propensities, too prominent, alas! in the composition of the human race, have been the lessons taught us by all the works of this artist we have thus far seen.

No. 204, 'Out All Night,' by J. H. Beard, is an excellent warning to naughty puppies to keep good hours and shun bad company.

No. 114, 'A Buckwheat Field on Thomas Cole's Farm,' and No. 143, 'The Catskills from the Village,' are by Thomas C. Farrer, a representative of a school which professes to paint precisely what it sees. To represent nature is the aim of all our best modern landscapists. Of course, no painting can give all that is in any scene, but every painter must select the means best adapted to convey the idea he has himself received. Now, in the ultra ideal school (to use a slang word which we detest) we recognize but little known to us in nature; and in the ultra matter-of-fact (pre-Raphaelite) school of this country, we find the same absence of abstract truth, together with a painful stiffness, and the want of a sense for beauty. We are not sufficiently practical artists to fathom the difficulty, but it seems to us to arise from the absence of one of the most prominent elements of beauty and interest to be found in the universe, namely, mystery. If, in the metaphysical world, with our limited means, we attempt an exhaustive explanation of any of the attributes of the Infinite Being, the result must be unsatisfactory; we will always feel that there is something beyond, which we have failed to grasp, a something which makes our best effort appear shallow and crude. Now, the material mystery of actual landscape arises from the presence of an appreciable atmosphere, softening forms, etherealizing distances, modifying color, and lending the glow of variously refracted light to every object falling under its influence. In these pictures of Mr. Farrer we fail to find any trace of atmosphere, and hence they strike us as bald, hard, cold, and unnatural.

No. 213, 'The Awe and Mystery of Death,' by Eugene Benson, is an able treatment of a repulsive subject. As we gaze, we cannot but admire the genius that has so far overcome the intrinsic difficulties of the situation; and, while congratulating the artist upon his success, must add that the Victor Hugo style of morbid horrors, however popular in some species of literature, can never, we hope, become so in the purer domain of visible fine art.

No. 246, 'Portrait,' William O. Stone, N. A., is a charming portrayal of a charming subject.

No. 283, 'A Child,' by George A. Baker, N. A., has lovely brown eyes, and a beautiful, thoughtful expression.

No. 253, 'A Portrait,' by W. H. Furness, jr., strikes us as a picture carefully disfigured. The part in the hair is singularly continued in the part between the wings of the golden butterfly ornamenting the head, the eyes are just sufficiently turned aside to give them the appearance of avoiding a direct gaze, and the tight-fitting gown is of white moiré, a material of stiff texture and chaotic pattern. The shimmer of waves in sun or moonlight is beautiful because restless, but the watering of a silk is a rude attempt to fix the ever variable in form, light, and color, and hence is always unsatisfactory.

We are glad to see that the women in our community are beginning to make some serious efforts in the way of good painting. They are by nature subtile colorists, and there is surely no[Pg 689] reason why they should not conquer form, attain to technical excellence, and be inspired by noble ideas. They must remember that excellence is attainable solely through hard study and patient assiduity, and small things must be well accomplished before great ones can be expected to succeed. With the general development of what we may call 'out-door' faculties, a taste for mere sentimental prettiness will vanish, and a healthy vigor, united to refined and acute perception, will, we hope, characterize the labors of the rising aspirants to artistic honors.

No. 91, 'The Sword and the Wreath,' by Miss A. E. Rose, is a poetical conception, beautifully elaborated. The flowers have no appearance of having been copied from wax or colored stucco, but are faithful representations of the actual, fragile, delicate texture of the lovely children of the garden. The method of presentation suggests a memory of La Farge, but Miss Rose is too talented and original ever to fall into servile imitation.

No. 132, 'On the Kaaterskill Creek,' and No. 64, 'Head of the Catskill Clove from the South Mountain,' are by Miss Edith W. Cook. The first offers some fine delineations of foliage, intermingled hemlock, and deciduous trees, and the latter is a spirited and truthful representation of a beautiful bit of Catskill scenery. The Hunter and Plattekill Mountains, Haines's Fall, the Clove Road and intervening ravines, the winding woodpath, and burnt trees, are close records of fact, set in a far-away sky and a real atmosphere.

Miss Virginia Granbery's 'Basket of Cherries' (No. 81) and 'Strawberries' (No. 73) are tempting specimens of fruit.

No. 202, 'The Seamstress,' by Miss C. W. Conant, gives proof of future excellence in the truthful pathos of its conception and the energetic rendering of the idea.

But our hour has come to an end, and we have only space left to mention the names of Bierstadt, Constant Mayer, Hennessy, May, Durand, Griswold, Suydam, Bradford, Brevoort, Cropsey, Colman, Cranch, De Haas, Hart, Homer, Hubbard, Huntington, Vedder, and White, who are all characteristically represented, and to counsel such of our readers as are fortunate enough to have the opportunity, to go and see for themselves. Americans are beginning to comprehend the full value of the arts, and to appreciate their own artists accordingly.

APHORISMS.

NO. V.

With us it may not be the actual suffering of death, as it was with our Lord; but that we may truly follow Him, and do what we can for the good of others, we must hold life, with all its endearments, subject to any call for sacrifice that may be made on us; and actually give up, from day to day, just as much of the present life, its pleasures or interests, as may be necessary, that we may render the best possible service in the kingdom of Christ. We have the privilege of daily martyrdom, to be followed by its honors and blessedness, in whatsoever circumstances we may be placed: how much of the sufferings that sometimes accompany the spirit and the act, we need not concern ourselves to inquire.[Pg 690]

THE UNKIND WORD.

LANGUAGE A TYPE OF THE UNIVERSE.

In a preceding paper, published in the May number of The Continental, the possibility, the necessity, and the characteristics of a Scientific Universal Language were considered. In the present paper it is proposed to examine more at large the relations of Language to the total Universe; not merely in respect to Elements or the Alphabetic Domain of Language, and that which corresponds with it in the Universe; but in respect equally to all that rises above these foundations of the two edifices in question which are to be compared.

The term Edifice or Structure will be found to be alike applicable to each. It will be found, likewise, that both arise in parallel development through a succession of stages or stories (French, étages, ESTAGES, STAGES), and that this and other similar repetitions, in the development of the one, of all the facts and features of the development of the other, is what is meant by the Analogy of one with the other, and by the affirmation implied in the title of this article, that Language is a Type of the Universe.

We shall begin, therefore, by a general distribution of these two Domains or Spheres or Structures—for the facts of the analogy will justify the occasional use and interchange of all these terms—and shall pursue the relationship between them into so much of detail as space will allow.

What the Universe is in itself we have no other means of knowing than as it impresses itself upon our minds, modified as it may be by the reactive or reflectional element supplied by the mind itself. In preponderance, then, or primarily, the Universe is for each of us, what the totality of Impression made by the Universe is within each of us; and the Universe in that larger and generalized sense in which we speak of it as one, and not as many individual conceptions, is the mean aggregate or general average of the Impression made upon all minds, in so far as it has a general or common character.

The whole of what man individually or collectively puts forth, as the product of his mind or of all minds, is the totality of Expression, in a sense which exactly counterparts the totality of Impression. Impression is related to Nature, external to man, and acting on him. Expression has relation to Art, externalized from within man, and taken in that large sense which means all human performance whatsoever. Science is systematized knowing, and is a middle term, or stands and functionates mediatorially between Impression or Nature and Expression or Art.

Nature or the external world impresses itself upon mind, primarily, through the Senses, and predominantly stands related with the sense of Feeling, of which all the other special senses are merely modified forms or differentiations. Feeling as a sense (the sense of Touch), is allied again with Affection, the internal counterpart of the mere external sensation, as testified to etymologically by the use of the same word to express both; namely, Feeling as the synonyme of Touch, and Feeling as the synonyme of Affection. Conation, from the Latin conari, TO EXERT ONESELF, TO PUT FORTH EFFORT, is the term employed by metaphysicians to signify both Desire and Will, the last being the determination of the mind which results in action. Conation is therefore related to action, which is again Expression, and is also Art, in the large definition of the term above given.

The grand primary distribution of the Mind made by Kant, followed by Sir William Hamilton, and now concurred in by the students of the mind[Pg 692] generally, is into: 1. Feeling; 2. Knowing; and 3. Conation (or Will and Desire). In accordance with this is Comte's famous epitome of the business of life: AGIR PAR AFFECTION, ET PENSER POUR AGIR; the three terms here being again, 1. Affection (or Feeling); 2. Knowledge (or Reflection); and 3. Action (or Performance).

If now, instead of distributing the Mind, we enlarge the sphere of our thinking, and distribute upon the same principle the total Universe (as if it were a mind or a mirror of the mind), for Feeling or Affection we shall put Impression or Nature; for Knowing or Reflection we shall put Science or Systematized Knowledge; and for Conation or Action we shall put Art.

The following table will exhibit the two series of distribution, that of the Universe at large, and that of the Human Mind, in their parallelism, reading the two columns from below upward:

The point of present importance in the use of these discriminations is to make clear to the mind of the reader what perhaps is sufficiently implied in the very terms themselves, namely: that Impression and Expression are correlative to, and, in a sense, exactly reflect each other; that the totality of Impression, or the Universe which enters the mind through the senses, is repeated—with a modification, it is true, but still with traceable identity, or with a definite and unbroken relationship—in the totality of Expression, or in the Universe of Art, taken as the entirety of what man does or creates. It is by the mediation of Science or Knowledge, that one of these worlds is converted into the other. Nature or Impression is the aggregate of the Rays of Incidence falling upon a mirror; Science is the Reflecting Mirror; and Art or Human Performance is the aggregate of the Reflected Rays, whose angles can be exactly calculated by the knowledge of the angle of incidence. Science or Knowledge is not only the mirror which makes the Reflection, but it is the plane or level which is to furnish us the means of adjusting the angles; of knowing their correspondence or relation to each other; and of translating the one into the other. Science must, therefore, as it develops, be the instrument of informing us of the exact analogy between Nature and Art; and must enable us so to apply the Laws of Nature, or the Laws of God as exhibited in Nature, that they shall become a perfect canon of life and action, in all our attempted performances and constructions, whatsoever they may be; or, vice versa, it must enable us from the knowledge of the laws of our own actions to reveal the secrets of Nature, and to know, by the analogy, in what manner she acts. It will then perhaps be found that the Moral Code, as dictated by inspiration, is only the forecast, through that method, of what is destined to be more perfectly revealed to the intellect, when the veil is rent by the millennial perfection of man.

It will be perceived by the reader that the term Art is here employed in a larger than its usual sense, although the analogy in question has a special intensification when we confine the term to mean, as it ordinarily does, the choicest performances of man. The term Science has also a larger and a smaller extension. In the larger sense it means the totality of knowledge extracted from Impression or the observation of Nature, and distinguished from mere Impression or Nature on the one hand, and from Expression, Action, Performance, or Art—the reprojection[Pg 693] of the knowledge into new forms of being—on the other hand. In the more restricted sense, Science means systematized knowledge, or, still more specifically, the Body of Principles or Laws in accordance with which knowledge becomes systematized in the mind.

The larger and the smaller Art-Performances of Humanity—first, all the Work or Product of the Creative Power of Man; and, secondly, Grand and Fine Art, as the Choice Product of that faculty—are again epitomized in Language or Speech. This last is the Sense-Bearing Product of the Lips and Coöperative Organs, put representatively for the product of the hands and of all the other instrumentalities of action.

It is in this representative sense that Language is preëminently and distinctively denominated Expression. But, as we have seen, Expression is the Equivalent and exact Reflect of Impression; Art, of Nature; through the mediation of Science, meaning thereby the Laws of Knowing. These Laws of Knowing thus hold an exact relation to the Laws of Doing; or, in other words, Scientific Laws to Creative and Vital Laws, which last are the Laws of Administration, human and divine. As an epitome or miniature, then, the Laws of Language must be an exact reproduction of the Laws of the Universe. Language itself, in other words, must be an epitome or miniature image, in all its perfection, of the Universe at large; as the image formed upon the retina of the eye, though infinitely small in the comparison, is an exact epitome or image, inversely, of the external world presented to the vision.

Let the reader guard himself well against supposing that what is here meant is the mere commonplace truth that Language is the equivalent of our Impression of the Universe, in the fact that we can, through the medium of Language, describe, and in that sense express, what we think and feel of and about the Universe. What is here intended is something far more recondite than this superficial relation between Speech, Thought, and the World thought about. It is this—That, in the Phenomena, the Laws, and the Indications of the Structure of Language—considered as a fabric, or Word-World—there is an exact image or reproduction, in a miniature way, of the Phenomena, the Laws, and the Indications of the entire Universe; in so definite and traceable a manner as to furnish to us, when the analogy is understood, a complete model and illustration of the Science of the Universe as a whole.

If this be true, the immense importance of the discovery can hardly be over-estimated. We are furnished by means of it with a simple object, of manageable dimensions, as the subject of our direct investigations; which, when mastered, will, by reflection, and a definite law of relation and proportion, enable us to master the Plan of the Universe; and so to constitute a one Science out of the many Sciences by recognizing the Domains which they cover as parts of a larger domain, which is equivalent to the whole.

Holding fast, then, to this thought, let us proceed to the endeavor so to distribute the totality of the aspects of Language as to exhaust the subject; and, by a concurrent projection of the analogies into the larger domain of the Universe as a whole, to establish a valid scientific nexus between the minor and the major spheres of our investigation.

First recurring to the preceding table, and translating the Abstract Conceptions, Nature, Science, and Art, into their Concrete Equivalents or Analogies, they will stand thus:

[Pg 694]

This is to say, that the World or the Natural Universe is put for the Natural Impression which it makes of itself on the mind of the knowing subject; that the Knowing Subject is put in the place of Knowledge; and that the Product of Activity—the Thing Created—is put for the Activity itself or the Act of Creation.

It is clear enough that this distribution is exhaustive, thus: 1. The World, including, in a sense, all things; but here contrasted with, and in that sense excluding, two of its own minor domains; 2. Man, including Spirit, and God, in so far as human (not seeking to compass or bring within our scientific classification whatsoever is divine in a sense absolutely supernatural or transcending the Universe as such); 3. The Collective or Aggregate Product of Human Activity; including, especially, as norm or sample, Grand and Fine Art, the Choice Product of Human Activity; and, in a more especial sense, Language, as the Special or Typical Expression, which exactly counterparts and represents the totality of Impression made by Primitive Nature or The World, upon Man or the Human Mind.

Nature has again, therefore, like both Science and Art, as shown above, a double significance, in the former and larger of which it includes and covers or envelops the two other departments of Being; in the latter and smaller of which it excludes them, and makes Nature, or the World, to stand over against them, as that which is to be compared with Man and the Product of the Labor of Man; and in an especial sense with that particular product called Speech. The easy transition from the minor to the larger conception of Nature or the World is what renders Language a type, not only of the Universe as distinguished from Man and the Product of his Activity, but equally a type of the Universe in that larger sense in which it embraces them both.

Hence the two terms of our comparison are: 1. Language, as the miniature and image of the whole, with, 2. The World or Universe, in that larger sense in which it is the whole, and, as such, includes Language and all else.

Observe, in the next place, that Art, whether in the larger or in the smaller sense which we have assigned to it, is the Product of the Combination and Blending of Science with Nature (reflective knowledge with natural impression); or, speaking in the concrete, of the conjunction of man with the outside world; man as the Agent or Actor, and the World or Nature as the Object wrought upon.

In the production of Speech, the phonos or mere sound is the natural, unwrought material, which corresponds with the Reality of Nature; and the Meaning or Minding which acts on, articulates and organizes the Sound into Speech, and which measures the sound quantitatively, as in Music, is the Scientific Attribute corresponding with Knowledge. The result of these two in combination is the Art of Speech, generally, and Improvisation or Song as the Fine Art of this Lingual Domain.

But passing from the Abstract to the Concrete Domain, Unwrought Natural Sound, bearing its proportion of meaning, furnishes the great basic department of language, which, for the reason that it is basic, is usually regarded as the whole of language, namely, Oral Speech, or Speech Language, as distinguished from Music and Song.

Music, on the other hand, is wrought or measured Sound, bearing also its proportion of meaning; a superior language, corresponding with Science, from its relation to measure, to numbers, to fixed laws; as Oral Speech corresponds, in its freedom and unconstraint, with Nature.

Music and Oral Language united or married to each other constitute Song, which is then the analogue or type, or Nature's hieroglyph, in this Domain, of Art.[Pg 695]

We say instinctively the Art of Speech; the Science of Music, and the Art of Singing. In the first instance, Art is used for Natural Performance or Nature; but the whole of speech falling within the domain of art or performance, its lowest or natural division still has some claim to the distinction of an art. The first step of this series, Nature, and the third step, Art, repeat each other by overstepping the second, which is Science, as Do is accordant with Mi, but disharmonic with Re. It is, therefore, from the instinctual perception of this harmony, that Oral Speech, the basis of Language, the true Nature-department of Language, is still denominated the Art of Speech.

Adhering, however, to the Concrete Domain, and seeking our analogies there, oral speech, a Concrete Thing, does not directly correspond with Nature, an Abstract Conception, but with The World, a concrete thing; nor does Music, a Concrete Thing, correspond with Science, an Abstract Conception, but with Man (the Mind-being, Knowledge-being, the Science-being), a concrete thing; nor, again, does Song, a Concrete Thing, correspond with Art, an Abstract Conception, but with Human Product or Doing, a concrete thing. Song is again but the lowest and simple expression for that combination of Music and Oral Expression, aided by Action, to which the Italians, full of instinct for Art, have given the name Opera, The Work par excellence, the culmination of Art in Movement and Sound. This word, from the Latin, opus, operari, work, to work, connects in idea with the Greek [Greek: poiheô], and the whole with Action and Art. This last relationship accounts beautifully for the fact that the words poetry, poesy, and poet should be derived from the Greek word [Greek: poiheô], which signifies simply TO DO.

The first threefold division of Language and of The Universe, both brought into a parallelism in the Concrete—the three ascending Stories of each Edifice, so to speak, when compared with each other—appear then as shown in the table below:

Oral Speech is the agglomerism of Sound, conceived of as roundish or in the lump, as an undifferentiated Oneness or mass; and, when wholly unarticulated, it is the Bawl, a mere orthographical variation of Ball; that is to say, it is, to the imagination, Globe-shaped, or World-shaped. It is the concrete or massive world of Language or Speech.

Music is the Strain or the Abstractism of Sound. To strain means TO DRAW. Ab-stract is from the Latin ab, FROM, and strahere, TO DRAW. The idea is not here roundish, as in the other case, but elongate; sound made into a strain, a cord, or a string, equivalent to a line, which is the subject of measure-ment, by notes (or points) and intervals. The line, with its twoness of determination and extremity, has a relation to the number Two, like that which the ball or globe has to the number One. The line is at the same time the type of The Abstract, the Domain of Science, and hence of Science, and of Knowledge, and again, in the concrete, of Man, the Knowledge-being. The ball (bawl) is at the same time the type of The Concrete (con, with, crescere, TO GROW; THE GROWN TOGETHER, or AGGLOMERATE-world), and hence of Nature, and again in The Concrete, of The World, as contrasted with Man.

Song is the measure of the strain and the mingle of the bawl again commingled with each other, in a composite blending of The Measured and The Free. As the Composity of that[Pg 696] which has for its numerical type Two, with that which has for its numerical type One, the proper numerical type of Song is Three; or thus:

These numerical analogues can only be adverted to here, and their meaning may not be very distinctly perceived. Their full exposition and that of their immense importance as principles and guides in the domain of analogy must be treated of elsewhere.

Rhythm is the measure of the strain. Music is the mingled measure of many strains. Song is the higher mingling of music with the bawl (the phonos, or the material of Oral Speech).

Measure is the analogue of Science, and hence Music is another such analogue. Men-s, MIND, and men-sura, MEASURE, are etymologically cognate words; so the English words MEAN-ing, THE MIND that is in a thing, and MEAN, the average or measure, or the dia-meter, or through-measure of a thing. Again, the concrete analogue of Science (Knowledge, Mind, The Abstract, etc.) is, as we have seen, Man. Men-s, man, hu-man-us, are again, probably, etymologically cognate to homo, hominis, hoc men-s, as hodie is to hoc or hæc dies.

The Line or Cord is the instrument of measuring, and as such is again the type of Science, as the Ball or Globe is the type of Nature; the Line, the type of strictness, straightness, stretchedness, exactness; and the lump or aggregative form, that of Freedom from Constraint, Solution, as of the water-drop, and of Absolute-ness (ab, from, and solvere, to free). The Relative repeats The Abstract; and The Absolute, in Philosophy, repeats The Concrete. The Relative has for its type Two, or di-termination (dis or di, Two, and termini, ends); and the Absolute has for its type One, [Greek: to hen] of the Greeks. Existence, embodying The Absolute and The Relative; the one and the two; has for its type Three; and the all-sided aspect of Universal Being which distinguishes and yet combines these three aspects of Being, is Tri-Unity, or the Three in One.

The Trinism, or third story of ascension in the constitution of things, again divides into Two Branches, the first of which accords with Duism (music, line, science, mind, man), and the second with Unism (oral speech, globe, nature, world).

In respect to Language, the division here made distributes Song (as the higher type, including all music) into two great departments; as, 1. Composition, and 2. Performance, or the Songas a Thing, and Singing as an Act. Song as a whole is the analogue in language of the totality of Human Achievement, in the distribution of the total Universe, as shown above. The same division applied here distinguishes the permanent product of human activity, the book or the statue, from the performance of man—the action of the author or sculptor. It is the distinction of the Latins between 1. Res, and 2. Res gestæ.

Dismissing for the present the higher domain of Language, which is Song, we reduce the scope of investigation to the lower and middle divisions, namely: 1. To Oral Speech, and 2. To Music; and, in the distribution of the Universe at large, to the corresponding lower and middle divisions, namely: 1. The World (Nature), and 2. Man (Mind).

Oral Speech, the Nature-department of language, separates, grammatically, into two grand Subdivisions, as follows: 1. Analysis, The Elements of Language, namely, The Alphabetic and Syllabic distribution of Language, culminating in Word-Building;—The Word in Language being The Individual in that Domain; and, 2. Synthesis, Construction, the Grammatical Domain proper, including the Parts of Speech and their Syntax, or their putting to[Pg 697]gether in a Structure or Lingual Construction.

The first of these is the Domain of the Elementality of Language, and corresponds with and illustrates what Kant denominates Quality; as the name of one of the groups of three in his table of the twelve Categories of the Understanding. This group of Quality includes 1. Affirmation; 2. Negation; and 3. Limitation. By Affirmation is meant the Positive Element or Factor of Being; by Negation, the Negative Element; and by Limitation is meant the Articulation, that is to say, the jointing or joining of the Positive and Negative Elements, in a seam or ridge, which is the existential reality, arising from the positive (quasi-negative) and the negative grounds of Being.

The Positive Element or Factor of Oral Speech, the Absolute Reality or 'Affirmation' of Language, is Vocal Utterance, or, specifically, the kind of Sound called Vowel.

The Negative Element or Factor of Oral Speech, the 'Negation' of Kant, as illustrated in the Speech Domain, is Silence; the Silences or Intervals of Rest which intervene between Sounds (and, by repetition, between Syllables, Words, Sentences, and the still larger divisions of Speech).

The Limitational Element of Oral Speech is Consonantism, or, specifically, the Consonant Sounds, which for that reason are otherwise denominated Articulations, or jointings; as they are the breaks of the otherwise continuous vocal utterance of Vowel Sound, and, at the same time, the joinings between the fragments of Vowel Sound, namely, the Vowels, and the surrounding and intervening medium of Silence. The Consonants thus become, in a sense, the Bony Structure, or Skeleton of Speech, the most prominent part, that which furnishes the fossil remains of Language, which are investigated by the Comparative Philologists.

Sound, the Positive Element or Factor, the Affirmation, the Eternal Yea, the Absolute Reality, is the Something of Speech.

Silence, the Negative Element or Factor, the Negation, the Eternal Nay, the Absolute Unreality, is the Nothing of Speech.

Articulate Sound, the Resultant Element, the Limitation or Articulation, the Eternal Transition, the Arriving and Departing, is the Existential Reality, which comes up between and out of the Absolute Vocality (quasi-negative), and the Absolute Silence.

But the Vowel Absolute, the continuous, unbroken, unarticulated, undifferentiated, monotonous Vowel-Sound, would be precisely equivalent to Silence. This, then, illustrates the famous fundamental aphorism of the Philosophy of Hegel: Something = (equal to) Nothing; and the seemingly absurd Hegelian affirmation that the real Something is the resultant of the conjunction of two Nothings.

What Kant denominates Quality, would be, for some uses, better denominated Elementism or Elementality, and the Domain in which this principle dominates might then be called the Elementismus of such larger Domain as may be under consideration. Thus the Elementismus (or Elementary Domain) of Language would include Sounds, or the Alphabet, Syllables, and Root-Words. These are three powers or gradations of the Roots of Language. This same domain might therefore be called the Radicismus or Root-Domain of Language. Typically, one-letter, two-letter, and three-letter roots, again, represent these three powers.

The Elementismus or Radicismus of the Universe, correspondential with that of Language, consists of the Metaphysical, the Scientific, and the Descriptive Principles of Being. The parallelism is exhibited throughout in the following table:[Pg 698]

It results from this table that the deep Metaphysical Domain, wherein Aristotle and Kant were laboring to categorize the Universe, is the Alphabetic Domain of Universal Being; and that their profound effort was, so to speak, to discover The Alphabet of the Universe. It also appears that the Syllabarium of the Universe, and typically the open two-letter syllables of Language, as bi, be, ba, correspond as analogues with the Physical Principles which lie at the basis of the Sciences; and finally, that the completed Root-Words, typically the closed three-letter syllables, or usual monosyllabic root-words, as min, men, man, correspond with the descriptive generalizations or general averages of Natural Science, as Universe itself, Matter, Mind, Movement, etc.

These analogies need further elaboration and confirmation to render them perfectly clear and to establish them beyond cavil—such as space here does not admit of. Let us hurry on, therefore, to the Relational or Constructive Domains of Language and the Universe, where the analogies are more obvious.

The second of Kant's groups of Categories, in the order in which it is most appropriate now to consider them, he denominates Relation. Relation is that which intervenes between the Parts of a Whole.

Prepositions are especially defined in Grammar as words denoting relations. Our attention is thus turned in the Domain of Language to the Parts of Speech; and to the Syntax (putting together), or Construction of these Parts into the wholeness of Discourse. This is more specifically the Department of Grammar. Conjointly these are what may be denominated the Relationismus of Language. This is the Domain immediately above the Elementismus. In the same way the division of the human body or any other object into Parts, Limbs, Members, etc., and the recombination of these into a structural whole, arises in the scale of creation above the Domain of Elements (Ultimate, Proximate, Chemical, etc.), this last embracing only the qualitative nature of the substances entering into the structure. In the Universe at large, therefore, this Relational Domain is that in which we shall find Things, Properties, Actions, and, specifically, the Relations between such, and their Combinations into Structures and Departments, Branches, or Limbs of Being, and finally into the total Universe itself, which is the analogue of the totality of Language.

Relation has a threefold aspect: first, in respect to Space; second, in respect to Time; and third, in respect to Instance or Present Being, the conjunction of the Here and the Now.

The first of these aspects subdivides into what Kant denominates, 1. Substance, and 2. Inherence.

The second of these aspects subdivides into what Kant denominates, 1. Cause, and 2. Dependence.

The third of these aspects of Relation Kant sums up in the term Reciprocal Action.

Commencing with the first of these three subdivisions of Relation, and making our application within the Domain of Language, it is obvious that it refers to the Substantive and Adjec[Pg 699]tive region of Grammar; Substance relating to Substantives, and Inherence (or Attributes) to Adjectives; or otherwise stated, thus:

The one Thing inclusive of all minor Things is the Universe. The Universe as Thing, or the concrete domain of Being, subdivides into the world of Things proper as distinguished from the Personal world, or the Human world or Man. This first division of the substantive Universe corresponds with the first grand grammatical division of Nouns Substantive into 1. Common Nouns Substantive, and 2. Proper Nouns Substantive.

Common Nouns Substantive correspond with Things proper, not aspiring to the rank of Personality; Things put in contrast with Persons; Things in that sense in which we speak of a person derogatorily as a mere thing; hence, common or ordinary, and as a common, undistinguished herd of objects, only named and discriminated by the class-name of the class of objects to which they belong.

Proper Nouns Substantive are the individual and distinctive names of Men, Women, and Children. Hence they belong to and correspond with the domain of Personality, or to that of Man as against the world of mere Things. Some objects, lower in the scale of Being than man, are treated with that respect and consideration which ordinarily attach to Human Beings, and are then dignified by applying to them Proper Names. These are especially the Domestic Animals immediately associated with man; Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, etc. Restated, this discrimination is as follows:

It is to be borne in mind that, as a minor proportion of mere Things are raised to the dignity of wearing Proper Names, so, on the other hand, Men, though appropriately distinguished by prenomens and cognomens, may also sink to the character of Things, and be mentioned by class-names. Thus it is that throughout Nature one domain overlaps another domain, and all of our discriminations, though made in terms as if absolute, signify, in fact, merely the preponderance; thus, when we say, that Proper Names apply to the Human Domain, that is true in preponderance, but not absolutely or exclusively; and when we say that Common Names apply to Things below Persons, the statement is true in preponderance, but not absolutely or exclusively.

Proper Names—The Human World in Language—are, in the next place, distinguished by Gender, as that word itself is distinguished by Sex. By the principle of Overlapping, above explained, this distinction of Gender or Sex descends in a minor degree into the Thing World; in a large degree to the Animal World below man: in less degree to the Vegetable World; and in the least degree to the Mineral and Abstract World. But characteristically and predominatingly, Sex is predicated of Humanity, where it is developed in its highest perfection; and in the same degree Gender in Grammar is, in predominance, confined to the Proper Nouns Substantive. Masculine and Feminine are the only Proper Genders. Neuter Gender means of neither Gender, and includes the great mass of Common Nouns, or the Thing World, as distinguished from Personality.

Reversing the order, and resuming the above discriminations in the two domains, Language and the Universe, they are as follows:[Pg 700]

Again, in this Concrete World, the world of Persons and Things, Number reappears, and guides the next great Grammatical division of Nouns Substantive; and the ruling numbers are, again, One, Two, Three.

The Number One corresponds with the Singular Number in Grammar, and with the Individual or Single Person (or Thing) in the Universe at large. The Number Two corresponds with the Dual Number in Grammar, and with the Couple or Pair in the World of Persons (and Things); and finally the Number Three corresponds with the Plural Number in Grammar and with Society or the many among Persons (and Things); or in tabular form, thus:

The Number Three, as the first Plural Number above the Dual, is the Head and Type of Plurality in the grammatical discrimination, and stands representatively for all Plurality.

One, Two, and Three, are the Representative Numbers and Heads of the whole Cardinal Series of Number.

First, Second, and Third are the corresponding Representatives and Heads of the Corresponding Ordinal Series of Number. These latter numerals find their representation, grammatically, in the next Grand Grammatical Distribution of the Proper Nouns Substantive, namely, Person, so called, or, specifically, the

1st Person,
2d Person, and
3d Person (of Proper Nouns).

This distribution represents properly the Rank or Degree of Persons in the Hierarchy of Personality; the Ego ranking naturally as 'Number One.' Deference or Grace teaches us afterward to defer to the personality of others, and converts our primitive notions of rank into opposites, in a way which is indicated by the honorific use of Thou in addressing the Supreme, etc.

This idea of Personal Rank, the Hierarchical Ascension of Individuality or Personality in Society, abstracted from the particular Individuals, and rendered purely official, becomes nominally a new Part of Speech, and is the whole, substantially, of what we denominate the Pronouns.

The Pronoun, as a Part of Speech, is, therefore, the Analogue, within the Lingual Domain, of The State or the Constitution, governmentally, of Human Society, the ascending and descending rank of individuals in the social organization, the Heraldic Schedule of Man.

Finally we arrive at the consideration of the Casus or Case of Nouns Substantive.

The Accidents of Life or Being, the occasional states of Men or Things, as acting or being acted upon, or simply as related to each other in Space, or otherwise, are here represented. It is this which is meant by Case, from the Latin casus, itself from the Latin cadere, TO FALL, or to FALL OUT or HAPPEN. In the old Grammars, the Cases of the Nouns are denominated Accidents. Ac-cid-ent, is from ad, to, and cadere (cid), TO FALL; and the same root with ob (oc), gives us oc-cas-ion, oc-cas-ionally, etc.

The Accidents of Being are a special kind of Inherence to the Substance of[Pg 701] Being; the Relational kind par excellence, as distinguished from the Qualitative kind; which last is denoted by the proper Adjectives. The Oblique Case of a Noun Substantive, whether formed by an Inflexion or by a Preposition, is therefore nothing else than a special kind of Adjective, destitute of the property of Comparison, because it denotes the Accident instead of the Quality of Being, and because Accidents or Relations between Things do not vary by degrees of Intensity as Qualities do.

The above description of the Cases of Nouns applies especially to the Oblique Cases; that is to say, to all except the Nominative Case.

The Nominative Case is itself susceptible of being regarded as an Accident; but its more important office is that of the Subject of the Proposition, which takes it out of the minor category of an accident, or at least subordinates this latter view of its character.

The Accidents of Being in the Universe at large are therefore the analogues of the oblique cases of Nouns Substantive in the Domain of Language; the Nominative Case representing, on the contrary, the central figure in the particular member of discourse, and that which the accidents or falls (casus) are perceived to relate to or affect.

Substantives and Adjectives were both formerly included under the term Nouns or Names; and we have still to distinguish, when they are under special consideration, as they are here, Nouns Substantive, and Nouns Adjective.

By regarding all the Oblique Cases of Nouns Substantive as a species or variety of Nouns Adjective, and so classifying them along with the Adjectives proper, the Nominative Case alone remains to represent the Substantive, in the higher and exclusive sense of the term. This is then, at the same time, The Subject. The terms employed to designate them sufficiently indicate this identity: Substantive, from sub, UNDER, and stans, STANDING; and Subject, from sub, UNDER, and jectus, THROWN or CAST. These are, therefore, nearly etymological equivalents.

Before passing to the consideration of the Subject and the Proposition, let us finish with the Nouns Adjective, to which we have only given an incidental attention.

These are the representatives of Incidence or Attribution; and correspond to the entire adjectivity pertaining to the substantiality of the real or concrete Universe; both Substance and Incidence falling as parts of one domain within the larger domain of Relation, which in Language is the domain of Grammar proper, including Etymology and Syntax.

It may now be shown that this Adjective World is so much a world by itself that Kant's namings for the four groups of the Categories of the Understanding, which we are here enlarging to be the Categories of All Being, are precisely the most appropriate namings for the subdivisions of the Adjective World. These are:

1. Adjectives of Quality.
2. Adjectives of Relation.
3. Adjectives of Quantity.
4. Adjectives of Mode.

1. Adjectives of Quality are those which designate the qualities of things as good or bad, etc. They are susceptible of three Degrees of Comparison; and are, without due consideration, usually regarded by Grammarians as if they constituted the whole of the Adjective World.

2. Adjectives of Relation are, as we have seen, (chiefly) the Oblique Cases of the Noun Substantive. They admit of no Degrees of Comparison. These have not heretofore been regarded as Adjectives; but broadly and philosophically considered, they are so.

3. Adjectives of Quantity are the Numerals, which always instinctively find their way among the Adjectives in the[Pg 702] Grammar Books, without their presence there being duly accounted for, that part of speech having been usually defined as relating exclusively to the Quality of Things. These numeral Adjectives subdivide into Ordinal Numerals and Cardinal Numerals; and, like Adjectives of Relation, they are not susceptible of being varied by the Degrees of Comparison.

4. Adjectives of Mode relate to the Conditions of Existence, as necessary and unnecessary, important and unimportant, etc. They are somewhat ambiguous as to their susceptibility to comparison. It is over this class of Adjectives that the Grammarians dispute. If a thing is necessary, then, it is said, it cannot be more necessary, or most necessary, the Positive Case being itself Absolute or Superlative. In some cases this rule is not so clear, and there is doubt whether it is proper to apply the signs of Comparison or not. We may correctly say more important and most important; and on the whole the Adjectives of Mode, or Modal Adjectives, are to be classed as capable of Comparison.

These four classes of Adjectives again classify in respect to their usual susceptibility to comparison, as follows:

The Principle of Comparison is itself hierarchical, or pertaining to gradation or rank divinely ordained; or as the mere scientist might prefer to say, naturally existent. It repeats, therefore, in an echo, or correspondentially, The Person (First, Second, Third) of Nouns Substantive and Pronouns; and has relation to the Three Heads of the Ordinal Series of Number, 1st, 2d, 3d; as The Number of Nouns Substantive (Singular, Dual, and Plural) has relation to the Three Heads of the Cardinal Series of Number, 1, 2, 3.

The Qualities, the Relations, the Numerical Character, and the Modal Condition of Things, are conjointly an Adjunct World to the Real World of Persons and Things, in the Universe at Large; and taken collectively, it is that domain or aspect of the total Universe which is the scientific echo to or analogue of the Part of Speech called Adjective in the Grammar of Language. The Substantivity and the Adjectivity, taken again collectively with each other, are the totality of the Concrete Universe considered in a state of Rest. The Movement of the Universe is expressed by the verbal department of Language, and will receive our subsequent attention. It is, therefore, from within this department that our concrete analogues of the larger Abstractions of the Universe, Nature, Science, and Art, namely, The World, Man, and the Product of Man's labor, were taken. They belong to the Substantivity (Kant's Substance) of the Universe, and their qualities, relations, number, and mode of being belong to the Adjectivity of the Universe (Kant's Inherence); and these two departments of Universal Being or of the possible aspects of Universal Being are the Scientific Analogues, in the Universe at large, of Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective, in the Grammar Department of the total distribution of the little Universe of Language; which is the point to be here specially illustrated and insisted upon.

We pass now to the consideration of the Verb and Participle, related to Movement. The Great Noun Class of Words, including the Nominative Noun Substantive, not yet brought into action and made to functionate as Subject or Agent, together with the whole Adjective Family of Words as above[Pg 703] defined, is without Action. These words, and correspondentially, the Things and their Attributes which they represent in the Universe at large, are static or immovable. The Universe, viewed in the light of them solely, is a Universe at rest, or, as it were, arrested in its progression through Time, and existing only in Space; for Time has relation to Motion, as Space has relation to Position or Rest. This aspect of the Universe or of Language may therefore be appropriately denominated Statoid (or Spaceoid). The relations between the Parts of this Aspect, denoted by the Prepositions and Conjunctions, are inert or static relations, concerning predominantly Position in Space, as above, below, etc.

When the Substantive proper (the Nominative Case) passes over and becomes functionally a Subject (we will consider, first, the case where the Verb is Active Transitive, and the Subject therefore an Agent), we pass from Statism to Motism; or from Rest to Movement. This is, at the same time, to pass from the Domain or Kingdom of Space to the Kingdom or Domain of Time (or Tense).

Noun-dom (in its largest extension, including Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective, together with their Words of Relation, Prepositions and Conjunctions) constitutes, therefore, the Statismus (or Domain of the Principle of Rest) within the Relationismus (or Domain of Parts and their Construction, or Syntaxis into a whole) of the larger Domain of Language, which might then be properly denominated the Linguismus of the Universe. (Every new Science has to have its new nomenclature. Let the reader not be repelled, therefore, by these innovations upon the speech usages of our Language; their great convenience, and their actual necessity even for the right discussion of the subject, furnishing their sufficient apology.)

To determine what the limits of the corresponding Domain are in the Universe at large, and its proper technical designation, it is only necessary to go back upon the analogues already indicated. We have, then, the Statismus of the Relationismus of the Universe; which is the Structural Universe, viewed in respect to the relationship between the parts and the whole, and as if arrested in Space, or, what is the same thing, abstracted from Movement in Time.

In going over to the new Domain in Language,—the Grammar of the Verb and Participle,—we pass then, technically speaking, to the Motismus of the Relationismus of Language; and in going over to the corresponding Domain of the Universe at large, we pass to the Motismus of the Relationismus of the Universe, in which action and the relations between actions are concerned.

Since Motion and Action involve the idea of Force or Power, for which the Greek word is dynamis, furnishing the English words Dynamic and Dynamics, our Philosophers have chosen the distinction Static and Dynamic, instead of Static and Motic, the true distinction, and have in that way obscured and disguised from themselves even the fundamental and all-important relationship of these two great Aspects of Being, with the two great negative Grounds or Containers of all Being; namely, with Space and with Time respectively.

It is here, in the Domain of Movement and Time, the Motismus of Language, and especially of Grammar,—the Relationismus of Language,—that the Grand Lingual Illustration or Type of the Second Subdivision of Kant's Group of Relation occurs;—the subdivision which he should have denominated Tempic, as distinguished from the former Subdivision (of Substance and Inherence), which should then have been called Spacic.

This Tempic Sub-Group of Relation again subdivides, as already stated, into 1. Cause, and 2. Dependence.

The Subject of a Proposition, in the[Pg 704] Active Voice, which is the Typical or Direct Expression of Action, is the Agent or Actor in the performance of the given Action. To be an agent is to act; and to act is to exhibit an effect, the Cause of which resides in the Agent. Agent and Cause are thus identified. In other words, the Nominative Case, in the Active Transitive Locution, is the type and illustration of the Sub-Category, Cause, in the Group of Relation, as conceived by the great German metaphysician. His Correlative Sub-Category, Dependence, is the Action itself, resulting from the Activity of the Agent, and expressed by the Verb and its dependencies.

The Cause and Dependence of Kant, as a Sub-Group of Relation, are therefore, when translated into their typical expression in Language, simply The Nominative and The Verb; and belong to the Domain of Movement, and hence to that of Time.

It is only, however, when the Verb is Active that the Nominative is Agent or Cause. In the Passive Locution or Voice, a Conversion into Opposites occurs;—the Direct is exchanged for the Inverse Order of the Action. The Nominative then names the Object which receives, suffers, or endures the force of the Action, and the Agent is then thrown into the Category of an Accident, and expressed in an Oblique Case; thus, Charles is struck by John.

The term Subject, applied to the Nominative Case, is made, by a happy équivoque, to cover both these aspects; that in which the Nominative is Agent or Cause, and that in which it is not so. It is only in the latter instance that it is really or literally a subject, that is to say, subjected to, or made to suffer the force of the action of the Verb; but action is a reaction from such invasion or infliction of suffering or impression upon the person (or thing); and the term Subject, changing its meaning, accompanies the person nominated or named by the Nominative Case over into this new positive relation to the action. It is interesting to observe that precisely the same doubleness of meaning arises, in the same way, in respect to the word Passion, from Latin patior, to suffer. When we speak of the passion of Christ, we retain the primitive and etymological meaning of the word; but, ordinarily, passion means just the opposite; that violent reaction of the feeling side of the mind from Impression (or passion in the first sense), which is nearly allied to Rage.

Intermediate between the Active and the Passive Locutions is a compound Active and Reactive state—the action put forth by the agent, and yet terminating upon himself—which is expressed lingually by what is appropriately called in Greek the Middle Voice (Sanscrit, At mane pada), and in our modern Grammars, as the French, The Reflective Verb.

This last, the Reflective or Reciprocal Locution, is the grammatical type and illustration of Kant's third subdivision of the Group of Relation, that, namely, which he denominates Reciprocal Action.

The correspondences between Language and the Universe at large are here too obvious to require to be enlarged or insisted upon. The Active Voice in Grammar repeats the World of Direct Actions; the Passive Voice, the World of Inverse Actions; and the Middle Voice the World of Reciprocal Actions, in the Universe at large. The Nominative Case (in the first and leading of these Locutions) is the Analogue of Cause, and the Verb, of Dependence, or the Chain of Effects resulting from the Cause.

The I, the Me, the Ego, as Subject, in the domain of Philosophy, is first Subject (-ed) under Impression from the world without, and afterward becomes Cause (in Expression); and the term Subject has here, therefore, precisely the same ambiguity as in Grammar, and stands contrasted in the same way with the word Object; the Accusative Case of the old Grammarians being[Pg 705] now called the Objective Case, and denoting that upon which the force of the (direct) action is expended.

The Middle Voice becomes, by an elision, the Neuter Verb. I walk, means, I walk myself. Neuter Verbs fall, then, into the Category of Reciprocal Action.

The Typical Neuter Verb, the Typical Verb, in fine, of all verbs, is the Substantive or Copula Verb to be, the Verb of Existence or Being.
I am, means, I am myself, or, I keep or hold myself in being.

In strictness, the verb to be is the only Verb. Every other Verb is capable of Solution into this one, accompanied by a Participle; thus,
I walk, becomes, I am walking, etc.

By this analysis, the Verb, as such, falls back among words of Relation, or mere Connectives. It may then be classed with Prepositions and Conjunctions; its office of Connection being still peculiar, however, namely, to intervene between the Subject and the Predicate. Participles, into which all other verbs than this Copula, are so resolved, then fall back in like manner into the Class of Adjectives. The Tempic and Motic Word-Kingdom is thus carried back to its dependence upon the Spacic and Static Word-Kingdom, as basis; in the same manner as, in Nature, Time and Motion have Space and Rest for their perpetual background.

Reduced to this degree of simplicity, there are but three Parts of Speech: 1. Substantives; 2. Attributes; and 3. Words of Relation; which correspond with 1. Things; 2. Properties of Things; and 3. The Interrelationship of Things, of Properties, and of Things and their Properties, in the Universe at large.

The Adverb has not been mentioned. Analysis reduces it in every instance to an Oblique Case of the Substantive, or, what is the same thing, to a Substantive governed by a Preposition; and hence, by a second transfer, as shown above, to the class of Adjectives of Relation: thus, happily means in a happy manner; now means in the present time, etc.

In the Grammatical Motismus the Three Tenses,—for there are but three strictly, or in the first great natural Division of Time,—namely, the Past, the Present, and the Future, correspond with the Grand Three-fold Division of The Tempismus, the Universal Ongoing or Procession of Events, the Grandis Ordo Naturæ; namely, the Past, the Present, and the Future, as the Three-fold Aspect of Time and of the Universe of Res Gestæ, or Things Done, and Contained in Time, as distinguished from the other equal Aspect of the total Universe, namely, the Static Expansion of the Universe in Space.

Mode, which is subsequently developed in Music as a Distinct Grouping of Categories, finds here, in the domain of Relation, a subordinate development, in connection with the Verb.

Kant's Subdivision of Mode, as a group of Categories is, 1. Possibility and Impossibility; 2. Being and Not-Being; and 3. Necessity and Accidence.

It is obvious that Possibility is that Category which is expressed grammatically by the Potential Mode (from potentia, power, possibility); otherwise called the Conditional Mode. I should do so and so if—The Negative Form of this Mode expresses Impossibility: I should or could not do so and so unless, etc.

Being and Not-Being, direct Assertion and Denial, find their grammatical representation in the Indicative Mode: I do or I do not; and in an Un-fin-it-ed or In-defi-nite way, as a mere naming of the idea, in The Infinitive Mode, to do, etc.

Necessity and Accidence are expressed in the Imperative Mode for the former and in the Subjunctive Mode for the latter. Necessary and Imperative are synonymes. To command absolutely, is to require, and The Required or The Requisite is again The Necessary.[Pg 706]

Accidence is that which is under a condition, sub-joined, Sub-junctive; which may or may not happen, hence introduced by an if, equal to gif, give, grant, provided it so happen.

Elementality (Kant's Quality of Being) reappears in this domain of Relation in Connection with the Verb: Affirmation, in the Affirmative Propositions, as, I love; Negation, in Negative Propositions, as, I do not Love; and Limitation, wavering as between two, in the Dubitative or Questioning Forms of the Proposition, as, Do I love? Do I not love? The Celtic tongues have special modal forms to express these modifications of the Verb.

Number, the remaining one of Kant's Groups of the Categories, finds also its minor representative in this domain in the Numbers, Singular, Dual, and Plural, incorporated into the Conjugation of the Verb. This leads us to the consideration of Grammatical Agreement and Government; carries us over into Syntax, Prosody, Logic, and Rhetoric; back to Lexicology, the domain of the Dictionary or mere Vocabulary in Language; and thence upward to Music, and finally again to Song, the culmination of Speech.

The subject grows upon us, and it is impossible to complete it in a single paper.

The Portions of Language which we have been considering belong to the two Departments: 1. Elementismus (Kant's Quality), and 2. Relation (Grammar more properly). The treatment of these is not fully exhausted, and must be recurred to hereafter.

The two remaining ones of Kant's Groups of the Categories of the Understanding (here extended to be the Categories of all Being) are, 3. Quantity, and 4. Mode. The proper domain of these two is Music. The mere mention of the musical terms Unison, Discord (duism, diversity), the Spirit of One and the Spirit of Two; and of the Major and the Minor Mode, suggest Quantity and Modality as the reigning principles in that domain. The appearance of Number and Mode in the domain of Relation (Grammar), is, as already stated, a subordinate one, and has respect to the principle of overlapping, already adverted to, by which all the domains of Nature are intricated or con-creted with each other.

Quantity and Mode, in their own independent and separate development, will, therefore, be the special subjects of a subsequent treatment.

APHORISMS.—NO. VI.

Mind is a thing that we partly have by nature, and partly have to create by mental discipline and exercise. Or, as Horace says:

In English:

Nor is it yet clear, on which, supposing a well-organized and healthy body, most will depend—upon the native endowment, or upon the labor of developing and applying the inborn power.

Distinguishing, however, between genius and talent, we may safely admit that no discipline, without 'the gift and faculty divine,' will produce the one; and hold that well-directed industry, in almost any case of a naturally sound mind, will surely develop the other. The half-made and often ill-tutored efforts of the usual processes of learning, are not to be allowed a decisive voice against the supposition that vigorous mental life might be the common portion of educated men.[Pg 707]

AN ARMY: ITS ORGANIZATION AND MOVEMENTS.

The immense military operations of our civil war have familiarized, to a considerable extent, not only those connected with the armies, but the people generally with the systems on which military forces are organized and the methods of conducting war. Much has been learned in the past three years, and much accomplished in the improvement of tactics, internal organization, and the construction of all kinds of material. Civilians, who were well read in the history of former wars, and even professional military officers, were comparatively ignorant of all the numerous details necessarily incident to the formation and movement of armies. On account of the deficiency of practical information on these matters, the difficulties which arose at the commencement of the war, were, as it is well known, immense; but they were overcome with a celerity and energy absolutely unparalleled in the history of the world, and to-day we are able to assure ourselves with justifiable pride that in all essential particulars our armies are fully and properly organized, equipped, and provided for. We propose to exhibit in a few articles the methods by which these results have been accomplished—to present to readers generally the system of organization and the principles of operation existing in our armies—giving them such information as can be obtained only from actual thorough acquaintance with military life, or extended perusal of works on military art, as now understood among the leading civilized nations.

That such information would be desirable, we were led to believe from the surprise expressed by an intelligent friend at the definition given him of the phrase 'line of battle.' He was greatly astonished on learning that battles are fought, mostly, by lines of only two ranks in depth. The history of the 'line of battle' is of great interest, and indeed contains an exposition of the principles on which a great portion of modern warfare is founded. While the chief principles of strategy, of the movement of armies, of attack and defence, and to some extent of tactics, are the same now as in the earliest ages, the mode of arraying men for battle has undergone an entire change, attributable to the improvement in the weapons of warfare. We are not superior to the ancients so much in the science of war, as in the character of our arms. They undoubtedly fought in the manner most appropriate to the means which they possessed. The great change which has taken place in the method of battle, consists chiefly in this—that formerly men were arrayed in masses, now in lines. The Grecian phalanx was composed of 32,000 men arranged as follows: 16,000 spearmen placed in sixteen ranks of a thousand men each, forming the centre; on each wing, 4,000 light spearmen in eight ranks; 4,000 men armed with bows and slings, who performed the part of skirmishers; 4,000 cavalry. The Roman legion contained 4,500 men, of which 1,200 were light infantry or skirmishers armed with bows and slings. The main body consisted of 1,200 spearmen, who were formed into ten rectangular bodies of twelve men front by ten deep; behind them were ten other rectangles of the second line; and behind these a third line of 600 in rectangles of six men front by ten deep. To the legion was attached 300 cavalry.

In the middle ages, infantry was considered of little importance, the combat being principally among the knights and cavaliers. The introduction of gunpowder caused a change in the method of fighting, but it was effected gradually. For a long time only clumsy[Pg 708] cannon were used, which, however, made great havoc among the formations in mass still retained. Rude arquebuses were then introduced, and improvements made from time to time; but even so late as the 17th century the ancient arms were retained in a large proportion. They did not disappear entirely until the invention of the bayonet in the 18th century. This contributed as much as the use of firearms to change the formations of battle. In the 16th century the number of ranks had been reduced from ten to six; at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. the number was four; Frederick the Great reduced it to three. With this number the wars of the French Republic and Empire were conducted, until at Leipsic, in 1813, Napoleon's army being greatly diminished, he directed the formation in two ranks, saying that the enemy being accustomed to see it in three, and not aware of the change, would be deceived in regard to its numbers. He stated also that the fire of the rear rank was dangerous to those in front, and that there was no reason for the triple formation. In this judgment military authorities have since concurred, and the two-rank formation is almost universally adopted. Russia is the only civilized power which places men in masses on the battle field. Formations in column are used when necessary to carry a particular local position, even at a great expenditure of life. But the usual mode of combat is that adopted by Napoleon. Our battles have been almost universally fought in this manner. The rebels have probably used the formation in column more frequently than the Northern troops. The non-military reader can easily perceive that formations in mass are more subject to loss from the fire of artillery and from that of small arms even at considerable distances, and are less able to deliver their own fire.

Our old regular army consisted of ten regiments of infantry, two of cavalry, two of dragoons, and one of mounted rifles, of ten companies each, and four artillery regiments of twelve companies each. Two companies each of the latter served as light artillery—the companies alternating in this service. There was also a battalion of engineers.

At the commencement of the war our force of light artillery was very inadequate, and rifled ordnance had scarcely been introduced. Our present immense force of the former has been almost entirely created since the commencement of the war; the splendid achievements in rifled artillery have been entirely accomplished within the last three years. Although it had been applied some years previously in Europe, it was not formally introduced into our service until needed to assist in suppressing the gigantic rebellion. The Ordnance Department had, however, given attention to the matter, and boards of officers were engaged in making experiments. A report had been made that 'the era of smooth-bore field artillery has passed away, and the period of the adoption of rifled cannon, for siege and garrison service, is not remote. The superiority of elongated projectiles, whether solid or hollow, with the rifle rotation, as regards economy of ammunition, extent of range, and uniformity and accuracy of effect, over the present system, is decided and unquestionable.'[A] We shall see, in discussing artillery, how far these expectations have been realized.

The regular army was increased in 1861 by the addition of nine regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and one of artillery. The Mounted Rifles were changed into the 3d Cavalry, and the two dragoon regiments into the 1st and 2d Cavalry. The old 1st and 2d Cavalry became the 4th and 5th. All cavalry regiments have now twelve companies, and the new infantry regiments are formed on the latest French system of three battalions, of eight companies each, with a colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and three majors. Each of the 24 companies has 82 privates.

The old regular army comprised, when full, about 18,000 officers and men. As increased, the total complement is over 43,600, including five major-generals, nine brigadier-generals, thirty-three aides-de-camp, besides the field officers of the various regiments and the company officers. In addition to these officers (but included in the aggregate above given) are the various staff departments, as follows:

These figures all pertain to the regular army. A considerable number of the officers in the regiments have been appointed from civil life; but in the staff departments the officers are almost exclusively graduates from the Military Academy at West Point.

The raising of the immense volunteer force necessitated a great increase in the staff departments, and large numbers of persons from civil life have been appointed into the volunteer staff in the Adjutant-General's, Judge-Advocate's, Quartermaster's, Commissary, Medical, and Pay Departments. The ordnance duties are performed by officers detailed from the line, and engineer duties by regiments assigned for that purpose. A large number of additional aides-de-camp were also authorized, forming that branch of duty into a department. Aides-de-camp are also detailed from the line. The highest rank yet created for volunteer staff officers is that of colonel in the aides-de-camp. The heads of staff departments at corps headquarters are lieutenant-colonels, including an assistant adjutant-general, assistant inspector-general, a chief quartermaster, and chief commissary. Many regular officers hold these volunteer staff appointments, gaining in this manner additional rank during the war—still retaining their positions in the regular service; in the same manner as many regular officers are field officers in volunteer regiments.

The aggregate militia force of the United States (including seceded portions), according to the last returns, was 3,214,769. The reports of the last census increase this to about 5,600,000, which exceeds to some extent the number actually fit to bear arms. The computed proportion in Europe of the number of men who can be called into the field is about one-fifth or one-sixth of the population. If the population of the entire United States be assumed to be 23,000,000, the number of men liable, according to this computation, would be about 4,000,000, which is sufficiently approximate. The European computation of the force to be kept as a standing army is a hundredth part of the population—varied somewhat by circumstances. This would give the United States a force of 230,000. It will be seen how greatly in[Pg 710]ferior our regular force has been and still is to the computations adopted in Europe. But the United States will probably never require such a large force to be permanently organized; for we have not, like the European powers, frontiers to protect against nations with whom we may at any time be at war, nor oppressed nationalities to retain in subjugation by force. Our frontiers on Canada and Mexico have good natural defences—the first by the St. Lawrence river and lakes, and the second by the great distance to be traversed by an invading army before it could reach any important commercial position. Our vulnerability is in our extensive seacoast. The principal requirement for an army is a large framework, which can be rapidly filled by volunteers in expectation of war. With such a military constitution and a system of military education and drill in the different States, large and effective armies could be rapidly organized.

Our staff corps and regular army are insignificant, compared with those of European nations, in which the average strength of the standing armies is from 250,000 to 300,000 men on the peace footing, and 400,000 to 600,000 on the war footing, with immense magazines of equipage and material, numerous military schools, and extensive organizations in all the departments incident to an army. Our own army has hitherto been modelled to a great extent on the English system—the most aristocratic of all in Europe, and consequently the least adapted to a republic. To this is attributable much of the jealousy hitherto felt in regard to the army and all pertaining to it. We are now, however, conforming more to the French system, and from it will probably be adopted any changes that may be introduced.

The French army, since Napoleon gave it the impress of his genius, has in many characteristics been well adapted to the peculiarities of republican institutions. A soldier can rise from the ranks to the highest command, by the exhibition of valor and ability, more easily, in fact, than he can in our own army, with which political favoritism has much to do in promotions and appointments. By a recent policy of our War Department, however, vacancies have been left in the subordinate commissioned officers of the regular army, which are to be filled exclusively from the ranks. Many deserving officers in the army have been private soldiers.

No system will be effective for providing an adequate military organization that does not include thorough instruction for officers. The prevailing feeling in our country, as remarked above, has rather been to underrate the army, and to look with some jealousy on the West Point Military Academy and its graduates. The present war has effected a change in this respect. The country owes too much to the educated regular officers for the organization and conduct of the volunteer forces, to be insensible of the merits of the system which produced them. A capable civilian can undoubtedly become just as good an officer of any rank as a graduate of West Point; but it must be through a course of study similar to that there pursued. No natural ability can supply the want of the scientific training in the military, more than in any other profession. Military science is only the result of all the experience of the past, embodied in the most comprehensive and practical form. Napoleon was a profound student of military history. In his Memoirs he observes: 'Alexander made 8 campaigns, Hannibal 17 (of which 1 was in Spain, 15 in Italy, and 1 in Africa), Cæsar made 15 (of which 8 were against the Gauls, and 5 against the legions of Pompey), Gustavus Adolphus 5, Turenne 18, the Prince Eugene of Savoy 18, and Frederic 11 (in Bohemia, Silesia, and upon the Elbe.) The history of these 87 campaigns, made with care, would be a complete treatise on the art of war. The principles one should follow, in[Pg 711] both offensive and defensive war, flow from them as a source.'

To one familiar with the gradual progress in the organization of our armies, it is interesting to recur to the time when the first levies of volunteers were raised. Regiments were hurried into Washington half accoutred and indifferently armed. Officers and men were for the most part equally ignorant of the details, a knowledge of which enables a soldier to take care of himself in all circumstances. Staff officers knew nothing of the various departments and the methods of obtaining supplies. The Government had not been able to provide barrack accommodations for the immense irruption of 'Northern barbarians,' and the men were stowed like sheep in any unoccupied buildings that could be obtained. These were generally storehouses, without any cooking arrangements, so that when provisions were procured, no one knew what to do with them. Hundreds of men, who previously scarcely knew but that beef-steaks and potatoes grew already cooked and seasoned, could be seen every day sitting disconsolately on the curbstones cooking their pork on ramrods over little fires made with twigs gathered from the trees. Those who happened to be the lucky possessors of a few spare dimes, straggled off to restaurants. Washington, in those days, was only a great country-town, and not the immense city which the war has made it. The vague and laughable attempts of officers to assume military dignity and enforce discipline, with the careless insubordination of the men, furnished many amusing scenes. It was not easy for officer and man, who had gone to the same school, worked in the same shop, sung in the same choir, and belonged to the same base-ball club, to assume their new relations.

Privates would address their officer, 'I say, Bill, have you got any tobacco?' Officers would reply, 'Do you not know, sir, the proper method of addressing me?' Private would exclaim, 'Well, I guess now you're puttin' on airs, a'n't you?' Pompous colonels strutted about in a blaze of new uniforms, and even line officers then considered themselves of some consequence; while a brigadier-general was a sort of a demigod—a man to be revered as something infallible. Now-a-days old veterans care very little for even the two stars of a major-general, unless they know that the wearer has some other claims to respect than his shoulder straps.

As matters gradually became arranged, the troops were provided with tents, and encamped in the vicinity. Never was guard duty more vigilantly performed than in those camps around Washington. Every one of us came to the capital with the expectation of being immediately despatched to Virginia, and ordered to pitch into a miscellaneous fight with the rebels. Rebel guerillas and spies were supposed to be lurking in the surroundings of the capital, and 'taking notes' in all the camps. Woe betide the unsuspicious stranger who might loiter curiously around the encampments. With half a dozen bayonets at his breast he was hurried off in utter amazement to the guard house. At night the sentinels saw 'in every bush' a lurking rebel. Shots were pattering all night in every direction. Unfortunate straggling cows were frequently reduced to beeves by the bullets of the wary guardians. The colonel's horse broke loose one night, and, while browsing around, his long, flowing tail, the colonel's pride, was reduced to an ignominious 'bob' by a bullet, which neatly severed it near the root. Many was the trigger pulled at me, many the bullet sent whizzing at my head, as I returned to camp after an evening in the city. Fortunately, the person fired at was usually safe—any one within the circle of a hundred feet diameter was likely to receive the ball. One evening, about dusk, going into camp, I took a running jump over a ditch, and this rapid motion so fright[Pg 712]ened an honest German sentinel—probably a little muddled with lager—that he actually forgot to fire, and came at me in a more natural way with his musket clubbed. I escaped a broken head at the expense of a severely bruised arm. The rule for challenging, it used to be said, was to 'fire three times, and then cry 'halt!' instead of the reverse, as prescribed in the regulations.

When the order—long anticipated—for actually invading Virginia arrived, then was there excitement. Every man felt the premonition of battle, and nerved himself for conflict. As we marched down to Long Bridge, at midnight, perfect silence prevailed. Breaths were suspended, footfalls were as light as snowflakes, orders were given in hollow whispers. We placed our feet on the 'sacred soil' with more emotion than the Normans felt when landing in England, or the Pilgrims at Plymouth. This was war—the real, genuine thing. But our expectations were not realized. As the 'grand army' advanced, the scattered rebel pickets withdrew. The only fatality of the campaign was the death of the gallant but indiscreet Ellsworth. We had our first experience of lying out doors in our blankets. How vainglorious we felt over it! Many a poor fellow complained jocosely of the hardship and exposure, whom since I have seen perfectly content to obtain a few pine boughs to keep him from being submerged in an abyss of mud. Many, alas! have gone to a couch where their sleep will be no more broken by the reveille of drum and fife and bugle—in the trenches of Yorktown, in the thickets of Williamsburg, in the morasses of the Chickahominy, on the banks of the Antietam, at the foot of those fatal heights at Fredericksburg, in the wilderness of Chancellorsville, on the glorious ridge of Gettysburg. Comrades of the bivouac and the mess! ye are not forgotten in that sleep upon the fields where swept the infernal tide of battle, obliterating so much glorious life, leaving so much desolation! Even amid the roar of cannon, exulting in their might for destruction, amid the shrieking of the merciless shells, amid the blaze of the deadly musketry, memories of you occur to us. We resolve that your lives shall not have been sacrificed in vain. And in these long, dreary, monotonous days of winter, as the sleet rattles on our frail canvas covering, and the wind roars in our rude log chimneys, while the jests go around and the song arises, thoughts of the battle fields of the past cross our minds—we recall the incidents of fierce conflicts—we say, there and there fell——, no nobler fellows ever lived! A blunt and hasty epitaph, but the desultory vicissitudes of a soldier's life permit no other—we expect no other for ourselves when our turn to follow you shall come. So we break out into our favorite chorus:

Though your graves are unmarked, save by the simple broad slab from which storms have already effaced the pencilled legend, or perhaps only by the murderous fragment of iron, which lies half imbedded on the spot where you fell and where you lie, yet you live in the memory of your comrades, you live in the hearts of those who were desolated by your death, you live in that eternal record of heaven where are written the names of those who have given their lives to promote the truth and the freedom which God has guaranteed to humanity in the great charters of Nature and Revelation. For we are fighting in a holy cause. No crusade to redeem Eastern shrines from infidels, no struggle for the privilege of religious freedom, no insurrection for civil independence, has been more holy than this strife against the great curse and its abettors, who seek to make a land of freedom a land of bond[Pg 713]age to substitute for a Union of freemen, miserable oligarchies controlled by breeders of slaves. If we die in this cause, we have lived a full life. An anomalous state of things had existed between the time of the attack on Sumter and the 'invasion' of Virginia. Although the war had in reality commenced, communication was not suspended between Washington and Alexandria. On the day following the march over the Potomac, we found the plans of intrenchments marked out by wooden forms on the spots which subsequently became Fort Corcoran, opposite Georgetown, Fort Runyon, opposite Washington, and Fort Ellsworth, in front of Alexandria. How this had so speedily been done by the engineers I did not learn until many months afterward, when one of the party who planned the works described the modus operandi. They went over to Virginia in a very rustic dress, and professed to the rebel pickets to be from 'down country,' come up to take a look at 'them durned Yankees.' So they walked around unmolested, selected the sites for the intrenchments, formed the plans in their minds, made some stealthy notes and sketches, and, returning to Washington, plotted the works on paper, gave directions to the carpenters about the frames, which were constructed; and, after the army crossed, these were put in their proper positions, tools were placed conveniently, and, soon after the crossing was made, the men commenced to work.

In raising these intrenchments, drilling and organizing, the army passed about a month—varied only by alarms two or three times a week at night that the rebels were coming, whereupon the troops turned out and stood in line till daylight. It was shrewdly suspected that these alarms were purposely propagated from headquarters to accustom the men to form themselves quickly at night without panic. In after times, in front of Richmond, we had such duty to perform, without any factitious reasons. It was a matter of necessary precaution to stand to our arms nightly for two or three hours before daybreak.

Until just previous to the disastrous Bull Run campaign, no higher organization than that of brigades was adopted; but a day or two before the march commenced, General McDowell organized the brigades into divisions. These were reorganized by General McClellan as the two and three years volunteers joined the army. The organization of corps was made in the spring of 1862, just before the commencement of the Peninsula campaign, and is now the organization of the army.

The complete organization is now as follows:

Regiments, generally of ten companies.
Brigades, of four or more regiments.
Divisions, generally of three brigades.
Corps, generally of three divisions.

The various staffs have gradually been organized, until they now stand (in the Army of the Potomac) as follows:

At the headquarters of the army:

A Chief of Staff.
An Assistant Adjutant-General.
A Chief Quartermaster.
A Chief Commissary.
A Chief of Artillery.
An Assistant Inspector-General.
A Medical Director.
A Judge Advocate-General.
An Ordnance Officer.
A Provost Marshal-General.
A Chief Engineer.
A Signal Officer.
Aides-de-Camp.

The rank of these officers, as the staff is now composed, is as follows: The chief of staff, a major-general; the assistant adjutant-general, chief of artillery, and provost marshal, brigadier-generals; assistant inspector-general, a colonel; medical director, chief engineer, judge advocate-general, majors; the signal officer, chief commissary, and ordnance officer, captains; the aides, of various ranks, lieutenants, captains, and[Pg 714] majors. Most of these officers do not derive their rank from their position on the staff, but it has been given them in the volunteer organization, or pertains to them in the line of the regular or volunteer army. All the department officers (meaning all except aides) have a number of assistants, and the general officers have staffs and aides of their own, to which they are entitled by law. The total number of officers on duty at the headquarters may amount to fifty or more, and there is plenty of work for all of them during a campaign. Besides the regular staff, constituted as above related, there are the officers of an infantry regiment which furnishes guards and escorts, and officers of cavalry squadrons detailed to furnish orderlies. The headquarters of the army is therefore a town of considerable population.

At the headquarters of the different corps the staffs are as follows:

An Assistant Adjutant-General—Lieutenant-colonel.
A Chief Quartermaster—Lieutenant-colonel.
A Chief Commissary—Lieutenant-colonel.
An Assistant Inspector-General—Lieutenant-colonel.

[These officers derive their rank from their position, under a law of Congress.]

A Medical Director—being detailed from
the senior surgeons of the regular or
Volunteer army, and ranking as a
major.

A Commissary of Musters.
A Provost Marshal.
A Signal Officer.

[These officers are detailed from the line, and have the ranks which there belongs to them. The signal corps is, however, now being organized, with ranks prescribed by law.]

Aides-de-Camp—one with the rank of major, and two with the rank of captain. Besides these, additional aides are sent to the corps from those created under an act of Congress of 1861—now repealed—and are detailed from the line.

The quartermaster, commissary, and medical director generally have assistant officers. There is a squadron of cavalry and usually a company of infantry at each corps headquarters.

The staffs of divisions and brigades resemble those of the corps, except that the regular staff officers usually rank only as captains, except in cases where a major-general commands; he is entitled to an assistant adjutant-general with the rank of major. Officers detailed from the line to act on any staff in any capacity, bring with them the rank they hold in the line. They are not entitled, except the authorized aides and in some other particular cases, when ordered by the War Department, to additional allowances; but if they are foot officers, and are properly detailed for mounted duty, the quartermaster of the staff on which they serve is obligated to furnish them a horse and equipments. Divisions usually have an ordnance officer, whose duty it is to take charge of the ammunition of the division, keep the quantity ordered, and supply the troops in time of battle. By law the chief of artillery at corps headquarters is the chief ordnance officer for the corps, but this arrangement has been found impracticable. In the Army of the Potomac the chief of artillery does not remain at corps headquarters, but is assigned directly to the command of the artillery, where he also has a staff, including an ordnance officer, who supplies ammunition and other articles pertaining to his department, exclusively to the artillery.

The staff, it must be recollected, is to an army what the masons, carpenters, ironworkers, and upholsterers are to a building. As the latter are the agents for executing the designs of the architect, so the staff are the medium by which the commander of an army effects his purposes. Without competent staff officers in all the various[Pg 715] grades of organization constituting an army, the most judicious plans of the ablest commander will entirely fail. If a campaign is to be made, the commanding general, having formed his general strategical plan, needs the advice of his chief of staff as to the condition of his troops, and his assistance in devising the details. His adjutant-general's office must contain full records of the numbers of the troops—effective and non-effective—armed and unarmed—sick and well—present and absent, with all reports and communications relative to the state of the army. His quartermaster must have been diligent to provide animals, wagons, clothing, tents, forage, and other supplies in his department; his commissary and ordnance officer, the same in relation to subsistence and munitions—all having made their arrangements to establish depots at the most accessible points on the proposed route of march. His chief of artillery must have bestowed proper attention to keeping the hundred batteries of the army in the most effective condition. His chief engineer must have informed himself of all the routes and the general topography of the country to be traversed; he must know at what points rivers can be best crossed, and where positions for battle can be best obtained; his pontoon trains and intrenching implements must be complete and ready for service; his maps prepared for distribution to subordinate commanders. His inspector must have seen that the orders for discipline and equipment have been complied with. His medical director must have procured a supply of hospital stores, and organized the ambulance and hospital departments. His provost marshal must have made adequate arrangements to prevent straggling, plundering, and other disorders. His aides must have informed themselves of the positions of the various commands, and become acquainted with the principal officers, so as to take orders through night and storm with unerring accuracy. They must be cool-headed, daring fellows, alert, and well posted, good riders, and have good horses under them.

All this work cannot be accomplished in a day, a week, or a month. The full preparations required to render a campaign successful must have been the result of long, patient, thoughtful consideration and organization. It is no time to teach sailors seamanship in a hurricane. They must know where to find the ropes and what to do with them, with the spray dashing in their eyes and the black clouds scurrying across the sky. It is no time for staff officers to begin their duties when a great army is to be moved. Then it is needed that every harness strap, every gun-carriage wheel, every knapsack, every soldier's shoe should have been provided and should be in serviceable order; that the men should have had their regular fare, and have been kept in the healthiest condition; that clear and explicit information be ready on all details. Prepared by the assiduous, intelligent labor of a vigilant and faithful staff, an army becomes a compact, homogeneous mass—without individuality, but pervaded by one animating will—cohesive by discipline, but pliant in all its parts—impetuous with enthusiasm, but controlled easily in the most minute operations.

These remarks, relative to the requirements for an effective staff, pertain to all grades of organization. The staff officers at the headquarters of the army organize general arrangements and supervise the operations of subordinate officers of their department at the headquarters of corps; these have more detailed duties, and, in their turn, supervise the staffs of the divisions; the duties of these again are still more detailed, and they supervise the staffs of brigades; these finally are charged with the specific details pertaining to their commands, supervising the staffs of the regiments, who are in direct[Pg 716] communication with the officers of companies.

Prepared for service by the unremitting labors of the staff officers, it is seldom that the army cannot move in complete order at six hours' notice. Think what preparation is required for a family of half a dozen to get ready to spend a month in the country—how tailors and milliners and dressmakers are put in requisition—how business arrangements must be made—how a thousand little vexing details constantly suggest themselves which need attention. Think of a thousand families—ten thousand—making these preparations! What a vast hurly burly! What an ocean of confusion! How many delays and disappointments! During the fortnight or month which has elapsed while these families have been getting ready, an army of fifty or a hundred thousand men has marched a hundred miles, fought a battle, been reëquipped, reclothed, reorganized, and, perhaps, the order of a nation's history has experienced an entire change.

Our next paper will describe in detail the operations of the staff departments.

SLEEPING.

DR. FOX'S PRESCRIPTION.

There is a story, familiar to most people of extensive reading, and quite frequently alluded to, of a fox that, after endeavoring in vain to possess himself of some luscious grapes which grew beyond his reach, walked composedly away, solemnly assuring himself and Mr Æsop, who overheard him, that as yet the grapes were unripe. The story, or any allusion to it, seldom fails to excite a smile. I, too, laugh when I hear it; but not so much at Reynard's inconsistency as at his wit. The faculty of discovering grave defects in that which we have failed to obtain is one for which we cannot be too thankful. It is a source of infinite comfort in this comfortless world—a principle which enables both parties in every contest to be victorious—an important article in the great law of compensation. It is as old as the human race. The great fabulist no more invented it than Lord Bacon invented inductive reasoning. Like that philosopher, he simply enunciated a principle which had been unconsciously recognized and constantly used ever since the machinery of the human mind was first set in motion. I have no doubt that when Adam found himself outside of Eden he wondered how he could have been contented to remain so long in that little garden, assorting pinks and training honeysuckles, when here lay a vast farm, well watered and fertile, needing only to be cleared, fenced, and cultivated to yield a handsome income.

It is well that pride should sometimes have a fall. But you and I, dear reader, have often seen envious people gloating over that fall in any but a Christian spirit. At such times have we not rejoiced at any circumstance which could break the force of the fall and disappoint the gratification of such malicious hopes? And what has accomplished that object so often and so effectually as Reynard's great principle?

Once or twice in my life I have seen a smile on a female face under circumstances which made it impossible to doubt that the smile was gotten up for my especial benefit. On such occasions my sense of gratitude (which is quite large) and my vanity (which is very small) have conspired to exalt women in my estimation to perhaps an undue elevation. They have seemed to me to be angels visiting poor, weak, degraded man from pure motives of love and sympathy. And I have felt a sort of chagrin that we have only such a dirty, ill-constructed world to ask them into. But let us suppose that a short time afterward I see on the same face a decided frown or a look of chilling disdain (I do not say that I ever did), under circumstances which indicate that this also is displayed with reference to, and out of a kind regard for, myself. Here, it should seem, the premises are established which compel me to admit a very disagreeable conclusion. This I cannot think of doing. How shall I escape? Why, deny one of the premises, of course. But the frown—I saw it plainly, alas, too plainly! I cannot dispute the evidence of my senses. For a moment I falter; and again that ghastly conclusion stares me in the face. But now I remember that a shrewd debater sometimes gains a point by denying the premise which he is expected to concede. Can it be done in this case? Certainly! Human judgment, you know, is fallible. Not that mine can be at fault now; but it[Pg 718] may have been so heretofore. All men have erred; but no man errs. There is the point! I was in error when I said women were angels. They are, they must be, mortal. There are unmistakable signs that they are but human—indeed, some of them might almost be called inhuman. The world is plenty good enough for them—a little too good for some I could name. The Mussulman is quite right in excluding them from heaven. What should we want of them when we get there? Won't there be plenty of houris there, with all their beauty and virtue, but without their extravagance and wilfulness? To say the least, they are the weaker vessels, though they carry the most sail. Am I, then, to drop my lip and hang my head and put my finger in my eye, because one of them, for some cause or no cause, chooses to turn up her nose at me? The proposition is absurd.—Thus, thus only, I save my self-respect without sacrificing my logic. Am I inconsistent? Nay, verily. For what is the highest consistency but correspondence with truth? And have I not at length hit upon the exact truth? Before, I was deceived; then, I was inconsistent. But now—now I am thoroughly, beautifully consistent. But all this is simply Dr. Fox's method of treating half the ills which flesh is heir to, reduced to logical forms and written out in plain English.

Had Lord Byron but availed himself of this panacea after his adventure in Jack Muster's vineyard, it might, perhaps, have rendered his life happier, and imparted a 'healthy, moral tone' to his writings.

Every science, in its true progress, works toward simplicity. And mankind will acknowledge at some future time that the 'sour grapes' at which they were wont to sneer, contain a powerful stimulant for drooping ambition—the only infallible remedy for damaged honor and wounded pride. When the scales shall have fallen from our eyes in that happy day, politics will become a delightful profession, the contentious spirit of man will cease from its bickerings, the tongue of woman will settle down into a steady and respectable trot, the golden age of duelling will retreat into the shadowy past until it shall seem contemporary with the half-fabulous chivalry of the middle ages, distracted maidens will no longer die of broken hearts, nor disappointed lovers of unbroken halters.

As the parties to a lawsuit have the privilege of challenging peremptorily a certain number of jurymen, so every man should be allowed to enjoy a reasonable number of whims and prejudices without being called upon to give reasons for them. Then let us hear no more derisive laughter when it is hinted that an unfortunate brother has resorted to the sour-grape remedy. We all, at times, would be glad to find relief in a similar way, but are deterred sometimes by ignorance of the true principles of therapeutics, but oftener by a false pride of consistency. Let us rather say that he has simply fallen back upon a final privilege, and exercised a God-given faculty.[Pg 719]

LITERARY NOTICES.

Our attention was first drawn to this work by a notice of it in that sprightly paper, the Round Table. The writer of the notice therein says: 'I am at a loss where to award its authorship, since it comes anonymously, but from internal evidence it seems to be a translation from the German, and to have been rendered likewise into French. It seems also to have been written before the official publication of the documentary evidence given on Joan's trial, which was committed to the press for the first time in 1847, and which within ten years thereafter was the occasion of an address to the present Emperor of the French, accompanied by elaborate historical notes, praying him to take the preliminary steps to secure the canonization of the Maid. It is always to be regretted that a book is put forth, like the present, without any vouchers for its authenticity, especially when the knowledge of its origin dimly presents itself to the reader upon perusal.' We can imagine no possible reason for the suppression of the name of the careful and conscientious author of the work under consideration. Such suppressions and literary piracies expose the writers and translators of America to suspicion and censure. Have we any right to defraud an author of his just fame, or to use his works to fill our own pockets, without at least giving the name of the man to whose labors we stand indebted for our whole tissue? We think our publishers should frown upon all such attempts, bearing as they do upon the just claims of foreign authors. The work in question is a translation from the German of Guido Görres, the son of the great Görres, author of 'The History of Mysticism.' So far as we have examined it, it gives the original without abridgment until the thirtieth chapter, when, in the most interesting part of the whole life, condensation and omissions begin. The ten last chapters of the original are crowded into three. We have thirty-three chapters in the translation, and forty in the original. Many of the most characteristic, exciting, and intensely interesting passages of the wonderful trial are excluded.

This work was first translated into English by Martha Walker Cook, and was given to the public without abridgment in 1859, in the pages of the Freeman's Journal, published in New York. The title page ran thus: 'Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. An Authentic Life from Contemporaneous Chronicles. From the German of Guido Görres. By Mrs. Martha Walker Cook.' Mrs. Cook's translation has never appeared in book form. The rendering of the work in question differs in many important points from that given by Mrs. Cook. The life in the original is one of exceeding interest. The standpoint of its author is a Catholic one, he being a firm believer in the divinity of the mission of the maiden. Her career was full of marvels, every step marked by the wildest romance united to the strangest truths. Chained and exposed to the fury and brutality of the English soldiery, defenceless and alone, she yet knew how to preserve her virgin sanctity; the hero of the battle field, the deliverer of her country from the rule of the foreigner, she shed not human blood; deserted by her friends, she never ceased to pray for them; bewildered, betrayed, tried and condemned by the clergy of her own church, her firm faith never wavered. Her answers to the subtle metaphysical questions propounded to her by her judges on purpose to entrap her during her painful trial, are models of simplicity, innocence, and faith, mingled with keen intellect and intuitive perception of their bearing upon her fate. Maligned and persecuted by the English, deserted by the French, forgotten by the king she saved and[Pg 720] crowned, betrayed and condemned by the ecclesiastics of the church she honored—she perished in the flames with the name of the Saviour she worshipped upon her pure, young lips. Her fame brightens with the increasing light of our own century, and her canonization is now loudly demanded from the Church. She has been celebrated in the most opposite domains of human intelligence, by historians, romancers, theologians, jurisconsults, philosophers, writers on tactics, politicians, genealogists, heralds, preachers, orators, epic, tragic, and lyric poets, magnetizers, demonologists, students of magic, rhapsodists, biographers, journalists, and critics, and yet we have never met with a single writer who appeared to comprehend her aright, or who was able to do justice to the marvellous simplicity, truth, modesty, and force of her character. A French author has drawn up a list of four hundred works dedicated to her history, but as yet this uncultured girl of nineteen has puzzled all her delineators!

The value of this compilation as a book of reference can scarcely be overestimated. Almost every question likely to be asked about officers, offices, governments, finances, elections, education, armies, navies, commerce, navigation, or public affairs, at home or abroad, is answered herein. There are 600 pages of compactly and clearly printed matter, and it is marvellous how much has been included in them through a judicious system of condensation. Stores of information relating to the volunteers furnished by the several States to the United States army; names, dates, figures in detail of all the regimental organizations from all the States and Territories; valuable records of the events of the war, presented in a twofold form, first by tracing the operations of each of the great armies, and then by noting the events in chronological order—are given in these pages, where millions of figures and names occur, with wonderful accuracy. Particulars of every vessel, with name, armament, tonnage, &c., and details of the internal revenue system, are placed before us. We cannot offer even an outline of the contents of this volume, because the details are so multifarious that we could compress their index into no reasonable space. A copy of this book should be in the hands of every reader, thinker, and business man in the country. It is indeed a 'little library,' a 'photograph of the world' for the last two years of its rapid course.

We are a magnanimous people, and we doubt not this simple record of a woman's sufferings and terror will be read with interest, although she is the wife of a Confederate officer. It gives us, indeed, the only picture we have as yet seen of the interior of Vicksburg during its ever-memorable siege; the only sketch of the hopes and fears of its inhabitants. Its dedication is as follows: 'To one who, though absent, is ever present, this little waif is tenderly and affectionately dedicated.'

A novel from Mr. Trowbridge, the author of 'Cudjo's Cave,' will always command attention. He gives us no wayside episodes, rambling details, or useless explanations. He seizes his story at the outset, and sustains its interest to the close. His action is rapid, and every step is a direct one to the final dénouement. He holds his reins with a firm hand, and big incidents never swerve from an air-line track. His books are characteristically American, and he uses the events and characters of the hour with ability. Poor Charlotte, the heroine, is well drawn, and her tale is one appealing to all human sympathies, yet, perhaps in consequence of old and persistent prejudices, we cannot say we like this work as well as 'Cudjo's Cave.' Many of our readers may like it better. Grandmother Rigglesty is inimitable, and should be studied by all the peevish, selfish, and exacting old women in the land.

In consequence of the space occupied by our Index, the remaining notices of new books are unavoidably postponed until the issue of the ensuing number.—Ed. Con.[Pg 721]

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE METROPOLITAN FAIR.

This noble and humane enterprise has nearly reached its conclusion, and the results, we believe, are quite commensurate with the expectations of the Executive Committee. It is not possible as yet to arrive at the net proceeds, but the entire receipts will exceed one million dollars. The names and reputation of the chiefs of the Sanitary Commission are sufficient guarantee that the funds thus raised will be applied to the purpose for which they were given, and many a poor soldier will have reason to bless the zeal of the energetic men and women who have so efficiently labored to soothe suffering and furnish to the sick and wounded the very best aid their country can offer.

We have more than once been pained by hearing the words 'humbug,' 'great advertizing establishment,' etc., applied to the New York Fair, as well as to fairs in general. Now, nothing could be more unjust than the first term; and as to the latter, we have only to say that, if human nature were perfect, fairs would be unnecessary, and a subscription all that any just enterprise would require for success. Beneficence on a large scale, however, requires the money of the selfishly munificent as well as of the purely generous, and fairs not only procure purchasers for such articles as givers can spare with the least detriment to themselves, but also make known the names and quality of wares of various dealers. The man who might have subscribed ten dollars, is content to pay one hundred for an object contributed from the time and labor of some individual devoid of other commodities. If the wares in question become more widely known, and benefit hence accrue to the giver, the consequence is surely a legitimate one, and even a fortunate condition of the facts, as increasing the size of the fund received. They who give simply with the idea of doing good, will doubtless receive their appropriate reward; and they who give with mixed motives know well that the alleviation purchased by their contribution will be as welcome to the sick soldier as that procured by the more unselfish donation. Our admiration for the individual may vary with our knowledge of his springs of action, but if love of self can be made to minister to the wants of the suffering, all the better, especially as no man can (without certain knowledge) dare to sit in judgment upon the motives of his fellow men.

Each department has done well, and none better than that devoted to painting, statuary, engraving, and photography. Large sums have been realized upon the pictures presented by the artists—generous gifts indeed from men (and women) not usually overburdened with this world's gear. M. Knoedler, of the Art Committee, merits the especial gratitude of the community, not only for the generous but unobtrusive zeal displayed by him, but also for large contributions in engravings and photographs.

The gift department of the picture gallery comprised works from all our best-known names, as well as from some hitherto unknown. The artists' albums were also a special feature in this domain. Judging merely as outsiders (having owned no certificate of subscription), we thought the anti-raffling rule might either have been suspended in their favor, or should certainly have been enforced upon the first day, before the burden of so many subscriptions had fallen upon the shoulders of the energetic artists having them in charge.

The general exhibition, although by no means a complete representation of all that has been accomplished by painting in America (several of our best artists having been represented only by their gift pictures), was nevertheless very interesting. Opportunity was offered for close and immediate comparison between some of the renowned works that have adorned our annals, namely, Bier[Pg 722]stadt's 'Rocky Mountains,' and Church's 'Andes of Ecuador' and 'Heart of the Andes,' also, Gignoux's and Church's 'Niagaras.'

The 'arms and trophies' made a very splendid and inspiring array. The book store, the nautical room, the machine shop, the New York fire, police, and New Jersey departments, and the grouping and general arrangement of the Seventeenth-street building, were but a few of the tasteful and admirable results of the labors of the executive and minor committees.

Last, but not least, come the Indians, who contributed to the Fair one of its most attractive features. Good pictures may often be seen, fancy articles every day, but the advent of these children of the forest has left a vivid memory of their appearance and of some of their customs, their musical instruments, songs, and dances, with many who have never heretofore come in contact with them, and whose grandchildren may perhaps cross the continent from New York to San Francisco without meeting a single one of the original denizens of mountain, vale, prairie, or table land. Great thanks are due to M. Bierstadt for the almost herculean labors he must have undergone in presenting to us these living fossils. Keeping them in a good humor must have been one of his most serious tasks, as they doubtless encountered many contrarieties calculated to chafe hot blood and annoy men unaccustomed to the confinement of city life.

Again, thanks to him, and also to them; thanks, indeed, to all the patriotic men and women who have done so much in New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and other smaller places, and also to those who are making similar noble efforts in Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Pittsburg, etc., etc. War is a sad phase in the history of humanity, and yet it has ever had the glory of developing some of the highest of human virtues.

KNOUT, PLETE, AND GANTLET.

The peasants of Poland do not seem very amiably disposed toward the great Russian czar. Having been already emancipated by their own leaders, they do not appear to be aware of his superhuman benevolence in their behalf. They have issued a manifesto against him. They propose to raise a peasant army of a million of men, from the ages of sixteen to sixty, to assault Warsaw and other Polish cities held by the Russians. They treat with scorn the offered emancipation, and determine to resist 'the odious, fierce, greedy, and astute Muscovite, and to organize en masse under their own captains, while their own National Government will designate the day upon which the general movement will take place.' Having accomplished their object—the deliverance of Poland—the peasants will elect chiefs to arrange the repartition of taxes, and a national diet will undertake the management of the affairs of the country. Prussia and Austria will then be called in again to aid in the subjugation of Poland. This will throw the firebrand of war and revolution over Western Europe, the oppressed peoples will rise in their might, and Liberty be inscribed on the banner of the world. In the indignant refusal of the Polish peasants to receive as a boon from the foreigner what they already possess as a right from their own leaders; in the devoted patriotism they are now evincing, they rob Russia of the vast advantage she hoped to gain in depriving Poland of what has made part of her marvellous force, the moral sympathies of the civilized world. For can any one be weak enough to believe that the ukase of emancipation originated in the magnanimity of Russia? The design was evidently to divide the peasants from the nobles, to light the flames of civil war, to murder by the hands of her own sons that unhappy country, which, deserted by all the nations of the earth, has again and again risen from her bloody grave to startle her oppressors with the old hymns of faith and triumph. But, if uncultured, because the iron heel of the tyrant has been on the heart of the murdered mother, the Polish peasant is faithful and devoted. He knows the nature of Russian rule. He has seen women knouted, childred murdered, boys imprisoned, and men exposed to the tortures of Siberia. Have our readers any true conception of what it is to be knouted? We will place before them a translation from Piotrowski of three modes of punishment used by Russia.

'The Knout is a long narrow thong of leather, which is steeped and boiled in a chemical solution until it becomes thickly coated with metallic filings and deposit. Pre[Pg 723]pared in this way, the thong acquires considerable weight and hardness. Before it cools and hardens, however, they take care to turn the edges, made thin for this purpose, up toward each other, thus forming a groove extending through the whole length of the metal-coated thong, with the exception of the extremity, which is left limber that it may be wound round the hand of the executioner, while a strong iron hook is appended to the other extremity. The scaffold on which the victim suffers is called in Russian 'Kobyla,' literally a mare. It is an inclined plane, on which the sufferer is tied, his back is stripped naked, his arms embrace the higher end of the plank, his hands are tied under it, his feet are fastened on the lower end, all movement being thus rendered impossible. Hacking down upon the naked back of the victim, the knout falls with its concave side upon the skin, which the metalized edge of the instrument cuts like a knife, the blades of the groove burying themselves in the flesh; the instrument is not lifted up by the operator, but is drawn horizontally toward himself, tearing away, by means of the hook, the severed flesh in long strings. If the operator performs his part conscientiously, the sufferer loses consciousness after the third blow, and frequently expires with the fifth. Peter the Great fixed the maximum of the number to be given at one hundred and one—of course, this was a sentence of death. It is a singularity of the Russian laws that the number of blows decreed for the knout is always uneven. As soon as the wretched victim has received the prescribed number, he is untied, forced to kneel, and submit to the punishment of the brand. This brand consists of the three letters VOR (robber, criminal), cut in iron points upon a stamp, and is struck by the executioner into the forehead and cheeks of the sufferer. While the blood is still flowing, a black fluid, partly composed of gunpowder, is injected into the wounds. When the wounds heal, the letters assume a dark blue tint, and are forever after indelible. After the infliction of the brand, it was formerly the custom to tear out the nostrils, but this horrible barbarity was definitely abolished toward the close of the reign of Alexander I. I have, however, met more than one Siberian exile thus hideously disfigured, no doubt belonging to the time anterior to the publication of the ukase. I have met an incalculable number of men bearing upon cheeks and forehead the triple inscription VOR. I do not think the brand is applied to woman; at least I have never seen one thus desecrated.

'The Plète, which is often and wrongfully confounded with the knout, is a far less formidable instrument. It is composed of three strong leathern thongs, terminated at the one end by balls of lead; the other is wrapped round the hand of the executioner. In accordance with the Russian law, this instrument should weigh from five to six pounds. It strikes like a triple lash upon the naked back of the sufferer. It does not plough or tear up the flesh like the knout, but the skin of course breaks under the heavy blows inflicted upon the spinal column and the sides. Phthisis is a common complaint with those who have been subjected to the punishment of the plète, the strokes frequently detaching the viscera from their living walls. In order to give more force to the blow, the executioner takes a leap and run, only striking as he reaches his victim. If possible to gain him by a bribe, he may diminish the punishment without detection. He may manage not to use his little finger on the instrument, which softens the force of the blow, without attracting the attention of the superintending officer. If the number of lashes is to be great, the operator is often bribed to give all his available force to the first blows, directing them principally toward the sides, in order to put as short a term as possible to the torture and life of the miserable sufferer.

'A third kind of punishment is that of the Skvoz-stroï, literally, through the ranks. This is generally used for soldiers only, though many Polish patriots have been subjected to it after condemnation for political offences. It is thus inflicted: Long rods are taken, freshly cut and well soaked in water to render them perfectly flexible, and given to the men who are to operate. A company of soldiers range themselves, facing each other, in a double file, placing themselves at such a distance from one another that they may be able to strike with their whole force without being in the way of each other. The sufferer is stripped to the waist, his hands are tied before him to a gun, the bayonet of which rests on his breast, while the butt end of it is carried by the soldier appointed to lead him[Pg 724] through the ranks charged with the duty of inflicting his punishment. He is led slowly forward through the files, receiving the lashes on his back and shoulders. When he faints or falls on the ground, he is raised up and urged to move on. Peter the Great fixed the maximum of blows at twelve thousand, but unless they intend to make an example of some offender, more than two thousand are rarely administered. If more are decreed, the patient is usually carried to the hospital and cured of his wounds ere he is forced to undergo the rest of the sentence.

'A conspiracy broke out in Siberia, which was betrayed on the very eve of its commencement at Omsk. The Abbé Siérocinski was concerned in it, and he and five of his accomplices, among whom was found an officer of the empire between sixty and seventy years of age, were condemned to seven thousand lashes, each without remission. The other conspirators, numbering nearly a thousand in all, were sentenced to receive from one thousand to fifteen hundred lashes, and to hard labor for life. The day of execution arrived. It occurred in 1837, early in the month of March. It took place at Omsk. General Golofeïev, in consequence of being celebrated for his cruelty, was sent from the capital to superintend the punishment and command this mournful cortége. Two entire battalions were ranged in a great plain near the city, the one destined for the six principal conspirators, the other for those whose punishment was not to be so severe. It is not our intention to describe the detailed butchery of this day of horror: we will confine ourselves to the Abbé Siérocinski and his five companions in misfortune. They were escorted on the plain, their sentence was read aloud to them with great solemnity, and then the running of the gauntlet commenced. The lashes were administered, according to the letter of the decree, 'without mercy,' and the cries of the wretched sufferers rose to the skies. None of them lived to receive the full number of lashes: executed one after another, after having passed two or three times through the dreadful file, they fell upon the earth, dyeing the pure snow red with the blood of their agonies as they expired. In order that the Abbé Siérocinski might drink to the dregs the bitter cup of his punishment, that he might suffer doubly through the torture of his friends, he had been reserved to the last. His turn now arrived, they stripped his back and tied his hands to the bayonet, and the physician advanced to give him, as he had given the others, some drops to strengthen him for the torment, but he refused them, saying: 'I do not want your drops—I will not taste them, I am ready—drink, then, the blood for which you thirst.' The signal of his fearful march was given, and the strong voice of the old superior of the monastery was heard entoning with high, clear chant: 'Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam!'

'The chant of the priest was broken in upon by the harsh cry of General Golofeïev to the soldiers: Pokreptche! Pokreptche! 'Harder! Harder!' Thus was heard for some time the chant of the Basilien broken by the hissing of the lashes and the angry cry of the general. Siérocinski had only passed once through the ranks of the battalion, that is to say, he had received but a thousand lashes, when he rolled without consciousness over the snow, staining it with his dauntless blood. In vain they tried to place him again on his feet—he was too weak to stand; and he was then stretched upon a sled which had been prepared in advance. He was fastened upon this species of support so as to present his back to the blows, and again the defile through the ranks began. Cries and groans were still heard: though they were constantly growing weaker, they ceased not until the commencement of the fourth course—the three thousand last blows fell on the body of the hapless corpse.

'A common ditch received those who died on this dreadful day, Poles and Russians being thrown in together. The holy sign of our faith was placed by the friends of the dead upon this crowded grave, and even in 1846 the great wooden cross still stretched its black arms over the steppe shrouded in its snow of dazzling whiteness.'

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6,
June, 1864, by Various

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