The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the article. Contents have been created for HTML version.

COUNTING AND MEASURING.

Though, from the rapid action of the eye and the mind, grouping and counting by groups appear to be a single operation, yet, as things can be seen in succession only, however rapidly, the counting of things, whether ideal or real, is necessarily one by one. This is the first step of the art. The second step is grouping. The use of grouping is to economize speech in numeration, and writing in notation, by the exercise of the memory. The memorizing of groups is, therefore, a part of the primary education of every individual. Until this art is attained, to a certain extent, it is very convenient to use the fingers as representatives of the individuals of which the groups are composed. This practice led to the general adoption of a group derived from the fingers of the left hand. The adoption of this group was the first distinct step toward mental arithmetic. Previous groupings were for particular numerations; this for numeration in general; being, in fact, the first numeric base,—the quinary. As men advanced in the use of numbers, they adopted a group derived from the fingers of both hands; thus ten became the base of numeration.

Notation, like numeration, began with ones, advanced to fives, then to tens, etc. Roman notation consisted of a series of signs signifying 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, etc.,—a series evidently the result of counting by the five fingers and the two hands, the numbers signified being the products of continued multiplication by five and by two alternately. The Romans adhered to their mode, nor is it entirely out of use at the present day, being revered for its antiquity, admired for its beauty, and practised for its convenience.

The ancient Greek series corresponded to that of the Romans, though primarily the signs for 50, 500 and 5000 had no place. Ultimately, however, those places were supplied by means of compound signs.

The Greeks abandoned their ancient mode in favor of the alphabetic, which, as it signified by a single letter each number of the arithmetical series from one to nine separately, and also in union by multiplication with the successive powers of the base of numeration, was a decided improvement; yet, as it consisted of signs which by their number were difficult to remember, and by their resemblance easy to [Pg 130]mistake, it was far from being perfect.

Doubtless, strenuous efforts were made to remedy these defects, and, apparently as the result of those efforts, the Arabic or Indian mode appeared; which, signifying the powers of the base by position, reduced the number of signs to that of the arithmetical series, beginning with nought and ending with a number of the value of the base less one.

The peculiarity of the Arabic mode, therefore, in comparison with the Greek, the Roman, or the alphabetic, is place value; the value of a combination by either of these being simply equal to the sum of its elements. By that, the value of the successive places, counting from right to left, being equal to the successive powers of the base, beginning with the noughth power, each figure in the combination is multiplied in value by the power of the base proper to its place, and the value of the whole is equal to the sum of those products.

The Arabic mode is justly esteemed one of the happiest results of human intelligence; and though the most complex ever practised, its efficiency, as an arithmetical means, has obtained for it the reputation of great simplicity,—a reputation that extends even to the present base, which, from its intimate and habitual association with the mode, is taken to be a part of the mode itself.

With regard to this impression it may be remarked, that the qualities proper to a mode bear no resemblance to those proper to a base. The qualities of the present mode are well known and well accepted. Those of the present base are accepted with the mode, but those proper to a base remain to be determined. In attempting to ascertain these, it will be necessary to consider the uses of numeration and of notation.

These may be arranged in three divisions,—scientific, mechanical, and commercial. The first is limited, being confined to a few; the second is general, being common to many; the third is universal, being necessary to all. Commercial use, therefore, will govern the present inquiry.

Commerce, being the exchange of property, requires real quantity to be determined, and this in such proportions as are most readily obtained and most frequently required. This can be done only by the adoption of a unit of quantity that is both real and constant, and such multiples and divisions of it as are consistent with the nature of things and the requirements of use: real, because property, being real, can be measured by real measures only; constant, because the determination of quantity requires a standard of comparison that is invariable; conveniently proportioned, because both time and labor are precious. These rules being acted on, the result will be a system of real, constant, and convenient weights, measures, and coins. Consequently, the numeration and notation best suited to commerce will be those which agree best with such a system.

From the earliest periods, special attention has been paid to units of quantity, and, in the ignorance of more constant quantities, the governors of men have offered their own persons as measures; hence the fathom, yard, pace, cubit, foot, span, hand, digit, pound, and pint. It is quite probable that the Egyptians first gave to such measures the permanent form of government standards, and that copies of them were carried by commerce, and otherwise, to surrounding nations. In time, these became vitiated, and should have been verified by their originals; but for distant nations this was not convenient; moreover, the governors of those nations had a variety of reasons for preferring to verify them by their own persons. Thus they became doubly vitiated; yet, as they were not duly enforced, the people pleased themselves, so that almost every market-town and fair had its own weights and measures; and as, in the regulation of coins, governments, like the people, pleased themselves, so that almost every nation had a peculiar currency, the general result was, that with the laws and the practices of the governors and the governed, neither of whom pursued a legitimate course,[Pg 131] confusion reigned supreme. Indeed, a system of weights, measures, and coins, with a constant and real standard, and corresponding multiples and divisions, though indulged in as a day-dream by a few, has never yet been presented to the world in a definite form; and as, in the absence of such a system, a corresponding system of numeration and notation can be of no real use, the probability is, that neither the one nor the other has ever been fully idealized. On the contrary, the present base is taken to be a fixed fact, of the order of the laws of the Medes and Persians; so much so, that, when the great question is asked, one of the leading questions of the age,—How is this mass of confusion to be brought into harmony?—the reply is,—It is only necessary to adopt one constant and real standard, with decimal multiples and divisions, and a corresponding nomenclature, and the work is done: a reply that is still persisted in, though the proposition has been fairly tried, and clearly proved to be impracticable.

Ever since commerce began, merchants, and governments for them, have, from time to time, established multiples and divisions of given standards; yet, for some reason, they have seldom chosen the number ten as a base. From the long-continued and intimate connection of decimal numeration and notation with the quantities commerce requires, may not the fact, that it has not been so used more frequently, be considered as sufficient evidence that this use is not proper to it? That it is not may be shown thus:—A thing may be divided directly into equal parts only by first dividing it into two, then dividing each of the parts into two, etc., producing 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., equal parts, but ten never. This results from the fact, that doubling or folding is the only direct mode of dividing real quantities into equal parts, and that balancing is the nearest indirect mode,—two facts that go far to prove binary division to be proper to weights, measures, and coins. Moreover, use evidently requires things to be divided by two more frequently than by any other number,—a fact apparently due to a natural agreement between men and things. Thus it appears the binary division of things is not only most readily obtained, but also most frequently required. Indeed, it is to some extent necessary; and though it may be set aside in part, with proportionate inconvenience, it can never be set aside entirely, as has been proved by experience. That men have set it aside in part, to their own loss, is sufficiently evidenced. Witness the heterogeneous mass of irregularities already pointed out. Of these our own coins present a familiar example. For the reasons above stated, coins, to be practical, should represent the powers of two; yet, on examination, it will be found, that, of our twelve grades of coins, only one-half are obtained by binary division, and these not in a regular series. Do not these six grades, irregular as they are, give to our coins their principal convenience? Then why do we claim that our coins are decimal? Are not their gradations produced by the following multiplications: 1 x 5 x 2 x 2-1/2 x 2 x 2 x 2-1/2 x 2 x 2 x 2, and 1 x 3 x 100? Are any of these decimal? We might have decimal coins by dropping all but cents, dimes, dollars, and eagles; but the question is not, What we might have, but, What have we? Certainly we have not decimal coins. A purely decimal system of coins would be an intolerable nuisance, because it would require a greatly increased number of small coins. This may be illustrated by means of the ancient Greek notation, using the simple signs only, with the exception of the second sign, to make it purely decimal. To express $9.99 by such a notation, only three signs can be used; consequently nine repetitions of each are required, making a total of twenty-seven signs. To pay it in decimal coins, the same number of pieces are required. Including the second Greek sign, twenty-three signs are required; including the compound signs also, only fifteen. By Roman notation, without subtraction, fifteen; with subtraction, nine. By alphabetic[Pg 132] notation, three signs without repetition. By the Arabic, one sign thrice repeated. By Federal coins, nine pieces, one of them being a repetition. By dual coins, six pieces without a repetition, a fraction remaining.

In the gradation of real weights, measures, and coins, it is important to adopt those grades which are most convenient, which require the least expense of capital, time, and labor, and which are least likely to be mistaken for each other. What, then, is the most convenient gradation? The base two gives a series of seven weights that may be used: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 lbs. By these any weight from one to one hundred and twenty-seven pounds may be weighed. This is, perhaps, the smallest number of weights or of coins with which those several quantities of pounds or of dollars may be weighed or paid. With the same number of weights, representing the arithmetical series from one to seven, only from one to twenty-eight pounds may be weighed; and though a more extended series may be used, this will only add to their inconvenience; moreover, from similarity of size, such weights will be readily mistaken. The base ten gives only two weights that may be used. The base three gives a series of weights, 1, 3, 9, 27, etc., which has a great promise of convenience; but as only four may be used, the fifth being too heavy to handle, and as their use requires subtraction as well as addition, they have neither the convenience nor the capability of binary weights; moreover, the necessity for subtraction renders this series peculiarly unfit for coins.

The legitimate inference from the foregoing seems to be, that a perfectly practical system of weights, measures, and coins, one not practical only, but also agreeable and convenient, because requiring the smallest possible number of pieces, and these not readily mistaken for each other, and because agreeing with the natural division of things, and therefore commercially proper, and avoiding much fractional calculation, is that, and that only, the successive grades of which represent the successive powers of two.

That much fractional calculation may thus be avoided is evident from the fact that the system will be homogeneous. Thus, as binary gradation supplies one coin for every binary division of the dollar, down to the sixty-fourth part, and farther, if necessary, any of those divisions may be paid without a remainder. On the contrary, Federal gradation, though in part binary, gives one coin for each of the first two divisions only. Of the remaining four divisions, one requires two coins, and another three, and not one of them can be paid in full. Thus it appears there are four divisions of the dollar that cannot be paid in Federal coins, divisions that are constantly in use, and unavoidable, because resulting from the natural division of things, and from the popular division of the pound, gallon, yard, inch, etc., that has grown out of it. Those fractious that cannot be paid, the proper result of a heterogeneous system, are a constant source of jealousy, and often produce disputes, and sometimes bitter wrangling, between buyer and seller. The injury to public morals arising from this cause, like the destructive effect of the constant dropping of water, though too slow in its progress to be distinctly traced, is not the less certain. The economic value of binary gradation is, in the aggregate, immense; yet its moral value is not to be overlooked, when a full estimate of its worth is required.

Admitting binary gradation to be proper to weights, measures, and coins, it follows that a corresponding base of numeration and notation must be provided, as that best suited to commerce. For this purpose, the number two immediately presents itself; but binary numeration and notation being too prolix for arithmetical practice, it becomes necessary to select for a base a power of two that will afford a more comprehensive notation: a power of two, because no other number will agree with binary gradation. It is scarcely proper to say the third power has been selected, for there was no alternative,—the[Pg 133] second power being too small, and the fourth too large. Happily, the third is admirably suited to the purpose, combining, as it does, the comprehensiveness of eight with the simplicity of two.

It may be asked, how a number, hitherto almost entirely overlooked as a base of numeration, is suddenly found to be so well suited to the purpose. The fact is, the present base being accepted as proper for numeration, however erroneously, it is assumed to be proper for gradation also; and a very flattering assumption it is, promising a perfectly homogeneous system of weights, measures, coins, and numbers, than which nothing can be more desirable; but, siren-like, it draws the mind away from a proper investigation of the subject, and the basic qualities of numbers, being unquestioned, remain unknown. When the natural order is adopted, and the base of gradation is ascertained by its adaptation to things, and the base of numeration by its agreement with that of gradation, then, the basic qualities of numbers being questioned, two is found to be proper to the first use, and eight to the second.

The idea of changing the base of numeration will appear to most persons as absurd, and its realization as impossible; yet the probability is, it will be done. The question is one of time rather than of fact, and there is plenty of time. The diffusion of education will ultimately cause it to be demanded. A change of notation is not an impossible thing. The Greeks changed theirs, first for the alphabetic, and afterwards, with the rest of the civilized world, for the Arabic,—both greater changes than that now proposed. A change of numeration is truly a more serious matter, yet the difficulty may not be as great as our apprehensions paint it. Its inauguration must not be compared with that of French gradation, which, though theoretically perfect, is practically absurd.

Decimal numeration grew out of the fact that each person has ten fingers and thumbs, without reference to science, art, or commerce. Ultimately scientific men discovered that it was not the best for certain purposes, consequently that a change might be desirable; but as they were not disposed to accommodate themselves to popular practices, which they erroneously viewed, not as necessary consequences, but simply as bad habits, they suggested a base with reference not so much to commerce as to science. The suggestion was never acted on, however; indeed, it would have been in vain, as Delambre remarks, for the French commission to have made the attempt, not only for the reason he presents, but also because it does not agree with natural division, and is therefore not suited to commerce; neither is it suited to the average capacity of mankind for numbers; for, though some may be able to use duodecimal numeration and notation with ease, the great majority find themselves equal to decimal only, and some come short even of that, except in its simplest use. Theoretically, twelve should be preferred to ten, because it agrees with circle measure at least, and ten agrees with nothing; besides, it affords a more comprehensive notation, and is divisible by 6, 4, 3, and 2 without a fraction, qualities that are theoretically valuable.

At first sight, the universal use of decimal numeration seems to be an argument in its favor. It appears as though Nature had pointed directly to it, on account of some peculiar fitness. It is assumed, indeed, that this is the case, and habit confirms the assumption; yet, when reflection has overcome habit, it will be seen that its adoption was due to accident alone,—that it took place before any attention was paid to a general system, in short, without reflection,—and that its supposed perfection is a mere delusion; for, as a member of such a system, it presents disagreements on every hand; as has been said, it has no agreement with anything, unless it be allowable to say that it agrees with the Arabic mode of notation. This kind of agreement it has, in common with every other base. It is this that gives it character. On this account alone it is believed by many[Pg 134] to be the perfection of harmony. They get the base of numeration and the mode of notation so mingled together, that they cannot separate them sufficiently to obtain a distinct idea of either; and some are not conscious that they are distinct, but see in the Arabic mode nothing save decimal notation, and attribute to it all those high qualities that belong to the mode only. The Arabic mode is an invention of the highest merit, not surpassed by any other; but the admiration that belongs to it is thus bestowed upon a quite commonplace idea, a misapplication, which, in this as in many other cases, arises from the fact, that it is much easier to admire than to investigate. This result of carelessness, if isolated, might be excused; but all errors are productive, and it should be remembered that this one has produced that extraordinary perversion of truth to be found in the reply to the question, How is all this confusion to be brought into harmony? It has produced it not only in words, but in deed. Was it not this reply that led the French commission to extend the use of the present base from numeration to gradation also, under the delusive hope of producing a perfectly homogeneous system, that would be practical also? Was it not under its influence, that, adhering to the base to which the world had been so long accustomed, instead of attempting to regulate ideal division by real, which might have led to the adoption of the true base and a practical system, they committed the one great error of endeavoring to reverse true order, by forcing real division into conformity with a preconceived ideal? This attempt was made at a time supposed by many to be peculiarly suited to the purpose, a time of changes. It was a time of changes, truly; but these were the result of high excitement, not of quiet thought, such as the subject requires,—a time for rushing forward, not for retracing misguided steps. Accordingly, a system was produced which from its magnitude and importance was truly imposing, and which, to the present day, is highly applauded by all those who, under the influence of the error alluded to, conceive decimal numeration to be a sacred truth: applauded, not because of its adaptation to commerce, but simply because of its beautiful proportions, its elegant symmetry, to say nothing of the array of learning and power engaged in its production and inauguration: imposing, truly, and alike on its authors and admirers; for the qualities they so much admire are not peculiar to the decimal base, but to the use of one and the same base for numeration, notation, and gradation. But if the base ten agrees with nothing, over, on, or under the earth, can it be the best for scientific use? can it be at all suited to commercial purposes? If true order is the object to be attained, and that for the sake of its utility, then agreement between real and ideal division is the one thing needful, the one essential change without which all other changes are vain, the only change that will yield the greatest good to the greatest number,—a change, which, as volition is with the ideal, and inertia with the real, can be attained only by adaptation of the ideal to the real.

A full investigation of the existing heterogeneous or fragmentary system will lead to the discovery that it contains two elements which are at variance with natural division and with each other, and that the unsuccessful issue of every attempt at regulation hitherto made has been the proper result of the mistake of supposing agreement between those elements to be a possible thing.

The first element of discord to be considered is the division of things by personal proportion, as by fathom, yard, cubit, foot, etc. It is obvious at a glance, that these do not agree with binary division, nor with decimal, nor yet with each other. It is this element that has suggested the duodecimal base, to which some adhere so tenaciously, apparently because they have not ascertained the essential quality of a base.

The second is the numeration of things by personal parts, as fingers, hands, etc.,—suggesting[Pg 135] a base of numeration that has no agreement with the binary, nor with personal proportion, neither can it have with any proper general system. Are there any things in Nature that exist by tens, that associate by tens, that separate into tenths? Are there any things that are sold by tens, or by tenths? Even the fingers number eight, and, had there been any reflection used in the adoption of a base of numeration, the thumbs would not have been included. The ease with which the simplest arithmetical series may be continued led our fathers quietly to the adoption, first, of the quinary, and second, of the decimal group; and we have continued its use so quietly, that its propriety has rarely been questioned; indeed, most persons are both surprised and offended, when they hear it declared to be a purely artificial base, proper only to abstract numbers.

The binary base, on the contrary, is natural, real, simple, and accords with the tendency of the mind to simplify, to individualize. In business, who ever thinks of a half as two-fourths, or three-sixths, much less as two-and-a-half-fifths, or three-and-a-half-sevenths? For division by two produces a half at one operation; but with any other divisor, the reduction is too great, and must be followed by multiplication. Think of calling a half five-tenths, a quarter twenty-five-hundredths, an eighth one-hundred-and-twenty-five-thousandths! Arithmetic is seldom used as a plaything. It generally comes into use when the mind is too much occupied for sporting. Consequently, the smallest divisor that will serve the purpose is always preferred. A calculation is an appendage to a mercantile transaction, not a part of the transaction itself; it is, indeed, a hindrance, and in large business is performed by a distinct person. But even with him, simplicity, because necessary to speed, is second in merit only to correctness.

The binary base is not only simple, it is real. Accordingly, it has large agreement with the popular divisions of weights, etc. Grocers' weights, up to the four-pound piece, and all their measures, are binary; so are the divisions of the yard, the inch, etc.

It is not only simple and real, it is natural. On every hand, things may be found that are duplex in form, that associate in pairs, that separate into halves, that may be divided into two equal parts. Things are continually sold in pairs, in halves, and in quantities produced by halving.

The binary base, therefore, is here proposed, as the only proper base for gradation; and the octonal, as the true commercial base, for numeration and notation: two bases which in combination form a binoctonal system that is at once simple, comprehensive, and efficient.

MY LAST LOVE.

I had counted many more in my girlhood, in the first flush of blossoming,—and a few, good men and true, whom I never meet even now without an added color; for, at one time or another, I thought I loved each of them.

For the same reason that many another woman does not. We are afraid to trust our own likings. Too many of them are but sunrise vapors, very rosy to begin with, but by mid-day as dingy as any old dead cloud with the rain all shed out of it. I never see any of those old swains of mine, without feeling profoundly thankful that I don't belong to him. I shouldn't want to look over my husband's head in any sense. So they all got wives[Pg 136] and children, and I lived an old maid,—although I was scarcely conscious of the state; for, if my own eyes or other people's testimony were to be trusted, I didn't look old, and I'm quite sure I didn't feel so. But I came to myself on my thirty-second birthday, an old maid most truly, without benefit of clergy. And thereby hangs this tale; for on that birthday I first made acquaintance with my last love.

Something like a month before, there had come to Huntsville two gentlemen in search of game and quiet quarters for the summer. They soon found that a hotel in a country village affords little seclusion; but the woods were full of game, the mountain-brooks swarmed with trout too fine to be given up, and they decided to take a house of their own. After some search, they fixed on an old house, (I've forgotten whose "folly" it was called,) full a mile and a half from town, standing upon a mossy hill that bounded my fields, square and stiff and weather-beaten, and without any protection except a ragged pine-tree that thrust its huge limbs beneath the empty windows, as though it were running away with a stolen house under its arm. The place was musty, rat-eaten, and tenanted by a couple of ghosts, who thought a fever, once quite fatal within the walls, no suitable discharge from the property, and made themselves perfectly free of the quarters in properly weird seasons. But money and labor cleared out all the cobwebs, (for ghosts are but spiritual cobwebs, you know,) and the old house soon wore a charming air of rustic comfort.

I used to look over sometimes, for it was full in view from my chamber-windows, and see the sportsmen going off by sunrise with their guns or fishing-rods, or lying, after their late dinner, stretched upon the grass in front of the house, smoking and reading. Sometimes a fragment of a song would be dropped down from the lazy wings of the south wind, sometimes a long laugh filled all the summer air and frightened the pinewood into echoes, and, altogether, the new neighbors seemed to live an enviable life. They were very civil people, too; for, though their nearest path out lay across my fields, and close by the doorway, and they often stopped to buy fruit or cream or butter, we were never annoyed by an impertinent question or look. Once only I overheard a remark not altogether civil, and that was on the evening before my birthday. One of them, the elder, said, as he went away from my house with a basket of cherries, that he should like to get speech with that polyglot old maid, who read, and wrote, and made her own butter-pats. The other answered, that the butter was excellent at any rate, and perhaps she had a classical cow; and they went down the lane laughingly disputing about the matter, not knowing that I was behind the currant-bushes.

"Polyglot old maid!" I thought, very indignantly, as I went into the house. "I've a mind not to sell them another cake of my butter. But I wonder if people call me an old maid. I wonder if I am one."

I thought of it all the evening, and dreamt of it all night, waking the next morning with a new realization of the subject. That first sense of a lost youth! How sharp and strong it comes! That suddenly opened north door of middle life, through which the winter winds rush in, sweeping out of the southern windows all the splendors of the earlier time; it is like a sea-turn in late summer. It has seemed to be June all along, and we thought it was June, until the wind went round to the east, and the first red leaf admonished us. By-and-by we close, as well as we may, that open door, and look out again from the windows upon blooms, beautiful in their way, to which some birds yet sing; but, alas! the wind is still from the east, and blows as though, far away, it had lain among icebergs.

So I mused all the morning, watering the sentiment with a bit of a shower out of my cloud; and when the shadows turned themselves, I went out to see how old age would look to me in the fields and[Pg 137] woods. It was a delicious afternoon, more like a warm dream of hay-making, odorous, misty, sleepily musical, than a waking reality, on which the sun shone. Tremulous blue clouds lay down all around upon the mountains, and lazy white ones lost themselves in the waters; and through the dozing air, the faint chirp of robin or cricket, and ding of bells in the woods, and mellow cut of scythe, melted into one song, as though the heart-beat of the luscious midsummer-time had set itself to tune.

I walked on to loiter through the woods. No dust-brush for brain or heart like the boughs of trees! There dwells a truth, and pure, strong health within them, an ever-returning youth, promising us a glorious leafage in some strange spring-time, and a symmetry and sweetness that possess us until our thoughts grow skyward like them, and wave and sing in some sunnier strata of soul-air. In the woods I was a girl again, and forgot the flow of the hours in their pleasant companionship. I must have grown tired and sat down by a thicket of pines to rest, though I have forgotten, and perhaps I had fallen asleep; for suddenly I became conscious of a sharp report, and a sharper pain in my shoulder, and, tearing off my cape, I found the blood was flowing from a wound just below the joint. I remember little more, for a sudden faintness came over me; but I have an indistinct remembrance of people coming up, of voices, of being carried home, and of the consternation there, and long delay in obtaining the surgeon. The pain of an operation brought me fully to my senses; and when that was over, I was left alone to sleep, or to think over my situation at leisure. I'm afraid I had but little of a Christian spirit then. All my plans of labor and pleasure spoiled by this one piece of carelessness! to call it by the mildest term. All those nice little fancies that should have grown into real flesh-and-blood articles for my publisher, hung up to dry and shrivel without shape or comeliness! The garden, the dairy, the new bit of carriage-way through the beeches,—my pet scheme,—the new music, the sewing, all laid upon the shelf for an indefinite time, and I with no better employment than to watch the wall-paper, and to wonder if it wasn't almost dinner- or supper-time, or nearly daylight! To be sure, I knew and thought of all the improving reflections of a sick-room; but it was much like a mild-spoken person making peace among twenty quarrelsome ones. You can see him making mouths, but you don't hear a word he says.

A sick mind breeds fever fast in a sick body, and by night I was in a high fever, and for a day or two knew but little of what went on about me. One of the first things I heard, when I grew easier, was, that my neighbor, the sportsman, was waiting below to hear how I was. It was the younger one whose gun had wounded me; and he had shown great solicitude, they said, coming several times each day to inquire for me. He brought some birds to be cooked for me, too,—and came again to bring some lilies he had gone a mile to fetch, he told the girl. Every day he came to inquire, or to bring some delicacy, or a few flowers, or a new magazine for me, until the report of his visit came to be an expected excitement, and varied the dull days wonderfully. Sickness and seclusion are a new birth to our senses, oftentimes. Not only do we get a real glimpse of ourselves, undecked and unclothed, but the commonest habits of life, and the things that have helped to shape them day by day, put on a sort of strangeness, and come to shake hands with us again, and make us wonder that they should be just exactly what they are. We get at the primitive meaning of them, as if we rubbed off the nap of life, and looked to see how the threads were woven; and they come and go before us with a sort of old newness that affects us much as if we should meet our own ghost some time, and wonder if we are really our own or some other person's housekeeper.

I went through all this, and came out with a stock of small facts beside,—as,[Pg 138] that the paper-hanger had patched the hangings in my chamber very badly in certain dark spots, (I had got several headaches, making it out,)—that the chimney was a little too much on one side,—that certain boards in the entry-floor creaked of their own accord in the night,—that Neighbor Brown had tucked a few new shingles into the roof of his barn, so that it seemed to have broken out with them,—and any number of other things equally important. At length I got down-stairs, and was allowed to see a few friends. Of course there was an inundation of them; and each one expected to hear my story, and to tell a companion one, something like mine, only a little more so. It was astonishing, the immense number of people that had been hurt with guns. No wonder I was sick for a day or two afterward. I was more prudent next time, however, and, as the gossips had got all they wanted, I saw only my particular friends. Among these my neighbor, the sportsman, insisted on being reckoned, and after a little hesitation we were obliged to admit him. I say we,—for, on hearing of my injury, my good cousin, Mary Mead, had come to nurse and amuse me. She was one of those safe, serviceable, amiable people, made of just the stuff for a satellite, and she proved invaluable to me. She was immensely taken with Mr. Ames, too, (I speak of the younger, for, after the first call of condolence, the elder sportsman never came,) and to her I left the task of entertaining him, or rather of doing the honors of the house,—for the gentleman contrived to entertain himself and us.

Now don't imagine the man a hero, for he was no such thing. He was very good-looking,—some might say handsome,—well-bred, well educated, with plenty of common information picked up in a promiscuous intercourse with town and country people, rather fine tastes, and a great, strong, magnanimous, physical nature, modest, but perfectly self-conscious. That was his only charm for me. I despise a mere animal; but, other things being equal, I admire a man who is big and strong, and aware of his advantages; and I think most women, and very refined ones, too, love physical beauty and strength much more than they are willing to acknowledge. So I had the same admiration for Mr. Ames that I should have had for any other finely proportioned thing, and enjoyed him very much, sitting quietly in my corner while he chatted with Mary, or told me stories of travel or hunting, or read aloud, which he soon fell into the way of doing.

We did try, as much as hospitality permitted, to confine his visits to a few ceremonious calls; but he persisted in coming almost every day, and walked in past the girl with that quiet sort of authority which it is so difficult to resist. In the same way he took possession of Mary and me. He was sure it must be very dull for both of us; therefore he was going, if we would pardon the liberty, to offer his services as reader, while my nurse went out for a ride or a walk. Couldn't I sit out under the shadow of the beech-trees, as well as in that hot room? He could lift the chair and me perfectly well, and arrange all so that I should be comfortable. He would like to superintend the cooking of some birds he brought one day. He noticed that the girl didn't do them quite as nicely as he had learned to do them in the woods. And so in a thousand things he quietly made us do as he chose, without seeming to outrage any rule of propriety. When I was able to sit in a carriage, he persuaded me to drive with him; and I had to lean on his arm, when I first went round the place to see how matters went on.

Once I protested against his making himself so necessary to us, and told him that I didn't care to furnish the gossips so much food as we were doing.

When I turned him out of doors, he would certainly stay away, he said; but he thought, that, as long as I was an invalid, I needed some one to think and act for me and save me the trouble, and, as no one else seemed disposed to take the office, he thought it was rather his duty[Pg 139] and privilege,—especially, he added, with a slight smile, as he was quite sure that it was not very disagreeable to us. As for the gossips, he didn't think they would make much out of it, with such an excellent duenna as Cousin Mary,—and, indeed, he heard the other day that he was paying attention to her.

I thought it all over by myself, when he had gone, and came to the conclusion that it was not necessary for me to resign so great a pleasure as his society had become, merely for the fear of what a few curious people might say. Even Mary, cautious as she was, protested against banishing him for such a reason; and, after a little talking over of the matter among ourselves, we decided to let Mr. Ames come as often as he chose, for the remaining month of his stay.

That month went rapidly enough, for I was well enough to ride and walk out, and half the time had Mr. Ames to accompany me. I got to value him very much, as I knew him better, and as he grew acquainted with my peculiarities; and we were the best friends in the world, without a thought of being more. No one would have laughed at that more than we, there was such an evident unsuitableness in the idea. At length the time came for him to leave Huntsville; his house was closed, except one room where he still preferred to remain, and his friend was already gone. He came to take tea with us for the last time, and made himself as agreeable as ever, although it evidently required some effort to do so. Soft-hearted Cousin Mary broke down and went off crying when he bade her good-bye, after tea; but I was not of such stuff, and laughingly rallied him on the impression he had made.

"Get your bonnet, and walk over to the stile with me, Miss Rachel," he said. "It isn't sunset quite yet, and the afternoon is warm. Come! it's the last walk we shall take together."

I followed him out, and we went almost silently across the fields to the hill that overlooked the strip of meadow between our houses. There was the stile over which I had looked to see him spring, many a time.

"Sit down a moment, until the sun is quite down," he said, making room for me beside him on the topmost step. "See how splendid that sky is! a pavilion for the gods!"

"I should think they were airing all their finery," I answered. "It looks more like a counter spread with bright goods than anything else I can think of."

"That's a decidedly vulgar comparison, and you're not in a spiritual mood at all," he said. "You've snubbed me two or three times to-night, when I've tried to be sentimental. What's amiss with you?" and he bent his eyes, full of a saucy sort of triumph, upon mine.

"I don't like parting with friends; it sets me all awry," I said, giving back his own self-assured look. I was sorry to have him go; but if he thought I was going to cry or blush, he was mistaken.

"It's in the last agony, Sir. It will be comfortably dead and buried before long, with a neat little epitaph over it,—which is much the best way to dispose of them finally, I think."

"You're harder than I thought you were," he said. "Is that the way you feel towards all your friends?"

"I love my friends as well as any one," I answered. "But I never hold them when they wish to be gone. My life-yarn spins against some other yarn, catches the fibres, and twists into the very heart"——

"Yes," I said, coolly,—"for the time being. You don't play at your friendships, do you? If so, I pity you. As I[Pg 140] was saying, they're like one thread. By-and-by one spindle is moved, the strands spin away from each other, and become strange yarn. What's the use of sending little locks of wool across to keep them acquainted? They're two yarns from henceforth. Reach out for some other thread,—there's plenty near,—and spin into that. We're made all up of little locks from other people, Mr. Ames. Won't it be strange, in that great Hereafter, to hunt up our own fibres, and return other people's? It would take about forty-five degrees of an eternity to do that."

"I shall never return mine," he said. "I couldn't take myself to pieces in such a style. But won't you write at all?"

"To what purpose? You'll be glad of one letter,—possibly of two. Then it will be, 'Confound it! here's a missive from that old maid! What a bore! Now I suppose I must air my wits in her behalf; but, if you ever catch me again,'——Exit."

"I shall be as weary as you, and find it as difficult to keep warmth in the poor dying body. No, Mr. Ames. Let the poor thing die a natural death, and we'll wear a bit of crape a little while, and get a new friend for the old."

"No, indeed! I shall recollect you as a very pleasant tale that is told,—not a friend to hanker after. Isn't that good common sense?"

"It's all head-work,—mere cold calculation," he said; "while I"——He stopped and colored.

"Your gods, there, are downright turn-coats," I said, coming down from the stile. "Their red mantles are nothing but pearl-colored now, and presently they'll be russet-gray. That whippoorwill always brings the dew with him, too; so I must go home. Good-night, and good-bye, Mr. Ames."

"I scarcely know how to part with you," he said, taking my hand. "It's not so easy a thing to do."

"People say, 'Good-bye,' or 'God bless you,' or some such civil phrase, usually," I said, with just the least curl of my lip,—for I knew I had got the better of him.

"Ah! I'm afraid I leave a bigger lock than I take," he exclaimed. "Well, then, good friend! good-bye, and God bless you, too! Don't be quite so hard as you promise to be."

I missed him very much, indeed; but if any think I cried after him, or wrote verses, or soliloquized for his sake, they are much mistaken. I had lost friends before, and made it a point to think just as little of them as possible, until the sore spot grew strong enough to handle without wincing. Besides, my cousin stayed with me, and all my good friends in the village had to come out for a call or a visit to see how the land lay; so I had occupation enough. Once in a while I used to look over to the old house, and wish for one good breezy conversation with its master; and when the snow came and lay in one mass upon the old roof, clear down to the eaves, like a night-cap pulled down to the eyes of a low-browed old woman, I moved my bed against the window that looked that way. These forsaken nests are gloomy things enough!

I had no thought of hearing again of him or from him, and was surprised, when, in a month, a review came, and before long another, and afterwards a box, by express, with a finely kept bouquet, and, in mid-winter, a little oil-painting,—a delicious bit of landscape for my sanctum, as he said in the note that accompanied it. I heard from him in this way all winter, although I never sent word or message back again, and tried to think I was sorry that he did not forget me, as I had supposed he would. Of course I never thought of acknowledging to myself that it was possible for me to love him. I was too good a sophist for that; and, indeed, I think that between a perfect friendship and a perfect[Pg 141] love a fainter distinction exists than many people imagine. I have known likings to be colored as rosily as love, and seen what called itself love as cold as the chilliest liking.

One day, after spring had been some time come, I was returning from a walk and saw that Mr. Ames's house was open. I could not see any person there; but the door and windows were opened, and a faint smoke crept out of the chimney and up among the new spring foliage after the squirrels. I had walked some distance, and was tired, and the weather was not perfect; but I thought I would go round that way and see what was going on. It was one of those charming child-days in early May, laughing and crying all in one, the fine mist-drops shining down in the sun's rays, like star-dust from some new world in process of rasping up for use. I liked such days. The showers were as good for me as for the trees. I grew and budded under them, and they filled my soul's soil full of singing brooks.

When I reached the lawn before the door, Mr. Ames came out to see me,—so glad to meet that he held my hand and drew me in, asking two or three times how I was and if I were glad to see him. He had called at the house and seen Cousin Mary, on his way over, he said,—for he was hungering for a sight of us. He was not looking as well as when he left in the autumn,—thinner, paler, and with a more anxious expression when he was not speaking; but when I began to talk with him, he brightened up, and seemed like his old self. He had two or three workmen already tearing down portions of the finishing, and after a few moments asked me to go round and see what improvements he was to make. We stopped at last at his chamber, a room that looked through the foliage towards my house.

"This is my lounging-place," he said, pointing to the sofa beneath the window. "I shall sit here with my cigar and watch you this summer; so be circumspect! But are you sure that you are glad to see me?"

"To be sure. Do you take me for a heathen?" I said. "But what are you making such a change for? Couldn't the old house content you?"

"It satisfies me well enough; but I expect visitors this summer who are quite fastidious, and this old worm-eaten wood-work wouldn't do for them. What makes you look so dark? Don't you like the notion of my lady-visitors?"

"I didn't know that they were to be ladies until you told me," I said; "and it's none of my business whom you entertain, Mr. Ames."

"There wasn't much of a welcome for them in your face, at any rate," he answered. "And to tell the truth, I am not much pleased with the arrangement myself. But they took a sudden fancy for coming, and no amount of persuasion could induce them to change their minds. It's hardly a suitable place for ladies; but if they will come, they must make the best of it."

"How came you ever to take a fancy to this place? and what makes you spend so much money on it?" I asked.

"You don't like to see the money thrown away," he said, laughing. "The truth is, that I've got a skeleton, like many another man, and I've been trying these two years to get away from it. The first time I stopped to rest under this tree, I felt light-hearted. I don't know why, except it was some mysterious influence; but I loved the place, and I love it no less now, although my skeleton has found a lodging-place here too."

"Of course," I said, "and very appropriately. The house was haunted before you came."

"It was haunted for me afterward," he said softly, more to himself than to me; "sweet, shadowy visions I should be glad to call up now." And he turned away and swallowed a sigh.

I pitied him all the way home, and sat up to pity him, looking through the soft May starlight to see the lamp burning steadily at his window until after midnight. From that time I seemed to have a trouble,—though I could scarcely have[Pg 142] named or owned it, it was so indefinite.

He came to see me a few days afterward, and sat quite dull and abstracted until I warmed him up with a little lively opposition. I vexed him first, and then, when I saw he was interested enough to talk, I let him have a chance; and I had never seen him so interesting. He showed me a new phase of his character, and I listened, and answered him in as few words as possible, that I might lose nothing of the revelation. When he got up to go away, I asked him where he had been to learn and think so much since the last autumn. He began to be, I thought and hoped, what a sterner teaching might have made him before.

He seemed a little embarrassed; said no one else had discovered any change in him, and he thought it must be only a reflected light. He had observed that I had "a remarkable faculty for drawing people out. What was my witchcraft?"

I disclaimed all witchcraft, and told him it was only because I quarrelled with people. A little wholesome opposition had warmed him into quite a flight of fancy.

"If I could only,"——he began, hurriedly; but took out his watch, said it was time for him to go, and went off quite hastily. It was very weak in me, but I wished very much to know what he would have said.

The next time, he called a few moments to tell me that his lady-visitors, with a friend of theirs, had come, and had expressed a wish to make my acquaintance. He promised them that he would call and let me know,—though he hoped I would not come, unless I felt inclined. He was very absent-minded, and went off the moment I asked him where he had left his good spirits. This made me a little cold to him when I called on the ladies, for I found them all sitting after tea out at the door. It was a miserably constrained affair, though we all tried to be civil,—for I could see that both ladies were taking, or trying to take, my measure, and it did not set me at ease in the least. But in the mean time I had measured them; and as experience has confirmed that first impression, I may as well sketch them here. I protest, in the first place, against any imputation of prejudice or jealousy. I thought much more charitably of them than others did.

Mrs. Winslow was one of those pleasant, well-bred ladies, who can look at you until you are obliged to look away, contradict you flatly, and say the most grossly impertinent things in the mildest voice and choicest words. A woman of the world, without nobility enough to appreciate a magnanimous thought or action, and with very narrow, shallow views of everything about her, she had still some agreeable traits of character,—much shrewd knowledge of the world, as she saw it, some taste for Art, and an excellent judgment in relation to all things appertaining to polite society. I had really some pleasant intercourse with her, although I think she was one of the most insulting persons I ever met. I made a point of never letting her get any advantage of me, and so we got along very well. Whenever she had a chance, she was sure to say something that would mortify or hurt me; and I never failed to repay both principal and interest with a voice and face as smooth as hers. And here let me say that there is no other way of dealing with such people. Self-denial, modesty, magnanimity, they do not and cannot understand. Never turn them the other cheek, but give a smart slap back again. It will do them good.

The daughter was a very pretty, artificial, silly girl, who might have been very amiable in a different position, and was not ill-natured as it was. I might have liked her very well, if she had not conceived such a wonderful liking for me, and hugged and kissed me as much as she did. She cooed, too, and I dislike to hear a woman coo; it is a sure mark of inferiority.

We were quite intimate soon, and Miss Lucy fell into the habit of coming early in the morning to ride with me, and after[Pg 143] dinner to sit and sew, and after tea for a walk. She showed me all her heart, apparently, though there was not much of it, and vowed that she scarcely knew how she should exist without me. I let her play at liking me, just as I should have indulged a playful kitten, and tried to say and do something that might improve her for Mr. Ames's sake. I saw now what his skeleton was. He was to marry the poor child, and shrunk from it as I should have shrunk from a shallow husband.

He used to come with her sometimes, and I must confess that he behaved admirably. I never saw him in the least rude, or ill-natured, or contemptuous towards her, even when she was silliest and tried his patience most severely; and I felt my respect for him increasing every day. As for Mrs. Winslow, she came sometimes to see me, and was very particular to invite me there; but I saw that she watched both me and Mr. Ames, and suspected that she had come to Huntsville for that purpose. She sought every opportunity, too, of making me seem awkward or ignorant before him; and he perceived it, I know, and was mortified and annoyed by it, though he left the chastisement entirely to me. Once in a while Cousin Mary and I had a real old-fashioned visit from him all alone, either when it was very stormy, or when the ladies were visiting elsewhere. He always came serious and abstracted, and went away in good spirits, and he said that those few hours were the pleasantest he passed. Mrs. Winslow looked on them with an evil eye, I knew, and suspected a great deal of which we were all innocent; for one day, when she had been dining at my house with her daughter, and we were all out in the garden together, I overheard her saying,—

"She is just the person to captivate him, and you mustn't bring yourself into competition with her, Lucy. She can out-shine you in conversation, and I know that she is playing a deep game."

"La, ma!" the girl exclaimed. "An old maid, without the least style! and she makes butter too, and actually climbs up in a chair to scrub down her closets,—for Edward and I caught her at it one day."

"No, indeed! Now I should have died, if he had caught me in such a plight; but she shook down her dress as though it were a matter of course, and they were soon talking about some German stuff,—I don't know what it was,—while I had to amuse myself with the drawings."

"That's the way!" retorted the mother. "You play dummy for them. I wish you had a little more spirit, Lucy. You wouldn't play into the hands of this designing"——

"Nonsense, mamma! She's a real clever, good-natured old thing, and I like her," exclaimed the daughter. "You're so suspicious!"

"You're so foolishly secure!" answered mamma. "A man is never certain until after the ceremony; and you don't know Edward Ames, Lucy."

"I know he's got plenty of money, mother, and I know he's real nice and handsome," was the reply; and they walked out of hearing.

I wouldn't have listened even to so much as that, if I could have avoided it; and as soon as I could, I went into the parlor, and sat down to some work, trying to keep down that old trouble, which somehow gathered size like a rolling snowball. I might have known what it was, if I had not closed my eyes resolutely, and said to myself, "The summer will soon be gone, and there will be an end of it all then"; and I winced, as I said it, like one who sees a blow coming.

The summer went by imperceptibly; it was autumn, and still all things remained outwardly as they had been. We went back and forth continually, rode and walked out, sang and read together, and Lucy grew fonder and fonder of me. She could scarcely live out of my presence, and confided to me all her plans when she and Edward should be married,—how much she thought of him, and he of her, all about their courtship,[Pg 144] how he declared himself and how she accepted him one soft moonlight night in far Italy, how agitated and distressed he had been when she had a fever, and a thousand other details which swelled that great stone in my heart more and more. But I shut my eyes, until one day when I saw them together. He was listening, intent, and very pale, to something she told him, and, to my surprise, she was pale too, and weeping. Before she could finish, she broke into a passionate rush of tears, and would have thrown herself at his feet; but he caught her, and she sunk down upon his shoulder, and he stooped towards her as he might if he had loved her. Then I knew how I loved him.

I had to bear up a little while, for they were in my house, and I must bid them good-night, and talk idly, so that they should not suspect the wound I had. But I must do something, or go mad; and so I went out to the garden-wall, and struck my hand upon it until the blood ran. The pain of that balanced the terrible pain within for a few moments, and I went in to them calm and smiling. They were sitting on the sofa, he with a perplexed, pale face, and she blushing and radiant. They started up when they saw my hand bandaged, and she was full of sympathy for my hurt. He said but little, though he looked fixedly at my face. I know I must have looked strangely. When they were gone, I went into my chamber and shut the door, with some such feeling as I should have closed the entrance of a tomb behind me forever. I fought myself all that night. My heart was hungry and cried out for food, and I would promise it none at all. Is there anyone who thinks that youth has monopolized all the passion of life, all the rapture, all the wild despair? Let them breast the deep, strong current of middle life.

I never could quite recollect how that last month went away. I know that I kept myself incessantly occupied, and that I saw them almost daily, without departing from the tone of familiar friendship I had worn throughout, although my heart was full of jealousy and a fast-growing hatred that would not be quelled. Not for a thousand happy loves would I have let them see my humiliation. I was even afraid that already he might suspect it, for his manner was changed. Sometimes he was distant, sometimes sad, and sometimes almost tenderer than a friend.

It got to be October, and I felt that I could not bear such a state of things any longer, and questioned within myself whether I had better not leave home for a while. If I had been alone, it would have been easy; but my cousin Mary was still with me, and I could give no good reason for such a step. Before I had settled upon anything, Lucy came to me in great distress, with a confession that Mr. Ames was somehow turned against her, and that she was almost heart-broken about it. If she lost him, she must die; for she had so long looked upon him as her husband, and loved him so well, that life would be nothing without him. What should she do? Would I advise her?

I didn't know, until long afterward, that it was a consummate piece of acting, dictated by the mother, and that she was as heartless as it was possible for a young girl to be; and while she lay weeping at my feet, I pitied her, and wondered if, perhaps, there might not be some spring of generous feeling in her heart, that a happy love would unlock. The next morning I went out alone, for a ride, in a direction where I thought I could not be disturbed. Up hill and down, over roads, pastures, and streams, I tore until the fever within was allayed, and then I stopped to rest, and look upon the beauties of the bright October day. All overhead and around, the sky and patches of water were of that far-looking blue which seems all ready to open upon new and wonderful worlds. Big, bright drops of a night-shower lay asleep in the curled-up leaves, as though the trees had stretched out a million hands to catch them. And such hands! What comparison could match them? Clouds of butterflies, such as sleep among the flowers of Paradise,—forgotten dreams of[Pg 145] children, who sleep and smile,—fancies of fairy laureates, strung shining together for some high festival,—anything most rich or unreal, might furnish a type for the foliage that was painted upon the golden blue of that October day. I could almost have forgotten my trouble in the charmed gaze.

This was what I had dreaded; but I swallowed love and fear in one great gulp, and shut my teeth with a resolution of iron. I would not be guilty of the meanness of standing in that child's way, if she were but a fool; so I answered him gayly.

"'The same to yourself,' as Neighbor Dawkins would say. Why didn't you all go to the lake, as you planned last night?"

"For some good reasons. Were you bewitched, that you stood here so still?" He looked brightly into my face, as he came up.

"No,—but the trees are. Shouldn't you think that Oberon had held high court here over-night?"

"And that they had left their wedding-dresses upon the boughs? Yes, they are gay enough! But where have you been these four weeks, that I haven't got speech with you?"

"A pretty question, when you've been at my house almost every day! Where are your senses, man?"

"I know too well where they are," he said. "But I've wanted a good talk with you, face to face,—not with a veil of commonplace people between. You're not yourself among them. I like you best when your spirits are a little ruffled, and your eye kindles, and your lip curls, as it does now,—not when you say, "No, Sir," or "Yes, Ma'am," and smile as though it were only skin-deep."

"Let's be going, Jessie," I said. "It's our duty to feel insulted. He accuses your mistress of being deceitful among her friends, and says he likes her when she's cross."

"How are your ladies? and when will Miss Lucy come to ride out with me?" I asked, fearing a look into his eyes.

He answered that she was well, and walked along with his head down, quite like another man. At length he looked up, very pale, and put his hand on my bridle.

"I want to put a case to you," he said. "Suppose a man to have made some engagement before his mind was mature, and under a strong outside pressure of which he was not aware. When he grows to a better knowledge of the world and himself, and finds that he has been half cheated, and that to keep his word will entail lasting misery and ruin on himself, without really benefiting any one else, is he bound to keep it?"

"A promise is a promise, Mr. Ames. I have thought that a man of honor valued his word more than happiness or life."

He flushed a moment, and then looked down again; and we walked on slowly, without a word, over the stubbly ground, and through brooklets and groves and thickets, towards home. If I could only reach there before he spoke again! How could I hold out to do my duty, if I were tempted any farther? At last he checked the horse, and, putting his hand heavily on mine, looked me full in the face, while his was pale and agitated.

"Rachel," he said, huskily, "if a man came to you and said, 'I am bound to another; but my heart, my soul, my life are at your feet,' would you turn him away?"

"Do I look like a woman who would take a man's love at second hand?" I said, haughtily. "Women like me must respect the man they marry, Sir."

He dropped his hand, and turned away his head, with a deep-drawn breath. I[Pg 146] saw him stoop and lift himself again, as though some weight were laid upon his shoulders. I saw the muscles round and ridgy upon his clenched hand. "All this for a silly, shallow thing, who knows nothing of the heart she loses!" some tempter whispered, and passionate words of love rushed up and beat hard against my shut teeth. "Get thee behind me!" I muttered, and resolutely started my horse forward. "Not for her,—but for myself,—for self-respect! The best love in the world shall not buy that!"

He came along beside me, silent, and stepping heavily, and thus we went to the leafy lane that came out near my house. There I stopped; for I felt that this must end now.

"Mr. Ames, you must leave this place, directly," I said, with as much sternness as I could assume. "If you please, I will bid you good-bye, now."

"Not see you again, Rachel?" he exclaimed, sharply. "No! not that! Forgive me, if I have said too much; but don't send me away!"

He took my hand in both his, and gazed as one might for a sentence of life or death.

"Will you let a woman's strength shame you?" I cried, desperately. "I thought you were a man of honor, Mr. Ames. I trusted you entirely, but I will never trust any one again."

"You are right, Rachel! you are right," he said, after a moment's thought. "No one must trust me, and be disappointed. I have never forgotten that before; please God, I never will again. But must I say farewell here?"

"Good-bye, then, dear friend!—dear friend!" he whispered. "If you ever love any better than yourself, you will know how to forgive me."

I felt his kiss on my hand, and felt, rather than saw, his last look, for I dared not raise my eyes to his; and I knew that he had turned back, and that I had seen the last of him. For one instant I thought I would follow and tell him that he did not suffer alone; but before my horse was half turned, I was myself again.

"Fool!" I said. "If you let the dam down, can you push the waters back again? Would that man let anything upon earth stand between him and a woman that loved him? Let him go so. He'll forget you in six months."

I had to endure a farewell call from Lucy and her mother. Mr. Ames had received a sudden summons home, and they were to accompany him a part of the way. The elder scrutinized me very closely, but I think she got nothing to satisfy her; the younger kissed and shed tears enough for the parting of twin sisters. How I hated her! In a couple of days they were gone, Mr. Ames calling to see me when he knew me to be out, and leaving a civil message only. The house was closed, the faded leaves fell all about the doorway, and the grass withered upon the little lawn.

"That play is over, and the curtain dropped," I said to myself, as I took one long look towards the old house, and closed the shutters that opened that way.

You who have suffered some great loss, and stagger for want of strength to walk alone, thank God for work. Nothing like that for bracing up a feeble heart! I worked restlessly from morning till night, and often encroached on what should have been sleep. Hard work, real sinewy labor, was all that would content me; and I found enough of it. To have been a proper heroine, I suppose I should have devoted myself to works of charity, read sentimental poetry, and folded my hands very meekly and prettily; but I did no such thing. I ripped up carpets, and scoured paint, and swept down cobwebs, I made sweetmeats and winter clothing, I dug up and set out trees, and smoothed the turf in my garden, and tramped round my fields with the man behind me, to see if the fences needed mending, or if the marshes were properly drained, or the fallow land wanted ploughing. It made me better. All the sickliness of my grief passed away,[Pg 147] and only the deep-lying regret was left like a weight to which my heart soon became accustomed. We can manage trouble much better than we often do, if we only choose to try resolutely.

I had but one relapse. It was when I got news of their marriage. I remember the day with a peculiar distinctness; for it was the first snow-storm of the season, and I had been out walking all the afternoon. It was one of those soft, leaden-colored, expectant days, of late autumn or early winter, when one is sure of snow; and I went out on purpose to see it fall among the woods; for it was just upon Christmas, and I longed to see the black ground covered. By-and-by a few flakes sauntered down, coquetting as to where they would alight; then a few more followed, thickening and thickening until the whole upper air was alive with them, and the frozen ridges whitened along their backs, and every little stiff blade of grass or rush or dead bush held all it could carry. It was pleasant to see the quiet wonder go on, until the landscape was completely changed,—to walk home scuffing the snow from the frozen road on which my feet had ground as I came that way, and see the fences full, and the hollows heaped up level, and the birches bent down with their hair hidden, and the broad arms of the fir-trees loaded, like sombre cotton-pickers going home heavily laden. Then to see the brassy streak widen in the west, and the cold moon hang astonished upon the dead tops of some distant pine-trees, was to enjoy a most beautiful picture, with only the cost of a little fatigue.

When I got home, I found among my letters one from Mr. Ames. He could not leave the country without pleading once more for my esteem, he wrote. He had not intended to marry until he could think more calmly of the past; but Lucy's mother had married again very suddenly into a family where her daughter found it not pleasant to follow her. She was poor, without very near relatives now, and friends, on both sides, had urged the marriage. He had told her the state of his feelings, and offered, if she could overlook the want of love, to be everything else to her. She should never repent the step, and he prayed me, when I thought of him, to think as leniently as possible. Alas! now I must not think at all.

How I fought that thought,—how I worked by day, and studied deep into the night, filling every hour full to the brim with activity, seems now a feverish dream to me. Such dead thoughts will not be buried out of sight, but lie cold and stiff, until the falling foliage of seasons of labor and experience eddies round them, and moss and herbs venture to grow over their decay, and birds come slowly and curiously to sing a little there. In time, the mound is beautiful with the richness of the growth, but the lord of the manor shudders as he walks that way. For him, it is always haunted.

Thus with me. I knew that the sorrow was doing me good, that it had been needed long, and I tried to profit by it, as the time came when I could think calmly of it all. I thought I had ceased to love him; but the news of her death (for she died in two years) taught me better. I heard of him from others,—that he had been most tender and indulgent to a selfish, heartless woman, who trifled with his best feelings, and almost broke his heart before she went. I heard that he had one child, a poor little blind baby, for whom the mother had neither love nor care, and that he still continued abroad. But from himself I never heard a word. No doubt he had forgotten me, as I had always thought he would.

More than two years passed, and spring-time was upon us, when I heard that he had returned to the country, and was to be married shortly to a wealthy, beautiful widow he had found abroad. At first we heard that he was married, and then that he was making great preparations, but would not marry until autumn. Even the bride's dress was described, and the furniture of the house of which she was to be mistress. I had expected some such thing, but it added one more drop of bitterness to the yearning I had for him. It[Pg 148] was so hard to think him like any other man!

However, now, as before, I covered up the wound with a smiling face, and went about my business. I had been making extensive improvements on my farm, and kept out all day often, over-seeing the laborers. One night, a soft, starlight evening in late May, I came home very tired, and, being quite alone, sat down on the portico to watch the stars and think. I had not been long there, when a man's step came up the avenue, and some person, I could not tell who in the darkness, opened the gate, and came slowly up towards me. I rose, and bade him good-evening.

"Is it you, Rachel?" he said, quite faintly. It was his voice. Thank Heaven for the darkness! The hand I gave him might tremble, but my face should betray nothing. I invited him into the parlor, and rang for lights.

"He's come to see about selling the old house," I thought; there was a report that he would sell it by auction. When the lights came, he looked eagerly at me.

"Not so much as I," he answered, sighing and looking down;—he seemed to be in deep thought for a moment.

He was much changed. His hair was turning gray; his face was thin, with a subdued expression I had never expected to see him wear. He must have suffered greatly; and, as I looked, my heart began to melt. That would not do; and besides, what was the need of pity, when he had consoled himself? I asked some ordinary question about his journey, and led him into a conversation on foreign travel.

The evening passed away as it might with two strangers, and he rose to go, with a grave face and manner as cold as mine,—for I had been very cold. I followed him to the door, and asked how long he stayed at Huntsville.

Only a part of the next day, he said; his child could not be left any longer; but he wished very much to see me, and so had contrived to get a few days.

"Indeed!" I said. "You honor me. Your Huntsville friends scarcely expected to be remembered so long."

"They have not done me justice, then," he said, quietly. "I seem to have the warmest recollection of any. Good-night, Miss Mead. I shall not be likely to see you again."

He gave me his hand, but it was very cold, and I let it slip as coldly from mine. He went down the gravel-walk slowly and heavily, and he certainly sighed as he closed the gate. Could I give him up thus? "Down pride! You have held sway long enough! I must part more kindly, or die!" I ran down the gravel-walk and overtook him in the avenue. He stopped as I came up, and turned to meet me.

"Forgive me," I said, breathlessly. "I could not part with old friends so, after wishing so much for them."

He took both my hands in his. "Have you wished for me, Rachel?" he said, tenderly. "I thought you would scarcely have treated a stranger with so little kindness."

"To nothing but an old love, dear! Was that why you were afraid to show yourself to me?"

"Yes!" I answered, making no resistance to the arm that was put gently round me. He was mine now, I knew, as I felt the strong heart beating fast against my own.

"Rachel," he whispered, "the only woman I ever did or ever can love, will you send me away again?"

A SHETLAND SHAWL.

It was made of the purest and finest wool,
As fine as silk, and as soft and cool;
It was pearly white, of that cloud-like hue
Which has a shadowy tinge of blue;
And brought by the good ship, miles and miles,
From the distant shores of the Shetland Isles.

And in it were woven, here and there,
The golden threads of a maiden's hair,
As the wanton wind with tosses and twirls
Blew in and out of her floating curls,
While her busy fingers swiftly drew
The ivory needle through and through.

The warm sun flashed on the brilliant dyes
Of the purple and golden butterflies,
And the drowsy bees, with a changeless tune,
Hummed in the perfumed air of June,
As the gossamer fabric, fair to view,
Under the maiden's fingers grew.

The shadows of tender thought arise
In the tranquil depths of her dreamy eyes,
And her blushing cheek bears the first impress
Of the spirit's awakening consciousness,
Like the rose, when it bursts, in a single hour,
From the folded bud to the perfect flower.

Many a tremulous hope and care,
Many a loving wish and prayer,
With the blissful dreams of one who stood
At the golden gate of womanhood,
The little maiden's tireless hands
Wove in and out of the shining strands.

The buds that burst in an April sun
Had seen the wonderful shawl begun;
It was finished, and folded up with pride,
When the vintage purpled the mountain-side;
And smiles made light in the violet eyes,
At the thought of a lover's pleased surprise.

The spider hung from the budding thorn
His baseless web, when the shawl was worn;
And the cobwebs, silvered by the dew,
With the morning sunshine breaking through,
The maiden's toil might well recall,
In the vanished year, on the Shetland Shawl.
[Pg 150]

For the rose had died in the autumn showers,
That bloomed in the summer's golden hours;
And the shining tissue of hopes and dreams,
With misty glories and rainbow gleams
Woven within and out, was one
Like the slender thread by the spider spun.

As fresh and as pure as the sad young face,
The snowy shawl with its clinging grace
Seems a fitting veil for a form so fair:
But who would think what a tale of care,
Of love and grief and faith, might all
Be folded up in a Shetland Shawl?

ROBA DI ROMA.

[Continued.]

CHAPTER VI.

GAMES IN ROME.

Walking, during pleasant weather, almost anywhere in Rome, but especially in passing through the enormous arches of the Temple of Peace, or along by the Colosseum, or some wayside osteria outside the city-walls, the ear of the traveller is often saluted by the loud, explosive tones of two voices going off together, at little intervals, like a brace of pistol-shots; and turning round to seek the cause of these strange sounds, he will see two men, in a very excited state, shouting, as they fling out their hands at each other with violent gesticulation. Ten to one he will say to himself, if he be a stranger in Rome, "How quarrelsome and passionate these Italians are!" If he be an Englishman or an American, he will be sure to congratulate himself on the superiority of his own countrymen, and wonder why these fellows stand there shaking their fists at each other, and screaming, instead of fighting it out like men,—and muttering, "A cowardly pack, too!" will pass on, perfectly satisfied with his facts and his philosophy. But what he has seen was really not a quarrel. It is simply the game of Mora, as old as the Pyramids, and formerly played among the host of Pharaoh and the armies of Cæsar as now by the subjects of Pius IX. It is thus played.

Two persons place themselves opposite each other, holding their right hands closed before them. They then simultaneously and with a sudden gesture throw out their hands, some of the fingers being extended, and others shut up on the palm,—each calling out in a loud voice, at the same moment, the number he guesses the fingers extended by himself and his adversary to make. If neither cry out aright, or if both cry out aright, nothing is gained or lost; but if only one guess the true number, he wins a point. Thus, if one throw out four fingers and the other two, he who cries out six makes a point, unless the other cry out the same number. The points are generally five, though sometimes they are doubled, and as they are made, they are marked by the left hand, which, during the whole game, is held stiffly in the air at about the shoulders' height, one finger being extended for[Pg 151] every point. When the partito is won, the winner cries out, "Fatto!" or "Guadagnato!" or "Vinto!" or else strikes his hands across each other in sign of triumph. This last sign is also used when Double Mora is played, to indicate that five points are made.

So universal is this game in Rome, that the very beggars play away their earnings at it. It was only yesterday, as I came out of the gallery of the Capitol, that I saw two who had stopped screaming for "baiocchi per amor di Dio," to play pauls against each other at Mora. One, a cripple, supported himself against a column, and the other, with his ragged cloak slung on his shoulder, stood opposite him. They staked a paul each time with the utmost nonchalance, and played with an earnestness and rapidity which showed that they were old hands at it, while the coachmen from their boxes cracked their whips, and jeered and joked them, and the shabby circle around them cheered them on. I stopped to see the result, and found that the cripple won two successive games. But his cloaked antagonist bore his losses like a hero, and when all was over, he did his best with the strangers issuing from the Capitol to line his pockets for a new chance.

Nothing is more simple and apparently easy than Mora, yet to play it well requires quickness of perception and readiness in the calculation of chances. As each player, of course, knows how many fingers he himself throws out, the main point is to guess the number of fingers thrown by his opponent, and to add the two instantaneously together. A player of skill will soon detect the favorite numbers of his antagonist, and it is curious to see how remarkably clever some of them are in divining, from the movement of the hand, the number to be thrown. The game is always played with great vivacity, the hands being flung out with vehemence, and the numbers shouted at the full pitch of the voice, so as to be heard at a considerable distance. It is from the sudden opening of the fingers, while the hands are in the air, that the old Roman phrase, micare digitis, "to flash with the fingers," is derived.

A bottle of wine is generally the stake; and round the osterias, of a festa-day, when the game is played after the blood has been heated and the nerves strained by previous potations, the regular volleyed explosions of "Tre! Cinque! Otto! Tutti!" are often interrupted by hot discussions. But these are generally settled peacefully by the bystanders, who act as umpires,—and the excitement goes off in talk. The question arises almost invariably upon the number of fingers flashed out; for an unscrupulous player has great opportunities of cheating, by holding a finger half extended, so as to be able to close or open it afterwards according to circumstances; but sometimes the losing party will dispute as to the number called out. The thumb is the father of all evil at Mora, it being often impossible to say whether it was intended to be closed or not, and an unskilful player is easily deceived in this matter by a clever one. When "Tutti" is called, all the fingers, thumb and all, must be extended, and then it is an even chance that a discussion will take place as to whether the thumb was out. Sometimes, when the blood is hot, and one of the parties has been losing, violent quarrels will arise, which the umpires cannot decide, and, in very rare cases, knives are drawn and blood is spilled. Generally these disputes end in nothing, and, often as I have seen this game, I have never been a spectator of any quarrel, though discussions numberless I have heard. But, beyond vague stories by foreigners, in which I put no confidence, the vivacity of the Italians easily leading persons unacquainted with their characters to mistake a very peaceable talk for a violent quarrel, I know of only one case that ended tragically. There a savage quarrel, begun at Mora, was with difficulty pacified by the bystanders, and one of the parties withdrew to an osteria to drink with his companions.[Pg 152] But while he was there, the rage which had been smothered, but not extinguished, in the breast of his antagonist, blazed out anew. Rushing at the other, as he sat by the table of the osteria, he attacked him fiercely with his knife. The friends of both parties started at once to their feet, to interpose and tear them apart; but before they could reach them, one of the combatants dropped bleeding and dying on the floor, and the other fled like a maniac from the room.

This readiness of the Italians to use the knife, for the settlement of every dispute, is generally attributed by foreigners to the passionateness of their nature; but I am inclined to believe that it also results from their entire distrust of the possibility of legal redress in the courts. Where courts are organized as they are in Naples, who but a fool would trust to them? Open tribunals, where justice should be impartially administered, would soon check private assassinations; and were there more honest and efficient police courts, there would be far fewer knives drawn. The Englishman invokes the aid of the law, knowing that he can count upon prompt justice; take that belief from him, he, too, like Harry Gow, would "fight for his own hand." In the half-organized society of the less civilized parts of the United States, the pistol and bowie-knife are as frequent arbiters of disputes as the stiletto is among the Italians. But it would be a gross error to argue from this, that the Americans are violent and passionate by nature; for, among the same people in the older States, where justice is cheaply and strictly administered, the pistol and bowie-knife are almost unknown. Despotism and slavery nurse the passions of men; and wherever law is loose, or courts are venal, public justice assumes the shape of private vengeance. The farther south one goes in Italy, the more frequent is violence and the more unrepressed are the passions. Compare Piedmont with Naples, and the difference is immense. The dregs of vice and violence settle to the south. Rome is worse than Tuscany, and Naples worse than Rome,—not so much because of the nature of the people, as of the government and the laws.

But to return to Mora. As I was walking out beyond the Porta San Giovanni the other day, I heard the most ingenious and consolatory periphrasis for a defeat that it was ever my good-fortune to hear; and, as it shows the peculiar humor of the Romans, it may here have a place. Two of a party of contadini had been playing at Mora, the stakes being, as usual, a bottle of wine, and each, in turn, had lost and won. A lively and jocose discussion now arose between the friends on the one side and the players on the other,—the former claiming that each of the latter was to pay his bottle of wine for the game he lost, (to be drunk, of course, by all,) and the latter insisting, that, as one loss offset the other, nothing was to be paid by either. As I passed, one of the players was speaking. "Il primo partito," he said, "ho guadagnato io; e poi, nel secondo,"—here a pause,—"ho perso la vittoria": "The first game, I won; the second, I——lost the victory." And with this happy periphrasis, our friend admitted his defeat. I could not but think how much better it would have been for the French, if this ingenious mode of adjusting with the English the Battle of Waterloo had ever occurred to them. To admit that they were defeated was of course impossible; but to acknowledge that they "lost the victory" would by no means have been humiliating. This would have soothed their irritable national vanity, prevented many heart-burnings, saved long and idle arguments and terrible "kicking against the pricks," and rendered a friendly alliance possible.

No game has a better pedigree than Mora. It was played by the Egyptians more than two thousand years before the Christian era. In the paintings at Thebes and in the temples of Beni-Hassan, seated figures may be seen playing it,—some keeping their reckoning with the left hand uplifted,—some striking off the game with both hands, to show that it[Pg 153] was won,—and, in a word, using the same gestures as the modern Romans. From Egypt it was introduced into Greece. The Romans brought it from Greece at an early period, and it has existed among them ever since, having suffered apparently no alteration. Its ancient Roman name was Micatio, and to play it was called micare digitis,—"to flash the fingers,"—the modern name Mora being merely a corruption of the verb micare. Varro describes it precisely as it is now played; and Cicero, in the first book of his treatise "De Divinatione," thus alludes to it:—"Quid enim est sors? Idem propemodum quod micare, quod talos jacere, quod tesseras; quibus in rebus temeritas et casus, non ratio et consilium valent." So common was it, that it became the basis of an admirable proverb, to denote the honesty of a person:—"Dignus est quicum in tenebris mices": "So trustworthy, that one may play Mora with him in the dark." At one period they carried their love of it so far, that they used to settle by micatio the sales of merchandise and meat in the Forum, until Apronius, prefect of the city, prohibited the practice in the following terms, as appears by an old inscription, which is particularly interesting as containing an admirable pun: "Sub exagio potius pecora vendere quam digitis concludentibus tradere": "Sell your sheep by the balance, and do not bargain or deceive" (tradere having both these meanings) "by opening and shutting your fingers at Mora."

One of the various kinds of the old Roman game of Pila still survives under the modern name of Pallone. It is played between two sides, each numbering from five to eight persons. Each of the players is armed with a bracciale, or gantlet of wood, covering the hand and extending nearly up to the elbow, with which a heavy ball is beaten backwards and forwards, high into the air, from one side to the other. The object of the game is to keep the ball in constant flight, and whoever suffers it to fall dead within his bounds loses. It may, however, be struck in its rebound, though the best strokes are before it touches the ground. The bracciali are hollow tubes of wood, thickly studded outside with pointed bosses, projecting an inch and a half, and having inside, across the end, a transverse bar, which is grasped by the hand, so as to render them manageable to the wearer. The balls, which are of the size of a large cricket-ball, are made of leather, and are so heavy, that, when well played, they are capable of breaking the arm, unless properly received on the bracciale. They are inflated with air, which is pumped into them with a long syringe, through a small aperture closed by a valve inside. The game is played on an oblong figure, marked out on the ground, or designated by the wall around the sunken platform on which it is played; across the centre is drawn a transverse line, dividing equally the two sides. Whenever a ball either falls outside the lateral boundary or is not struck over the central line, it counts against the party playing it. When it flies over the extreme limits, it is called a volata, and is reckoned the best stroke that can be made. At the end of the lists is a spring-board, on which the principal player stands. The best batter is always selected for this post; the others are distributed about. Near him stands the pallonaio, whose office is to keep the balls well inflated with air, and he is busy nearly all the time. Facing him, at a short distance, is the mandarino, who gives ball. As soon as the ball leaves the mandarino's hand, the chief batter runs forward to meet it, and strikes it as far and high as he can, with the bracciale. Four times in succession have I seen a good player strike a volata, with the loud applause of the spectators. When this does not occur, the two sides bat the ball backwards and forwards, from one to the other, sometimes fifteen or twenty times before the point is won; and as it falls here and there, now flying high in the air and caught at once on the bracciale before touching the ground, now glancing back from the wall which generally forms one side of the lists, the players rush eagerly to hit it, calling loudly[Pg 154] to each other, and often displaying great agility, skill, and strength. The interest now becomes very exciting; the bystanders shout when a good stroke is made, and groan and hiss at a miss, until, finally, the ball is struck over the lists, or lost within them. The points of the game are fifty,—the first two strokes counting fifteen each, and the others ten each. When one side makes the fifty before the other has made anything, it is called a marcio, and counts double. As each point is made, it is shouted by the caller, who stands in the middle and keeps the count, and proclaims the bets of the spectators.

This game is as national to the Italians as cricket to the English; it is not only, as it seems to me, much more interesting than the latter, but requires vastly more strength, agility, and dexterity, to play it well. The Italians give themselves to it with all the enthusiasm of their nature, and many a young fellow injures himself for life by the fierceness of his batting. After the excitement and stir of this game, which only the young and athletic can play well, cricket seems a very dull affair.

The game of Pallone has always been a favorite one in Rome; and near the summit of the Quattro Fontane, in the Barberini grounds, there is a circus, which used to be specially devoted to public exhibitions during the summer afternoons. At these representations, the most renowned players were engaged by an impresario. The audience was generally large, and the entrance-fee was one paul. Wonderful feats were sometimes performed here; and on the wall are marked the heights of some remarkable volate. The players were clothed in a thin, tight dress, like saltimbanchi. One side wore a blue, and the other a red ribbon, on the arm. The contests, generally, were fiercely disputed,—the spectators betting heavily, and shouting, as good or bad strokes were made. Sometimes a line was extended across the amphitheatre, from wall to wall, over which it was necessary to strike the ball, a point being lost in case it passed below. But this is a variation from the game as ordinarily played, and can be ventured on only when the players are of the first force. The games here, however, are now suspended; for the French, since their occupation, have not only seized the post-office, to convert it into a club-room, and the piano nobile of some of the richest palaces, to serve as barracks for their soldiers, but have also driven the Romans from their amphitheatre, where Pallone was played, to make it into ateliers de génie. Still, one may see the game played by ordinary players, towards the twilight of any summer day, in the Piazza di Termini, or near the Tempio della Pace, or the Colosseo. The boys from the studios and shops also play in the streets a sort of mongrel game called Pillotta, beating a small ball back and forth, with a round bat, shaped like a small tamburello and covered with parchment. But the real game, played by skilful players, may be seen almost every summer night outside the Porta a Pinti, in Florence; and I have also seen it admirably played under the fortress-wall at Siena, the players being dressed entirely in white, with loose ruffled jackets, breeches, long stockings, and shoes of undressed leather, and the audience sitting round on the stone benches, or leaning over the lofty wall, cheering on the game, while they ate the cherries or zucca-seeds which were hawked about among them by itinerant peddlers. Here, towards twilight, one could lounge away an hour pleasantly under the shadow of the fortress, looking now at the game and now at the rolling country beyond, where olives and long battalions of vines marched knee-deep through the golden grain, until the purple splendors of sunset had ceased to transfigure the distant hills, and the crickets chirped louder under the deepening gray of the sky.

In the walls of the amphitheatre at Florence is a bust in colored marble of one of the most famous players of his day, whose battered face seems still to preside over the game, getting now and[Pg 155] then a smart blow from the Pallone itself, which, in its inflation, is no respecter of persons. The honorable inscription beneath the bust, celebrating the powers of this champion, who rejoiced in the surname of Earthquake, is as follows:—

"Josephus Barnius, Petiolensis, vir in jactando repercutiendoque folle singularis, qui ob robur ingens maximamque artis peritiam, et collusores ubique devictos, Terræmotus formidabili cognomento dictus est."

Another favorite game of ball among the Romans is Bocce or Boccette. It is played between two sides, consisting of any number of persons, each of whom has two large wooden balls of about the size of an average American nine-pin ball. Beside these, there is a little ball called the lecco. This is rolled first by one of the winning party to any distance he pleases, and the object is to roll or pitch the boccette or large balls so as to place them beside the lecco. Every ball of one side nearer to the lecco than any ball of the other counts one point in the game,—the number of points depending on the agreement of the parties. The game is played on the ground, and not upon any smooth or prepared plane; and as the lecco often runs into hollows, or poises itself on some uneven declivity, it is sometimes a matter of no small difficulty to play the other balls near to it. The great skill of the game consists, however, in displacing the balls of the adverse party so as to make the balls of the playing party count, and a clever player will often change the whole aspect of affairs by one well-directed throw. The balls are thrown alternately,—first by a player on one side, and then by a player on the other. As the game advances, the interest increases, and there is a constant variety. However good a throw is made, it may be ruined by the next. Sometimes the ball is pitched with great accuracy, so as to strike a close-counting ball far into the distance, while the new ball takes its place. Sometimes the lecco itself is suddenly transplanted into a new position, which entirely reverses all the previous counting. It is the last ball which decides the game, and, of course, it is eagerly watched. In the Piazza di Termini numerous parties may be seen every bright day in summer or spring playing this game under the locust-trees, surrounded by idlers, who stand by to approve or condemn, and to give their advice. The French soldiers, once free from drill or guard or from practising trumpet-calls on the old Agger of Servius Tullius near by, are sure to be rolling balls in this fascinating game. Having heated their blood sufficiently at it, they adjourn to a little osteria in the Piazza to refresh themselves with a glass of asciutto wine, after which they sit on a bench outside the door, or stretch themselves under the trees, and take a siesta, with their handkerchiefs over their eyes, while other parties take their turn at the bocce. Meanwhile, from the Agger beyond are heard the distressing trumpets struggling with false notes and wheezing and shrieking in ludicrous discord, while now and then the solemn bell of Santa Maria Maggiore tolls from the neighboring hill.

Another favorite game in Rome and Tuscany is Ruzzola, so called from the circular disk of wood with which it is played. Round this the player winds tightly a cord, which, by a sudden cast and backward jerk of the hand, he uncoils so as to send the disk whirling along the road. Outside the walls, and along all the principal avenues leading to the city, parties are constantly to be met playing at this game; and oftentimes before the players are visible, the disk is seen bounding round some curve, to the great danger of one's legs. He whose disk whirls the farthest wins a point. It is an excellent walking game, and it requires some knack to play the disk evenly along the road. Often the swiftest disks, when not well-directed, bound over the hedges, knock themselves down against the walls, or bury themselves in the tangled ditches; and when well played, if they chance to hit a stone in the road, they will leap like mad into the air, at the[Pg 156] risk of serious injury to any unfortunate passer. In the country, instead of wooden disks, the contadini often use cacio di pecora, a kind of hard goat's cheese, whose rind will resist the roughest play. What, then, must be the digestive powers of those who eat it, may be imagined. Like the peptic countryman, they probably do not know they have a stomach, not having ever felt it; and certainly they can say with Tony Lumpkin, "It never hurts me, and I sleep like a hound after it."

In common with the French, the Romans have a passion for the game of Dominos. Every caffè is supplied with a number of boxes, and, in the evening especially, it is played by young and old, with a seriousness which strikes us Saxons with surprise. We generally have a contempt for this game, and look upon it as childish. But I know not why. It is by no means easy to play well, and requires a careful memory and quick powers of combination and calculation. No caffè in Rome or Marseilles would be complete without its little black and white counters; and as it interests at once the most mercurial and fidgety of people and the laziest and languidest, it must have some hidden charm as yet unrevealed to the Anglo-Saxon.

Beside Dominos, Chess (Scacchi) is often played in public in the caffès; and there is one caffè named Dei Scacchi, because it is frequented by the best chess-players in Rome. Here matches are often made, and admirable games are played.

Among the Roman boys the game of Campana is also common. A parallelogram is drawn upon the ground and subdivided into four squares, which are numbered. At the top and bottom are two small semicircles, or bells, thus:—

Each of the players, having deposited his stake in the semicircle (b) at the farthest end, takes his station at a short distance, and endeavors to pitch some object, either a disk or a bit of terracotta, or more generally a baiocco, into one of the compartments. If he lodge it in the nearest bell, (a,) he pays a new stake into the pool; if into the farthest bell, (b,) he takes the whole pool; if into either of the other compartments, he takes one, two, three, or four of the stakes, according to the number of the compartment. If he lodge on a line, he is abbrucciato, as it is termed, and his play goes for nothing. Among the boys, the pool is frequently filled with buttons,—among the men, with baiocchi; but buttons or baiocchi are all the same to the players,—they are the representatives of luck or skill.

But the game of games in Rome is the Lottery. This is under the direction of the government, which, with a truly ecclesiastic regard for its subjects, has organized it into a means of raising revenue. The financial objection to this method of taxation is, that its hardest pressure is upon the poorest classes; but the moral and political objections are still stronger. The habit of gambling engendered by it ruins the temper, depraves the morals, and keeps up a constant state of excitement at variance with any settled and serious occupation. The temptations to laziness which it offers are too great for any people luxurious or idle by temperament; and the demon of Luck is set upon the altar which should be dedicated to Industry. If one happy chance can bring a fortune, who will spend laborious days to gain a competence? The common classes in Rome are those who are most corrupted by the lottery; and when they can neither earn nor borrow baiocchi to play, they strive to obtain them by beggary, cheating, and sometimes theft. The fallacious hope that their ticket will some day bring a prize leads them from step to step, until, having emptied their purses, they are tempted to raise the necessary funds by any unjustifiable means. When you pay them their wages or throw them a buona-mano, they instantly run to the lottery-office to play it.[Pg 157] Loss after loss does not discourage them. It is always, "The next time they are to win,—there was a slight mistake in their calculation before." Some good reason or other is always at hand. If by chance one of them do happen to win a large sum, it is ten to one that it will cost him his life,—that he will fall into a fit, or drop in an apoplexy, on hearing the news. There is a most melancholy instance of this in the very next house,—of a Jew made suddenly and unexpectedly rich, who instantly became insane in consequence, and is now the most wretched and melancholy spectacle that man can ever become,—starving in the midst of abundance, and moving like a beast about his house. But of all ill luck that can happen to the lottery-gambler, the worst is to win a small prize. It is all over with him from that time forward; into the great pit of the lottery everything that he can lay his hands on is sure to go.

There has been some difference of opinion as to whether the lottery was of later Italian invention, or dated back to the Roman Empire,—some even contending that it was in existence in Egypt long before that period; and several ingenious discussions may be found on this subject in the journals and annals of the French savans. A strong claim has been put forward for the ancient Romans, on the ground that Nero, Titus, and Heliogabalus were in the habit of writing on bits of wood and shells the names of various articles which they intended to distribute, and then casting them to the crowd to be scrambled for.[A] On some of these shells and billets were inscribed the names of slaves, precious vases, costly dresses, articles of silver and gold, valuable beasts, etc., which became the property of the fortunate persons who secured the billets and shells. On others were written absurd and useless articles, which turned the laugh against the unfortunate finder. Some, for instance, had inscribed upon them ten pieces of gold, and some ten cabbages. Some were for one hundred bears, and some for one egg. Some for five camels, and some for ten flies. In one sense, these were lotteries, and the Emperors deserve all due credit for their invention. But the lottery, according to its modern signification, is of Italian origin, and had its birth in Upper Italy as early as the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Here it was principally practised by the Venetians and Genoese, under the name of Borsa di Ventura,—the prizes consisting originally, not of money, but of merchandise of every kind,—precious stones, pictures, gold and silver work, and similar articles. The great difference between them and the ancient lotteries of Heliogabalus and Nero was, that tickets were bought and prizes drawn. The lottery soon came to be played, however, for money, and was considered so admirable an invention, that it was early imported into France, where Francis I., in 1539, granted letters-patent for the establishment of one. In the seventeenth century, this "infezione," as an old Italian writer calls it, was introduced into Holland and England, and at a still later date into Germany. Those who invented it still retain it; but those who adopted it have rejected it. After nearly three centuries' existence in France, it was abolished on the 31st of December, 1835. The last drawing was at Paris on the 27th of the same month, when the number of players was so great that it became necessary to close the offices before the appointed time, and one Englishman is said to have gained a quaterno of the sum of one million two hundred thousand francs. When abolished in France, the government was drawing from it a net revenue of twenty million francs.

In Italy the lottery was proscribed by Innocent XII., Benedict XIII., and Clement XII. But it was soon revived. It was not without vehement opposers then as now, as may be seen by a little work published at Pisa in the early part of the last century, entitled, "L'Inganno non conosciuto, oppure non voluto conoscere, nell'Estrazione del Lotto." Muratori, in 1696, calls it, in his "Annals of Italy,"[Pg 158] "Inventione dell' amara malizia per succiare il sangue dei malaccorti giuocatori." In a late number of the "Civiltà Cattolica," published at Rome by the Jesuits, (the motto of which is "Beatus Populus cujus Dominus Deus est,") there is, on the other hand, an elaborate and most Jesuitical article, in which the lottery is defended with amusing skill. What Christendom in general has agreed to consider immoral and pernicious in its effects on a people seems, on the contrary, to the writer of this article, to be highly moral and commendable.

The numbers which can be played are from one to ninety. Of these only five are now drawn. Originally the numbers drawn were eight, (otto,)—and it is said that the Italian name of this game, lotto, was derived from this circumstance. The player may stake upon one, two, three, four, or five numbers,—but no ticket can be taken for more than five; and he may stake upon his ticket any sum, from one baiocco up to five scudi,—but the latter sum only in case he play upon several chances on the same ticket. If he play one number, he may either play it al posto assegnato, according to its place in the drawing, as first, second, third, etc.,—or he may play it senza posto, without place, in which case he wins, if the number come anywhere among the five drawn. In the latter case, however, the prize is much less in proportion to the sum staked. Thus, for one baiocco staked al posto assegnato, a scudo may be won; but to gain a scudo on a number senza posto, seven baiocchi must be played. A sum staked upon two numbers is called an ambo,—on three, a terno,—on four, a quaterno,—and on five, a cinquino; and of course the prizes increase in rapid proportion to the numbers played,—the sum gained multiplying very largely on each additional number. For instance, if two baiocchi be staked on an ambo, the prize is one scudo; but if the same sum be staked on a terno, the prize is a hundred scudi. When an ambo is played for, the same two numbers may be played as single numbers, either al posto or senza posto, and in such case one of the numbers alone may win. So, also, a terno may be played so as to include an ambo, and a quaterno so as to include a terno and ambo, and a cinquino so as to include all. But whenever more than one chance is played for, the price is proportionally increased. For a simple terno the limit of price is thirty-five pauls. The ordinary rule is to play for every chance within the numbers taken; but the common people rarely attempt more than a terno. If four numbers are played with all their chances, they are reckoned as four terni, and paid for accordingly. If five numbers are taken, the price is for five terni.

Where two numbers are played, there is always an augment to the nominal prize of twenty per cent.; where three numbers are played, the augment is of eighty per cent.; and from every prize is deducted ten per cent., to be devoted to the hospitals and the poor. The rule creating the augments was decreed by Innocent XIII. Such is the rage for the lottery in Rome, as well as in all the Italian States, and so great is the number of tickets bought within the year, that this tax on the prizes brings in a very considerable revenue for eleëmosynary purposes.

The lottery is a branch of the department of finance, and is under the direction of a Monsignore. The tickets originally issue from one grand central office in the Palazzo Madama; but there is scarcely a street in Rome without some subsidiary and distributing office, which is easily recognized, not only by its great sign of "Prenditoria di Lotti" over the door, but by scores of boards set round the windows and doorway, on which are displayed, in large figures, hundreds of combinations of numbers for sale. The tickets sold here are merely purchased on speculation for resale, and though it is rare that all are sold, yet, as a small advance of price is asked on each ticket beyond what was given at the original office, there is enough profit to support these shops. The large show of placards[Pg 159] would to a stranger indicate a very considerable investment; yet, in point of fact, as the tickets rarely cost more than a few baioicchi, the amount risked is small. No ticket is available for a prize, unless it bear the stamp and signature of the central office, as well as of the distributing shop, if bought in the latter.

Every Saturday, at noon, the lottery is drawn in Rome, in the Piazza Madama. Half an hour before the appointed time, the Piazza begins to be thronged with ticket-holders, who eagerly watch a large balcony of the sombre old Palazzo Madama, (built by the infamous Catharine de' Medici,) where the drawing is to take place. This is covered by an awning and colored draperies. In front, and fastened to the balustrade, is a glass barrel, standing on thin brass legs and turned by a handle. Five or six persons are in the balcony, making arrangements for the drawing. These are the officials,—one of them being the government officer, and the others persons taken at random, to supervise the proceedings. The chief official first takes from the table beside him a slip of paper on which a number is inscribed. He names it aloud, passes it to the next, who verifies it and passes it on, until it has been subjected to the examination of all. The last person then proclaims the number in a loud voice to the populace below, folds it up, and drops it into the glass barrel. This operation is repeated until every number from one to ninety is passed, verified by all, proclaimed, folded, and dropped into the barrel. The last number is rather sung than called, and with more ceremony than all the rest. The crowd shout back from below. The bell strikes noon. A blast of trumpets sounds from the balcony, and a boy dressed in white robes advances from within, ascends the steps, and stands high up before the people, facing the Piazza. The barrel is then whirled rapidly round and round, so as to mix in inextricable confusion all the tickets. This over, the boy lifts high his right hand, makes the sign of the cross on his breast, then, waving his open hand in the air, to show that nothing is concealed, plunges it into the barrel, and draws out a number. This he hands to the official, who names it, and passes it along the line of his companions. There is dead silence below, all listening eagerly. Then, in a loud voice, the number is sung out by the last official, "Primo estratto, numero 14," or whatever the number may be. Then sound the trumpets again, and there is a rustle and buzz among the crowd. All the five numbers are drawn with like ceremony, and all is over. Within a surprisingly short space of time, these numbers are exhibited in the long frames which are to be seen over the door of every Prenditoria di Lotti in Rome, and there they remain until the next drawing takes place. The boy who does the drawing belongs to a college of orphans, an admirable institution, at which children who have lost both parents and are left helpless are lodged, cared for, and educated, and the members of which are employed to perform this office in rotation, receiving therefor a few scudi.

It will be seen from the manner in which the drawing of the lottery is conducted, that no precaution is spared by the government to assure the public of the perfect good faith and fairness observed in it. This is, in fact, absolutely necessary in order to establish that confidence without which its very object would be frustrated. But the Italians are a very suspicious and jealous people, and I fear that there is less faith in the uprightness of the government than in their own watchfulness and the difficulty of deception. There can be little doubt that no deceit is practised by the government, so far as the drawing is concerned,—for it would be nearly impossible to employ it. Still there are not wanting stories of fortunate coincidences which are singular and interesting; one case, which I have every reason to believe authentic, was related to me by a most trustworthy person, as being within his own knowledge. A few years ago, the Monsignore who was[Pg 160] at the head of the lottery had occasion to diminish his household, and accordingly dismissed an old servant who had been long in his palace. Often the old man returned and asked for relief, and as often was charitably received. But his visits at last became importunate, and the Monsignore remonstrated. The answer of the servant was, "I have given my best years to the service of your Eminence,—I am too old to labor,—what shall I do?" The case was a hard one. His Eminence paused and reflected;—at last he said, "Why not buy a ticket in the lottery?" "Ah!" was the answer, "I have not even money to supply my daily needs. What you now give me is all I have. If I risk it, I may lose it,—and that lost, what can I do?" Still the Monsignore said, "Buy a ticket in the lottery." "Since your Eminence commands me, I will," said the old man; "but what numbers?" "Play on number so and so for the first drawing," was the answer, "e Dio ti benedica!" The servant did as he was ordered, and, to his surprise and joy, the first number drawn was his. He was a rich man for life,—and his Eminence lost a troublesome dependant.

A capital story is told by the author of the article in the "Civiltà Cattolica," which is to the point here, and which, even were it not told on such respectable authority, bears its truth on the face of it. As very frequently happens, a poor bottegaio, or shopkeeper, being hard-driven by his creditors, went to his priest, an uomo apostolico, and prayed him earnestly to give him three numbers to play in the lottery.

"But how under heaven," says the innocent priest, "has it ever got into your head that I can know the five numbers which are to issue in the lottery?"

"Eh! Padre mio! what will it cost you?" was the answer. "Just look at me and my wretched family; if we do not pay our rent on Saturday, out we go into the street. There is nothing left but the lottery, and you can give us the three numbers that will set all right."

"Oh, there you are again! I am ready to do all I can to assist you, but this matter of the lottery is impossible; and I must say, that your folly, in supposing I can give you the three lucky numbers, does little credit to your brains."

"Oh, no! no! do not say so, Padre mio! Give me a terno. It will be like rain in May, or cheese on my maccaroni. On my word of honor, I'll keep it secret. Via! You, so good and charitable, cannot refuse me the three numbers. Pray, content me this once."

"Caro mio! I will give you a rule for always being content:—Avoid Sin, think often on Death, and behave so as to deserve Paradise,—and so"——

"Basta! basta! Padre mio! That's enough. Thanks! thanks! God will reward you."

And, making a profound reverence, off the bottegaio rushes to his house. There he takes down the "Libro del Sogni," calls into consultation his wife and children, and, after a long and earnest discussion and study, the three numbers corresponding to the terms Sin, Death, and Paradise are settled upon, and away goes our friend to play them in the lottery. Will you believe it? the three numbers are drawn,—and the joy of the poor bottegaio and his family may well be imagined. But what you will not imagine is the persecution of the poor uomo apostolico which followed. The secret was all over town the next day, and he was beset by scores of applicants for numbers. Vainly he protested and declared that he knew nothing, and that the man's drawing the right numbers was all chance. Every word he spoke turned into numbers, and off ran his hearers to play them. He was like the girl in the fairy story, who dropped pearls every time she spoke. The worst of the imbroglio was, that in an hour the good priest had uttered words equivalent to all the ninety numbers in the lottery, and the players were all at loggerheads with each other. Nor did this persecution cease for weeks, nor until those who had played the numbers[Pg 161] corresponding to his words found themselves, as the Italians say, with only flies in their hands.

The stupidity of many of the common people in regard to these numbers is wonderful. When the number drawn is next to the number they have, they console themselves with thinking that they were within one of it,—as if in such cases a miss were not as bad as a mile. But when the number drawn is a multiple of the one they play, it is a sympathetic number, and is next door to winning; and if the number come reversed,—as if, having played 12, it come out 21,—he laughs with delight. "Eh, don't you see, you stupid fellow," said the speziale of a village one day to a dunce of a contadino, of whose infallible terno not a single number had been drawn,—"Don't you see, in substance all your three numbers have been drawn? and it's shameful in you to be discontented. Here you have played 8—44—26, and instead of these have been drawn 7—11—62. Well! just observe! Your 8 is just within one point of being 7; your 44 is in substance 11, for 4 times 11 are 44 exactly; and your 26 is nothing more or less than precisely 62 reversed;—what would you ask more?" And by his own mode of reasoning, the poor contadino sees as clearly as possible that he has really won,—only the difficulty is that he cannot touch the prize without correcting the little variations. Ma, pazienza! he came so near this time, that he will be sure to win the next,—and away he goes to hunt out more sympathetic numbers, and to rejoice with his friends on coming so near winning.

Dreams of numbers are, of course, very frequent,—and are justly much prized. Yet one must know how to use them, and be brave and bold, or the opportunity is lost. I myself once dreamt of having gained a terno in the lottery, but was fool enough not to play it,—and in consequence lost a prize, the very numbers coming up in the next drawing. The next time I have such a dream, of course I shall play; but perhaps I shall be too late, and only lose. And this recalls to my mind a story, which may serve as a warning to the timid and an encouragement to the bold. An Englishman, who had lived on bad terms with a very quarrelsome and annoying wife, (according to his own account, of course,) had finally the luck, I mean the misfortune, to lose her. He had lived long enough in Italy, however, to say "Pazienza" and buried his sorrows and his wife in the same grave. But, after the lapse of some time, his wife appeared to him in a dream, and confessed her sins towards him during her life, and prayed his forgiveness, and added, that in token of reconciliation he must accept three numbers to play in the lottery, which would certainly win a great prize. But the husband was obstinate, and absolutely refused to follow the advice of a friend to whom he recounted the odd dream, and who urged him to play the numbers. "Bah!" he answered to this good counsel; "I know her too well;—she never meant well to me during her life, and I don't believe she's changed now that she's dead. She only means to play me a trick, and make me lose. But I'm too old a bird to be taken with her chaff." "Better play them," said his friend, and they separated. In the course of a week they met again. "By the way," said the friend, "did you see that your three numbers came up in the lottery this morning?" "The Devil they did! What a consummate fool I was not to play them!" "You didn't play them?" "No!" "Well, I did, and won a good round sum with them, too." So the obstinate husband, mad at his ill luck, cursed himself for a fool, and had his curses for his pains. That very night, however, his wife again appeared to him, and, though she reproached him a little for his want of faith in her, (no woman could be expected to forego such an opportunity, even though she were dead,) yet she forgave him, and added,—"Think no more about it now, for here are three more numbers, just as[Pg 162] good." The husband, who had eaten the bitter food of experience, was determined at all events not to let his fortune slip again through his fingers, and played the highest possible terno in the lottery, and waited anxiously for the next drawing. He could scarcely eat his breakfast for nervousness, that morning,—but at last mid-day sounded, and the drawing took place, but no one of his numbers came up. "Too late! taken in!" he cried. "Confound her! she knew me better than I knew myself. She gave me a prize the first time, because she knew I wouldn't play it; and, having so whet my passions, she then gave me a blank the second time, because she knew I would play it. I might have known better."

From the moment one lottery is drawn, the mind of the people is intent on selecting numbers for the next. Nor is this an easy matter,—all sorts of superstitions existing as to figures and numbers. Some are lucky, some unlucky, in themselves,—some lucky only in certain combinations, and some sympathetic with others. The chances, therefore, must be carefully calculated, no number or combination being ever played without profound consideration, and under advice of skilful friends. Almost every event in life has a numerical signification; and such is the reverence paid to dreams, that a large book exists of several hundred pages, called "Libro dei Sogni," containing, besides various cabala and mystical figures and lists of numbers which are "sympathetic," with directions for their use, a dictionary of thousands of objects with the numbers supposed to be represented by each, as well as rules for interpreting into numbers all dreams in which these objects appear,—and this book is the constant vade-mecum of a true lottery-player. As Boniface lived, ate, and slept on his ale, so do the Romans on their numbers. The very children "lisp in numbers, for the numbers come," and the fathers run immediately to play them. Accidents, executions, deaths, apoplexies, marriages, assassinations, births, anomalies of all kinds, become auguries and enigmas of numbers. A lottery-gambler will count the stabs on a dead body, the drops of blood from a decollated head, the passengers in an overturned coach, the wrinkles in the forehead of a new-born child, the gasps of a person struck by apoplexy, the day of the month and the hour and the minute of his death, the scudi lost by a friend, the forks stolen by a thief, anything and everything, to play them in the lottery. If a strange dream is dreamed,—as of one being in a desert on a camel, which turns into a rat, and runs down into the Maelström to hide,—the "Libro dei Sogni" is at once consulted, the numbers for desert, rat, camel, and Maelström are found and combined, and the hopeful player waits in eager expectation of a prize. Of course, dream after dream of particular numbers and combinations occurs,—for the mind bent to this subject plays freaks in the night, and repeats contortedly the thoughts of the day,—and these dreams are considered of special value. Sometimes, when a startling incident takes place with a special numerical signification, the run upon the numbers indicated becomes so great, that the government, which is always careful to guard against any losses on its own part, refuses to allow more than a certain amount to be played on them, cancels the rest, and returns the price of the tickets.

Sometimes, in passing through the streets, one may see a crowd collected about a man mounted upon a chair or stool. Fixed to a stand at his side or on the back of his chair is a glass bottle, in which are two or three hollow manikins of glass, so arranged as to rise and sink by pressure of the confined air. The neck of the bottle is cased in a tin box which surmounts it and has a movable cover. This personage is a charlatan, with an apparatus for divining lucky numbers for the lottery. The "soft bastard Latin" runs off his tongue in an uninterrupted stream of talk, while he offers on a waiter to the bystanders a number of little folded papers containing a pianeta, or augury, on which are printed a fortune[Pg 163] and a terno. "Who will buy a pianeta," he cries, "with the numbers sure to bring him a prize? He shall have his fortune told him who buys. Who does not need counsel must surely be wise. Here's Master Tommetto, who never tells lies. And here is his brother, still smaller in size. And Madama Medea Plutonia to advise. They'll write you a fortune and bring you a prize for a single baiocco. No creature so wise as not to need counsel. A fool I despise, who keeps his baiocco and loses his prize. Who knows what a fortune he'll get till he tries? Time's going, Signori,—who buys? who buys?" And so on by the yard. Meantime the crowd about him gape, stare, wonder, and finally put their hands to their pockets, out with their baiocchi, and buy their papers. Each then makes a mark on his paper to verify it, and returns it to the charlatan. After several are thus collected, he opens the cover of the tin box, deposits them therein with a certain ceremony, and commences an exhortatory discourse to the manikins in the bottle,—two of whom, Maestro Tommetto and his brother, are made to resemble little black imps, while Madama Medea Plutonia is dressed alla Francese. "Fa una reverenza, Maestro Tommetto!" "Make a bow, Master Tommetto!" he now begins. The puppet bows. "Ancora!" "Again!" Again he bows. "Lesto, Signore, un piccolo giretto!" "Quick, Sir, a little turn!" And round whirls the puppet. "Now, up, up, to make a registry on the ticket! and do it conscientiously, Master Tommetto!" And up the imp goes, and disappears through the neck of the bottle. Then comes a burst of admiration at his cleverness from the charlatan. Then, turning to the brother imp, he goes through the same rôle with him. "And now, Madama Medea, make a reverence, and follow your husband! Quick, quick, a little giretto!" And up she goes. A moment after, down they all come again at his call; he lifts the cover of the box; cries, "Quanto sei caro, Tommetto!" and triumphantly exhibits the papers, each with a little freshly written inscription, and distributes them to the purchasers. Now and then he takes from his pocket a little bottle containing a mixture of the color of wine, and a paper filled with some sort of powder, and, exclaiming, "Ah! tu hai fame e sete. Bisogna che ti dia da bere e mangiare," pours them into the tin cup.

It is astonishing to see how many of these little tickets a clever charlatan will sell in an hour, and principally on account of the lottery-numbers they contain. The fortunes are all the stereotype thing, and almost invariably warn you to be careful lest you should be "tradito," or promise you that you shall not be "tradito"; for the idea of betrayal is the corner-stone of every Italian's mind.

In not only permitting, but promoting the lottery, Italy is certainly far behind England, France, and America. This system no longer exists with us, except in the disguised shape of gift-enterprises, art-unions, and that unpleasant institution of mendicant robbery called the raffle, and employed specially by those "who have seen better days." But a fair parallel to this rage of the Italians for the lottery is to be found in the love of betting, which is a national characteristic of the English. I do not refer to the bets upon horseflesh at Ascot, Epsom, and Goodwood, by which fortunes change owners in an hour and so many men are ruined, but rather to the general habit of betting upon any and every subject to settle a question, no matter how trivial, for which the Englishman is everywhere renowned on the Continent. Betting is with most other nations a form of speech, but with Englishmen it is a serious fact, and no one will be long in their company without finding an opinion backed up by a bet. It would not be very difficult to parallel those cases where the Italians disregard the solemnity of death, in their eagerness for omens of lottery-numbers, with equally reprehensible and apparently heartless cases of betting in England. Let any one who doubts this examine the betting-books at White's and Brookes's. In them he will find a most[Pg 164] startling catalogue of bets,—some so bad as to justify the good parson in Walpole's story, who declared that they were such an impious set in this respect at White's, that, "if the last trump were to sound, they would bet puppet-show against judgment." Let one instance suffice. A man, happening to drop down at the door of White's, was lifted up and carried in. He was insensible, and the question was, whether he were dead or not. Bets were at once given and taken on both sides, and, it being proposed to bleed him, those who had taken odds that he was dead protested, on the ground that the use of the lancet would affect the fairness of the bet.[B] In the matter of play, things have now much changed since the time when Mr. Thynne left the club at White's in disgust, because he had won only twelve hundred guineas in two months. There is also a description of one of Fox's mornings, about the year 1783, which Horace Walpole has left us, and the truth of which Lord Holland admits, which it would be well for those to read who measure out hard justice to the Italians for their love of the lottery. Let us be fair. Italy is in these respects behind England in morals and practice by nearly a century; but it is as idle to argue hard-heartedness in an Italian who counts the drops of blood at a beheading as to suppose that the English have no feeling because in the bet we have mentioned there was a protest against the use of the lancet, or to deny kindliness to a surgeon who lectures on structure and disease while he removes a cancer.

Vehement protests against the lottery and all gaming are as often uttered in Italy as elsewhere; and among them may be cited this eloquent passage from one of the most powerful of her modern writers. Guerrazzi, in the thirteenth chapter of "L'Assedio di Firenze," speaking on this subject, says, "You would in vain seek anything more fatal to men than play. It brings ignorance, poverty, despair, and at last crime.... Gambling (the wicked gambling of the lottery) forms a precious jewel in the crown of princes."

In a recent work, by the same author, called "L'Asino," occurs the following indignant and satirical passage, which, for the sake of the story, if for no other reason, deserves a place here:—

"In our search for the history of human perfection, shall I speak of Naples or Rome? Alas! At the contemplation of such misery, in vain you constrain your lips to smile; they pout, and the uncalled tears stream over your face. Pity, in these most unhappy countries, blinded with weeping and hoarse with vain supplication, when she has no more voice to cry out to heaven, flies thither, and, kneeling before the throne of God, with outstretched hand, and proffering no word, begs that He will look at her.

"Behold, O Lord, and judge whether our sins were remitted, or whether the sins of others exceed ours.

"Is not Tuscany the garden of Italy? So say the Tuscans; and the Florentines add, that Florence is the Athens of Tuscany. Truly, both seem beautiful. Let us search in Tuscany. At Barberino di Mugello, in the midst of an olive-grove is a cemetery, where the vines, which have taken root in the outer walls and climbed over their summit, fall into the inclosed space, as if they wished to garland Death with vine-leaves and make it smile; over the gate, strange guardians of the tombs, two fig-trees give their shadow and fruit to recompense the piety of the passers-by, giving a fig in exchange for a De Profundis; while the ivy, stretching its wanton arms over the black cross, endeavors to clothe the austere sign of the Redemption with the jocund leaves of Bacchus, and recalls to your mind the mad Phryne who vainly tempted Xenocrates. A beautiful cemetery, by my faith![Pg 165] a cemetery to arouse in the body an intense desire to die, if only for the pleasure of being buried there. Now observe. Look into my magic-lantern. What figures do you see? A priest with a pick; after him a peasant with a spade; and behind them a woman with a hatchet: the priest holds a corpse by the hair; the peasant, with one blow, strikes off its head; then, all things being carefully rearranged, priest, peasant, and woman, after thrusting the head into a sack, return as they came. Attention now, for I change the picture. What figures are these that now appear? A kitchen; a fire that has not its superior, even in the Inferno; and a caldron, where the hissing and boiling water sends up its bubbles. Look about and what do you see? Enter the priest, the peasant, and the housewife, and in a moment empty a sack into the caldron. Lo! a head rolls out, dives into the water, and floats to the surface, now showing its nape and now its face. The Lord help us! It is an abominable spectacle; this poor head, with its ashy, open lips, seems to say, Give me again my Christian burial! That is enough. Only take note that in Tuscany, in the beautiful middle of the nineteenth century, a sepulchre was violated, and a sacrilege committed, to obtain from the boiled head of a corpse good numbers to play in the lottery! And, by way of corollary, add this to your note, that in Rome, Caput Mundi, and in Tuscany, Garden of Italy, it is prohibited, under the severest penalties, to play at Faro, Zecchinetto, Banco-Fallito, Rossa e Nera, and other similar games at cards, where each party may lose the whole or half the stakes, while the government encourage the play of the Lottery, by which, out of one hundred and twenty chances of winning, eighty are reserved for the bank, and forty or so allowed to the player. Finally, take note that in Rome, Caput Mundi, and in Tuscany, Garden of Italy, Faro, Zecchinetto, Rossa e Nera were prohibited, as acknowledged pests of social existence and open death to honest customs,—as a set-off for which deprivation, the game of the Lottery is still kept on foot."

The following extraordinary story, improbable as it seems, is founded upon fact, and was clearly proved, on judicial investigation, a few years since. It is well known in Tuscany, and forms the subject of a satirical narrative ("Il Sortilegio") by Giusti, a modern Tuscan poet, of true fire and genius, who has lashed the vices of his country in verses remarkable for point, idiom, and power. According to him, the method of divination resorted to in this case was as follows:—The sorcerer who invented it ordered his dupes to procure, either at dawn or twilight, ninety dry beans, called ceci, and upon each of these to write one of the ninety numbers drawn in the lottery, with an ink made of pitch and lard, which would not be affected by water. They were then to sharpen a knife, taking care that he who did so should touch no one during the operation; and after a day of fasting, they were to dig up at night a body recently dead, and, having cut off the head and removed the brain, they were to count the beans thrice, and to shake them thrice, and then, on their knees, to put them one by one into the skull. This was then to be placed in a caldron of water and set on the fire to boil. As soon as the water boiled violently, the head would be rolled about so that some of the beans would be ejected, and the first three which were thus thrown to the surface would be a sure terno for the lottery. The wretched dupes added yet another feature of superstition to insure the success of this horrible device. They selected the head of their curate, who had recently died,—on the ground that, as he had studied algebra, he was a great cabalist, and any numbers from his head would be sure to draw a prize.

Some one, I have no doubt, will here be anxious to know the numbers that bubbled up to the surface; but I am very sorry to say that I cannot gratify their laudable curiosity, for the interference of the police prevented the completion of the sorcery. So the curious must[Pg 166] be content to consult some other cabalist,—

"sull'arti segrete
Di menar la Fortuna per il naso,
Pescando il certo nel gran mar del Caso."

Despite a wide-spread feeling among the higher classes against the lottery, it still continues to exist, for it has fastened itself into the habits and prejudices of many; and an institution which takes such hold of the passions of the people, and has lived so long, dies hard. Nor are there ever wanting specious excuses for the continuance of this, as of other reprobated systems,—of which the strongest is, that its abolition would not only deprive of their present means of subsistence numbers of persons employed in its administration, but would cut off certain charities dependent upon it, amounting to no less than forty thousand scudi annually. Among these may be mentioned the dowry of forty scudi which is given out of the profits received by the government at the drawing of every lottery to some five or six of the poor girls of Rome. The list of those who would profit by this charity is open to all, and contains thousands of names. The first number drawn in the lottery decides the fortunate persons; and, on the subsequent day, each receives a draft for forty scudi on the government, payable on the presentation of the certificate of marriage. On the accession of the present Pope, an attempt was made to abolish the system; but these considerations, among others, had weight enough to prevent any changes.

Though the play is generally small, yet sometimes large fortunes are gained. The family of the Marchese del Cinque, for instance, derive their title and fortune from the luck of an ancestor who played and won the highest prize, a Cinquino. With the money thus acquired he purchased his marquisate, and took the title del Cinque, "of the Five," in reference to the lucky five numbers. The Villa Quaranta Cinque in Rome derives its name from a similar circumstance. A lucky Monsignore played the single number of forty-five, al posto, and with his winnings built the villa, to which the Romans, always addicted to nicknames, gave the name of Quaranta Cinque. This love of nicknames, or soprannomi, as they are called, is, by the way, an odd peculiarity of the Italians, and it often occurs that persons are known only thereby. Examples of these, among the celebrated names of Italy, are so frequent as to form a rule in favor of the surname rather than of the real name, and in many cases the former has utterly obliterated the latter. Thus, Squint Eye, (Guercino,) Dirty Tom, (Masaccio,) The Little Dyer, (Tintoretto,) Great George, (Giorgione,) The Garland-Maker, (Ghirlandaio,) Luke of the Madder, (Luca della Robbia,) The Little Spaniard, (Spagnoletto,) and The Tailor's Son, (Del Sarto,) would scarcely be known under their real names of Barbieri, Tommaso, Guido, Robusti, Barbarelli, Corradi, Ribera, and Vannuchi. The list might be very much enlarged, but let it suffice to add the following well-known names, all of which are nicknames derived from their places of birth: Perugino, Veronese, Aretino, Pisano, Giulio Romano, Correggio, Parmegiano.

The other day a curious instance of this occurred to me in taking the testimony of a Roman coachman. On being called upon to give the names of some of his companions, with whom he had been in daily and intimate intercourse for more than two years, he could give only their soprannomi; their real names he did not know, and had never heard. A little, gay, odd genius, whom I took into my service during a villeggiatura at Siena, would not answer to his real name, Lorenzo, but remonstrated on being so called, and said he was only Pipetta, (The Little Pipe,) a nickname given to him when a child, from his precocity in smoking, and of which he was as tenacious as if it were a title of honor. "You prefer, then, to be called Pipetta?" I asked. "Felicissimo! sì," was his answer. Not a foreigner comes to Rome that his name does not "suffer a sea-change into something rich and[Pg 167] strange." Our break-jaw Saxon names are discarded, and a new christening takes place. One friend I had who was called Il Malinconico,—another, La Barbarossa,—another, Il bel Signore; but generally they are called after the number of the house or the name of the street in which they live,—La Signora bella Bionda di Palazzo Albani,—Il Signore Quattordici Capo le Case,—Monsieur and Madama Terzo Piano, Corso.

But to return from this digression.—At every country festival may be seen a peculiar form of the lottery called Tombola; and in the notices of these festas, which are always placarded over the walls of Rome for weeks before they take place, the eye will always be attracted first by the imposing word Tombola, printed in the largest and blackest of letters. This is, in fact, the characteristic feature of the festa, and attracts large numbers of contadini. As in the ordinary lottery, only ninety numbers are played. Every ticket contains blank spaces for fifteen numbers, which are inserted by the purchaser, and registered duly at the office or booth where the ticket is bought. The price of tickets in any single Tombola is uniform; but in different Tombolas it varies, of course, according to the amount of the prizes. These are generally five, namely,—the Ambo, Terno, Quaterno, Cinquino, and Tombola, though sometimes a second Tombola or Tomboletta is added. The drawing takes place in precisely the same manner as in the ordinary lottery, but with more ceremony. A large staging, with a pavilion, is erected, where the officers who are to superintend the drawing stand. In the centre is a glass vase, in which the numbers are placed after having been separately verified and proclaimed, and a boy gayly dressed draws them. All the ninety numbers are drawn; and as each issues, it is called out, and exhibited on a large card. Near by stands a large framework, elevated so as to be visible to all, with ninety divisions corresponding to the ninety numbers, and on this, also, every number is shown as soon as it is drawn. The first person who has upon his ticket two drawn numbers gains an Ambo, which is the smallest prize. Whoever first has three numbers drawn gains a Terno; and so on with the Quaterno and Cinquino. The Tombola, which is the great prize, is won by whoever first has his whole fifteen numbers drawn. As soon as any one finds two of the drawn numbers on his ticket, he cries, "Ambo," at the top of his lungs. A flag is then raised on the pavilion, the band plays, and the game is suspended, while the claimant at once makes his way to the judges on the platform to present his ticket for examination. No sooner does the cry of "Ambo," "Terno," "Quaterno," take place, than there is a great rustle all around. Everybody looks out for the fortunate person, who is immediately to be seen running through the parting crowd, which opens before him, cheering him as he goes, if his appearance be poor and needy, and greeting him with sarcasms, if he be apparently well to do in the world. Sometimes there are two or three claimants for the same prize, in which case it is divided among them. The Ambo is soon taken, and there is little room for a mistake; but when it comes to the Quaterno or Cinquino, mistakes are very common, and the claimant is almost always saluted with chaff and jests. After his ticket has been examined, if he have won, a placard is exhibited with Ambo, Terno, Quaterno on it, as the case may be. But if he have committed an error, down goes the flag, and, amid a burst of laughter, jeering, whistling, screaming, and catcalls, the disappointed claimant sneaks back and hides himself in the excited crowd. At a really good Tombola, where the prizes are high, there is no end of fun and gayety among the people. They stand with their tickets in their hands, congratulating each other ironically, as they fail to find the numbers on them, paying all sorts of absurd compliments to each other and the drawer, offering to sell out their chances at enormous prices when they are behindhand, and letting off all sorts[Pg 168] of squibs and jests, not so excellent in themselves as provocative of laughter. If the wit be little, the fun is great,—and, in the excitement of expectation, a great deal of real Italian humor is often ventilated. Sometimes, at the country fairs, the fun is rather slow, particularly where the prizes are small; but on exciting occasions, there is a constant small fire of jests, which is very amusing.

These Tombole are sometimes got up with great pomp. That, for instance, which sometimes takes place in the Villa Borghese is one of the most striking spectacles which can be seen in Rome. At one end of the great open-air amphitheatre is erected a large pavilion, flanked on either side with covered logge or palchi, festooned with yellow and white,—the Papal colors,—adorned with flags, and closed round with rich old arrases all pictured over with Scripture stories. Beneath the central pavilion is a band. Midway down the amphitheatre, on either side, are two more logge, similarly draped, where two more bands are stationed,—and still another at the opposite end, for the same purpose. The logge which flank the pavilion are sold by ticket, and filled with the richer classes. Three great stagings show the numbers as they are drawn. The pit of the amphitheatre is densely packed with a motley crowd. Under the ilexes and noble stone-pines that show their dark-green foliage against the sky, the helmets and swords of cavalry glitter as they move to and fro. All around on the green slopes are the people,—soldiers, contadini, priests, mingled together,—and thousands of gay dresses and ribbons and parasols enliven the mass. The four bands play successively as the multitude gathers. They have already arrived in tens of thousands, but the game has not yet begun, and thousands are still flocking to see it. All the gay equipages are on the outskirts, and through the trees and up the avenues stream the crowds on foot. As we stand in the centre of the amphitheatre and look up, we get a faint idea of the old Roman gatherings when Rome emptied itself to join in the games at the Colosseum. Row upon row they stand, a mass of gay and swarming life. The sunlight flashes over them, and blazes on the rich colors. The tall pines and dark ilexes shadow them here and there; over them is the soft blue dome of the Italian sky. They are gathered round the villetta,—they throng the roof and balconies,—they crowd the stone steps,—they pack the green oval of the amphitheatre's pit. The ring of cymbals, the clarion of trumpets, and the clash of brazen music vibrate in the air. All the world is abroad to see, from the infant in arms to the oldest inhabitant. Monsignori in purple stockings and tricornered hats, contadini in gay reds and crimsons, cardinals in scarlet. Princes, shopkeepers, beggars, foreigners, all mingle together; while the screams of the vendors of cigars, pumpkin-seeds, cakes, and lemonade are everywhere heard over the suppressed roar of the crowd. As you walk along the outskirts of the mass, you may see Monte Gennaro's dark peak looking over the Campagna, and all the Sabine hills trembling in a purple haze,—or, strolling down through the green avenues, you may watch the silver columns of fountains as they crumble in foam and plash in their mossy basins,—or gather masses of the sweet Parma violet and other beautiful wild-flowers.

The only other games among the modern Romans, which deserve particular notice from their peculiarity, are those of Cards. In an Italian pack there are only forty cards,—the eight, nine, and ten of the French and English cards having no existence. The suits also have different signs and names, and, instead of hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds, they are called coppe, spade, bastoni, and denari,—all being of the same color, and differing entirely in form from our cards. The coppe are cups or vases; the spade are swords; the bastoni are veritable clubs or bludgeons; and the denari are coins. The games are still more different from ours than the cards, and they are legion in number. There are Briscola, Tresette,[Pg 169] Calabresella, Banco-Fallito, Rossa e Nera, Scaraccoccia, Scopa, Spizzica, Faraone, Zecchinetto, Mercante in Fiera, La Bazzica, Ruba-Monte, Uomo-Nero, La Paura, and I know not how many others,—but they are recorded and explained in no book, and are only to be picked up orally. Wherever you go, on festa-day, you will find persons playing cards. At the common osterias, before the doors or on the soiled tables within, on the ruins of the Cæsars' palaces and in the Temple of Peace, on the stone tables in the vigna, on the walls along the public roads, on the uncarved blocks of marble in front of the sculptors' studios, in the antechambers or gateways of palaces,—everywhere, cards are played. Every contadino has a pack in his pocket, with the flavor of the soil upon it. The playing is ordinarily for very low sums, often for nothing at all. But there are some games which are purely games of luck, and dangerous. Some of these, as Rossa e Nera, Banco-Fallito, and Zecchinetto, though prohibited by the government, are none the less favorite games in Rome, particularly among those who play for money. Zecchinetto may be played by any number of persons, after the following manner:—The dealer, who plays against the whole table, deals to each player one card. The next card is then turned up as a trump. Each player then makes his bet on the card dealt to him, and places his money on it. The dealer then deals to the table the other cards in order, and any of the players may bet on them as they are thrown down. If a card of the number of that bet on issue before a card corresponding to the number of the trump, the dealer wins the stake on that card; but whenever a card corresponding to the trump issues, the player wins on every card on which he has bet. When the banker or dealer loses at once, the bank "fa toppa," and the deal passes, but not otherwise. Nothing can be more simple than this game, and it is just as dangerous as it is simple, and as exciting as it is dangerous. A late Roman principessa is said to have been passionately fond of it, and to have lost enormously by it. The story runs, that, while passing the evening at a friend's house, after losing ten thousand scudi at one sitting, she staked her horses and carriage, which were at the door waiting to take her home, and lost them also. She then wrote a note to the prince, her husband, saying that she had lost her carriage and horses at Zecchinetto, and wished others to be sent for her. To which he answered, that she might return on foot,—which she was obliged to do.

This will serve at least as a specimen of the games of chance played by the Romans at cards. Of the more innocent games, Briscola, Tresette, and Scaraccoccia are the favorites among the common people. And the first of these may not be uninteresting, as being, perhaps, the most popular of all. It is played by either two or four persons. The Fante (or Knave) counts as two; the Carallo (equal to our Queen) as three; the Rè (King) as four; the Three-spot as ten; and the Ace as eleven. Three cards are dealt to each person, and after the deal the next card is turned as trump, or Briscola. Each plays, and, after one card all round is played, its place is supplied by a new deal of one card to each. Every card of the trump-suit takes any card of the other suits. Each player takes as many counting-cards as he can, and, at the end of the game, he who counts the most wins,—the account being made according to the value of the cards, as stated above.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] See Dessault, Traité de la Passion du Jeu.

[B] Even while I am writing these notes, I find almost the same incident recorded as a "modern instance," in a recent work by Lieutenant-Colonel Addison, entitled Traits and Stories of Anglo-Indian Life; but, despite the authority of Colonel Addison, I cannot but suspect that he has simply changed the venue, and that his story is but a rifacimento of the actual case alluded to above.

THE AMBER GODS.

[Concluded.]

Papa made Mr. Dudley stay and dine, and of course we were almost bored to death, when in came Rose again, stealing behind Lu's chair and showering her in the twilight with a rain of May-flowers.

"Oh, how exquisite! how delicious! how I thank you!" she exclaimed, without disturbing one, however.

"I thought I detected strawberries," submitted the other,—"a pleasant odor which recalls childhood to memory."

For some noses all sweet scents are lumped in one big strawberry; clovers, or hyacinths, or every laden air indifferently, they still sniff strawberries. Commonplace things!

"It's a sign of high birth to track strawberry-beds where no fruit is, Mr. Dudley," said I.

"Strawberries in June," said Rose, good-naturedly. "But fruit out of season is trouble out of reason, the Dream-Book says. It's May now, and these are its blossoms."

"Everybody makes such a fuss about ground-laurel!" said I. "I don't see why, I'm sure. They're never perfect. The leaf is hideous,—a stupid duenna! You get great green leaves, and the flowers all white; you get deep, rosy flowers, and the leaves are all brown and bitten. They're neither one thing nor another. They're just like heliotropes,—no bloom at all, only scent. I've torn up myriads, to the ten stamens in their feathered case, to find where that smell comes from,—that is perfectly delicious,—and I never could. They are a cheat."

"I don't believe you mean so," murmured Lu. "They have a color of their own, almost human, infantine; and when you mass them, the tone is more soft and mellow than a flute. Everybody loves May-flowers."

"They are not very showy," said Mr. Dudley; "but when we remember the Fathers"——

"There's nothing like them," said Rose, gently, as he knelt by Lu, slowly putting them into order; "nothing but pure, clear things; they're the fruit of snowflakes, the firstlings of the year. When one thinks how sweetly they come from their warm coverts and look into this cold, breezy sky so unshrinkingly, and from what a soil they gather such a wealth of simple beauty, one feels ashamed."

"The moment in which first we are thoroughly ashamed, Miss Willoughby, is the sovereign one of our life. Useless things? They are worth king and bishop. Every year, weariness and depression[Pg 171] melt away when atop of the seasons' crucible boil these little bubbles. Isn't everybody better for lavishing love? And no one merely likes these; whoever cares at all loves entirely. We always take and give resemblances or sympathies from any close connection, and so these are in their way a type of their lovers. What virtue is in them to distil the shadow of the great pines, that wave layer after layer with a grave rhythm over them, into this delicate tint, I wonder. They have so decided an individuality,—different there from hot-house belles;—fashion strips us of our characteristics"——

He threw me a cluster, half-hidden in its green towers, and went on, laying one by one and bringing out little effects.

"The sweetest modesty clings to them, which Alphonse Karr denies to the violet, so that they are almost out of place in a drawing-room; one ought to give them there the shelter of their large, kind leaves."

"But sometimes they forget their nun-like habit," she added, "put on a frolicsome mood, and clamber out and flush all the deep ruts of the carriage-road in Follymill woods, you remember."

"No, no; you are not to bring your old world into my new," objected Rose. "Perhaps they ran out so to greet the winter-worn mariners of Plymouth, and have been pursued by the love of their descendants ever since, they getting charier. Just remember how they grow. Why, you'd never suspect a flower there, till, happening to turn up a leaf, you're in the midst of harvest. You may tramp acres in vain, and within a stone's throw they've been awaiting you. There's something very charming, too, about them in this,—that when the buds are set, and at last a single blossom starts the trail, you plucking at one end of the vine, your heart's delight may touch the other a hundred miles away. Spring's telegraph. So they bind our coast with this network of flower and root."

"Pshaw! I won't believe it. They're everywhere just the same, only underground preparing their little witnesses, whom they send out where most needed. You don't suppose they find much joy in the fellowship of brown pine pins and sad, gray mosses, do you? Some folks say they don't grow away from the shore; but I've found them, I'm sorry to say, up in New Hampshire."

"Oh, I like it best that they need our sea. They're eminently choice for this hour, too, when you scarcely gather their tint,—that tint, as if moonlight should wish to become a flower,—but their fragrance is an atmosphere all about you. How genuinely spicy it is! It's the very quintessence of those regions all whose sweetness exudes in sun-saturated balsams,—the very breath of pine woods and salt sea winds. How could it live away from the sea?"

"A hard, woody stem, a green, robust leaf, a delicate, odorous flower, Mr. Dudley, what is it all but an expression of New England character?"

"Now, Miss Louise, as you have made me atone for my freedom, the task being done, let me present them in form."

"I declared people make a great fuss over them," I continued. "And you prove it. You put me in mind of a sound, to be heard where one gets them,—a strange sound, like low, distant thunder, and it's nothing but the drum of a little partridge! a great song out of nothing.—Bless me! what's that?"[Pg 172]

"It's very good of your uncle to have them," said Rose. "What a crowd from the town! Think of the pyrotechnics among comets and aërolites some fellows may have! It's quite right, too, to make our festivals with light; it's the highest and last of all things; we never can carry our imaginations beyond light"——

"Come," I said, "you can play what pranks you please with the little May; but light is my province, my absorption; let it alone."

It grew quite dark, interrupted now and then by the glare of rockets; but at last a stream of central fire went out in a slow rain of countless violets, reflected with pale blue flashes in the river below, and then the gloom was unbroken. I saw them, in that long, dim gleam, standing together at a window. Louise, her figure almost swaying as if to some inaudible music, but her face turned to him with such a steady quiet. Ah, me! what a tremulous joy, what passion, and what search, lit those eyes! But you know that passion means suffering, and, tracing it in the original through its roots, you come to pathos, and still farther, to lamentation, I've heard. But he was not looking down at her, only out and away, paler than ever in the blue light, sad and resolved. I ordered candles.

"Sing to me, Louise," said Rose, at length. "It is two years since I heard you."

"Sing 'What's a' the steer, kimmer,'" I said. But instead, she gave the little ballad, 'And bring my love again, for he lies among the moors.'

Rose went and leaned over the pianoforte while she sang, bending and commanding her eyes. He seemed to wish to put himself where he was before he ever left her, to awaken everything lovely in her, to bring her before him as utterly developed as she might be,—not only to afford her, but to force upon her every chance to master him. He seemed to wish to love, I thought.

Lu sang very nicely, and, though I dare say she would rather not then, when Mr. Dudley asked for the "Vale of Avoca" and the "Margin of Zürich's Fair Waters," she gave them just as kindly. Altogether, quite a damp programme. Then papa came in, bright and blithe, whirled me round in a pas de deux, and we all very gay and hilarious slipped into the second of May.

Dear me! how time goes! I must hurry.—After that, I didn't see so much of Rose; but he met Lu everywhere, came in when I was out, and, if I returned, he went, perfectly regardless of my existence, it seemed. They rode, too, all round the country; and she sat to him, though he never filled out the sketch. For weeks he was devoted; but I fancied, when I saw them, that there lingered in his manner the same thing as on the first evening while she sang to him. Lu was so gay and sweet and happy that I hardly knew her; she was always very gentle, but such a decided body,—that's the Willoughby, her mother. Yet during these weeks Rose had not spoken, not formally; delicate and friendly kindness was all Lu could have found, had she sought. One night, I remember, he came in and wanted us to go out and row with him on the river. Lu wouldn't go without me.

"Will you come?" said he, coolly, as if I were merely necessary as a thwart or thole-pin might have been, turning and letting his eyes fall on me an instant, then snatching them off with a sparkle and flush, and such a lordly carelessness of manner otherwise.

So they remained, and Lu began to open a bundle of Border Ballads, which he had brought her. The very first one was "Whistle an' I'll come to you, my lad." I laughed. She glanced up quickly, then held it in her hands a moment,[Pg 173] repeated the name, and asked if he liked it.

"Oh, yes," he said. "There couldn't be a Scotch song without that rhythm better than melody, which, after all, is Beethoven's secret."

"Oh, do!" he said, turning with surprise. "You don't know what an aërial, whistling little thing it is!"

"Of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what color it please God," quoted I, and in came Mr. Dudley, as he usually did when not wanted; though I've no reason to find fault with him, notwithstanding his blank treatment of me. He never took any notice, because he was in love with Lu. Rose never took any notice of me, either. But with a difference!

Lu was singularly condescending to Mr. Dudley that evening; and Rose, sitting aside, looked so very much disturbed—whether pleasantly or otherwise didn't occur to me—that I couldn't help enjoying his discomfiture, and watching him through it.

Now, though I told you I wasn't nervous, I never should know I had this luxurious calm, if there were nothing to measure it by; and once in a great while a perfect whirlpool seizes me,—my blood is all in turmoil,—I bubble with silent laughter, or cry with all my heart. I had been in such a strange state a good while, and now, as I surveyed Rose, it gradually grew fiercer, till I actually sprang to my feet, and exclaimed, "There! it is insupportable! I've been in the magnetic storm long enough! it is time something took it from me!" and ran out-doors.

Rose sauntered after, by-and-by, as if unwillingly drawn by a loadstone, and found the heavens wrapped in a rosy flame of Northern Lights. He looked as though he belonged to them, so pale and elf-like was his face then, like one bewitched.

"Papa's fireworks fade before mine," I said. "Now we can live in the woods, as Lu has been wishing; for a dry southerly wind follows this, with a blue smoke filming all the distant fields. Won't it be delicious?"

"Or rain," he replied; "I think it will rain to-morrow,—warm, full rains"; and he seemed as if such a chance would dissolve him entirely.

As for me, those shifting, silent sheets of splendor abstracted all that was alien, and left me in my normal state.

"There they come!" I said, as Lu and Mr. Dudley, and some others who had entered in my absence,—gnats dancing in the beam,—stepped down toward us. "How charming for us all to sit out here!"

"And Louise may take cold now," he said, as if wishing to exhibit his care for her. "Whom is she speaking with? Blarsaye? And who comes after?"

"Parti. A delightful person,—been abroad, too. You and he can have a crack about Louvres and Vaticans now, and leave Lu and Mr. Dudley to me."

Rose suddenly inspected me and then Parti, as if he preferred the crack to be with cudgels; but in a second the little blaze vanished, and he only stripped a weigelia branch of every blossom.

I wonder what made Lu behave so that night; she scarcely spoke to Rose, appeared entirely unconcerned while he hovered round her like an officious sprite, was all grace to the others and sweetness to Mr. Dudley. And Rose, oblivious of snubs, paraded his devotion, seemed determined to show his love for Lu,—as if any one cared a straw,—and took the pains to be positively rude to me. He was possessed of an odd restlessness; a little defiance bristled his movements, an air of contrariness; and whenever he became quiet, he seemed again like one enchanted and folded up in a dream, to break whose spell he was about to abandon[Pg 174] efforts. He told me life had destroyed my enchantment; I wonder what will destroy his. Lu refused to sit in the garden-chair he offered,—just suffered the wreath of pink bells he gave her to hang in her hand, and by-and-by fall,—and when the north grew ruddier and swept the zenith with lances of light, and when it faded, and a dim cloud hazed all the stars, preserved the same equanimity, kept on the evil tenor of her way, and bade every one an impartial farewell at separating. She is preciously well-bred.

We hadn't remained in the garden all that time, though,—but, strolling through the gate and over the field, had reached a small grove that fringes the gully worn by Wild Fall and crossed by the railway. As we emerged from that, talking gayly, and our voices almost drowned by the dash of the little waterfall and the echo from the opposite rock, I sprang across the curving track, thinking them behind, and at the same instant a thunderous roar burst all about, a torrent of hot air whizzed and eddied over me, I fell dizzied and stunned, and the night express-train shot by like a burning arrow. Of course I was dreadfully hurt by my fall and fright,—I feel the shock now,—but they all stood on the little mound, from which I had sprung, like so many petrifactions: Rose, just as he had caught Louise back on firmer ground, when she was about to follow me, his arm wound swiftly round her waist, yet his head thrust forward eagerly, his pale face and glowing eyes bent, not on her, but me. Still he never stirred, and poor Mr. Dudley first came to my assistance. We all drew breath at our escape, and, a little slowly, on my account, turned homeward.

"Dear Yone!" Lu said, leaving Mr. Dudley's arm, "you're so very pale! It's not pain, is it?"

"Do you know," said Rose, sotto voce, turning and bending merely his head to me, "I thought I heard you scream, and that you were dead."

"Nothing, but that you were lying dead and torn, and I should see you," he said,—and said as if he liked to say it, experiencing a kind of savage delight at his ability to say it.

"I saw it coming before you leaped," he added, as a malignant finality, and drawing nearer. "You were both on the brink. I called, but probably neither you nor Lu heard me. So I snatched her back."

He turned instantly to Lu, and kept by her during the remainder of the walk, Mr. Dudley being at the other side. I was puzzled a little by Lu, as I have been a good many times since; I thought she liked Rose so much. Papa met us in the field, and there the affair must be detailed to him, and then he would have us celebrate our safety in Champagne.

"Good-bye, Louise," said Rose, beside her at the gate, and offering his hand, somewhat later. "I'm going away to-morrow, if it's fine."

"Not offended, but frozen," I could have said. Lu is like that little sensitive-plant, shrinking into herself with stiff unconsciousness at a certain touch. But I don't think he noticed the sad tone in her voice, as she said good-night; I didn't, till, the others being gone, I saw her turn after his disappearing figure, with a look[Pg 175] that would have been despairing, but for its supplication.

"Oh! it's the amber," I said. "They are amulets, and have bound him in a thrall. You must wear them, and dissolve the charm. He's in a dream."

II.

Rose didn't come near us for a fortnight; but he had not camped at all, as he said. It was the first stone thrown into Lu's life, and I never saw any one keep the ripples under so; but her suspicions were aroused. Finally he came in again, all as before, and I thought things might have been different, if in that fortnight Mr. Dudley had not been so assiduous; and now, to the latter's happiness, there were several ragged children and infirm old women in whom, Lu having taken them in charge, he chose to be especially interested. Lu always was housekeeper, both because it had fallen to her while mamma and I were away, and because she had an administrative faculty equal to General Jackson's; and Rose, who had frequently gone about with her, inspecting jellies and cordials and adding up her accounts, now unexpectedly found Mr. Dudley so near his former place that he disdained to resume it himself;—not entirely, because the man of course couldn't be as familiar as an old playmate; but just enough to put Rose aside. He never would compete with any one; and Lu did not know how to repulse the other.

If the amulets had ravished Rose from himself, they did it at a distance, for I had not worn them since that day.—You needn't look. Thales imagined amber had a spirit; and Pliny says it is a counter-charm for sorceries. There are a great many mysterious things in the world. Aren't there any hidden relations between us and certain substances? Will you tell me something impossible?—But he came and went about Louise, and she sung his songs, and all was going finely again, when we gave our midsummer party.

Everybody was there, of course, and we had enrapturing music. Louise wore—no matter—something of twilight purple, and begged for the amber, since it was too much for my toilette,—a double India muslin, whose snowy sheen scintillated with festoons of gorgeous green beetles' wings flaming like fiery emeralds.—A family dress, my dear, and worn by my aunt before me,—only that individual must have been frightened out of her wits by it. A cruel, savage dress, very like, but ineffably gorgeous.—So I wore her aquamarina, though the other would have been better; and when I sailed in, with all the airy folds in a hoar-frost mistiness fluttering round me and the glitter of Lu's jewels,—

It was dull enough till quite late, and then I stepped out with Mr. Parti, and walked up and down a garden-path. Others were outside as well, and the last time I passed a little arbor I caught a yellow gleam of amber. Lu, of course. Who was with her? A gentleman, bending low to catch her words, holding her hand in an irresistible pressure. Not Rose, for he was flitting in beyond. Mr. Dudley. And I saw then that Lu's kindness was too great to allow her to repel him angrily; her gentle conscience let her wound no one. Had Rose seen the pantomime? Without doubt. He had been seeking her, and he found her, he thought, in Mr. Dudley's arms. After a while we went in, and, finding all smooth enough,[Pg 176] I slipped through the balcony-window and hung over the balustrade, glad to be alone a moment. The wind, blowing in, carried the gay sounds away from me, even the music came richly muffled through the heavy curtains, and I wished to breathe balm and calm. The moon, round and full, was just rising, making the gloom below more sweet. A full moon is poison to some; they shut it out at every crevice, and do not suffer a ray to cross them; it has a chemical or magnetic effect; it sickens them. But I am never more free and royal than when the subtile celerity of its magic combinations, whatever they are, is at work. Never had I known the mere joy of being so intimately as to-night. The river slept soft and mystic below the woods, the sky was full of light, the air ripe with summer. Out of the yellow honeysuckles that climbed around, clouds of delicious fragrance stole and swathed me; long wafts of faint harmony gently thrilled me. Dewy and dark and uncertain was all beyond. I, possessed with a joyousness so deep through its contented languor as to counterfeit serenity, forgot all my wealth of nature, my pomp of beauty, abandoned myself to the hour.

A strain of melancholy dance-music pierced the air and fell. I half turned my head, and my eyes met Rose. He had been there before me, perhaps. His face, white and shining in the light, shining with a strange sweet smile of relief, of satisfaction, of delight, his lips quivering with unspoken words, his eyes dusky with depth after depth of passion. How long did my eyes swim on his? I cannot tell. He never stirred; still leaned there against the pillar, still looked down on me like a marble god. The sudden tears dazzled my gaze, fell down my hot cheek, and still I knelt fascinated by that smile. In that moment I felt that he was more beautiful than the night, than the music, than I. Then I knew that all this time, all summer, all past summers, all my life long, I had loved him.

Some one was waiting to make his adieux; I heard my father seeking me; I parted the curtains, and went in. One after one those tedious people left, the lights grew dim, and still he stayed without. I ran to the window, and, lifting the curtain, bent forward, crying,—

Then he moved, stepped down, murmured something to my father, bowed loftily to Louise, passed me without a sign, and went out. In a moment, Lu's voice, a quick, sharp exclamation, touched him; he turned, came back. She, wondering at him, had stood toying with the amber, and at last crushing the miracle of the whole, a bell-wort wrought most delicately with all the dusty pollen grained upon its anthers, crushing it between her fingers, breaking the thread, and scattering the beads upon the carpet. He stooped with her to gather them again, he took from her hand and restored to her afterward the shattered fragments of the bell-wort, he helped her disentangle the aromatic string from her falling braids,—for I kept apart,—he breathed the penetrating incense of each separate amulet, and I saw that from that hour, when every atom of his sensation was tense and vibrating, she would be associated with the loathed amber in his undefined consciousness, would be surrounded with an atmosphere of its perfume, that Lu was truly sealed from him in it, sealed into herself. Then again, saying no word, he went out.

Louise stood like one lost,—took aimlessly a few steps,—retraced them,—approached a table,—touched something,—left it.

"I am so sorry about your beads!" she said, apologetically, when she looked up and saw me astonished, putting the broken pieces into my hand.

"I don't care about them, I'm sick of amber," I answered, consolingly. "You may have them, if you will."[Pg 177]

"Nonsense! when they break again, I'll pay you back," I said, without in the least knowing what she meant. "I didn't know you were too proud for a 'thank you!'"

She came up and put both her arms round my neck, laid her cheek beside mine a minute, kissed me, and went up-stairs. Lu always rather worshipped me.

Dressing my hair that night, Carmine, my maid, begged for the remnants of the bell-wort to "make a scent-bag with, Miss."

Next day, no Rose; it rained. But at night he came and took possession of the room, with a strange, airy gayety never seen in him before. It was so chilly, that I had heaped the wood-boughs, used in the yesterday's decorations, on the hearth, and lighted a fragrant crackling flame that danced up wildly at my touch,—for I have the faculty of fire. I sat at one side, Lu at the other, papa was holding a skein of silk for her to wind, the amber beads were twinkling in the firelight,—and when she slipped them slowly on the thread, bead after bead, warmed through and through by the real blaze, they crowded the room afresh with their pungent spiciness. Papa had called Rose to take his place at the other end of the silk, and had gone out; and when Lu finished, she fastened the ends, cut the thread, Rose likening her to Atropos, and put them back into her basket. Still playing with the scissors, following down the lines of her hand, a little snap was heard.

"The hand must not be ringless," said Rose; and slipping off the ring of hers that he wore, he dropped it upon the amber, then got up and threw an armful of fresh boughs upon the blaze.

So that was all done. Then Rose was gayer than before. He is one of those people to whom you must allow moods,—when their sun shines, dance, and when their vapors rise, sit in the shadow. Every variation of the atmosphere affects him, though by no means uniformly; and so sensitive is he, that, when connected with you by any intimate rapport, even if but momentary, he almost divines your thoughts. He is full of perpetual surprises. I am sure he was a nightingale before he was Rose. An iridescence like sea-foam sparkled in him that evening, he laughed as lightly as the little tinkling mass-bells at every moment, and seemed to diffuse a rosy glow wherever he went in the room. Yet gayety was not his peculiar specialty, and at length he sat before the fire, and, taking Lu's scissors, commenced cutting bits of paper in profiles. Somehow they all looked strangely like and unlike Mr. Dudley. I pointed one out to Lu, and, if he had needed confirmation, her changing color gave it. He only glanced at her askance, and then broke into the merriest description of his life in Rome, of which he declared he had not spoken to us yet, talking fast and laughing as gleefully as a child, and illustrating people and localities with scissors and paper as he went on, a couple of careless snips putting a whole scene before us.

The floor was well-strewn with such chips,—fountains, statues, baths, and all the persons of his little drama,—when papa came in. He held an open letter, and, sitting down, read it over again. Rose fell into silence, clipping the scissors daintily in and out the white sheet through twinkling intricacies. As the design dropped out, I caught it,—a long wreath of honeysuckle-blossoms. Lu was humming a little tune. Rose joined, and hummed the last bars, then bade us good-night.

"Yone," said papa, "your Aunt Willoughby is very ill,—will not recover. She is my elder brother's widow; you are her heir. You must go and stay with her."

Now it was very likely that just at this time I was going away to nurse Aunt Willoughby! Moreover, illness is my very[Pg 178] antipodes,—its nearness is invasion,—we are utterly antipathetic,—it disgusts and repels me. What sympathy can there be between my florid health, my rank, redundant life, and any wasting disease of death? What more hostile than focal concentration and obscure decomposition? You see, we cannot breathe the same atmosphere. I banish the thought of such a thing from my feeling, from my memory. So I said,—

"It's impossible. I'm not going an inch to Aunt Willoughby's. Why, papa, it's more than a hundred miles, and in this weather!"

"That's the very thing. If she were well, I might,—perhaps. Sick! What can I do for her? I never go into a sick-room. I hate it. I don't know how to do a thing there. Don't say another word, papa. I can't go."

"It is out of the question to let it pass so, my dear. Here you are nursing all the invalids in town, yet"——

"Indeed, I'm not, papa. I don't know and don't care whether they're dead or alive."

"It is so unpleasant to Yone," Lu murmured, "that maybe I had better go. And if you've no objection, Sir, I'll take the early train to-morrow."

Lu was away a month. Rose came in, expressing his surprise. I said, "Othello's occupation's gone?"

"Miss Willoughby," said he, turning and looking directly past me, "may I paint you?"

"Oh, I've no more right than any other piece of Nature to refuse an artist a study in color."

He faced about, half pouting, as if he would go out, then returned and fixed the time.

So he painted. He generally put me into a broad beam that slanted from the top of the veiled window, and day after day he worked. Ah, what glorious days they were! how gay! how full of life! I almost feared to let him image me on canvas, do you know? I had a fancy it would lay my soul so bare to his inspection. What secrets might be searched, what depths fathomed, at such times, if men knew! I feared lest he should see me as I am, in those great masses of warm light lying before him, as I feared he saw when he said amber harmonized with me,—all being things not polarized, not organized, without centre, so to speak. But it escaped him, and he wrought on. Did he succeed? Bless you! he might as well have painted the sun; and who could do that? No; but shades and combinations that he had hardly touched or known, before, he had to lavish now; he learned more than some years might have taught him; he, who worshipped[Pg 179] beauty, saw how thoroughly I possessed it; he has told me that through me he learned the sacredness of color. "Since he loves beauty so, why does he not love me?" I asked myself; and perhaps the feverish hope and suspense only lit up that beauty and fed it with fresh fires. Ah, the July days! Did you ever wander over barren, parched stubble-fields, and suddenly front a knot of red Turk's-cap lilies, flaring as if they had drawn all the heat and brilliance from the land into their tissues? Such were they. And if I were to grow old and gray, they would light down all my life, and I could be willing to lead a dull, grave age, looking back and remembering them, warming myself forever in their constant youth. If I had nothing to hope, they would become my whole existence. Think, then, what it will be to have all days like those!

He never satisfied himself, as he might have done, had he known me better,—and he never shall know me!—and used to look at me for the secret of his failure, till I laughed; then the look grew wistful, grew enamored. By-and-by we left the pictures. We went into the woods, warm, dry woods; we stayed there from morning till night. In the burning noons, we hung suspended between two heavens, in our boat on glassy forest-pools, where now and then a shoal of white lilies rose and crowded out the under-sky. Sunsets burst like bubbles over us. When the hidden thrushes were breaking one's heart with music, and the sweet fern sent up a tropical fragrance beneath our crushing steps, we came home to rooms full of guests and my father's genial warmth. What a month it was!

One day papa went up into New Hampshire; Aunt Willoughby was dead; and one day Lu came home.

"There is some mistake, Lu," I said. "It is you who are dead, instead of Aunt Willoughby."

How melancholy her smile was! She would have crazed me in a little while, if I had minded her.

There was an odd air with her that day. She didn't go at once and get off her travelling-dress, but trifled about in a kind of expectancy, a little fever going and coming in her cheeks, and turning at any noise.

Will you believe it?—though I know Lu had refused him,—who met her at the half-way junction, saw about her luggage, and drove home with her, but Mr. Dudley, and was with us, a half-hour afterward, when Rose came in? Lu didn't turn at his step, but the little fever in her face prevented his seeing her as I had done. He shook hands with her and asked after her health, and shook hands with Mr. Dudley, (who hadn't been near us during her absence,) and seemed to wish she should feel that he recognized without pain a connection between herself and that personage. But when he came back to me, I was perplexed again at that bewitched look in his face,—as if Lu's presence made him feel that he was in a dream, I the enchantress of that dream. It did not last long, though. And soon she saw Mr. Dudley out, and went up-stairs.

"I went into your room and got them, dear Yone," she said, "because I have found something to replace the broken bell-wort"; and she showed us a little amber bee, black and golden. "Not so lovely as the bell-wort," she resumed, "and I must pierce it for the thread; but it will fill the number. Was I not fortunate to find it?"

But when at a flame she heated a long, slender needle to pierce it, the little winged wonder shivered between her[Pg 180] fingers, and under the hot steel filled the room with the honeyed smell of its dusted substance.

"Never mind," said I again. "It's a shame, though,—it was so much prettier than the bell-wort! We might have known it was too brittle. It's just as well, Lu."

The room smelt like a chancel at vespers. Rose sauntered to the window, and so down the garden, and then home.

"Yes. It cannot be helped," she said, with a smile. "But I really counted upon seeing it on the string. I'm not lucky at amber. You know little Asian said it would bring bane to the bearer."

"Dear! dear! I had quite forgotten!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Lu, keep it, or give it away, or something! I don't want it any longer."

"You're very vehement," she said, laughing now. "I am not afraid of your gods. Shall I wear them?"

So the rest of the summer Lu twined them round her throat,—amulets of sorcery, orbs of separation; but one night she brought them back to me. That was last night. There they lie.

The next day, in the high golden noon, Rose came. I was on the lounge in the alcove parlor, my hair half streaming out of Lu's net; but he didn't mind. The light was toned and mellow, the air soft and cool. He came and sat on the opposite side, so that he faced the wall table with its dish of white, stiflingly sweet lilies, while I looked down the drawing-room. He had brought a book, and by-and-by opened at the part commencing, "Do not die, Phene." He read it through,—all that perfect, perfect scene. From the moment when he said,

"I overlean
This length of hair and lustrous front,—they turn
Like an entire flower upward,"—

"Look at the woman here with the new soul,"—

"Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff
Be art,—and, further, to evoke a soul
From form be nothing? This new soul is mine!"—

till then, he never glanced up. Now, with a proud grace, he raised his head,—not to look at me, but across me, at the lilies, to satiate himself with their odorous snowiness. When he again pronounced words, his voice was husky and vibrant; but what music dwelt in it and seemed to prolong rather than break the silver silence, as he echoed,

"Some unsuspected isle in the far seas"!

How many read to descend to a prosaic life! how few to meet one as rich and full beside them! The tone grew ever lower; he looked up slowly, fastening his glance on mine.

"And you are ever by me while I gaze,—
Are in my arms, as now,—as now,—as now!"

he said. He swayed forward with those wild questioning eyes,—his breath blew over my cheek; I was drawn,—I bent; the full passion of his soul broke to being, wrapped me with a blinding light, a glowing kiss on lingering lips, a clasp strong and tender as heaven. All my hair fell down like a shining cloud and veiled us, the great rolling folds in wave after wave of crisp splendor. I drew back from that long, silent kiss, I gathered up each gold thread of the straying tresses, blushing, defiant. He also, he drew back. But I knew all then. I had no need to wait longer; I had achieved. Rose loved me. Rose had loved me from that first day.—You scarcely hear what I say, I talk so low and fast? Well, no matter, dear, you wouldn't care.—For a moment that gaze continued, then the lids fell, the face grew utterly white. He rose, flung the book, crushed and torn, upon the floor, went out, speaking no word to me, nor greeting Louise in the next room. Could he have seen her? No. I, only, had that. For, as I drew from his arm, a meteoric crimson, shooting across the pale face bent over work there, flashed upon me, and then[Pg 181] a few great tears, like sudden thunder-drops, falling slowly and wetting the heavy fingers. The long mirror opposite her reflected the interior of the alcove parlor. No,—he could not have seen, he must have felt her.

I wonder whether I should have cared, if I had never met him any more,—happy in this new consciousness. But in the afternoon he returned, bright and eager.

"Are you so very busy, dear Yone," he said, without noticing Lu, "that you cannot drive with me to-day?"

Busy! In five minutes I whirled down the avenue beside him. I had not been Yone to him before. How quiet we were! he driving on, bent forward, seeing out and away; I leaning back, my eyes closed, and, whenever a remembrance of that instant at noon thrilled me, a stinging blush staining my cheek. I, who had believed myself incapable of love, till that night on the balcony, felt its floods welling from my spirit,—who had believed myself so completely cold, was warm to my heart's core. Again that breath fanned me, those lips touched mine, lightly, quickly.

Ah, me! If the July days were such, how perfect were the August and September nights! their young moon's lingering twilight, their full broad bays of silver, their interlunar season! The winds were warm about us, the whole earth seemed the wealthier for our love. We almost lived upon the river, he and I alone,—floating seaward, swimming slowly up with late tides, reaching home drenched with dew, parting in passionate silence. Once he said to me,—

"Is it because it is so much larger, more strange and beautiful, than any other love could be, that I feel guilty, Yone,—feel as if I sinned in loving you so, my great white flower?"

I ought to tell you how splendid papa was, never seemed to consider that Rose had only his art, said I had enough from Aunt Willoughby for both, we should live up there among the mountains, and set off at once to make arrangements. Lu has a wonderful tact, too,—seeing at once where her path lay. She is always so well oriented! How full of peace and bliss these two months have been! Last night Lu came in here. She brought back my amber gods, saying she had not intended to keep them, and yet loitering.

"Don't be angry," she pleaded. "You and I have been sisters, have we not? and always shall be. I love you very much, dear,—more than you may believe; I only want to know if you will make him happy."

She still stood before me. Her eyes said, "I have a right,—I have a right to know."

"You want me to say how much I love Vaughan Rose?" I asked, finally. "Well, listen, Lu,—so much, that, when he forgets me,—and he will, Lu, one day,—I shall die."

"Prevent his forgetting you, Yone!" she returned. "Make your soul white and clear, like his."

Then somehow tears began to come. I didn't want to cry; I had to crowd them back behind my fingers and shut lids.

"Oh, Lu!" I said, "I cannot think what it would be to live, and he not a part of me! not for either of us to be in the world without the other!"

Then Lu's tears fell with mine, as she drew her fingers over my hair. She said she was happy, too; and to-day has been down and gathered every one, so that, when you see her, her white array will be wreathed with purple hearts-ease. But I didn't tell Lu quite the truth, you must[Pg 182] know. I don't think I should die, except to my former self, if Rose ceased to love me. I should change. Oh, I should hate him! Hate is as intense as love.

Bless me! What time can it be? There are papa and Rose walking in the garden. I turned out my maid to find chance for all this talk; I must ring for her. There, there's my hair! silken coil after coil, full of broken lights, rippling below the knees, fine and fragrant. Who could have such hair but I? I am the last of the Willoughbys, a decayed race, and from such strong decay what blossom less gorgeous should spring?

October now. All the world swings at the top of its beauty; and those hills where we shall live, what robes of color fold them! Tawny filemot gilding the valleys, each seam and rut a scroll or arabesque, and all the year pouring out her heart's blood to flush the maples, the great impurpled granites warm with the sunshine they have drunk all summer! So I am to be married to-day, at noon. I like it best so; it is my hour. There is my veil, that regal Venice point. Fling it round you. No, you would look like a ghost in one,—Lu like a corpse. Dear me! That's the second time I've rung for Carmine. I dare say the hussy is trying on my gown. You think it strange I don't delay? Why, child, why tempt Providence? Once mine, always mine. He might wake up. No, no, I couldn't have meant that! It is not possible that I have merely led him into a region of richer dyes, lapped him in this vision of color, kindled his heart to such a flame, that it may light him towards further effort. Can you believe that he will slip from me and return to one in better harmony with him? Is any one? Will he ever find himself with that love lost, this love exhausted, only his art left him? Never! I am his crown. See me! how singularly, gloriously beautiful! For him only! all for him! I love him! I cannot, I will not lose him! I defy all! My heart's proud pulse assures me! I defy Fate! Hush! One,—two,—twelve o'clock. Carmine!

III.

The click of her needles and the soft singing of the night-lamp are the only sounds breaking the stillness, the awful stillness, of this room. How the wind blows without! it must be whirling white gusty drifts through the split hills. If I were as free! Whistling round the gray gable, tearing the bleak boughs, crying faint, hoarse moans down the chimneys! A wild, sad gale! There is a lull, a long breathless lull, before it soughs up again. Oh, it is like a pain! Pain! Why do I think the word? Must I suffer any more? Am I crazed with opiates? or am I dying? They are in that drawer,—laudanum, morphine, hyoscyamus, and all the drowsy sirups,—little drops, but soaring like a fog, and wrapping the whole world in a dull ache, with no salient sting to catch a groan on. They are so small, they might be lost in this long, dark room; why not the pain too, the point of pain, I? A long, dark room; I at one end, she at the other; the curtains drawn away from me that I may breathe. Ah, I have been stifled so long! They look down on me, all those old dead and gone faces, those portraits on the wall,—look all from their frames at me, the last term of the race, the vanishing summit of their design. A fierce weapon thrust into the world for evil has that race been,—from the great gray Willoughby, threatening with his iron eyes there, to me, the sharp apex of its suffering. A fierce, glittering blade! Why I alone singled for this curse? Rank blossom, rank decay, they answer, but falsely. I lie here, through no fault of mine, blasted by disease, the dread with no relief. A hundred ancestors look from my walls, and see in me the centre of their lives, of all their little splendor, of their sins and follies; what slept in them wakes in me. Oh, let me sleep too!

How long could I live and lose nothing? I saw my face in the hand-glass this morning,—more lovely than health fashioned it;—transparent skin, bounding blood,[Pg 183] with its fire burning behind the eye, on cheek, on lip,—a beauty that every pang has aggravated, heightened, sharpened, to a superb intensity, flushing, rapid, unearthly,—a brilliancy to be dreamed of. Like a great autumn-leaf I fall, for I am dying,—dying! Yes, death finds me more beautiful than life made me; but have I lost nothing? Great Heaven, I have lost all!

A fancy comes to me, that to-day was my birthday. I have forgotten to mark time; but if it was, I am thirty-two years old. I remember birthdays of a child,—loving, cordial days. No one remembers to-day. Why should they? But I ache for a little love. Thirty-two,—that is young to die! I am too fair, too rich, for death!—not his fit spoil! Is there no one to save me? no help? can I not escape? Ah, what a vain eagerness! what an idle hope! Fall back again, heart! Escape? I do not desire to. Come, come, kind rest! I am tired.

That cap-string has loosened now, and all this golden cataract of hair has rushed out over the piled pillows. It oppresses and terrifies me. If I could speak, it seems to me that I would ask Louise to come and bind it up. Won't she turn and see?

Have I been asleep? What is this in my hands? The amber gods? Oh, yes! I asked to see them again; I like their smell, I think. It is ten years I have had them. They enchant; but the charm will not last; nothing will. I rubbed a little yellow smoke out of them,—a cloud that hung between him and the world, so that he saw only me,—at least——What am I dreaming of? All manner of illusions haunt me. Who said anything about ten years? I have been married ten years. Happy, then, ten years? Oh, no! One day he woke.—How close the room is! I want some air. Why don't they do something——

Once, in the pride of a fool, I fear having made some confidence, some recital of my joy to ears that never had any. Did I say I would not lose him? Did I say I could live just on the memory of that summer? I lash myself that I must remember it! that I ever loved him! When he stirred, when the mist left him, when he found a mere passion had blinded him, when he spread his easel, when he abandoned love,—was I wretched? I, too, abandoned love!—more,—I hated! All who hate are wretched. But he was bound to me! Yes, he might move restlessly,—it only clanked his chains. Did he wound me? I was cruel. He never spoke. He became artist,—ceased to be man,—was more indifferent than the cloud. He could paint me then,—and, revealed and bare, all our histories written in me, he hung me up beside my ancestors. There I hang. Come from thy frame, thou substance, and let this troubled phantom go! Come! for he gave my life to thee. In thee he shut and sealed it all, and left me as the empty husk. Did she come then? No! I sent for her. I meant to teach him that he was yet a man,—to open before him a gulf of anguish; but I slipped down it. Then I dogged them; they never spoke alone; I intercepted the eye's language; I withered their wintry smiles to frowns; I stifled their sighs; I checked their breath, their motion. Idle words passed our lips; we three lived in a real world of silence, agonized mutes. She went. Summer by summer my father brought her to us. Always memory was kindled afresh, always sorrow kept smouldering. Once she came; I lay here; she has not left me since. He,—he also comes; he has soothed pain with that loveless eye, carried me in untender arms, watched calmly beside my delirious nights. He who loved beauty has learned disgust. Why should I care? I, from the slave of bald form, enlarged him to the master of gorgeous color; his blaze is my ashes. He studies me. I owe him nothing.

Is it near morning? Have I dozed again? Night is long. The great hall-clock is striking,—throb after throb on the darkness. I remember, when I was a child, watching its lengthened pendulum swing as if time were its own, and it measured the thread slowly, loath to[Pg 184] part,—remember streaking its great ebony case with a little finger, misting it with a warm breath. Throb after throb,—is it going to peal forever? Stop, solemn clangor! hearts, stop! Midnight.

The nurses have gone down; she sits there alone. Her bent side-face is full of pity. Now and then her head turns; the great brown eyes lift heavily, and lie on me,—heavily, as if the sight of me pained her. Ah, in me perishes her youth! death enters her world! Besides, she loves me. I do not want her love,—I would fling it off; but I am faint,—I am impotent,—I am so cold! Not that she lives, and I die,—not that she has peace, and I tumult,—not for her voice's music,—not for her eye's lustre,—not for any charm of her womanly presence,—neither for her clear, fair soul,—nor that, when the storm and winter pass, and I am stiff and frozen, she smiles in the sun, and leads new life,—not for all this I hate her; but because my going gives her what I lost,—because, I stepped aside, the light falls on her,—because from my despair springs her happiness. Poor fool! let her be happy, if she can! Her mother was a Willoughby! And what is a flower that blows on a grave?

Why do I remember so distinctly one night alone of all my life,—one night, when we dance in the low room of a seaside cottage,—dance to Lu's singing? He leads me to her, when the dance is through, brushing with his head the festooned nets that swing from the rafters,—and in at the open casement is blown a butterfly, a dead butterfly, from off the sea. She holds it compassionately till I pin it on my dress,—the wings, twin magnificences, freckled and barred and dusty with gold, fluttering at my breath. Some one speaks with me; she strays to the window, he follows, and they are silent. He looks far away over the gray loneliness stretching beyond. At length he murmurs: "A brief madness makes my long misery. Louise, if the earth were dazzled aside from her constant pole-star to worship some bewildering comet, would she be more forlorn than I?"

He bends lower, that his breath may scorch her brow. "Was I wrong? Am I right?" he whispers, hurriedly. "You loved me once; you love me now, Louise, if I were free?"

She does not recoil, yet her very atmosphere repels him, while looking up with those woful eyes blanching her cheek by their gathering darkness. "And, Rose,"——she sighs, then ceases abruptly, while a quiver of sudden scorn writhes spurningly down eyelid and nostril and pains the whole face.

He erects himself, then reaches his hand for the rose in her belt, glances at me,—the dead thing in my bosom rising and falling with my turbulent heart,—holds the rose to his lips, leaves her. How keen are my ears! how flushed my cheek! how eager and fierce my eyes! He approaches; I snatch the rose and tear its petals in an angry shower, and then a dim east-wind pours in and scatters my dream like flakes of foam. All dreams go; youth and hope desert me; the dark claims me. O room, surrender me! O sickness and sorrow, loose your weary hold!

It maddens me to know that the sun will shine again, the tender grass grow green, the veery sing, the crocus come. She will walk in the light and re-gather youth, and I moulder, a forgotten heap. Oh, why not all things crash to ruin with me?

Pain, pain, pain! Where is my father? Why is he away, when they know I die? He used to hold me once; he ought to hear me when I call. He would rest me, and stroke the grief aside,—he is so strong. Where is he?

These amulets stumbling round again? Amber, amber gods, you did mischief in your day! If I clutched you hard, as Lu did once, all your spells would be broken.—It is colder than it was. I think I will go to sleep.

What was that? How loud and resonant! It stuns me. It is too sonorous.[Pg 185] Does sound flash? Ah! the hour. Another? How long the silver toll swims on the silent air! It is one o'clock,—a passing bell, a knell. If I were at home by the river, the tide would be turning down, down, and out to the broad, broad sea. Is it worth while to have lived?

Have I spoken? She looks at me, rises, and touches that bell-rope that always brings him. How softly he opens the door! Waiting, perhaps. Well. Ten years have not altered him much. The face is brighter, finer,—shines with the eternal youth of genius. They pause a moment; I suppose they are coming to me; but their eyes are on each other.

Why must the long, silent look with which he met her the day I got my amber strike back on me now so vindictively? I remember three looks: that, and this, and one other,—one fervid noon, a look that drank my soul, that culminated my existence. Oh, I remember! I lost it a little while ago. I have it now. You are coming? Can't you hear me? See! these costly liqueurs, these precious perfumes beside me here, if I can reach them, I will drench the coverlet in them; it shall be white and sweet as a little child's. I wish they were the great rich lilies of that day; it is too late for the baby May-flowers. You do not like amber? There the thread breaks again! the little cruel gods go tumbling down the floor! Come, lay my head on your breast! kiss my life off my lips! I am your Yone! I forgot a little while,—but I love you, Rose! Rose!

Why! I thought arms held me. How clear the space is! The wind from out-doors, rising again, must have rushed in. There is the quarter striking. How free I am! No one here? No swarm of souls about me? Oh, those two faces looked from a great mist, a moment since; I scarcely see them now. Drop, mask! I will not pick you up! Out, out into the gale! back to my elements!

So I passed out of the room, down the staircase. The servants below did not see me, but the hounds crouched and whined. I paused before the great ebony clock; again the fountain broke, and it chimed the half-hour; it was half-past one; another quarter, and the next time its ponderous silver hammers woke the house it would be two. Half-past one? Why, then, did not the hands move? Why cling fixed on a point five minutes before the first quarter struck? To and fro, soundless and purposeless, swung the long pendulum. And, ah! what was this thing I had become? I had done with time. Not for me the hands moved on their recurrent circle any more.

THE POET'S FRIENDS.

The Robin sings in the elm;
The cattle stand beneath,
Sedate and grave, with great brown eyes,
And fragrant meadow-breath.

They listen to the flattered bird,
The wise-looking, stupid things!
And they never understand a word
Of all the Robin sings.

THE MEMORIAL OF A. B., OR MATILDA MUFFIN.

THE MEMORIAL OF A. B.

Ladies and gentlemen,—enlightened public,—kind audience,—dear readers,—or whatever else you may be styled,—whose eyes, from remote regions of east, west, or next door, solace themselves between the brown covers of this magazine, making of themselves flowers to its lunar brilliancy,—I wish to state, with all humility and self-disgust, that I am what is popularly called a literary woman.

In the present state of society, I should feel less shame in declaring myself the elect lady of Dunderhed Van Nudel, Esquire, that wealthy Dutch gentleman, aged seventy, whom we all know. It is true, that, as I am young and gay and intelligent, while he is old and stupid and very low Dutch indeed, such an announcement would be equivalent to saying that I was bought by Mr. Van Nudel for half a million of dollars; but then that is customary, and you would all congratulate me.

Also, I should stand a better chance of finding favor in your eyes, if I declared myself to be an indigent tailoress; for no woman should use her head who can use her hands,—a maxim older than Confucius.

Or even if I were a school-ma'am! (blessed be the man who has brought them into fashion and the long path!) In that case, you might say, "Poor thing! isn't she interesting? quite like the school-mistress!"—And I am not averse to pity, since it is love's poor cousin, nor to belonging to a class mentioned in Boston literary society. I really am not!

But the plain truth is, I earn my living by writing. Sewing does not pay. I have no "faculty" at school-keeping; for I invariably spoil all the good children, and pet all the pretty ones,—a process not conducive, as I am told, to the development of manners or morals;—so I write: just as Mr. Jones makes shoes, Mr. Peters harangues the jury, Mr. Smith sells calico, or Mr. Robinson rolls pills.

For, strange as it may seem, when it is so easy to read, it is hard work to write,—bonâ fide, undeniable hard work. Suppose my head cracks and rings and reels with a great ache that stupefies me? In comes Biddy with a letter.

"Very respectfully, etc., etc."

Miss Muffin's head looks her in the face, (metaphorically,) and says, "You can't!"—but her last year's bonnet creaks and rustles from the bandbox, finally lifts the lid and peeps out. Gracious! the ghost in Hamlet was not more of an "airy nothing" than that ragged, faded, dilapidated old structure of crape and blonde. The bonnet retires to the sound of slow music; the head slinks back and holds its tongue; Miss Muffin sits down at her table; scratch, scratch, scratch, goes the old pen, and the ideas catch up with it, it is so shaky; and the words go tumbling over it, till the ts go out without any hats on, and the eyes—no, the is (is that the way to pluralize them?)—get no dots at all; and every now and then the head says, softly, "Oh, dear!" Miss Muffin goes to something called by novel-writers "repose," toward one o'clock that night, and the next night, and the next; she obliges the "Monthly Signpost" with a comic story at a low price, and buys herself a decent little bonnet for Sundays, replenishing her wardrobe generally by the same process; and the head considers it work, I assure you.

But this is not the special grievance to which I direct this Memorial. I like[Pg 187] to work; it suits me much better to obtain my money by steady, honest effort than it would to depend on anybody else for one round cent. If I had a thousand dollars unexpectedly left me by some unknown benefactor, I don't think it would be worth five cents on the dollar, compared with what I earn; there is a healthy, trustworthy pleasure in that, never yet attained by gifted or inherited specie. Neither is it the publicity of the occupation that I here object to. I knew that, before I began to write; and many an hour have I cried over the thought of being known, and talked about, and commented on,—having my dear name, that my mother called me by, printed on the cover of a magazine, seeing it in newspapers, hearing it in whispers, when Miss Brown says to Miss Black under her breath,—"That girl in the straw bonnet is Matilda Muffin, who writes for the 'Snapdragon' and the 'Signpost.'"

I knew all this, as I say. I dreaded and hated it. I hate it now. But I had to work, and this was the only way open to me; so I tried to be brave, and to do what I ought, and let the rest go. I cannot say I am very brave yet, or that I don't feel all this; but I do not memorialize against it, because it is necessary to be borne, and I must bear it. When I go to the dentist's to have a tooth out, I sit down, and hold the chair tight, and open my mouth as wide as it will open, but I always say, "Oh! don't, doctor! I can't! I can't possibly!" till the iron what-d'you-call-it enters my soul and stops my tongue.

Yes, when I began to write, I knew I should some day see my name in print. I knew people would wonder who and what I was, and how I looked;—I had done it myself. I knew that I should be delivered over to be the prey of tongues and the spoil of eyes. I was aware, I think, I am aware now, of every possible "disagreeable" that can befall the state. I am accustomed to hear people say, if I venture a modest opinion about a dinner, "Dear me! as if a literary woman knew anything about cooking!"—I endure that meekly, sustained by the inner consciousness that I can cook much better than any artist in that line I ever yet encountered. Likewise I am used to hear people say, "I suppose you don't waste your valuable time in sewing?" when a look at my left forefinger would insure me a fraternal grip from any member of the Seamstress's Friends Society anywhere. I do not either scold or cry when accidentally some visitor discovers me fitting my dress or making my bonnet, and looks at me with a "fearful joy," as if I were on a tight-rope. I even smile when people lay my ugly shawl or passé bonnet, that I bought because they were cheap, and wear for the same reason, at the door of the "eccentricities of genius." And I am case-hardened to the instantaneous scattering and dodging of young men that ensue the moment I enter a little party, because "gentlemen are so afraid of literary women." I don't think gentlemen are; I know two or three who never conceal a revolver in the breast of their coat when they talk to me, and who sometimes even offer to go home with me from a tea-party all alone, and after dark too. It is true, one or two of these are "literary" themselves; the others I knew before I was dyed blue; which may account for it. Also I am impervious to anonymous letters, exhorting me to all kinds of mental and moral improvement, or indulging in idle impertinences about my private affairs, the result of a knowledge about me and the aforesaid affairs drawn solely from my "Pieces in Prose and Verse."

Then as to the matter of the romantic stories that are afloat concerning me, I am rather amused than otherwise by them. I have a sentimental name, by the religious and customary ordinance of baptism, legally my own; and at first, being rather loath to enter the great alliterative ranks of female writers by my lawful title of Matilda Muffin, I signed my writings "A. B."

Two reprobatory poems addressed to those initials came to me through the[Pg 188] medium of the "Snapdragon," immediately after my having printed in that spicy paper a pensive little poem called "The Rooster's Cry": one, in Spenserian measure, rebuking me for alluding lightly to serious subjects,—a thing I never do, I am sure, and I can't imagine what "J. H. P." meant; and another, in hexameter, calling upon me to "arouse," and "smile," and "struggle on," and, in short, to stop crying and behave myself,—only it was said in figures. I'm much obliged to "Quintius" for the advice; but I should like to explain, that I am subject to the toothache, and when it is bad I cannot possibly write comic poetry. I must be miserable, but it's only toothache, thank you!

Then I have heard several times, in the strictest confidence, the whole history of "A. B., who writes for the 'Snapdragon.'" Somebody told me she was a lady living on the North River, very wealthy, very haughty, and very unhappy in her domestic relations. Another said she was a young widow in Alabama, whose mother was extremely tyrannical, and opposed her second marriage. A third person declared to me that A. B. was a physician in the navy,—a highly educated man, but reduced in circumstances. I think that was a great compliment,—to be actually taken for a man! I felt it to be "the proudest moment of my life," as ship-captains say, when they return thanks for the silver teapot richly chased with nautical emblems, presented by the passengers saved from the wreck, as a token of gratitude for the hencoops thrown overboard by the manly commander. However, I called myself a woman in the very next contribution, for fear of the united wrath of the stronger sex, should I ever be discovered to have so imposed upon the public; although I know several old women who remain undiscovered to this day, simply because they avail themselves of a masculine signature.

There were other romances, too tedious to mention, depicting me sometimes as a lovely blonde, writing graceful tales beneath a bower of roses in the warm light of June; sometimes as a respectable old maid, rather sharp, fierce, and snuffy; sometimes as a tall, delicate, aristocratic, poetic looking creature, with liquid dark eyes and heavy tresses of raven hair; sometimes as a languishing, heart-broken woman in the prime of life, with auburn curls and a slow consumption.

Perhaps it may be as well to silence all conjecture at once, by stating that I am a woman of——no, I won't say how old, because everybody will date me from this time forward, and I shall not always be willing to tell how old I am! I am not very young now, it is true; I am more than sixteen and less than forty; so when our clergyman requested all between those ages to remain after service for the purpose of forming a week-day Bible-class, I sat still, and so did everybody else except Mrs. Van Doren, whose great-grandchild was christened in the morning;—our church is a new one.

However, this is digressing. I am not very tall, nor very short; I am rather odd-looking, but decidedly plain. I have brown hair and eyes, a pale light complexion, a commonplace figure, pretty good taste in dress, and a quick sense of the ludicrous, that makes me laugh a great deal, and have a good time generally.

I live at home, in the town of Blank, in a quiet by-street. My parents are both living, and we keep one Irish girl. I go to church on Sundays, and follow my trade week-days.

I write everything I do write in my own room, which is not so pleasant as a bower of roses in some respects, but is preferable in regard to earwigs and caterpillars, which are troublesome in bowers. I have a small pine table to write on, as much elderly furniture as supplies me places for sleep and my books, a small stove in winter, (which is another advantage over bowers,) and my "flowing draperies" are blue chintz, which I bought at a bargain; some quaint old[Pg 189] engravings of Bartolozzi's in black and gilt frames; a few books, among which are prominently set forth a volume of "The Doctor,"—Nicolò de' Lapi, in delightful bindings of white parchment,—Thomas à Kempis,—a Bible, of English type and paper,—and Emerson's Poems, bound in Russia leather. Not that I have no other books,—grammars, and novels, and cook-books, in gorgeous array,—but these are within reach from my pillow, when I want to read myself asleep; and a plaster cast of Minerva's owl mounts guard above them, curious fowl that it is.

The neighbors think I am a pretty nice girl, and my papa secretly exults over me as a genius, but he don't say much about it. And there, dear public, you have Matilda Muffin as she is, which I hope will quash the romances, amusing though they be.

But when, after much editorial correspondence, and persevering whispers of kind friends who had been told the facts in confidence, A. B. became only the pretext of a mystery, and I signed myself by my full name, the question naturally arose,—"Who is Matilda Muffin?"

Now, for the first time in my life, do I experience the benefits of a sentimental name, which has rather troubled me before, as belonging to a quite unsentimental and commonplace person, and thereby raising expectations, through hearsay, which actual vision dispelled with painful suddenness. But now I find its advantage, for nobody believes it is my own, but confidently expects that Ann Tubbs or Susan Bucket will appear from a long suppression, like a Jack-in-a-box, and startle the public as she throws back the cover.

Indeed, I am told that not long since a circle of literary experimentalists, discussing a recent number of a certain magazine, and displaying great knowledge of noms-de-plume, ran aground all at once upon "Who is Matilda Muffin?"—even as, in the innocent faith of childhood, I pondered ten minutes upon "Who was the father of Zebedee's children?" and at last "gave up." But these professional gentlemen, nowise daunted by the practical difficulties of the subject, held on, till at last one, wiser in his generation than the rest, confidently announced that he knew Matilda Muffin's real name, but was not at liberty to disclose it. Should this little confidence ever reach the eyes of those friends, I wish to indorse that statement in every particular; that gentleman does know my name; and know all men, by these presents, I give him full leave to disclose it,—or rather, to save him the trouble, I disclose it myself. My name, my own, that would have been printed in the marriage-list of the "Snapdragon" before now, if it had not appeared in the list of contributors, and which will appear in its list of deaths some day to come,—my name, that is called to breakfast, marked on my pocket-handkerchiefs, written in my books, and done in yellow paint on my trunk, is—Matilda Muffin. "Only that, and nothing more!" And "A. B.," which I adopted once as a species of veil to the aforesaid alliterative title, did not mean, as was supposed, "A Beauty," or "Any Body," or "Another Barrett," or "Anti Bedott," or "After Breakfast," but only "A. B.," the first two letters of the alphabet. Peace to their ashes!—let them rest!

But, dear me! I forgot the Memorial! As I have said, all these enumerated troubles do not much move me, nor yet the world-old cry of all literary women's being, in virtue of their calling, unfeminine. I don't think anybody who knows me can say that about me; in fact, I am generally regarded by my male cousins as a "little goose," and a "foolish child," and "a perfectly absurd little thing,"—epithets that forbid the supposition of their object being strong-minded or having Women's Rights;—and as for people who don't know me, I care very little what they think. If I want them to like me, I can generally make them,—having a knack that way.

But there is one thing against which I do solemnly protest and uplift my[Pg 190] voice, as a piece of ridiculous injustice and supererogation,—and that is, that every new poem or fresh story I write and print should be supposed and declared to be part and parcel of my autobiography. Good gracious! Goethe himself, "many-sided" as the old stone Colossus might have been, would have retreated in dismay from such a host of characters as I have appeared in, according to the announcement of admiring friends.

My dear creatures, do just look at the common sense of the thing! Can I have been, by any dexterity known to man, of mind or body, such a various creature, such a polycorporate animal, as you make me to be? Because I write the anguish and suffering of an elderly widow with a drunken husband, am I therefore meek and of middle age, the slave of a rum-jug? I have heard of myself successively as figuring in the character of a strong-minded, self-denying Yankee girl,—a broken-hearted Georgia beauty,—a fairy princess,—a consumptive school-mistress,—a young woman dying of the perfidy of her lover,—a mysterious widow; and I daily expect to hear that a caterpillar which figured as hero in one of my tales was an allegory of myself, and that a cat mentioned in "The New Tobias" is a travesty of my heart-experience.

Now this is rather more than "human natur" can stand. It is true that in my day and generation I have suffered as everybody does, more or less. It is likewise true that I have suffered from the same causes that other people do. I am happy to state that in the allotments of this life authoresses are not looked upon as "literary," but simply as women, and have the same general dispensations with the just and the unjust; therefore, in attempting to excite other people's sympathies, I have certainly touched and told many stories that were not strange to my own consciousness; I do not know very well how I could do otherwise. And in trying to draw the common joys and sorrows of life, I certainly have availed myself of experience as well as observation; but I should seem to myself singularly wanting in many traits which I believe I possess, were I to obtrude the details of my own personal and private affairs upon the public. And I offer to those who have so interpreted me a declaration which I trust may relieve them from all responsibility of this kind in future; I hereby declare, asseverate, affirm, and whatever else means to swear, that I never have offered and never intend to offer any history whatever of my personal experience, social, literary, or emotional, to the readers of any magazine, newspaper, novel, or correspondence whatever. Nor is there any one human being who has ever heard or ever will hear the whole of that experience,—no, not even Dunderhed Van Nudel, Esquire, should he buy me to-morrow!

Also, I wish to relieve the minds of many friendly readers, who, hearing and believing these reports, bestow upon me a vast amount of sympathy that is worthy of a better fate. My dear friends, as I said before, it is principally toothache; poetry is next best to clove-oil, and less injurious to the enamel. I beg of you not to suppose that every poet who howls audibly in the anguish of his soul is really afflicted in the said soul; but one must have respect for the dignity of High Art. Answer me now with frankness, what should you think of a poem that ran in this style?—

"The sunset's gorgeous wonder
Flashes and fades away;
But my back-tooth aches like thunder,
And I cannot now be gay!"

Now just see how affecting it is, when you "change the venue," as lawyers say:—

"The sunset's gorgeous wonder
Flashes and fades away;
But I hear the muttering thunder,
And my sad heart dies like the day."

I leave it to any candid mind, what would be the result to literature, if such a course were pursued?

Besides, look at the facts in the case. You read the most tearful strains of the[Pg 191] most melancholy poet you know; if you took them verbatim, you would expect him to be found by the printer's-boy, sent for copy, "by starlight on the north side of a tombstone," as Dr. Bellamy said, enjoying a northeaster without any umbrella, and soaking the ground with tears, unwittingly antiseptic, in fact, as Mr. Mantalini expressed himself, "a damp, moist, unpleasant body." But where, I ask, does that imp find the aforesaid poet, when he goes to get the seventh stanza of the "Lonely Heart"? Why, in the gentlemen's parlor of a first-class hotel, his feet tilted up in the window, his apparel perfectly dry and shiny with various ornamental articles appended, his eyes half open over a daily paper, his parted lips clinging to a cigar, his whole aspect well-to-do and comfortable. And aren't you glad of it? I am; there is so much real misery in the world, that don't know how to write for the papers, and has to have its toothache all by itself, when a simple application of bread and milk or bread and meat would cure it, that I am glad to have the apparent sum of human misery diminished, even at the expense of being a traitor in the camp.

And still further, for your sakes, dear tender-hearted friends, who may suppose that I am wearing this mask of joy for the sake of deluding you into a grim and respectful sympathy,—you, who will pity me whether or no,—I confess that I have some material sorrows for which I will gladly accept your tears. My best bonnet is very unbecoming. I even heard it said the other day, striking horror to my soul, that it looked literary! And I'm afraid it does! Moreover, my only silk dress that is presentable begins to show awful symptoms of decline and fall; and though you may suppose literature to be a lucrative business, between ourselves it is not so at all, (very likely the "Atlantic" gentlemen will omit that sentence, for fear of a libel-suit from the trade,—but it's all the same a fact, unless you write for the "Dodger,")—and, I'm likely to mend and patch and court-plaster the holes in that old black silk, another year at least: but this is my solitary real anguish at present.

I do assure all and sundry my reporters, my sympathizers, and my readers, that all that I have stated in this present Memorial is unvarnished fact, whatever they may say, read, or feel to the contrary,—and that, although I am a literary woman, and labor under all the liabilities and disabilities contingent thereto, I am yet sound in mind and body, (except for the toothache,) and a very amusing person to know, with no quarrel against life in general or anybody in particular. Indeed, I find one advantage in the very credulous and inquisitive gossip against which I memorialize; for I think I may expect fact to be believed, when fiction is swallowed whole; and I feel sure of seeing, directly on the publication of this document, a notice in the "Snapdragon," the "Badger," or the "Coon," (whichever paper gets that number of the magazine first,) running in this wise:—

After which, I shall resign myself tranquilly to my fate as a unit, and glide down the stream of life under whatever skies shine or scowl above, always and forever nobody but

Matilda Muffin.
Blank, 67 Smith Street.

SOME ACCOUNT OF A VISIONARY.

"Dear old Visionary!" It was the epithet usually applied to Everett Gray by his friends and neighbors. It expresses very well the estimation in which he was held by nineteen-twentieths of his world. People couldn't help feeling affection for him, considerably leavened by a half-pitying, half-wondering appreciation of his character. He was so good, so kind, so gifted, too. Pity he was so dreamy and romantic, et cetera, et cetera.

Now, from his youth up, nay, from very childhood, Everett had borne the character thus implied. A verdict was early pronounced on him by an eminent phrenologist who happened to be visiting the family. "A beautiful mind, a comprehensive intellect, but marvellously unpractical,—singularly unfitted to cope with the difficulties of every-day life." And Everett's mother, hanging on the words of the man of science, breathless and tearful, murmured to herself, while stroking her unconscious little son's bright curls,—"I always feared he was too good for this wicked world."

The child began to justify the professor's dictum with his very first entry into active life. He entertained ideas for improving the social condition of rabbits, some time before he could conveniently raise himself to a level with the hutch in which three of them, jointly belonging to himself and his brother, abode. His theory was consummate; in practice, however, it proved imperfect,—and great wrath on the part of Richard Gray, and much confusion and disappointment to Everett, were the result.

Richard, two years younger than Everett by the calendar, was at least three older than he in size, appearance, habits, and self-assertion. He was what is understood by "a regular boy": a fine, manly little fellow, practical, unsensitive, hard-headed, and overflowing with life and vigor. He had little patience with his brother's quiet ways; and his unsuccessful attempts at working out theories met with no sympathy at his hands.

After the affair of the rabbits, his experiments, however certain of success he deemed them, were always made on or with regard to his own belongings. The little plot of garden-ground which he held in absolute possession was continually being dug up and refashioned, in his eager efforts to convert it successively into a vineyard, a Portuguese quinta, (to effect which he diligently planted orange-pips and manured the earth with the peel,) or, favorite scheme of all, a wheat-field,—dimensions, eighteen feet by twelve,—the harvest of which was to provide all the poor children of the village with bread, in those hard seasons when their pinched faces and shrill, complaining cries appealed so mightily to little Everett's heart.

Nevertheless, and in spite of all his care and watching, it is to be feared that very few of the big loaves which found their way from the hall to the village, that winter, were composed of the produce of his corn-field. More experienced farmers than this youthful agriculturist might not have been surprised at the failure of his crop. He was. Indeed, it was a valiant characteristic of him, throughout his life, that he never grew accustomed to failure, however serenely he took it, when it came. He grieved and perplexed himself about it, silently, but not hopelessly. New ideas dawned on his mind, fresh designs of relief were soon entertained, and essayed to be put in practice. These were many, and of various degrees of feasibility,—ranging from the rigorously pursued plan of setting aside a portion of his daily bread and butter in a bag, and of his milk in a can, and bestowing the little store on the nearest eligible object, up to the often pondered one of obtaining possession of the large barn in the cow-field, furnishing the same, and establishing[Pg 193] therein all the numerous houseless wanderers who used to come and ask for aid at the hands of Everett's worthy and magisterial father.

That father's judicial functions caused his eldest son considerable trouble and bewilderment of mind. He asked searching questions sometimes, when, of an evening, perched on Mr. Gray's knee, and looking with his wondering, steadfast eyes into the face of that erewhile stern and impassible magistrate. The large justice-room, where the prisoners were examined, had an awful fascination to him; and so had the little "strong-room," in which sometimes they were locked up before being conveyed away to the county jail. Often, he wandered restlessly near it, looking at the door with strange, mournful eyes; and if by chance the culprit passed out before him, under the guardianship of the terrible, red-faced constable,—Everett's earliest and latest conception of the Devil,—how wistfully he would gaze at him, and what a world of thought and puzzled speculation would float through his childish mind!

Once, he had a somewhat serious adventure connected with that dreadful strong-room.

There had been a man brought up before Mr. Gray, charged with poultry-stealing; and he had been remanded for further examination. Meanwhile, he was placed in the strong-room, under lock-and-key,—Roger Manby, as usual, standing sentinel in the passage. Now Roger's red face betokened a lively appreciation of the sublunary and substantial attractions of beef and beer; and it seems probable that the servants' dinner, going on below-stairs, was too great a temptation for even that inflexible constable to resist. Howbeit, when the prisoner should have been produced before the waiting bench, he was nowhere to be found. He had vanished, as by magic, from the strong-room, without bolt being wrenched, or lock forced, or bar broken. The door was unfastened, and the prisoner gone. Great was the consternation, profound the mystification of all parties. Roger was severely reprimanded, and officers were sent off in various directions to recapture the offender.

Mr. Gray seldom alluded to his public affairs when among his children; but that evening he broke through the rule. At dessert, with little Everett, as usual, beside him, he mentioned the mysterious incident of the morning to some friends who were dining with him, adding his own conjectures as to the cause of the strange disappearance.

"It is certain he was let out. He could not have released himself. Circumstances are suspicious against Manby, too; and he will probably lose his office. Like Cæsar's wife, a constable should be beyond suspicion, and he must be dismissed, if"——

"Oh, papa!"—and Everett's orange fell to the floor, and Everett's face was lifted to his father's, all-aglow with eager, painful feeling.

"You don't like old Roger," said Mr. Gray, patting his cheek. "Well, it is likely you won't be troubled by him any more."

"Oh, papa! oh, papa! Roger is an ugly, cross man. But he didn't,—he didn't"——

"Go on, Everett. What do you mean? Tell me the whole truth. You are not afraid to do that?"

He looked up, with steady eyes, but cheeks on which the color flickered most agitatedly.

"I only wanted to look at the man; and the men had left a ladder against the wall by the little grated window; and I climbed up, and looked in. And, oh! he had such a miserable face, papa! And I couldn't help speaking to him."

The tone was not so peremptory as the words; and the child, too ignorant to be really frightened at what he had done, went on with his confession, quite heedless of the numerous eyes fixed upon him with various expressions of tenderness, amusement, and dismay. And very soon all came out. Everett had deliberately and intentionally done the deed. He had been unable to withstand the misery and entreaties of the man, and he had slipped down the ladder, run round to the unguarded strong door, and with much toil forced back the great bolt, unfastened the chain, and set the prisoner free.

"And do you know, Everett, what it is you have done?—how wrong you have been?"

"I was afraid it was a little wrong,"—he hesitated; "but,"—and his courage seemed to rise again at the recollection,—"it would have been so dreadful for the poor man to go to prison! He said he should be quite ruined,—quite ruined, papa; and his wife and the little children would starve. You are not very angry, are you? Oh, papa!"

For Everett could hardly believe the stern gaze with which the magistrate forced himself to regard his little son; and sternly uttered were the few words that followed, by which he endeavored to make clear to the childish comprehension the gravity of the fault he had committed. Everett was utterly subdued. The tone of displeasure smote on his heart and crushed it for the time. Only once he brightened up, as with a sudden hope of complete justification, when Mr. Gray adverted to the crime of the man, which had made it right and necessary that he should be punished.

"But, papa," eagerly broke in the boy, "he hadn't stolen the things. He told me so. He wasn't a thief."

"Indeed, indeed, papa, you must be mistaken," cried Everett, with tearful vehemence; "he couldn't have done it; I know he couldn't. He said, upon his word, he hadn't."

It was impossible to persuade him that such an asseveration could be false. And when the little offender had left the room, various remarks and interjections were indulged in,—all breathing the same spirit.

And Everett grew in years and stature, and still unconsciously maintained the same character. It is true that he was a quiet, sensitive boy, with an almost feminine affectionateness and tenderness of heart,—and that keen, exquisite appreciation both of the joyful and the painful, which is a feminine characteristic, too. Yet he was far enough from being effeminate. He was thoughtful, naturally, yet he could be active and take pleasure in action. He was always ready to work, and feared neither hardship nor fatigue. When the great flood came and caused such terror and distress in the village, no one, not even Dick, home from Sandhurst for the midsummer holidays, was more energetic or worked harder or more effectually than Everett. And the boys (his brother's chums at Hazlewood) never forgot the day when Everett found them ill-treating a little dog; how he rescued it from them, single-handed, and knocked down young Brooke, who attacked him both with insults and blows. Dick, not ill-pleased, was looking on. He never called his brother a "sop" from that day, but praised him and patronized him considerably for a good while after, and began, as he said, "to have hopes of him."

But the two brothers never had much in common, and were, indeed, little thrown together. Everett was educated at home; he was not strong, and was naturally his mother's darling, and she persuaded his father and herself that a public school would be harmful to him. So he studied the classics with the clergyman of the parish, and the lighter details of learning with his sister. Between that[Pg 195] sister and himself there was a strong attachment, though she, too, was of widely differing temperament and disposition. Agnes was two years older than he,—and overflowing with saucy life, energy, and activity. She liked to run wild about the woods near their house, or to gallop over the country on her pony,—to go scrambling in the hedges for blackberries, or among the copses for nuts. The still contentment that Everett found in reading,—his thoughtful enjoyment of landscape, or sunset, or flower,—all this might have been incomprehensible to her, only that she loved her dreamy brother so well. Love lends faith, and faith makes many things clear; and Agnes learned to understand, and would wait patiently beside him on such occasions, only tapping her feet, or swinging her bonnet by its strings, as a relief for the superabundant vitality thus held in check. And she was Everett's confidante in all his schemes, wishes, and anticipations. To her he would unfold the various plans he was continually cogitating. Agnes would listen, sympathizingly sometimes, but reverently always. She never called or thought him a Visionary. If his plans for the regeneration of the world were Utopian and impracticable, it was the world that was in fault, not he. To her he was the dearest of brothers, who would one day be acknowledged the greatest of men.

And thus Everett grew to early manhood, till the time arrived when he was to leave home for Cambridge. It was his first advent in the world. Hitherto, his world had been one of books and thought. He imagined college to be a place wherein a studious life, such as he loved, would be most natural, most easy to be pursued. He should find a brother-enthusiast in every student; he should meet with sympathy and help in all his dearest aspirations, on every side. Perhaps it is needless to say that this young Visionary was disappointed, and that his collegiate career was, in fact, the beginning of that crusade, active and passive, which it appeared to be his destiny to wage against what is generally termed Real Life.

He was considerably laughed at, of course, by the majority of those about him. Some few choice spirits tried to get up a lofty contempt of his quiet ways and simple earnestness,—but they failed,—it not being in human nature, even the most scampish, to entertain scorn for that which is innately true and noble. So, finally, the worst that befell him was ridicule,—which, even when he was aware of it, hurt him little. Often, indeed, he would receive their jests and artful civilities with implicit good faith; acknowledging apparent attentions with a gentle, kindly courtesy, indescribably mystifying to those excellent young men who expended so much needless pains on the easy work of "selling Old Gray."

However, from out the very ranks of the enemy, before he left college at the end of his first term, he had one intimate. It would, perhaps, be difficult to understand how two-thirds of the friendships in the world have their birth and maintain their existence. The connection between Everett and Charles Barclay appeared to be of this enigmatical order. One would have said the two could possess no single taste or sentiment in common. Charles was a handsome, athletic fellow, warm-hearted, impassioned, generous, and thoughtless to cruelty. He had splendid gifts, but no application,—plenty of power, but no perseverance. Supposed to be one of the most brilliant men of his years, he had just been "plucked," to the dismay of his college and the immense wrath of his friends. Everybody knew that Barclay was an orphan, left with a very slender patrimony, who had gained a scholarship at the grammar-school. He was of no family,—he was poor, and had his own way to make in life. It was doubly necessary to him that he should succeed in his collegiate career. It was probably while under the temporary shadow of the disgrace and disappointment of defeat, that the young man suddenly turned to Everett Gray, fastened upon him with an affection most enthusiastic, a devotion that everybody found unaccountable. He had energy enough[Pg 196] for what he willed to do. He willed to have Everett's friendship, and he would not be denied. The incongruous pair became friends. Whereupon, the rollicking comrades, who had gladly welcomed Barclay into their set, for his fun and his wit and his convivial qualities, turned sharp round, and marvelled at young Gray, who came of a high family, for choosing as his intimate a fellow of no birth, no position. Not but that it was just like the Old Visionary to do it; he'd no idea of life,—not he; and so forth.

During the next term, the friendship grew and strengthened. Everett's influence was working for good, and Barclay was in earnest addressing himself to study. He accompanied Everett to his home at the long vacation. And it ought to have surprised nobody who was acquainted with the rationale of such affairs, that the principal event of that golden holiday-summer was the falling in love with each other of Everett's sister and Everett's friend. Agnes was the only daughter and special pride of a rich and well-born man. Barclay was of plebeian birth, with nothing in the world to depend on but his own talents, which he had abused, and the before-named patrimony, which was already nearly exhausted. It will at once be seen that there could hardly be a more felicitous conjunction of circumstances to make everybody miserable by one easy, natural step; and the step was duly taken. Of course, the young people fell in love immediately,—Everett, the Dreamer, looking on with a sort of reverent interest that was almost awe; for the very thought of love thrilled him with a sense of new and strange life,—unknown, unguessed of, as heaven itself, but as certain, and hardly less beautiful. So he watched the gradual progress of these two, who were passing through that which was so untrodden a mystery to him. If he ever thought about their love in a more definite way, it was—oh, the Visionary!—to congratulate himself and everybody concerned. He saw nothing but what was most happy and desirable in it all. He knew no one so worthy of Agnes as Barclay, whom, in spite of all his faults, he believed to be one of the noblest and greatest of men; and he felt sure that all that was wanting to complete and solidify his character was just this love for a good, high-souled woman, which would arouse him to energy and action, sustain and encourage him through all difficulties, and make life at once more precious and more sacred.

Unfortunately, other members of the family, who were rational beings, and looked on life in a practical and sensible manner, were very differently affected by the discovery of this attachment. In brief, there ensued upon the éclaircissement much storm on one side, much grief on the other, and keen pain to all,—to none more than to Everett. Our Visionary's heart swelled hotly with alternate indignation and tenderness, as he knew his friend was forbidden the house, heard his father's wrathful comments upon him, and saw his bright sister Agnes broken down by all the heaviness of a first despair. You may imagine his passionate denunciation of the spirit of worldliness, which would, for its own mean ends, separate those whom the divine sacrament of Love had joined together. No less easily may be pictured the angry, yet half-compassionate reception of his vehemence, the contemptuous wave of the hand with which the stern old banker deprecated discussion with one so ignorant of the world, so utterly incapable of forming a judgment on such a question, as his son. His mother sat by, during these scenes, trembling and grieved. It was not in her meek nature to take part against either husband or son. She strove to soothe, to soften each in turn,—with but little effect, it may be added. For all he was so gentle and so loving, Everett was not to be persuaded or influenced in this matter. He took up his friend's cause and withstood all antagonism, resisted all entreaties to turn him from his fealty thereto.

Ay, and he bore up against what was harder yet to encounter than all these.[Pg 197] Charles Barclay's was one of those natures which, being miserable, are apt to become desperate. To such men, affliction seems to be torture, but no discipline. But our humanity perceives from a level, and therefore a short-sighted point of view. We may well be thankful that the Great Ruler sees above and around and on all sides the creatures to be governed, the events to be disposed.

Charles Barclay went to London. One or two brief and most miserable letters Everett received from him,—then all a blank silence. Everett's repeated appeals were unanswered, unnoticed. It might have been as if Death had come between and separated these lovers and friends, except that by indirect means they learned that he was alive and still in London. At length came more definite tidings, and the brother and sister knew that this Charles Barclay, whom they loved so well, had plunged into a reckless life, as into a whirlpool of destruction,—that he was among those associates, of high rank socially, of nearly the lowest morally, whom he had formerly known at college. Here was triumph for the prudent father,—desolation to the loving woman,—and to Everett, what? Pain, keen pain, and bitter anxiety,—but no quailing of the heart. He had too much faith in his friend for that.

He went after him to London,—he penetrated to him, and would not be denied. He braved his assumed anger and forced violence; he had the courage of twenty lions, this Visionary, in battling with the devils that had entered into the spirit of his friend. The struggle was fierce and lengthened. Love conquered at last, as it always does, could we so believe. And during the time of utter depression into which the mercurial nature then relapsed, Everett cheered and sustained him,—till the young man's soul seemed melted within him, and the surrender to the good influence was as absolute as the resistance had been passionate.

"What have I done, what am I," he would oftentimes say, "that I should be saved and sustained and loved by you, Everett?" For, truly, he looked on him as no less than an angel, whom God had sent to succor him. It was one of those problems the mystery of which is most sacred and most sweet. In proportion as the erring man needed it, Everett's love grew and deepened and widened, and his influence strengthened with it almost unconsciously to himself. He was too humble to recognize all that he was to his friend.

Meanwhile, imagine the turmoil at home, in respect of Everett's absence, and the errand which detained him. No disguise was sought. The son wrote to his mother frankly, stating where he was, and under what circumstances. He received a missive from his father of furious remonstrance; he replied by one so firm, yet so loving withal, that old Mr. Gray could not choose but change his tone to one of angry compassion. "The boy believes he's doing right. Heaven send him a little sense!" was all he could say.

But there came a yet more overwhelming evidence of Everett's utter destitution of that commodity. A mercantile appointment was offered to Charles Barclay in one of the colonies, and Everett advanced the large sum necessary to enable his friend to accept it. To do this, he sacrificed the whole of what he possessed independently of his father, namely, a legacy left to him by his uncle, over which he had full control. It must be years before he could be repaid, of course,—it might be never! But, rash as was the act, he could not be hindered from doing it. His father raged and stormed, and again subsided into gloomy resignation. Henceforth he would wonder at nothing, for his son was mad, unfit to take part in the world. "A mere visionary, and no man," the hapless parent said, whenever he alluded to him.

When Everett returned, Charles Barclay was on his way to Canada, vigorously intent on the new life before him. Agnes drew strength and comfort from the steadfast look of her brother's eyes, as he whispered to her, "Don't fear. Trust[Pg 198] God, and be patient." The blight fell away from her, after that. If she was never a light-hearted girl again, she became something even sweeter and nobler. They never talked together about him, for the father had forbidden it; and, indeed, they needed not. Openly, and before them all, Everett would say when he heard from his friend. And so the months passed on.

Then came the era in our Visionary's life,—an era, indeed, to such as he!—the first love. First love,—and last,—to him it was nothing less than fateful. It was his nature to be steadfast and thorough. He could no more have transferred the love that rose straightly and purely from the very innermost fire of his soul than he could have changed the soul itself. Not many natures are thus created with the inevitable necessity to be constant. Few among women, fewer yet among men, love as Everett Gray loved Rosa Beauchamp.

When they became aware of this love, at his home, there ensued much marvelling. Mr. Gray cordially congratulated himself, with wonder and pleasure, to think that actually his mad boy should have chosen so reasonably. Captain Gray, home on leave, observed that Old Everett wasn't such a flat as he seemed, by Jove! to select the daughter of an ancient house, and a wealthy house, like the Beauchamps of Hollingsley. The alliance was in every way honorable and advantageous. The family was one of the most influential in the county; and a lady's being at the head of it—for Sir Ralph Beauchamp had died many years before, when his eldest son was but a child, and Lady Beauchamp had been sole regent over the property ever since—made it all the pleasanter. Everett, if he chose, might be virtual master of Beauchamp; for the young baronet was but a weak, good-natured boy, whom any one might lead. Everett had displayed first-rate generalship. "These simple-seeming fellows are often deeper than most people," argued the soldier, wise in his knowledge of the world; "you may trust them to take care of themselves, when it comes to the point. Everett's a shrewd fellow."

The father rubbed his hands, and was delighted to take this view of the case. He should make something of his son and heir in time. Often as he had regretted that Richard was not the elder, on whom it would rest to keep up the distinction and honor of the family, he began to see an admirable fitness in things as they were. Everett was, after all, better suited for the career that lay before him, in which he trusted he would not need that knowledge of mankind and judgment on worldly matters that were indispensable to those who had to carve their own way in life. "It is better as it is," thought the father, unconscious that he was echoing such an unsubstantial philosophy as a poet's.

And so the first days of Everett's love were as cloudless and divinely radiant as a summer dawn. But events were gathering, like storm-clouds, about the house of Gray. Disaster, most unforeseen, was impending over this family. For Mr. Gray, though, as we have said, a practical and matter-of-fact man, and having neither sympathy nor patience with "visionary schemes or ideas," had yet, as practical men will do, indulged in divers speculations during his life, in one of which he had at last been induced to embark to the utmost extent. Of course, it seemed safe and reasonable enough, even to the banker's shrewd eyes; but, nevertheless, it proved as delusive and destructive as any that ever led a less worldly man astray. The fair-seeming bubble burst, and the rich man of one day found himself on the morrow virtually reduced to beggary. All he had had it in his power to risk was gone, and liabilities remained to the extent of twice as much. The crash came, the bank stopped payment, and the unhappy man was stricken to the dust. He never lifted up his head again. The shrewd man of the world utterly succumbed beneath this blow of fate; it killed him. Old Mr. Gray died of that supposed disease, a[Pg 199] broken heart,—leaving a legacy of ruin, or the alternative of disgrace, to his heir.

The reins of government thus fell into Everett's hands. "The poor Grays! it's all over with them!" said the pitying world. And, indeed, the way in which the young man proceeded to arrange his father's affairs savored no less of the Visionary than had every action of his life theretofore. Captain Gray, who hastened home from his gay quarters in Dublin, on the disastrous news reaching him, found his brother already deeply engaged with lawyers, bills, and deeds.

"You know, Richard, there is but one thing to be done," he said, in his usual simple, earnest way; "we must cut off the entail, and sell the property to pay my father's debts. It is a hard thing to do,—to part with the old place; but it would be worse, bitterer pain and crueler shame, to hold it, with the money that, whatever the worldly code of morality may say, is not ours. There must be no widows and orphans reduced to poverty through us. Thank God, there will be enough produced by the sale of the estate to clear off every liability,—to the last shilling. You feel with me in this matter?" he went on, confidently appealing to his brother; yet with a certain inflection of anxiety in his voice. It would have wounded Everett cruelly, had he been misunderstood or rebuffed in this. "You have your commission, and Uncle Everett's legacy, and the reversion of my mother's fortune, which will not be touched. This act of justice, therefore, can injure no one."

"Except yourself,—yourself, old fellow," said Richard, moved, in spite of his light nature. He grasped his brother's hand. "It's a noble thing to do; but have you considered how it will affect your future? You, with neither fortune nor profession,—how do you propose to live? And your marriage,—the Beauchamps will never consent to Rosa becoming the wife of a—a"——

"Not a beggar, Richard," Everett said, smiling, "if that was the word you hesitated about; no, I shall be no beggar. I have plans for my own future;—you shall know of them. Our marriage will, of course, be delayed. I must work, to win a home and position for my wife." He paused,—looked up bravely,—"It is no harder fate than falls to most men. And for Rosa,—true love, true woman as she is, she helps me, she encourages me in all I do and purpose."

Captain Gray shrugged his shoulders. "Two mad young people!" he thought to himself. "They never think of consequences, and it's of no use warning them, I suppose."

No. It would have been useless to "warn" or advise Everett against doing this thing, which he held to be simply his duty. And it was the characteristic of our Visionary, that, when he saw a Duty so placed before him, he knew no other course than straightly to pursue it, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, unprevented by obstacles, and fearless of consequences.

So in this case. His brother advised a temporizing course,—to mortgage the estate, for instance, and pay a moiety of the debts. It was surely all that could be expected from a man who had not actually incurred them. And then he might still be the nominal owner of Hazlewood,—he might still marry Rosa.

"While, if you do as you propose," argued the Captain, "(and you know, of course, old fellow, I fully appreciate your noble and honorable feeling in the matter,) you ruin your own hopes; and I can't see that a fellow is called upon to do that, as a point of filial duty. What are you to do? that's the thing. It isn't as though you had anything to fall back upon, by Jove! It's a case of beggaring yourself"——

"Instead of beggaring other people," Everett said. "No, Richard,—I cannot see either the justice or the wisdom of what you propose. I will not cast the burden on other shoulders. As my father's representative, I must abide the penalty of his mistake,—and I only. I cannot rest while our name is as the catchword of ruin and misery to thousands[Pg 200] around us, less able to bear both, perhaps, than I, who am young and strong,—able to work both with head and hands."

"But think of Rosa!" said his brother. "How do you get over that? Isn't her happiness worth some consideration?"

"It has been my thought, night and day, ever since," Everett said, in a low voice. "It has come between me and what I felt to be the Right, more than once. You don't know what that thought has been, or you would not challenge it against me now."

"Well, well,—I only want you to look on all sides of what you are about to do, and to count the cost beforehand."

Everett smiled quietly. As if "the cost" were not already counted, felt, and suffered in that deep heart of his! But he said nothing.

"In the next place, what do you propose to do?" pursued his brother. "Will you enter a profession? Can't say you're much adapted for a lawyer; and perhaps you're too tender-hearted for a doctor, either. But I remember, as a boy, you always said you should like to be a clergyman. And, by Jove! when one comes to think of it, you've a good deal of the cut of the village priest about you. What do you say to that?"

"Nothing. I have other plans." And Everett proceeded briefly to tell him these. He had heard from Charles Barclay, now high in the confidence of one of the leading mercantile firms of Montreal; and through him, he had obtained the offer of an appointment in the same house.

Richard Gray listened to all this, with ill-concealed amusement twitching the corners of his mouth. He thought the idea of his brother's turning man-of-business one of the "richest" he had ever heard.

"With your hard head and shrewd notions, I should say you were likely to make a sensation in the mercantile world," he observed. "It's a hopeful scheme, altogether. Oh, hang it!" proceeding from sarcasm to remonstrance, "that'll never do, Everett! You'll be getting into some precious scrape or other. You're not the fellow for a merchant's office, trust me. Now something in the way of a government appointment is much more like it. A pleasant, poetical sort of sinecure,—there are lots of them to be had. You just trundle down for an hour or two every day, write letters, or poems, or whatever you like, with the official stationery, and receive your salary quarterly. You can't do any mischief in a place like that. Now that's the sort of thing for you,—if one could get hold of some of those fellows in power. Why!" brightening with the sudden dash of an idea, "there are the Beauchamps themselves! They've a legion of influential relatives. Couldn't they get you into a snug berth? Oh, the Devil!"—for Everett's look was not to be mistaken,—"if you bring your high-flown ideas of dignity and independence into this plain, practical question of subsistence, it's all up with you. Do you mean to tell me that you seriously think of this Canada scheme?"

"Have you informed Lady Beauchamp of your intention of becoming a merchant's clerk? I should like to see her face when you tell her; she's such a shrewd old soul; and when a woman does take to the sharp and worldly style of thing, it's the very deuse! Expect no indulgence in that quarter."

"I don't ask it. Rosa, of course, cannot become my wife till I am able to give her a worthy home. Her mother will not wish to cancel our engagement in the mean time."

"The deuse she won't! Trust her!" the consolatory brother rejoined. "Why, it will be her first natural step. The idea of her daughter betrothed to a merchant's clerk is preposterous on the face of it. You yourself must see that."

"Oh, I suppose you intend to make a large fortune in a twelvemonth, and then return and marry?"

"No,—but in ten years,—less than[Pg 201] that, God helping me,—if I live, I will return and marry Rosa."

"You don't say so? And poor little Rosa is to wait patiently for you all that time! By Jove! a modest expectation of yours! It's a likely notion that Miss Beauchamp will remain unmarried for ten years, because you choose to go to Canada."

"She will never marry, if she does not marry me," Everett said, with simple gravity. "It is not alone the outward sacrament of marriage that sanctifies a union. The diviner and more vital consecration that binds us together, it is too late, now, to seek to undo."

"Oh, hang it! It's of no use talking poetry to me. I don't understand that sort of thing," Captain Gray frankly said. "I'll tell you what,—it'll never do to take those transcendental ideas with you into the world. All very well to poetize and maunder about in quiet Hazlewood; but, by Jove! you'll find it won't do in practical life. Take my word for it, if you go to Canada, long before the ten years are out, Rosa Beauchamp will be wooed and won over again. 'Tisn't in nature that it should be otherwise. In books, very likely, those sort of things happen often enough,—but not in real life, my dear fellow, I assure you. When you return, it will be to find her a thriving matron, doing the honors of one of the neighboring mansions. Make up your mind to that. Foresee your future, before you decide."

Everett smiled, sadly, but trustfully. His brother's arguments neither persuaded nor disturbed him. He stood very quiet and thoughtful. Visionary-like, he saw pictures of the future, indeed,—but very different from the one just drawn. He was not afraid.

And Captain Gray left him unconvinced and unmoved. It was not probable the two brothers would see this matter in the same light. They stood on different levels. They must be content to differ.

The next conference on the subject was between Everett and Lady Beauchamp; and the mother of Rosa was, it must be admitted, a rather formidable person to encounter in such wise. She was a busy, clever, worldly woman,—kind-hearted, too, and with both a strong will and strong affections. She was one of those people in whom even an astute observer might often be deceived, by failing to give her credit for certain good qualities which are commonly coexistent with worldliness,—especially in a woman. There was a spice of something better latent amid her shrewdness and hard-headed sagacity; the echo of more generous aspirations lingered through all the noise of this earth's Babel in her heart. And so, when she heard of Everett's resolve to pay his father's debts by parting with the property, her better and higher nature warmed to the young man; and though she protested against his Quixotism, and frowned, and talked of prudence, and so forth, her busy brain was, in fact, all the while setting itself to work for his benefit. She was, in a way, fond of the young man. No woman is quite insensible to that chivalrous deference which a Visionary like Everett always manifests to womanhood, collective and individual. And though she certainly held him to be rash, foolish, unfit to deal with the world, "poetical," (a capital crime in her eyes,) and dreamy, she yet liked him, and was glad to discover a plan whereby the objections to his marriage with her daughter, under the present adverse circumstances, might be smoothed away.

She was sitting at her big desk, strewn with accounts, in the sober-looking library where she always spent her mornings, and she rose to receive her prospective son-in-law, with an aspect serious and business-like, yet not stern.

"Well, my dear Everett, what is all this that I hear about you? A very, very sad affair, of course; but you must come and tell me how you intend to act. Yes, yes,—I've heard something about it; but I don't quite understand the state of the case. I want to have a talk with you."[Pg 202]

And she leaned her comely face upon her plump, white hand, while gravely listening to Everett's brief statement of what he had already done, and what were his plans for the future.

"You will sell Hazlewood, pay your father's debts, and begin life on your own account, by going to Canada and becoming a merchant's clerk!" She then recapitulated his plans in a sharp, pitiless tone. "Very well! and we have only to bid you good-bye and wish you success. Is it so? For it appears to me that my daughter is left entirely out of your calculations, and very properly so. You cannot, as a merchant's clerk on a hundred a year, marry Rosa Beauchamp, I presume."

"No," Everett said, steadily, and holding her, as it were, with his earnest eyes, "I cannot have Rosa for my wife till I am able to give her a home worthy of her; but you will not refuse to sanction our engagement during the years in which I shall work for that home?"

"Long engagements are most unsatisfactory, silly, not to say dangerous things. They never end well. No man ought to wish so to bind a young girl, unless he has a reasonable chance of soon being in a position to marry her. Now I ask you, have you such a chance? If you go to Canada, it may be years before you return. Just look at the thing in a common-sense light, and tell me, can you expect my daughter to wait an indefinite time, while you go to seek and make your fortune?"

She looked at him with an air of bland candor, while thus appealing to his "common sense." Everett's aspect remained unchanged, however, in its calm steadfastness.

"I would not bind her," he said, "unless she herself felt it would be a comfort and a help, in some sort, during the weary years of separation, so to be bound. And that she does feel it, you know, Lady Beauchamp."

"My dear Sir, you are not talking reasonably," she rejoined, impatiently. "A young girl like Rosa, in love for the first time, of course wishes to be bound, as you say, to the object of her first love. But it would be doing her a cruel injustice to take her at her word. Surely you feel that? It is very true, she might not forget you for six months, or more, perhaps. But, in the course of time, as she enters on life and sees more of the world and of people, it is simply impossible that she should remain constant to a dreamy attachment to some one thousands of miles away. She would inevitably wish to form other ties; and then the engagement that she desires to-day would be the blight and burden of her life. No. I say it is a cruel injustice to let young people decide for themselves on such a point. Half the misery in the world springs from these mistakes. Think over the matter coolly, and you will see it as I do."

"It is you who do Rosa injustice," Everett answered, and paused. "Were it to be as you wish," he added, "and we to separate utterly, with no outwardly acknowledged tie to link us, no letters to pass between us, no word or sign from one to the other during all the coming years,—suppose it so,—you would shadow our lives with much unnecessary misery; but you are mistaken, if you think you would really part us. You do not understand."

Lady Beauchamp, by this time, had worked herself into the usual warmth with which she argued all questions, great and small, and forgot that her original intention in speaking to Everett had only been to set before him the disadvantages of his plans, in order that her own might come to the rescue with still greater brilliancy and effect.

"You must be reasonable," she repeated. "You don't suppose I have not my child's happiness at heart in all I plan and purpose? Trust me, I have had more experience of life than either of you, and it is for me to interpose between you and the dangers you would blindly[Pg 203] rush upon. Some day you will both thank me for having done so, hard and cruel as you may think me now."

"No, I do not think you either hard or cruel. You are mistaken, simply. I believe you desire our happiness. I do not reproach or blame you, Lady Beauchamp," Everett said, sadly.

"Come, come," she cried, touched by his look and manner to an immediate unfolding of her scheme, "let us look at things again. Perhaps we shall not find them so hopeless as they look. If I am prudent, Everett, I am not mercenary. I only want to see Rosa happy. I don't care whether it is on hundreds a year, or thousands. And the fact is, I have not condemned your plans without having a more satisfactory one to offer to your choice. Listen to me."

And she proceeded, with a cleared brow, and the complacency of one who feels she is performing the part of a good genius, setting everything to rights, and making everybody comfortable, to unfold the plan she had devised, by which Everett's future was to be secured, and his marriage with Rosa looked to as something better than a misty uncertainty at the end of a vista of years.

Everett must go into the Church. That was, in fact, the profession most suited to him, and which most naturally offered itself for his acceptance. His education, his tastes, his habits, all suited him for such a career. By a happy coincidence, too, it was one in which Lady Beauchamp could most importantly assist him through her connections. Her eldest son, the young baronet, had preferment in his own gift, which was to say, in hers; and not only this, but her sister's husband, the uncle of Rosa, was a bishop, and one over whom she, Lady Beauchamp, had some influence. Once in orders, Everett's prosperity was assured. The present incumbent of Hollingsley was aged; by the time Everett was eligible, he might, in all probability, be inducted into that living, and Rosa might then become his wife. Five hundred a year, beside Miss Beauchamp's dowry, with such shining prospects of preferment to look forward to, was not an unwise commencement; for Rosa was no mere fine lady, the proud mother said,—she was sensible and prudent; she would adapt herself to circumstances. And though, of course, it was not such an establishment as she well might expect for her daughter, still, since the young people loved one another, and thought they could be happy under these reduced circumstances, she would not be too exacting. And Lady Beauchamp at last paused, and looked in Everett's face for some manifestation of his joy.

Well,—of his gratitude there could be no question. The tears stood in his earnest eyes, as he took Lady Beauchamp's hand and thanked her,—thanked her again and again.

"There, there, you foolish boy! I don't want thanks," cried she, coloring with pleasure though, as she spoke. "My only wish is to see you two children happy. I am fond of you, Everett; I shall like to see you my son," she said. "I have tried to smooth the way for you, as far as I can, over the many difficulties that obstruct it; and I fancy I have succeeded. What do you say to my plan? When can you be ordained?"

Everett sighed, as he released her hand, and looked at her face, now flushed with generous, kindly warmth. Well he knew the bitter change that would come over that face,—the passion of disappointment and displeasure which would follow his answer to that question.

He could never enter the Church. Sorrowfully, but firmly, he said it,—with that calm, steady voice and look, of which all who knew him knew the significance. He could not take orders.

Lady Beauchamp, at first utterly overwhelmed and dumfounded, stood staring at him in blank silence. Then she icily uttered a few words. His reasons,—might she ask?

They were many, Everett said. Even if no other hindrance existed, in his own mind and opinions, his reverence for so sacred an office would not permit him[Pg 204] to embrace it as a mere matter of worldly advantage to himself.

"Grant me patience, young man! Do you mean to tell me you would decline this career because it promises to put an end to your difficulties? Are you quite a fool?" the lady burst out, astonishment and anger quite startling her from all control.

"Bear with what may at first seem to you only folly," Everett answered her, gently. "I don't think your calmer judgment can call it so. Would you have me take upon myself obligations that I feel to be most solemn and most vital, feeling myself unfitted, nay, unable, rightly to fulfil them? Would you have me commit the treachery to God and man of swearing that I felt called to that special service, when my heart protested against my profession?"

"Romantic nonsense! A mere matter of modest scruples! You underrate yourself, Everett. You are the very man for a clergyman, trust me."

But Everett went on to explain, that it was no question of under-estimation of himself.

"You do not know, perhaps," he proceeded, while Lady Beauchamp, sorely tried, tapped her fingers on the table, and her foot upon the floor,—"you do not know, that, when I was a boy, and until two or three years ago, my desire and ambition were to be a minister of the Church of England."

"Well, Sir,—what has made you so much better, or so much worse, since then, as to alter your opinion of the calling?"

"The reasons which made me abandon the idea three years since, and which render it impossible for me to consider it now, have nothing to do with my mental and moral worthiness or unworthiness. The fact is simply, I cannot become a minister of a Church with many of whose doctrines I cannot agree, and to which, indeed, I can no longer say I belong. In your sense of the word, I am far from being a Churchman."

"Do you mean to say you have become a Dissenter?" cried Lady Beauchamp; and, as if arrived at the climax of endurance, she stood transfixed, regarding the young man with a species of sublime horror.

"Again, not in your sense of the term," Everett said, smiling; "for I have joined no sect, attached myself to no recognized body of believers."

"You belong to nothing, then? You believe in nothing, I suppose?" she said, with the instinctive logic of her class. "Oh, Everett!" real distress for the moment overpowering her indignation, "it is those visionary notions of yours that have brought you to this. It was to be expected. You poets and dreamers go on refining your ideas, forsooth, till even the religion of the ordinary world isn't good enough for you."

Everett waited patiently till this first gust had passed by. Then, with that steady, calm lucidity which, strange to say, was characteristic of this Visionary's mind and intellect, he explained, so far as he could, his views and his reasons. It could not be expected that his listener should comprehend or enter into what he said. At first, indeed, she appeared to derive some small consolation from the fact that at least Everett had not "turned Dissenter." She hated Methodists, she declared,—intending thus to include with sweeping liberality all denominations in the ban of her disapproval. She would have deemed it an unpardonable crime, had the young man deserted the Church of his fathers in order to join the Congregation, some ranting conventicle. But if her respectability was shocked at the idea of his becoming a Methodist, her better feelings were outraged when she found, as she said, that he "belonged to nothing." She viewed with dislike and distrust all forms of religion that differed from her own; but she could not believe in the possibility of a religion that had no external form at all. She was dismayed and perplexed, poor lady! and even paused midway in her wrathful remonstrance to the misguided young man, to lament anew over his fatal errors. She could not understand, she said, truly[Pg 205] enough, what in the world he meant. His notions were perfectly extraordinary and incomprehensible. She was deeply, deeply shocked, and grieved for him, and for every one connected with him.

In fact, the very earnestness and sincerity in their own opinions of a certain calibre of minds make them incapable of understanding such a state of things. That a man should believe differently from all they have been taught to believe appears to them as simply preposterous as that he should breathe differently. And so it is that only the highest order of belief can afford to be tolerant; and, as extremes meet, it requires a very perfect Faith to be able to sympathize and bear patiently with Doubt.

There was no chance of Lady Beauchamp's "comprehending" Everett in this matter. There was something almost pathetic in her mingled anger, perplexity, and disappointment. She could only look on him as a headstrong young man, suicidally bent on his own ruin,—turning obstinately from every offered aid, and putting the last climax of wretchedness to his isolated and fallen position by "turning from the faith of his fathers," as she rather imaginatively described his secession from Orthodoxy.

And, as may be concluded, the mother of Rosa was inexorable, as regarded the engagement between the young people. It must at once be cancelled. She could not for one moment suffer the idea of her daughter's remaining betrothed to the mere adventurer she considered Everett Gray had now become. If, poor as he was, he had thought fit to embrace a profession worthy of a gentleman, the case would have been different. But if his romantic notions led him to pursue such an out-of-the-way course as he had laid out for himself, he must excuse her, if she forbade her child from sharing it. Under present circumstances, his alliance could but be declined by the Beauchamp family, she said, with her stateliest air. And the next minute, as Everett held her hand, and said good-bye, she melted again from that frigid dignity, and, looking into the frank, manly, yet gentle face of the young man, cried,—

"Are you quite decided, Everett? Will you take time to consider? Will you talk to Rosa about it, first?"

"No, dear Lady Beauchamp. I know already what she would say. I have quite decided. Thank you for all your purposed kindness. Believe that I am not ungrateful, even if I seem so."

"Oh, Everett,—Everett Gray! I am very sorry for you, and for your mother, and for all connected with you. It is a most unhappy business. It gives me great pain thus to part with you," said Lady Beauchamp, with real feeling.

Nothing else could have been expected, every one said who heard the state of the case, and knew what Lady Beauchamp had wished and Everett had declined. There were no words to describe how foolishly and weakly he had acted. "Everybody" quite gave him up now. With his romantic, transcendental notions, what would become of him, when he had his own way to make in the world?

But Everett had consolation and help through it all; for Rosa, the woman he loved, his mother, and his sister believed in him, and gloried in what other people called his want of common sense. Ay, though the horrible wrench of parting was suffered by Rosa every minute of every day, and the shadow of that dreadful, unnatural separation began to blacken her life even before it actually fell upon her,—through it all, she never wavered. When he first told her that he must go, that it was the one thing he held it wise and right to do, she shrunk back affrighted, trembling at the coming blankness of a life without him. But after a while, seeing the misery that came into his face reflected from hers, she rose bravely above the terrible woe, and then, with her arms round him and her eyes looking steadfastly into his, she said, "I love you better than the life you are to me. So I can bear that you should go."[Pg 206]

And he said, "There can be no real severance between those who love as we do. God, in His mercy and tenderness, will help us to feel that truth, every hour and every day."

For they believed thus,—these two young Visionaries,—and lived upon that belief, perhaps, when the time of parting came. And it may be that the thought of each was very constantly, very intimately present to the other, during the many years that followed. It may be that this species of mental atmosphere, so surrounding and commingling with all other things more visibly and palpably about them, did cause these dreamers to be happier in their love than many externally united ones, whose lot appears to us most fair and smooth and blissful. Time and distance, leagues of ocean and years of suspense, are not the most terrible things that can come between two people who love one another.

And so Everett Gray, his mother, and his sister, went to Canada. A year after, Agnes was married to Charles Barclay, then a thriving merchant in Montreal. When the people at home heard of this, they very wisely acknowledged "how much good there had been in that young man, in spite of his rashness and folly in early days. No fear about such a man's getting on in life, when once he gave his mind to it," and so forth.

Meanwhile, our Visionary——But what need is there to trace him, step by step, in the new life he doubtless found fully as arduous as he had anticipated? That it was a very struggling, difficult, and uncongenial life to him can be well understood. These reminiscences of Everett Gray relate to a long past time. We can look on his life now as almost complete and finished, and regard his past as those in the valley look up to the hill that has nothing between it and heaven.

Many years he remained in Canada, working hard. Tidings occasionally reached England of his progress. Rosa, perhaps, heard such at rare intervals,—though somewhat distorted, it may be, from their original tenor, before they reached her. But it appeared certain that he was "getting on." In defiance and utter contradiction of all the sapient predictions there anent, it seemed that this dreamy, poetizing Everett Gray was absolutely successful in his new vocation of man-of-business.

The news that he had become a partner in the firm he had entered as a clerk was communicated in a letter from himself to Lady Beauchamp. In it he, for the first time since his departure, spoke of Rosa; but he spoke of her as if they had parted but yesterday; and, in asking her mother's sanction to their betrothal now, urged, as from them both, their claim to have that boon granted at last.

"He has heard of you, then, through some one," the practical lady went on; "or, for anything he knows, you may be married, or going to be married, instead of waiting for him, as he seems to take it for granted you have been all this time."

"Right, you foolish girl? You haven't half the spirit I had at your age. I would have scorned that it should have been said of me that I 'waited' for any man."

"Well, if he loved you, he should have taken more care than to leave you on such a Quixotic search for independence as his."

"He thought it right to go, and he trusted me; we had faith in one another," Rosa said; and she wound her arms round her mother, and looked into her face with eyes lustrous with happy tears. For, from that lady's tone and manner, despite her harsh words, she knew that[Pg 207] the opposition was withdrawn, and that Everett's petition was granted.

They were married. It is years ago, now, since their wedding-bells rung out from the church-tower of Hazlewood, blending with the sweet spring-air and sunshine of a joyous May-day. The first few years of their married life were spent in Canada. Then they returned to England, and Everett Gray put the climax to the astonishment of all who knew him by purchasing back a great part of Hazlewood with the fruits of his commercial labors in the other country.

At Hazlewood they settled, therefore. And there, when he grew to be an old man, Everett Gray lived, at last, the peaceful, happy life most natural and most dear to him. No one would venture to call the successful merchant a Visionary; and even his brother owns that "the old fellow has got more brains, after all, by Jove! than he ever gave him credit for." Yet, as the same critic, and others of his calibre, often say of him, "He has some remarkably queer notions. There's no making him out,—he is so different from other people."

Which he is. There is no denying this fact, which is equally evident in his daily life, his education of his children, his conduct to his servants and dependants, his employment of time, his favorite aims in life, and in everything he does or says, in brief. And of course there are plenty who cavil at his peculiar views, and who cannot at all understand his unconventional ways, and his apparent want of all worldly wisdom in the general conduct of his affairs. And yet, somehow, these affairs prosper. Although he declined a valuable appointment for his son, and preferred that he should make his own way in the profession he had chosen, bound by no obligation, and unfettered by the trammels of any party,—although he did this, to the astonishment of all who did not know him, yet is it not a fact that the young barrister's career has been, and is, as brilliant and successful as though he had had a dozen influential personages to advance him? And though he permitted his daughter to marry, not the rich squire's son, nor the baronet, who each sought her hand, but a man comparatively poor and unknown, who loved her, and whom she loved, did it not turn out to be one of those marriages that we can recognize to have been "made in heaven," and even the worldly-wise see to be happy and prosperous?

But our Everett is growing old. His hair is silver-white, and his tall figure has learned to droop somewhat as he walks. Under the great beech-trees at Hazlewood you may have seen him sitting summer evenings, or sauntering in spring and autumn days, sometimes with his grandchildren playing about him, but always with one figure near him, bent and bowed yet more than his own, with a still sweet and lovely face looking placidly forth from between its bands of soft, white hair.

How they have loved, and do love one another, even to this their old age! All the best and truest light of that which we call Romance shines steadily about them yet. No sight so dear to Everett's eyes as that quiet figure,—no sound so welcome to his ears as her voice. She is all to him that she ever was,—the sweetest, dearest, best portion of that which we call his life.

Yes, I speak advisedly, and say he is, they are. It is strange that this Visionary, who was wont to be reproached with the unpracticality of all he did or purposed, the unreality of whose life was a byword, should yet impress himself and his existence so vividly on those about him that even now we cannot speak of him as one that is no more. He seems still to be of us, though we do not see him, and his place is empty in the world.

His wife went first. She died in her sleep, while he was watching her, holding her hand fast in his. He laid the last kisses on her eyes, her mouth, and those cold hands.

After that, he seemed to wait. They who saw him sitting alone under the beech-trees, day by day, found something[Pg 208] very strangely moving in the patient serenity of his look. He never seemed sad or lonely through all that time,—only patiently hopeful, placidly expectant. So the autumn twilights often came to him as he stood, his face towards the west, looking out from their old favorite spot.

One evening, when his daughter and her husband came out to him, he did not linger, as was usual with him, but turned and went forward to meet them, with a bright smile, brighter than the sunset glow behind him, on his face. He leaned rather heavily on their supporting arms, as they went in. At the door, the little ones came running about him, as they loved to do. Perhaps the very lustre of his face awed them, or the sight of their mother's tears; for a sort of hush came over them, even to the youngest, as he kissed and blessed them all.

And then, when they had left the room, he laid his head upon his daughter's breast, and uttered a few low words. He had been so happy, he said, and he thanked God for all,—even to this, the end. It had been so good to live!—it was so happy to die! Then he paused awhile, and closed his eyes.

"In the silence, I can hear your mother's voice," he murmured, and he clasped his hands. "O thou most merciful Father, who givest this last, great blessing, of the new Home, where she waits for me!—and God's love is over all His worlds!"

He looked up once again, with the same bright, assured smile. That smile never faded from the dead face; it was the last look which they who loved him bore forever in their memory.

THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA.

1675.

Raze these long blocks of brick and stone,
These huge mill-monsters overgrown;
Blot out the humbler piles as well,
Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell
The weaving genii of the bell;
Tear from the wild Cocheco's track
The dams that hold its torrents back;
And let the loud-rejoicing fall
Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall;
And let the Indian's paddle play
On the unbridged Piscataqua!
Wide over hill and valley spread
Once more the forest, dusk and dread,
With here and there a clearing cut
From the walled shadows round it shut;
Each with its farm-house builded rude,
By English yeoman squared and hewed,
And the grim, flankered blockhouse, bound
With bristling palisades around.
[Pg 209]

So, haply, shall before thine eyes
The dusty veil of centuries rise,
The old, strange scenery overlay
The tamer pictures of to-day,
While, like the actors in a play,
Pass in their ancient guise along
The figures of my border song:
What time beside Cocheco's flood
The white man and the red man stood,
With words of peace and brotherhood;
When passed the sacred calumet
From lip to lip with fire-draught wet,
And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke
Through the gray beard of Waldron broke,
And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea
For mercy, struck the haughty key
Of one who held in any fate
His native pride inviolate!

* * * *

"Let your ears be opened wide!
He who speaks has never lied.
Waldron of Piscataqua,
Hear what Squando has to say!

"Squando shuts his eyes and sees,
Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees.
In his wigwam, still as stone,
Sits a woman all alone,

"Wampum beads and birchen strands
Dropping from her careless hands,
Listening ever for the fleet
Patter of a dead child's feet!

"When the moon a year ago
Told the flowers the time to blow,
In that lonely wigwam smiled
Menewee, our little child.

"Ere that moon grew thin and old,
He was lying still and cold;
Sent before us, weak and small,
When the Master did not call!

"On his little grave I lay;
Three times went and came the day;
Thrice above me blazed the noon,
Thrice upon me wept the moon.

"In the third night-watch I heard,
Far and low, a spirit-bird;
[Pg 210]Very mournful, very wild,
Sang the totem of my child.

"'Menewee, poor Menewee,
Walks a path he cannot see:
Let the white man's wigwam light
With its blaze his steps aright.

"'All-uncalled, he dares not show
Empty hands to Manito:
Better gifts he cannot bear
Than the scalps his slayers wear.'

"All the while the totem sang,
Lightning blazed and thunder rang;
And a black cloud, reaching high,
Pulled the white moon from the sky.

"I, the medicine-man, whose ear
All that spirits hear can hear,—
I, whose eyes are wide to see
All the things that are to be,—

"Well I knew the dreadful signs
In the whispers of the pines,
In the river roaring loud,
In the mutter of the cloud.

"At the breaking of the day,
From the grave I passed away;
Flowers bloomed round me, birds sang glad,
But my heart was hot and mad.

"There is rust on Squando's knife
From the warm red springs of life;
On the funeral hemlock-trees
Many a scalp the totem sees.

"Blood for blood! But evermore
Squando's heart is sad and sore;
And his poor squaw waits at home
For the feet that never come!

"Waldron of Cocheco, hear!
Squando speaks, who laughs at fear:
Take the captives he has ta'en;
Let the land have peace again!"

As the words died on his tongue,
Wide apart his warriors swung;
Parted, at the sign he gave,
Right and left, like Egypt's wave.
[Pg 211]

And, like Israel passing free
Through the prophet-charmèd sea,
Captive mother, wife, and child
Through the dusky terror filed.

One alone, a little maid,
Middleway her steps delayed,
Glancing, with quick, troubled sight,
Round about from red to white.

Then his hand the Indian laid
On the little maiden's head,
Lightly from her forehead fair
Smoothing back her yellow hair.

"Gift or favor ask I none;
What I have is all my own:
Never yet the birds have sung,
'Squando hath a beggar's tongue.'

"Yet, for her who waits at home
For the dead who cannot come,
Let the little Gold-hair be
In the place of Menewee!

"Mishanock, my little star!
Come to Saco's pines afar!
Where the sad one waits at home,
Wequashim, my moonlight, come!"

"What!" quoth Waldron, "leave a child
Christian-born to heathens wild?
As God lives, from Satan's hand
I will pluck her as a brand!"

"Hear me, white man!" Squando cried,
"Let the little one decide.
Wequashim, my moonlight, say,
Wilt thou go with me, or stay?"

Slowly, sadly, half-afraid,
Half-regretfully, the maid
Owned the ties of blood and race,
Turned from Squando's pleading face.

Not a word the Indian spoke,
But his wampum chain he broke,
And the beaded wonder hung
On that neck so fair and young.

Silence-shod, as phantoms seem
In the marches of a dream,
[Pg 212]Single-filed, the grim array
Through the pine-trees wound away.

Doubting, trembling, sore amazed,
Through her tears the young child gazed.
"God preserve her!" Waldron said;
"Satan hath bewitched the maid!"

* * * *

Years went and came. At close of day
Singing came a child from play,
Tossing from her loose-locked head
Gold in sunshine, brown in shade.

Pride was in the mother's look,
But her head she gravely shook,
And with lips that fondly smiled
Feigned to chide her truant child.

Unabashed the maid began:
"Up and down the brook I ran,
Where, beneath the bank so steep,
Lie the spotted trout asleep.

"'Chip!' went squirrel on the wall,
After me I heard him call,
And the cat-bird on the tree
Tried his best to mimic me.

"Where the hemlocks grew so dark,
That I stopped to look and hark,
On a log, with feather-hat,
By the path, an Indian sat.

"Then I cried, and ran away;
But he called and bade me stay;
And his voice was good and mild
As my mother's to her child.

"And he took my wampum chain,
Looked and looked it o'er again;
Gave me berries, and, beside,
On my neck a plaything tied."

Straight the mother stooped to see
What the Indian's gift might be.
On the braid of wampum hung,
Lo! a cross of silver swung.

Well she knew its graven sign,
Squando's bird and totem pine;
And, a mirage of the brain,
Flowed her childhood back again.
[Pg 213]

Flashed the roof the sunshine through,
Into space the walls outgrew,
On the Indian's wigwam mat
Blossom-crowned again she sat.

Cool she felt the west wind blow,
In her ear the pines sang low,
And, like links from out a chain,
Dropped the years of care and pain.

From the outward toil and din,
From the griefs that gnaw within,
To the freedom of the woods
Called the birds and winds and floods.

Well, O painful minister,
Watch thy flock, but blame not her,
If her ear grew sharp to hear
All their voices whispering near.

Blame her not, as to her soul
All the desert's glamour stole,
That a tear for childhood's loss
Dropped upon the Indian's cross.

When, that night, the Book was read,
And she bowed her widowed head,
And a prayer for each loved name
Rose like incense from a flame,

To the listening ear of Heaven,
Lo! another name was given:
"Father! give the Indian rest!
Bless him! for his love has blest!"

THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA.

The Maroons! it was a word of peril once; and terror spread along the skirts of the blue mountains of Jamaica, when some fresh foray of those unconquered guerrillas swept down upon the outlying plantations, startled the Assembly from its order, General Williamson from his billiards, and Lord Balcarres from his diplomatic ease,—endangering, according to the official statement, "public credit," "civil rights," and "the prosperity, if not the very existence of the country," until they were "persuaded to make peace" at last. They were the Circassians of the New World; but they were black, instead of white; and as the Circassians refused to be transferred from the Sultan to the Czar, so the Maroons refused to be transferred from Spanish dominion to English, and thus their revolt began. The difference is, that, while the white mountaineers numbered four[Pg 214] hundred thousand, and only defied Nicholas, the black mountaineers numbered less than two thousand, and defied Cromwell; and while the Circassians, after thirty years of revolt, seem now at last subdued, the Maroons, on the other hand, who rebelled in 1655, were never conquered, but only made a compromise of allegiance, and exist as a separate race to-day.

When Admirals Penn and Venables landed in Jamaica, in 1655, there was not a remnant left of the sixty thousand natives whom the Spaniards had found there a century and a half before. Their pitiful tale is told only by those caves, still known among the mountains, where thousands of human skeletons strew the ground. In their place dwelt two foreign races,—an effeminate, ignorant, indolent white community of fifteen hundred, with a black slave population quite as large and infinitely more hardy and energetic. The Spaniards were readily subdued by the English,—the negroes remained unsubdued; the slaveholders were banished from the island,—the slaves only banished themselves to the mountains: thence the English could not dislodge them, nor the buccaneers, whom the English employed. And when Jamaica subsided into a British colony, and peace was made with Spain, and the children of Cromwell's Puritan soldiers were beginning to grow rich by importing slaves for Roman Catholic Spaniards, the Maroons still held their own wild empire in the mountains, and, being sturdy heathens every one, practised Obeah rites in approved pagan fashion.

The word Maroon is derived, according to one etymology, from the Spanish word Marrano, a wild-boar,—these fugitives being all boar-hunters,—according to another, from Marony, a river separating French and Dutch Guiana, where a colony of them dwelt and still dwells; and by another still, from Cimarron, a word meaning untamable, and used alike for apes and runaway slaves. But whether these rebel-marauders were regarded as monkeys or men, they made themselves equally formidable. As early as 1663, the Governor and Council of Jamaica offered to each Maroon, who should surrender, his freedom and twenty acres of land; but not one accepted the terms. During forty years, forty-four acts of Assembly were passed in respect to them, and at least a quarter of a million pounds sterling were expended in the warfare against them. In 1733, the force employed against them consisted of two regiments of regular troops and the whole militia of the island, and the Assembly said that "the Maroons had within a few years greatly increased, notwithstanding all the measures that had been concerted for their suppression," "to the great terror of his Majesty's subjects," and "to the manifest weakening and preventing the further increase of the strength and inhabitants of the island."

The special affair in progress, at the time of these statements, was called Cudjoe's War. Cudjoe was a gentleman of extreme brevity and blackness, whose full-length portrait can hardly be said to adorn Dallas's History; but he was as formidable a guerrilla as Marion. Under his leadership, the various bodies of fugitives were consolidated into one force and thoroughly organized. Cudjoe, like Schamyl, was religious as well as military head of his people; by Obeah influence he established a thorough freemasonry among both slaves and insurgents; no party could be sent forth by the government but he knew it in time to lay an ambush, or descend with fire and sword on the region left unprotected. He was thus always supplied with arms and ammunition; and as his men were perfect marksmen, never wasted a shot and never risked a battle, his forces naturally increased while those of his opponents were decimated. His men were never captured, and never took a prisoner; it was impossible to tell when they were defeated; in dealing with them, as Pelissier said of the Arabs, "peace was not purchased by victory"; and the only men who could obtain the slightest advantage against them were the imported Mosquito[Pg 215] Indians, or the "Black Shot," a company of government negroes. For nine full years this particular war continued unchecked, General Williamson ruling Jamaica by day and Cudjoe by night.

The rebels had every topographical advantage, for they held possession of the "Cockpits." Those highlands are furrowed through and through, as by an earthquake, with a series of gaps or ravines, resembling the California cañons, or those similar fissures in various parts of the Atlantic States, known to local fame either poetically as ice-glens, or symbolically as purgatories. These chasms vary from two hundred yards to a mile in length; the rocky walls are fifty or a hundred feet high, and often absolutely inaccessible, while the passes at each end admit but one man at a time. They are thickly wooded, wherever trees can grow; water flows within them; and they often communicate with one another, forming a series of traps for an invading force. Tired and thirsty with climbing, the weary soldiers toil on, in single file, without seeing or hearing an enemy; up the steep and winding path they traverse one "cockpit," then enter another. Suddenly a shot is fired from the dense and sloping forest on the right, then another and another, each dropping its man; the startled troops face hastily in that direction, when a more murderous volley is poured from the other side; the heights above flash with musketry, while the precipitous path by which they came seems to close in fire behind them. By the time the troops have formed in some attempt at military order, the woods around them are empty, and their agile and noiseless foes have settled themselves into ambush again, farther up the defile, ready for a second attack, if needed. But one is usually sufficient;—disordered, exhausted, bearing their wounded with them, the soldiers retreat in panic, if permitted to escape at all, and carry fresh dismay to the barracks, the plantations, and the Government House.

It is not strange, then, that high military authorities, at that period, should have pronounced the subjugation of the Maroons a thing more difficult than to obtain a victory over any army in Europe. Moreover, these people were fighting for their liberty, with which aim no form of warfare could be unjustifiable; and the description given by Lafayette of the American Revolution was true of this one,—"the grandest of causes, won by contests of sentinels and outposts." The utmost hope of a British officer, ordered against the Maroons, was to lay waste a provision-ground or cut them off from water. But there was little satisfaction in this; the wild pine-leaves and the grapevine-withes supplied the rebels with water, and their plantation-grounds were the wild pine-apple and the plantain groves, and the forests, where the wild-boars harbored and the ringdoves were as easily shot as if they were militia-men. Nothing but sheer weariness of fighting seems to have brought about a truce at last, and then a treaty, between those high contracting parties, Cudjoe and General Williamson.

But how to execute a treaty between these wild Children of the Mist and respectable diplomatic Englishmen? To establish any official relations without the medium of a preliminary bullet required some ingenuity of manœuvring. Cudjoe was willing, but inconveniently cautious; he would not come half-way to meet any one; nothing would content him but an interview in his own chosen cockpit. So he selected one of the most difficult passes, posting in the forests a series of outlying parties, to signal with their horns, one by one, the approach of the plenipotentiaries, and then to retire on the main body. Through this line of perilous signals, therefore, Colonel Guthrie and his handful of men bravely advanced; horn after horn they heard sounded, but there was no other human noise in the woods, and they had advanced till they saw the smoke of the Maroon huts before they caught a glimpse of a human form.

A conversation was at last opened[Pg 216] with the invisible rebels. On their promise of safety, Dr. Russell advanced alone to treat with them, then several Maroons appeared, and finally Cudjoe himself. The formidable chief was not highly military in appearance, being short, fat, humpbacked, dressed in a tattered blue coat without skirts or sleeves, and an old felt hat without a rim. But if he had blazed with regimental scarlet, he could not have been treated with more distinguished consideration; indeed, in that case, "the exchange of hats" with which Dr. Russell finally volunteered, in Maroon fashion, to ratify negotiations, would have been a less severe test of good fellowship. This fine stroke of diplomacy had its effect, therefore; the rebel captains agreed to a formal interview with Colonel Guthrie and Captain Sadler, and a treaty was at last executed with all due solemnity, under a large cotton-tree at the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. This treaty recognized the military rank of Captain Cudjoe, Captain Accompong, and the rest; gave assurance that the Maroons should be "forever hereafter in a perfect state of freedom and liberty"; ceded to them fifteen hundred acres of land; and stipulated only that they should keep the peace, should harbor no fugitive from justice or from slavery, and should allow two white commissioners to remain among them, simply to represent the British government.

During the following year a separate treaty was made with another large body of insurgents, called the Windward Maroons. This was not effected, however, until after an unsuccessful military attempt, in which the mountaineers gained a signal triumph. By artful devices,—a few fires left burning, with old women to watch them,—a few provision-grounds exposed by clearing away the bushes,—they lured the troops far up among the mountains, and then surprised them by an ambush. The militia all fled, and the regulars took refuge under a large cliff in a stream, where they remained four hours up to their waists in water, until finally they forded the river, under full fire, with terrible loss. Three months after this, however, the Maroons consented to an amicable interview, exchanging hostages first. The position of the white hostage, at least, was not the most agreeable; he complained that he was beset by the women and children, with indignant cries of "Buckra, Buckra," while the little boys pointed their fingers at him as if stabbing him, and that with evident relish. However, Captain Quao, like Captain Cudjoe, made a treaty at last, and hats were interchanged instead of hostages.

Independence being thus won and acknowledged, there was a suspension of hostilities for some years. Among the wild mountains of Jamaica, the Maroons dwelt in a savage freedom. So healthful and beautiful was the situation of their chief town, that the English government has erected barracks there of late years, as being the most salubrious situation on the island. They breathed an air ten degrees cooler than that inhaled by the white population below, and they lived on a daintier diet, so that the English epicures used to go up among them for good living. The mountaineers caught the strange land-crabs, plodding in companies of millions their sidelong path from mountain to ocean, and from ocean to mountain again. They hunted the wild-boars, and prepared the flesh by salting and smoking it in layers of aromatic leaves, the delicious "jerked hog" of Buccaneer annals. They reared cattle and poultry, cultivated corn and yams, plantains and cocoas, guavas and papaws and mameys and avocados and all luxurious West Indian fruits; the very weeds of their orchards had tropical luxuriance in their fragrance and in their names; and from the doors of their little thatched huts they looked across these gardens of delight to the magnificent lowland forests, and over those again to the faint line of far-off beach, the fainter ocean-horizon, and the illimitable sky.

They had senses like those of our Indians, tracked each other by the smell of the smoke of fires in the air, and called[Pg 217] to each other by horns, using a special note to designate each of their comrades, and distinguishing it beyond the range of ordinary hearing. They spoke English diluted with Spanish and African words, and practised Obeah rites quite undiluted with Christianity. Of course they associated largely with the slaves, without any very precise regard to treaty stipulations; sometimes brought in fugitives, and sometimes concealed them; left their towns and settled on the planters' lands, when they preferred them, but were quite orderly and luxuriously happy. During the formidable insurrection of the Koromantyn slaves, in 1760, they played a dubious part: when left to go on their own way, they did something towards suppressing it,—but when placed under the guns of the troops and ordered to fire on those of their own color, they threw themselves on the ground without discharging a shot. Nevertheless, they gradually came up into rather reputable standing; they grew more and more industrious and steady; and after they had joined very heartily in resisting D'Estaing's threatened invasion of the island in 1779, it became the fashion to speak of "our faithful and affectionate Maroons."

In 1795, their position was as follows:—Their numbers had not materially increased, for many had strayed off and settled on the outskirts of plantations,—nor materially diminished, for many runaway slaves had joined them,—while there were also separate settlements of fugitives, who had maintained their freedom for twenty years. The white superintendents had lived with the Maroons in perfect harmony, without the slightest official authority, but with a great deal of actual influence. But there was an "irrepressible conflict" behind all this apparent peace, and the slightest occasion might at any moment revive all the Old terror. That occasion was close at hand.

Captain Cudjoe and Captain Accompong and the other founders of Maroon independence had passed away, and "Old Montagu" reigned in their stead, in Trelawney Town. Old Montagu had all the pomp and circumstance of Maroon majesty; he wore a laced red coat, and a hat superb with gold-lace and plumes; none but captains could sit in his presence; he was helped first at meals, and no woman could eat beside him; he presided at councils as magnificently as at table, though with less appetite;—and possessed, meanwhile, not an atom of the love or reverence of any human being. The real power lay entirely with Major James, the white superintendent, who had been brought up among the Maroons by his father (and predecessor), and who was the idol of this wild race. In an evil hour, the government removed him, and put a certain unpopular Captain Craskell in his place; and as there happened to be, about the same time, a great excitement concerning a hopeful pair of young Maroons who had been seized and publicly whipped, on a charge of hog-stealing, their kindred refused to allow the new superintendent to remain in the town. A few attempts at negotiation only brought them to a higher pitch of wrath, which ended in their despatching the following remarkable diplomatic note to the Earl of Balcarres:—"The Maroons wishes nothing else from the country but battle, and they desires not to see Mr. Craskell up here at all. So they are waiting every moment for the above on Monday. Mr. David Schaw will see you on Sunday morning for an answer. They will wait till Monday, nine o'clock, and if they don't come up, they will come down themselves." Signed, "Colonel Montagu and all the rest."

It turned out, at last, that only two or three of the Maroons were concerned in this remarkable defiance; but meanwhile it had its effect. Several ambassadors were sent among the insurgents, and were so favorably impressed by their reception as to make up a subscription of money for their hosts, on departing; only the "gallant Colonel Gallimore," a Jamaica Camillus, gave iron instead of gold, by throwing some bullets into the contribution-box. And it was probably in accordance with his view of the subject, that,[Pg 218] when the Maroons sent ambassadors in return, they were at once imprisoned, most injudiciously and unjustly; and when Old Montagu himself and thirty-seven others, following, were seized and imprisoned also, it is not strange that the Maroons, joined by many slaves, were soon in open insurrection.

Martial law was instantly proclaimed throughout the island. The fighting-men among the insurgents were not, perhaps, more than five hundred; against whom the government could bring nearly fifteen hundred regular troops and several thousand militia-men. Lord Balcarres himself took the command, and, eager to crush the affair, promptly marched a large force up to Trelawney Town, and was glad to march back again as expeditiously as possible. In his very first attack, he was miserably defeated, and had to fly for his life, amid a perfect panic of the troops, in which some forty or fifty were killed,—including Colonel Sandford, commanding the regulars, and the bullet-loving Colonel Gallimore, in command of the militia,—while not a single Maroon was even wounded, so far as could be ascertained.

After this a good deal of bush-fighting took place. The troops gradually got possession of several Maroon villages, but not till every hut had been burnt by its owner. It was in the height of the rainy season, and, between fire and water, the discomfort of the soldiers was enormous. Meanwhile the Maroons hovered close around them in the woods, heard all their orders, picked off their sentinels, and, penetrating through their lines at night, burned houses and destroyed plantations, far below. The only man who could cope with their peculiar tactics was Major James, the superintendent just removed by government,—and his services were not employed, as he was not trusted. On one occasion, however, he led a volunteer party farther into the mountains than any of the assailants had yet penetrated, guided by tracks known to himself only, and by the smell of the smoke of Maroon fires. After a very exhausting march, including a climb of a hundred and fifty feet up the face of a precipice, he brought them just within the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. "So far," said he, pointing to the entrance, "you may pursue, but no farther; no force can enter here; no white man except myself, or some soldier of the Maroon establishment, has ever gone beyond this. With the greatest difficulty I have penetrated four miles farther, and not ten Maroons have gone so far as that. There are two other ways of getting into the defile, practicable for the Maroons, but not for any one of you. In neither of them can I ascend or descend with my arms, which must be handed to me, step by step, as practised by the Maroons themselves. One of the ways lies to the eastward, and the other to the westward; and they will take care to have both guarded, if they suspect that I am with you; which, from the route you have come to-day, they will. They now see you, and if you advance fifty paces more, they will convince you of it." At this moment a Maroon horn sounded the notes indicating his name, and, as he made no answer, a voice was heard, inquiring if he were among them. "If he is," said the voice, "let him go back, we do not wish to hurt him; but as for the rest of you, come on and try battle, if you choose." But the gentlemen did not choose.

In September the House of Assembly met. Things were looking worse and worse. For five months a handful of negroes and mulattoes had defied the whole force of the island; and they were defending their liberty by precisely the same tactics through which their ancestors had won it. Half a million pounds sterling had been spent within this time, besides the enormous loss incurred by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men from their regular employments. "Cultivation was suspended," says an eye-witness; "the courts of law had long been shut up; and the island at large seemed more like a garrison under the power of law-martial, than a country of agriculture and commerce,[Pg 219] of civil judicature, industry, and prosperity." Hundreds of the militia had died of fatigue, large numbers had been shot down, the most daring of the British officers had fallen, while the insurgents had been invariably successful, and not one of them was known to have been killed. Captain Craskell, the banished superintendent, gave it to the Assembly as his opinion, that the whole slave population of the island was in sympathy with the Maroons, and would soon be beyond control. More alarming still, there were rumors of French emissaries behind the scenes; and though these were explained away, the vague terror remained. Indeed, the Lieutenant-Governor announced in his message that he had satisfactory evidence that the French Convention was concerned in the revolt. A French prisoner named Murenson had testified that the French agent at Philadelphia (Fauchet) had secretly sent a hundred and fifty emissaries to the island, and threatened to land fifteen hundred negroes. And though Murenson took it all back at last, yet the Assembly was moved to make a new offer of three hundred dollars for killing or taking a Trelawney Maroon, and a hundred and fifty dollars for killing or taking any fugitive slave who had joined them. They also voted five hundred pounds as a gratuity to the Accompong tribe of Maroons, who had thus far kept out of the insurrection; and various prizes and gratuities were also offered by the different parishes, with the same object of self-protection.

The commander-in-chief being among the killed, Colonel Walpole was promoted in his stead, and brevetted as General, by way of incentive. He found a people in despair, a soldiery thoroughly intimidated, and a treasury, not empty, but useless. But the new general had not served against the Maroons for nothing, and was not ashamed to go to school to his opponents. First, he waited for the dry season; then he directed all his efforts towards cutting off his opponents from water; and, most effectual move of all, he attacked each successive cockpit by dragging up a howitzer, with immense labor, and throwing in shells. Shells were a visitation not dreamed of in Maroon philosophy, and their quaint compliments to their new opponent remain on record. "Damn dat little buckra!" they said; "he cunning more dan dem toder. Dis here da new fashion for fight: him fire big ball arter you, and when big ball 'top, de damn sunting (something) fire arter you again." With which Parthian arrows of rhetoric the mountaineers retreated.

But this did not last long. The Maroons soon learned to keep out of the way of the shells, and the island relapsed into terror again. It was deliberately resolved at last, by a special council convoked for the purpose, "to persuade the rebels to make peace." But as they had not as yet shown themselves very accessible to softer influences, it was thought best to combine as many arguments as possible, and a certain Colonel Quarrell had hit upon a wholly new one. His plan simply was, since men, however well disciplined, had proved powerless against Maroons, to try a Spanish fashion against them, and use dogs. The proposition was met, in some quarters, with the strongest hostility. England, it was said, had always denounced the Spaniards as brutal and dastardly for hunting down the natives of that very soil with hounds,—and should England now follow the humiliating example? On the other side, there were plenty who eagerly quoted all known instances of zoölogical warfare: all Oriental nations, for instance, used elephants in war, and no doubt would gladly use lions and tigers, also, but for their extreme carnivorousness, and their painful indifference to the distinction between friend and foe;—why not, then, use these dogs, comparatively innocent and gentle creatures? At any rate, "something must be done"; the final argument always used, when a bad or desperate project is to be made palatable. So it was voted at last to send to Havana for an invoice of Spanish dogs,[Pg 220] with their accompanying chasseurs, and the efforts at persuading the Maroons were postponed till the arrival of these additional persuasives. And when Colonel Quarrell finally set sail as commissioner to obtain the new allies, all scruples of conscience vanished in the renewal of public courage and the chorus of popular gratitude; a thing so desirable must be right; thrice were they armed who knew their Quarrell just.

But after the parting notes of gratitude died away in the distance, the commissioner began to discover that he was to have a hard time of it. He sailed for Havana in a schooner manned with Spanish renegadoes, who insisted on fighting everything that came in their way,—first a Spanish schooner, then a French one. He landed at Batabano, struck across the mountains towards Havana, stopped at Besucal to call on the wealthy Marquesa de San Felipe y San Jorge, grand patroness of dogs and chasseurs, and finally was welcomed to Havana by Don Luis de las Casas, who overlooked, for this occasion only, an injunction of his court against admitting foreigners within his government,—"the only accustomed exception being," as Don Luis courteously assured him, "in favor of foreign traders who came with new negroes." To be sure, the commissioner had not brought any of these commodities, but then he had come to obtain the means of capturing some, and so might pass for an irregular practitioner of the privileged profession.

Accordingly, Don Guillermo Dawes Quarrell (so ran his passport) found no difficulty in obtaining permission from the governor to buy as many dogs as he desired. When, however, he carelessly hinted at the necessity of taking, also, a few men who should have care of the dogs,—this being, after all, the essential part of his expedition,—Don Luis de las Casas put on instantly a double force of courtesy, and assured him of the entire impossibility of recruiting a single Spaniard for English service. Finally, however, he gave permission and passports for six chasseurs. Under cover of this, the commissioner lost no time in enlisting forty; he got them safe to Batabano, but at the last moment, learning the state of affairs, they refused to embark on such very irregular authority. When he had persuaded them, at length, the officer of the fort interposed objections. This was not to be borne, so Don Guillermo bribed him and silenced him; a dragoon was, however, sent to report to the governor; Don Guillermo sent a messenger after him and bribed him, too; and thus, at length, after myriad rebuffs, and after being obliged to spend the last evening at a puppet-show, in which the principal figure was a burlesque on his own personal peculiarities, the weary Don Guillermo, with his crew of renegadoes, and his forty chasseurs and their one hundred and four muzzled dogs, set sail for Jamaica.

These new allies were certainly something formidable, if we may trust the pictures and descriptions in Dallas's History. The chasseur was a tall, meagre, swarthy Spaniard or mulatto, lightly clad in cotton shirt and drawers, with broad straw-hat and moccasins of raw hide; his belt sustaining his long, straight, flat sword or machete, like an iron bar sharpened at one end; and he wore by the same belt three cotton leashes for his three dogs, sometimes held also by chains. The dogs were a fierce breed, crossed between hound and mastiff, never unmuzzled but for attack, and accompanied by smaller dogs called finders. It is no wonder, when these wild and powerful creatures were landed at Montego Bay, that terror ran through the town, doors were everywhere closed and windows crowded, not a negro dared to stir, and the muzzled dogs, infuriated by confinement on shipboard, filled the silent streets with their noisy barking and the rattling of their chains.

How much would have come of all this in actual conflict does not appear. The Maroons had already been persuaded to make peace upon certain conditions and guaranties,—a decision probably accelerated[Pg 221] by the terrible rumors of the bloodhounds, though they never saw them. It was the declared opinion of the Assembly, confirmed by that of General Walpole, that "nothing could be clearer than that, if they had been off the island, the rebels could not have been induced to surrender." Nevertheless a treaty was at last made, without the direct intervention of the quadrupeds. Again commissioners went up among the mountains to treat with negotiators at first invisible; again were hats and jackets interchanged, not without coy reluctance on the part of the well-dressed Englishmen; and a solemn agreement was effected. The most essential part of the bargain was a guaranty of continued independence, demanded by the suspicious Maroons. General Walpole, however, promptly pledged himself that no such unfair advantage should be taken of them as had occurred with the hostages previously surrendered, who were placed in irons, nor should any attempt be made to remove them from the island. It is painful to add, that this promise was outrageously violated by the Colonial government, to the lasting grief of General Walpole, on the ground that the Maroons had violated the treaty by a slight want of punctuality in complying with its terms, and by remissness in restoring the fugitive slaves who had taken refuge among them. As many of the tribe as surrendered, therefore, were at once placed in confinement, and ultimately shipped from Port Royal to Halifax, to the number of six hundred, on the 6th of June, 1796. For the credit of English honor, we rejoice to know that General Walpole not merely protested against this utter breach of faith, but indignantly declined the sword of honor which the Assembly voted him in its gratitude, and retired from military service forever.

The remaining career of this portion of the Maroons is easily told. They were first dreaded by the inhabitants of Halifax; then welcomed, when seen; and promptly set to work on the citadel, then in process of reconstruction, where the "Maroon Bastion" still remains,—their only visible memorial. Two commissioners had charge of them, one being the redoubtable Colonel Quarrell, and twenty-five thousand pounds were appropriated for their temporary support. Of course they did not prosper; pensioned colonists never do, for they are not compelled into habits of industry. After their delicious life in the mountains of Jamaica, it seemed rather monotonous to dwell upon that barren soil,—for theirs was such that two previous colonies had deserted it,—and in a climate where winter lasts seven months in the year. They had a schoolmaster, and he was also a preacher; but they did not seem to appreciate that luxury of civilization,—utterly refusing, on grounds of conscience, to forsake polygamy, and, on grounds of personal comfort, to listen to the doctrinal discourses of their pastor, who was an ardent Sandemanian. They smoked their pipes during service-time, and left Old Montagu, who still survived, to lend a vicarious attention to the sermon. One discourse he briefly reported as follows, very much to the point:—"Massa parson say no mus tief, no mus meddle wid somebody wife, no mus quarrel, mus set down softly." So they sat down very softly, and showed an extreme unwillingness to get up again. But, not being naturally an idle race, (at least, in Jamaica the objection lay rather on the other side,) they soon grew tired of this inaction. Distrustful of those about them, suspicious of all attempts to scatter them among the community at large, frozen by the climate, and constantly petitioning for removal to a milder one, they finally wearied out all patience. A long dispute ensued between the authorities of Nova Scotia and Jamaica, as to which was properly responsible for their support; and thus the heroic race, that for a century and a half had sustained themselves in freedom in Jamaica, were reduced to the position of troublesome and impracticable paupers, shuttlecocks between two selfish parishes. So passed their unfortunate lives, until, in 1800, their reduced population was transported[Pg 222] to Sierra Leone, at a cost of six thousand pounds, since which they disappear from history.

It was judged best not to interfere with those bodies of Maroons which had kept aloof from the late outbreak, as the Accompong settlement, and others. They continued to preserve a qualified independence, and retain it even now. In 1835, two years after the abolition of slavery in Jamaica, there were reported sixty families of Maroons as residing at Accompong Town, eighty families at Moore Town, one hundred and ten families at Charles Town, and twenty families at Scott Hall, making two hundred and seventy families in all,—each station being, as of old, under the charge of a superintendent. But there can be little doubt, that, under the influences of freedom, they are rapidly intermingling with the mass of colored population in Jamaica.

The story of the exiled Maroons attracted attention in high quarters, in its time; the wrongs done to them were denounced in Parliament by Sheridan and mourned by Wilberforce; while the employment of bloodhounds against them was vindicated by Dundas, and the whole conduct of the Colonial government defended, through thick and thin, by Bryan Edwards. This thorough partisan even had the assurance to tell Mr. Wilberforce, in Parliament, that he knew the Maroons, from personal knowledge, to be cannibals, and that, if a missionary were sent among them in Nova Scotia, they would immediately eat him; a charge so absurd that he did not venture to repeat it in his History of the West Indies, though his injustice to the Maroons is even there so glaring as to provoke the indignation of the more moderate Dallas. But, in spite of Mr. Edwards, the public indignation ran quite high, in England, against the bloodhounds and their employers, so that the home ministry found it necessary to send a severe reproof to the Colonial government. For a few years the tales of the Maroons thus emerged from mere colonial annals, and found their way into Annual Registers and Parliamentary Debates,—but they have vanished from popular memory now. Their record still retains its interest, however, as that of one of the heroic races of the world; and all the more, because it is with their kindred that this nation has to deal, in solving the tremendous problem of incorporating their liberties with our own. We must remember the story of the Maroons, because we cannot afford to ignore a single historic fact which bears upon a question so momentous.

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.

CHAPTER III.

MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND.

Whether the Student advertised for a school, or whether he fell in with the advertisement of a school-committee, is not certain. At any rate, it was not long before he found himself the head of a large district, or, as it was called by the inhabitants, "deestric" school, in the flourishing inland village of Pequawkett, or, as it is commonly spelt, Pigwacket Centre. The natives of this place would be surprised, if they should hear that any of the readers of a periodical published in Boston were unacquainted with so remarkable a locality. As, however, some copies of this periodical may be read at a distance from this distinguished metropolis, it may be well to give a few particulars respecting the place, taken from the Universal Gazetteer.

The reader may think there is nothing very remarkable implied in this description. If, however, he had read the town-history, by the Rev. Jabez Grubb, he would have learned, that, like the celebrated Little Pedlington, it was distinguished by many very remarkable advantages. Thus:—

That is the way they all talk. After all, it is probably pretty much like other inland New England towns in point of "salubrity,"—that is, gives people their choice of dysentery or fever every autumn, with a season-ticket for consumption, good all the year round. And so of the other pretences. "Pigwacket audience," forsooth! Was there ever an audience anywhere, though there wasn't a pair of eyes in it brighter than pickled oysters, that didn't think it was "distinguished for intelligence"?—"The preachéd word"! That means the Rev. Jabez Grubb's sermons. "Temperance society"! "Excellent schools"! Ah, that is just what we were talking about.

The truth was, that District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, had had a good deal of trouble of late with its schoolmasters. The committee had done their best, but there were a number of well-grown and pretty rough young fellows who had got the upperhand of the masters, and meant to keep it. Two dynasties had fallen before the uprising of this fierce democracy. This was a thing that used to be not very uncommon; but in so "intelligent" a community as that of Pigwacket Centre, in an era of public libraries and lyceum-lectures, it was portentous and alarming.

The rebellion began under the ferule of Master Weeks, a slender youth from a country college, under-fed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered, knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale-eyed, wide-pupilled, half-colored; a common type enough in in-door races, not rich enough to pick and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a good many of this sort in the first teething-time, a few in later childhood, a good many again in early adolescence; but every now and then one runs the gauntlet of her various diseases, or rather forms of one disease, and grows up, as Master Weeks had done.

It was a very foolish thing for him to try to inflict personal punishment on such a lusty young fellow as Abner Briggs, Junior, one of the "hardest customers" in the way of a rough-and-tumble fight that there were anywhere round. No doubt he had been insolent, but it would have been better to overlook it. It pains me to report the events which took place when the master made his rash attempt to maintain his authority. Abner Briggs, Junior, was a great, hulking fellow, who had been bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to attend school, in order to learn the elegant accomplishments of reading and writing, in which he was sadly deficient. He was in the habit of talking and laughing pretty loud in school-hours,[Pg 224] of throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a natural and easy process, of occasional insolence and general negligence. One of the soft, but unpleasant missiles just alluded to, flew by the master's head one morning, and flattened itself against the wall, where it adhered in the form of a convex mass in alto rilievo. The master looked round and saw the young butcher's arm in an attitude which pointed to it unequivocally as the source from which the projectile had taken its flight.

Master Weeks turned pale. He must "lick" Abner Briggs, Junior, or abdicate. So he determined to lick Abner Briggs, Junior.

"Come here, Sir!" he said; "you have insulted me and outraged the decency of the schoolroom often enough! Hold out your hand!"

The young fellow grinned and held it out. The master struck at it with his black ruler, with a will in the blow and a snapping of the eyes, as much as to say that he meant to make him smart this time. The young fellow pulled his hand back as the ruler came down, and the master hit himself a vicious blow with it on the right knee. There are things no man can stand. The master caught the refractory youth by the collar and began shaking him, or rather shaking himself against him.

"Le' go o' that are cŏat, naow," said the fellow, "or I'll make ye! 'T 'll take tew on ye t' handle me, I tell ye, 'n' then ye caänt dew it!"—and the young pupil returned the master's attention by catching hold of his collar.

When it comes to that, the best man, not exactly in the moral sense, but rather in the material, and more especially the muscular point of view, is very apt to have the best of it, irrespectively of the merits of the case. So it happened now. The unfortunate schoolmaster found himself taking the measure of the sanded floor, amid the general uproar of the school. From that moment his ferule was broken, and the school-committee very soon had a vacancy to fill.

Master Pigeon, the successor of Master Weeks, was of better stature, but loosely put together, and slender-limbed. A dreadfully nervous kind of man he was, walked on tiptoe, started at sudden noises, was distressed when he heard a whisper, had a quick, suspicious look, and was always saying, "Hush!" and putting his hands to his ears. The boys were not long in finding out this nervous weakness, of course. In less than a week a regular system of torments was inaugurated, full of the most diabolical malice and ingenuity. The exercises of the conspirators varied from day to day, but consisted mainly of foot-scraping, solos on the slate-pencil, (making it screech on the slate,) falling of heavy books, attacks of coughing, banging of desk-lids, boot-creaking, with sounds as of drawing a cork from time to time, followed by suppressed chuckles.

Master Pigeon grew worse and worse under these inflictions. The rascally boys always had an excuse for any one trick they were caught at. "Couldn' help coughin', Sir." "Slipped out o' m' han', Sir." "Didn' go to, Sir." "Didn' dew 't o' purpose, Sir." And so on,—always the best of reasons for the most outrageous of behavior. The master weighed himself at the grocer's on a platform-balance, some ten days after he began keeping the school. At the end of a week he weighed himself again. He had lost two pounds. At the end of another week he had lost five. He made a little calculation, based on these data, from which he learned that in a certain number of months, going on at this rate, he should come to weigh precisely nothing at all; and as this was a sum in subtraction he did not care to work out in practice, Master Pigeon took to himself wings and left the school-committee in possession of a letter of resignation and a vacant place to fill once more.

This was the school to which Mr. Bernard Langdon found himself appointed as master. He accepted the place conditionally, with the understanding that he should leave it at the end of a month, if he were tired of it.[Pg 225]

The advent of Master Langdon to Pigwacket Centre created a much more lively sensation than had attended that of either of his predecessors. Looks go a good ways all the world over, and though there were several good-looking people in the place, and Major Bush was what the natives of the town called a "hahnsome mahn," that is, big, fat, and red, yet the sight of a really elegant young fellow, with the natural air which grows up with carefully-bred young persons, was a novelty. The Brahmin blood which came from his grandfather as well as from his mother, a direct descendant of the old Flynt family, well known by the famous tutor, Henry Flynt, (see Cat. Harv. Anno 1693,) had been enlivened and enriched by that of the Wentworths, which had had a good deal of ripe old Madeira and other generous elements mingled with it, so that it ran to gout sometimes in the old folks, and to high spirit, warm complexion, and curly hair in some of the younger ones. The soft curling hair Mr. Bernard had inherited,—something, perhaps, of the high spirit; but that we shall have a chance of finding out by-and-by. But the long sermons and the frugal board of his Brahmin ancestry, with his own habits of study, had told upon his color, which was subdued to something more of delicacy than one would care to see in a young fellow with rough work before him. This, however, made him look more interesting, or, as the young ladies at Major Bush's said, "interéstin'."

When Mr. Bernard showed himself at meeting, on the first Sunday after his arrival, it may be supposed that a good many eyes were turned upon the young schoolmaster. There was something heroic in his coming forward so readily to take a place which called for a strong hand, and a prompt, steady will to guide it. In fact, his position was that of a military chieftain on the eve of a battle. Everybody knew everything in Pigwacket Centre; and it was an understood thing that the young rebels meant to put down the new master, if they could. It was natural that the two prettiest girls in the village, called in the local dialect, as nearly as our limited alphabet will represent it, Alminy Cutterr, and Arvilly Braowne, should feel and express an interest in the good-looking stranger, and that, when their flattering comments were repeated in the hearing of their indigenous admirers, among whom were some of the older "boys" of the school, it should not add to the amiable dispositions of the turbulent youth.

Monday came, and the new schoolmaster was in his chair at the upper end of the schoolhouse, on the raised platform. The rustics looked at his handsome face, thoughtful, peaceful, pleasant, cheerful, but sharply cut round the lips and proudly lighted about the eyes. The ringleader of the mischief-makers, the young butcher who has before figured in this narrative, looked at him stealthily, whenever he got a chance to study him unobserved; for the truth was, he felt uncomfortable, whenever he found the large, dark eyes fixed on his own little, sharp, deep-set, gray ones. But he found means to study him pretty well,—first his face, then his neck and shoulders, the set of his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the make of his legs, and the way he moved. In short, he examined him as he would have examined a steer, to see what he could do and how he would cut up. If he could only have gone to him and felt of his muscles, he would have been entirely satisfied. He was not a very wise youth, but he did know well enough, that, though big arms and legs are very good things, there is something besides size that goes to make a man; and he had heard stories of a fighting-man, called "The Spider," from his attenuated proportions, who was yet a terrible hitter in the ring, and had whipped many a big-limbed fellow in and out of the roped arena.

Nothing could be smoother than the way in which everything went on for the first day or two. The new master was so kind and courteous, he seemed to take everything in such a natural, easy way, that there was no chance to pick a quarrel[Pg 226] with him. He in the mean time thought it best to watch the boys and young men for a day or two with as little show of authority as possible. It was easy enough to see that he would have occasion for it before long.

The schoolhouse was a grim, old, red, one-story building, perched on a bare rock at the top of a hill,—partly because this was a conspicuous site for the temple of learning, and partly because land is cheap where there is no chance even for rye or buckwheat, and the very sheep find nothing to nibble. About the little porch were carved initials and dates, at various heights, from the stature of nine to that of eighteen. Inside were old unpainted desks,—unpainted, but browned with the umber of human contact,—and hacked by innumerable jackknives. It was long since the walls had been whitewashed, as might be conjectured by the various traces left upon them, wherever idle hands or sleepy heads could reach them. A curious appearance was noticeable on various higher parts of the wall, namely, a wart-like eruption, as one would be tempted to call it, being in reality a crop of the soft missiles before mentioned, which, adhering in considerable numbers, and hardening after the usual fashion of papier maché, formed at last permanent ornaments of the edifice.

The young master's quick eye soon noticed that a particular part of the wall was most favored with these ornamental appendages. Their position pointed sufficiently clearly to the part of the room they came from. In fact, there was a nest of young mutineers just there, which must be broken up by a coup d'état. This was easily effected by redistributing the seats and arranging the scholars according to classes, so that a mischievous fellow, charged full of the rebellious imponderable, should find himself between two non-conductors, in the shape of small boys of studious habits. It was managed quietly enough, in such a plausible sort of way that its motive was not thought of. But its effects were soon felt; and then began a system of correspondence by signs, and the throwing of little scrawls done up in pellets, and announced by preliminary a'h'ms! to call the attention of the distant youth addressed. Some of these were incendiary documents, devoting the schoolmaster to the lower divinities, as "a —— stuck-up dandy," as "a ---- purse-proud aristocrat," as "a —— sight too big for his, etc.," and holding him up in a variety of equally forcible phrases to the indignation of the youthful community of School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre.

Presently the draughtsman of the school set a caricature in circulation, labelled, to prevent mistakes, with the schoolmaster's name. An immense bell-crowned hat, and a long, pointed, swallow-tailed coat showed that the artist had in his mind the conventional dandy, as shown in prints of thirty or forty years ago, rather than any actual human aspect of the time. But it was passed round among the boys and made its laugh, helping of course to undermine the master's authority, as "Punch" or the "Charivari" takes the dignity out of an obnoxious minister. One morning, on going to the schoolroom, Master Langdon found an enlarged copy of this sketch, with its label, pinned on the door. He took it down, smiled a little, put it into his pocket, and entered the schoolroom. An insidious silence prevailed, which looked as if some plot were brewing. The boys were ripe for mischief, but afraid. They had really no fault to find with the master, except that he was dressed like a gentleman, which a certain class of fellows always consider a personal insult to themselves. But the older ones were evidently plotting, and more than once the warning a'h'm! was heard, and a dirty little scrap of paper rolled into a wad shot from one seat to another. One of these happened to strike the stove-funnel, and lodged on the master's desk. He was cool enough not to seem to notice it. He secured it, however, and found an opportunity to look at it, without being observed by the boys. It required no immediate notice.[Pg 227]

He who should have enjoyed the privilege of looking upon Mr. Bernard Langdon the next morning, when his toilet was about half finished, would have had a very pleasant gratuitous exhibition. First he buckled the strap of his trousers pretty tightly. Then he took up a pair of heavy dumb-bells, and swung them for a few minutes; then two great "Indian clubs," with which he enacted all sorts of impossible-looking feats. His limbs were not very large, nor his shoulders remarkably broad; but if you knew as much of the muscles as all persons who look at statues and pictures with a critical eye ought to have learned,—if you knew the trapezius, lying diamond-shaped over the back and shoulders like a monk's cowl,—or the deltoid, which caps the shoulders like an epaulette,—or the triceps, which furnishes the calf of the upper arm,—or the hard-knotted biceps,—any of the great sculptural landmarks, in fact,—you would have said there was a pretty show of them, beneath the white satiny skin of Mr. Bernard Langdon. And if you had seen him, when he had laid down the Indian clubs, catch hold of a leather strap that hung from the beam of the old-fashioned ceiling, and lift and lower himself over and over again by his left hand alone, you might have thought it a very simple and easy thing to do, until you tried to do it yourself.—Mr. Bernard looked at himself with the eye of an expert. "Pretty well!" he said;—"not so much fallen off as I expected." Then he set up his bolster in a very knowing sort of way, and delivered two or three blows straight as rulers and swift as winks. "That will do," he said. Then, as if determined to make a certainty of his condition, he took a dynamometer from one of the drawers in his old veneered bureau. First he squeezed it with his two hands. Then he placed it on the floor and lifted, steadily, strongly. The springs creaked and cracked; the index swept with a great stride far up into the high figures of the scale; it was a good lift. He was satisfied. He sat down on the edge of his bed and looked at his cleanly-shaped arms. "If I strike one of those boobies, I am afraid I shall spoil him," he said. Yet this young man, when weighed with his class at the college, could barely turn one hundred and forty-two pounds in the scale,—not a heavy weight, surely; but some of the middle weights, as the present English champion, for instance, seem to be of a far finer quality of muscle than the bulkier fellows.

The master took his breakfast with a good appetite that morning, but was perhaps rather more quiet than usual. After breakfast he went up-stairs and put on a light loose frock, instead of his usual dress-coat, which was a close-fitting and rather stylish one. On his way to school he met Alminy Cutterr, who happened to be walking in the other direction. "Good morning, Miss Cutterr," he said; for she and another young lady had been introduced to him, on a former occasion, in the usual phrase of polite society in presenting ladies to gentlemen,—"Mr. Langdon, let me make y' acquainted with Miss Cutterr;—let me make y' acquainted with Miss Braowne." So he said, "Good morning"; to which she replied, "Good mornin', Mr. Langdon. Haow's your haälth?" The answer to this question ought naturally to have been the end of the talk; but Alminy Cutterr lingered and looked as if she had something more on her mind.

A young fellow does not require a great experience to read a simple country-girl's face as if it were a signboard. Alminy was a good soul, with red cheeks and bright eyes, kind-hearted as she could be, and it was out of the question for her to hide her thoughts or feelings like a fine lady. Her bright eyes were moist and her red cheeks paler than their wont, as she said, with her lips quivering,—"Oh, Mr. Langdon, them boys'll be the death of ye, if ye don't take caär!"

"Why, what's the matter, my dear?" said Mr. Bernard.—Don't think there was anything very odd in that "my dear," at the second interview with a village belle;—some of those woman-tamers call[Pg 228] a girl "My dear," after five minutes' acquaintance, and it sounds all right as they say it. But you had better not try it at a venture.

It sounded all right to Alminy, as Mr. Bernard said it.—"I'll tell ye what's the mahtterr," she said, in a frightened voice. "Ahbner's go'n' to car' his dog, 'n' he'll set him on ye 'z sure 'z y' 'r' alive. 'T's the same cretur that haäf ēat up Eben Squires's little Jo, a year come nex' Faästday."

Now this last statement was undoubtedly overcolored; as little Jo Squires was running about the village,—with an ugly scar on his arm, it is true, where the beast had caught him with his teeth, on the occasion of the child's taking liberties with him, as he had been accustomed to do with a good-tempered Newfoundland dog, who seemed to like being pulled and hauled round by children. After this the creature was commonly muzzled, and, as he was fed on raw meat chiefly, was always ready for a fight,—which he was occasionally indulged in, when anything stout enough to match him could be found in any of the neighboring villages.

Tiger, or, more briefly, Tige, the property of Abner Briggs, Junior, belonged to a species not distinctly named in scientific books, but well known to our country-folks under the name "Yallah dog." They do not use this expression as they would say black dog or white dog, but with almost as definite a meaning as when they speak of a terrier or a spaniel. A "yallah dog" is a large canine brute, of a dingy old-flannel color, of no particular breed except his own, who hangs round a tavern or a butcher's shop, or trots alongside of a team, looking as if he were disgusted with the world, and the world with him. Our inland population, while they tolerate him, speak of him with contempt. Old ——, of Meredith Bridge, used to twit the sun for not shining on cloudy days, swearing, that, if he hung up his "yallah dog," he would make a better show of daylight. A country fellow, abusing a horse of his neighbor's, vowed, that, "if he had such a hoss, he'd swap him for a 'yallah dog,'—and then shoot the dog."

Tige was an ill-conditioned brute by nature, and art had not improved him by cropping his ears and tail and investing him with a spiked collar. He bore on his person, also, various not ornamental scars, marks of old battles; for Tige had fight in him, as was said before, and as might be guessed by a certain bluntness about the muzzle, with a projection of the lower jaw, which looked as if there might be a bull-dog stripe among the numerous bar-sinisters of his lineage.

It was hardly fair, however, to leave Alminy Cutterr waiting while this piece of natural history was telling.—As she spoke of little Jo, who had been "haäf ēat up" by Tige, she could not contain her sympathies, and began to cry.

"Why, my dear little soul," said Mr. Bernard, "what are you worried about? I used to play with a bear when I was a boy; and the bear used to hug me, and I used to kiss him,——so!"

It was too bad of Mr. Bernard, only the second time he had seen Alminy; but her kind feelings had touched him, and that seemed the most natural way of expressing his gratitude. Alminy looked round to see if anybody was near; she saw nobody, so of course it would do no good to "holler." She saw nobody; but a stout young fellow, leading a yellow dog, muzzled, saw her through a crack in a pickéd fence, not a great way off the road. Many a year he had been "hangin' 'raoun'" Alminy, and never did he see any encouraging look, or hear any "Behave, naow!" or "Come, naow, a'n't ye 'shamed?" or other forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such as village belles understand as well as ever did the nymph who fled to the willows in the eclogue we all remember.

No wonder he was furious, when he saw the schoolmaster, who had never seen the girl until within a week, touching with his lips those rosy cheeks which he had never dared to approach. But that was all; it was a sudden impulse; and the master turned away from the young girl,[Pg 229] laughing, and telling her not to fret herself about him,—he would take care of himself.

So Master Langdon walked on toward his schoolhouse, not displeased, perhaps, with his little adventure, nor immensely elated by it; for he was one of the natural class of the sex-subduers, and had had many a smile without asking, which had been denied to the feeble youth who try to win favor by pleading their passion in rhyme, and even to the more formidable approaches of young officers in volunteer companies, considered by many to be quite irresistible to the fair who have once beheld them from their windows in the epaulettes and plumes and sashes of the "Pigwacket Invincibles," or the "Hackmatack Rangers."

Master Langdon took his seat and began the exercises of his school. The smaller boys recited their lessons well enough, but some of the larger ones were negligent and surly. He noticed one or two of them looking toward the door, as if expecting somebody or something in that direction. At half past nine o'clock, Abner Briggs, Junior, who had not yet shown himself, made his appearance. He was followed by his "yallah dog," without his muzzle, who squatted down very grimly near the door, and gave a wolfish look round the room, as if he were considering which was the plumpest boy to begin with. The young butcher, meanwhile, went to his seat, looking somewhat flushed, except round the lips, which were hardly as red as common, and set pretty sharply.

"Put out that dog, Abner Briggs!"—The master spoke as the captain speaks to the helmsman, when there are rocks foaming at the lips, right under his lee.

Abner Briggs answered as the helmsman answers, when he knows he has a mutinous crew round him that mean to run the ship on the reef, and is one of the mutineers himself. "Put him aout y'rself, 'f ye a'n't afeard on him!"

The master stepped into the aisle. The great cur showed his teeth,—and the devilish instincts of his old wolf-ancestry looked out of his eyes, and flashed from his sharp tusks, and yawned in his wide mouth and deep red gullet.

The movements of animals are so much quicker than those of human beings commonly are, that they avoid blows as easily as one of us steps out of the way of an ox-cart. It must be a very stupid dog that lets himself be run over by a fast driver in his gig; he can jump out of the wheel's way after the tire has already touched him. So, while one is lifting a stick to strike or drawing back his foot to kick, the beast makes his spring, and the blow or the kick comes too late.

It was not so this time. The master was a fencer, and something of a boxer; he had played at single-stick, and was used to watching an adversary's eye and coming down on him without any of those premonitory symptoms by which unpractised persons show long beforehand what mischief they meditate.

"Out with you!" he said, fiercely,—and explained what he meant by a sudden flash of his foot that clashed the yellow dog's white teeth together like the springing of a bear-trap. The cur knew he had found his master at the first word and glance, as low animals on four legs, or a smaller number, always do; and the blow took him so by surprise, that it curled him up in an instant, and he went bundling out of the open schoolhouse-door with a most pitiable yelp, and his stump of a tail shut down as close as his owner ever shut the short, stubbed blade of his jacknife.

The stout butcher-youth looked round, but the rebels were all cowed and sat still.

"You're ready now," said Master Langdon, turning up his cuffs so that the little boys noticed the yellow gleam of a pair of gold sleeve-buttons, once worn by Colonel Percy Wentworth, famous in the Old French War.[Pg 230]

Abner Briggs, Junior, did not apparently think he was ready, at any rate; for he rose up in his place, and stood with clenched fists, defiant, as the master strode towards him. The master knew the fellow was really frightened, for all his looks, and that he must have no time to rally. So he caught him suddenly by the collar, and, with one great pull, had him out over his desk and on the open floor. He gave him a sharp fling backwards and stood looking at him.

The rough-and-tumble fighters all clinch, as everybody knows; and Abner Briggs, Junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had floored Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to try to repeat his former successful experiment on the new master. He sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to strike,—once, but very hard, and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the authority that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to the effect of the blow; but the blow was itself a neat one, and did not require to be repeated.

"Now go home," said the master, "and don't let me see you or your dog here again." And he turned his cuffs down again over the gold sleeve-buttons.

This finished the great Pigwacket Centre School rebellion. What could be done with a master who was so pleasant as long as the boys behaved decently, and such a terrible fellow when he got "riled," as they called it? In a week's time, everything was reduced to order, and the school-committee were delighted. The master, however, had received a proposition so much more agreeable and advantageous, that he informed the committee he should leave at the end of his month, having in his eye a sensible and energetic young college-graduate who would be willing and fully competent to take his place.

So, at the expiration of the appointed time, Bernard Langdon, late master of the School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, took his departure from that place for another locality, whither we shall follow him, carrying with him the regrets of the committee, of most of the scholars, and of several young ladies; also two locks of hair, sent unbeknown to payrents, one dark and one warmish auburn, inscribed with the respective initials of Alminy Cutterr and Arvilly Braowne.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MOTH FLIES INTO THE CANDLE.

The invitation which Mr. Bernard Langdon had accepted came from the Board of Trustees of the "Apollinean Female Institute," a school for the education of young ladies, situated in the flourishing town of Rockland. This was an establishment on a considerable scale, in which a hundred scholars or thereabouts were taught the ordinary English branches, several of the modern languages, something of Latin, if desired, with a little natural philosophy, metaphysics, and rhetoric, to finish off with in the last year, and music at any time when they would pay for it. At the close of their career in the Institute, they were submitted to a grand public examination, and received diplomas tied in blue ribbons, which proclaimed them with a great flourish of capitals to be graduates of the Apollinean Female Institute.

Rockland was a town of no inconsiderable pretensions. It was ennobled by lying at the foot of a mountain,—called by the working-folks of the place "the maounting,"—which sufficiently showed that it was the principal high land of the district in which it was situated. It lay to the south of this, and basked in the sunshine as Italy stretches herself before the Alps. To pass from the town of Tamarack on the north of the mountain to Rockland on the south was like crossing from Coire to Chiavenna.

There is nothing gives glory and grandeur and romance and mystery to a place like the impending presence of a high mountain. Our beautiful Northampton with its fair meadows and noble stream is lovely enough, but owes[Pg 231] its surpassing attraction to those twin summits which brood over it like living presences, looking down into its streets as if they were its tutelary divinities, dressing and undressing their green shrines, robing themselves in jubilant sunshine or in sorrowing clouds, and doing penance in the snowy shroud of winter, as if they had living hearts under their rocky ribs and changed their mood like the children of the soil at their feet, who grow up under their almost parental smiles and frowns. Happy is the child whose first dreams of heaven are blended with the evening glories of Mount Holyoke, when the sun is firing its treetops, and gilding the white walls that mark its one human dwelling! If the other and the wilder of the twain has a scowl of terror in its overhanging brows, yet is it a pleasing fear to look upon its savage solitudes through the barred nursery-windows in the heart of the sweet, companionable village.—And how the mountains love their children! The sea is of a facile virtue, and will run to kiss the first comer in any port he visits; but the chaste mountains sit apart, and show their faces only in the midst of their own families.

The Mountain that kept watch to the north of Rockland lay waste and almost inviolate through much of its domain. The catamount still glared from the branches of its old hemlocks on the lesser beasts that strayed beneath him. It was not long since a wolf had wandered down, famished in the winter's dearth, and left a few bones and some tufts of wool of what had been a lamb in the morning. Nay, there were broad-footed tracks in the snow only two years previously, which could not be mistaken;—the black bear alone could have set that plantigrade seal, and little children must come home early from school and play, for he is an indiscriminate feeder when he is hungry, and a little child would not come amiss when other game was wanting.

But these occasional visitors may have been mere wanderers, which, straying along in the woods by day, and perhaps stalking through the streets of still villages by night, had worked their way along down from the ragged mountain-spurs of higher latitudes. The one feature of The Mountain that shed the brownest horror on its woods was the existence of the terrible region known as Rattlesnake Ledge, and still tenanted by those damnable reptiles, which distil a fiercer venom under our cold northern sky than the cobra himself in the land of tropical spices and poisons.

From the earliest settlement of the place, this fact had been, next to the Indians, the reigning nightmare of the inhabitants. It was easy enough, after a time, to drive away the savages; for "a screeching Indian Divell," as our fathers called him, could not crawl into the crack of a rock to escape from his pursuers. But the venomous population of Rattlesnake Ledge had a Gibraltar for their fortress that might have defied the siege-train dragged to the walls of Sebastopol. In its deep embrasures and its impregnable casemates they reared their families, they met in love or wrath, they twined together in family knots, they hissed defiance in hostile clans, they fed, slept, hybernated, and in due time died in peace. Many a foray had the town's-people made, and many a stuffed skin was shown as a trophy,—nay, there were families where the children's first toy was made from the warning appendage that once vibrated to the wrath of one of these "cruel serpents." Sometimes one of them, coaxed out by a warm sun, would writhe himself down the hillside into the roads, up the walks that led to houses,—worse than this, into the long grass, where the bare-footed mowers would soon pass with their swinging scythes,—more rarely into houses,—and on one memorable occasion, early in the last century, into the meeting-house, where he took a position on the pulpit-stairs,—as is narrated in the "Account of Some Remarkable Providences," etc., where it is suggested that a strong tendency of the Rev. Didymus Bean, the Minister at that time, towards the Arminian[Pg 232] Heresy may have had something to do with it, and that the Serpent supposed to have been killed on the Pulpit-Stairs was a false show of the Dæmon's Contrivance, he having come in to listen to a Discourse which was a sweet Savour in his Nostrils, and, of course, not being capable of being killed Himself. Others said, however, that, though there was good Reason to think it was a Dæmon, yet he did come with Intent to bite the Heel of that faithful Servant,—etc.

One Gilson is said to have died of the bite of a rattlesnake in this town early in the present century. After this there was a great snake-hunt, in which very many of these venomous beasts were killed,—one in particular, said to have been as big round as a stout man's arm, and to have had no less than forty joints to his rattle,—indicating, according to some, that he had lived forty years, but, if we might put any faith in the Indian tradition, that he had killed forty human beings,—an idle fancy, clearly. This hunt, however, had no permanent effect in keeping down the serpent population. Viviparous creatures are a kind of specie-paying lot, but oviparous ones only give their notes, as it were, for a future brood,—an egg being, so to speak, a promise to pay a young one by-and-by, if nothing happen. Now the domestic habits of the rattlesnake are not studied very closely, for obvious reasons; but it is, no doubt, to all intents and purposes oviparous. Consequently it has large families, and is not easy to kill out.

In the year 184-, a melancholy proof was afforded to the inhabitants of Rockland, that the brood which infested The Mountain was not extirpated. A very interesting young married woman, detained at home at the time by the state of her health, was bitten in the entry of her own house by a rattlesnake which had found its way down from The Mountain. Owing to the almost instant employment of powerful remedies, the bite did not prove immediately fatal; but she died within a few months of the time when she was bitten.

All this seemed to throw a lurid kind of shadow over The Mountain. Yet, as many years passed without any accident, people grew comparatively careless, and it might rather be said to add a fearful kind of interest to the romantic hillside, that the banded reptiles, which had been the terror of the red men for nobody knows how many thousand years, were there still, with the same poison-bags and spring-teeth at the white men's service, if they meddled with them.

The other natural features of Rockland were such as many of our pleasant country-towns can boast of. A brook came tumbling down the mountain-side and skirted the most thickly settled portion of the village. In the parts of its course where it ran through the woods, the water looked almost as brown as coffee flowing from its urn,—to say like smoky quartz would perhaps give a better idea,—but in the open plain it sparkled over the pebbles white as a queen's diamonds. There were huckleberry-pastures on the lower flanks of The Mountain, with plenty of the sweet-scented bayberry mingled with the other bushes. In other fields grew great store of high-bush blackberries. Along the road-side were barberry-bushes, hung all over with bright red coral pendants in autumn and far into the winter. Then there were swamps set thick with dingy-leaved alders, where the three-leaved arum and the skunk's-cabbage grew broad and succulent,—shelving down into black boggy pools here and there, at the edge of which the green frog, stupidest of his tribe, sat waiting to be victimized by boy or snapping-turtle long after the shy and agile leopard-frog had taken the six-foot spring that plumped him into the middle of the pool. And on the neighboring banks the maiden-hair spread its flat disk of embroidered fronds on the wire-like stem that glistened brown and polished as the darkest tortoise-shell, and pale violets, cheated by the cold skies of their hues and perfume, sunned themselves like white-cheeked invalids. Over these rose the old forest-trees,—the maple, scarred with the wounds that had drained away its sweet life-blood,—the[Pg 233] beech, its smooth gray bark mottled so as to look like the body of one of those great snakes of old that used to frighten armies,—always the mark of lovers' knives, as in the days of Musidora and her swain,—the yellow birch, rough as the breast of Silenus in old marbles,—the wild cherry, its little bitter fruit lying unheeded at its foot,—and, soaring over all, the huge, coarse-barked, splintery-limbed, dark-mantled hemlock, in the depths of whose aërial solitudes the crow brooded on her nest unscared, and the gray squirrel lived unharmed till his incisors grew to look like ram's-horns.

Rockland would have been but half a town without its pond; Quinnepeg Pond was the name of it, but the young ladies of the Apollinean Institute were very anxious that it should be called Crystalline Lake. It was here that the young folks used to sail in summer and skate in winter; here, too, those queer, old, rum-scented, good-for-nothing, lazy, story-telling, half-vagabonds, that sawed a little wood or dug a few potatoes now and then under the pretence of working for their living, used to go and fish through the ice for pickerel every winter. And here those three young people were drowned, a few summers ago, by the upsetting of a sail-boat in a sudden flaw of wind. There is not one of these smiling ponds that has not devoured more youths and maidens than any of those monsters the ancients used to tell such lies about. But it was a pretty pond, and never looked more innocent—so the native "bard" of Rockland said in his elegy—than on the morning when they found Sarah Jane and Ellen Maria floating among the lily-pads.

The Apollinean Institute, or Institoot, as it was more commonly called, was, in the language of its Prospectus, a "first-class Educational Establishment." It employed a considerable corps of instructors to rough out and finish the hundred young lady scholars it sheltered beneath its roof. First, Mr. and Mrs. Peckham, the Principal and the Matron of the school. Silas Peckham was a thorough Yankee, born on a windy part of the coast, and reared chiefly on salt-fish. Everybody knows the type of Yankee produced by this climate and diet: thin, as if he had been split and dried; with an ashen kind of complexion, like the tint of the food he is made of; and about as sharp, tough, juiceless, and biting to deal with as the other is to the taste. Silas Peckham kept a young ladies' school exactly as he would have kept a hundred head of cattle,—for the simple, unadorned purpose of making just as much money in just as few years as could be safely done. Of course the great problem was, to feed these hundred hungry misses at the cheapest practicable rate, precisely as it would be with the cattle. So that Mr. Peckham gave very little personal attention to the department of instruction, but was always busy with contracts for flour and potatoes, beef and pork, and other nutritive staples, the amount of which required for such an establishment was enough to frighten a quartermaster. Mrs. Peckham was from the West, raised on Indian corn and pork, which give a fuller outline and a more humid temperament, but may perhaps be thought to render people a little coarse-fibred. Her speciality was to look after the feathering, cackling, roosting, rising, and general behavior of these hundred chicks. An honest, ignorant woman, she could not have passed an examination in the youngest class. So this distinguished institution was under the charge of a commissary and a housekeeper, and its real business was feeding girls to grain, roots, and meats, under cover, and making money by it.

Connected with this, however, was the incidental fact, which the public took for the principal one, namely, the business of instruction. Mr. Peckham knew well enough that it was just as well to have good instructors as bad ones, so far as cost was concerned, and a great deal better for the reputation of his feeding-establishment. So he tried to get the best he could without paying too much, and, having got them, to screw all the work[Pg 234] out of them that could possibly be extracted.

There was a master for the English branches, with a young lady assistant. There was another young lady who taught French, of the ahvahng and pahndahng style, which does not exactly smack of the asphalte of the Boulevard trottoirs. There was also a German teacher of music, who sometimes helped in French of the ahfaung and bauntaung style,—so that, between the two, the young ladies could hardly have been mistaken for Parisians, by a Committee of the French Academy. The German teacher also taught a Latin class after his fashion,—benna, a ben, gahboot, a head, and so forth.

The master for the English branches had lately left the school for private reasons, which need not be here mentioned,—but he had gone, at any rate, and it was his place which had been offered to Mr. Bernard Langdon. The offer came just in season,—as, for various causes, he was willing to leave the place where he had begun his new experience.

It was on a fine morning, that Mr. Bernard, ushered in by Mr. Peckham, made his appearance in the great schoolroom of the Apollinean Institute. A general rustle ran all round the seats when the handsome young man was introduced. The principal carried him to the desk of the young lady English assistant, Miss Darley by name, and introduced him to her.

There was not a great deal of study done that day. The young lady assistant had to point out to the new master the whole routine in which the classes were engaged when their late teacher left, and which had gone on as well as it could since. Then Master Langdon had a great many questions to ask, some relating to his new duties, and some, perhaps, implying a degree of curiosity not very unnatural under the circumstances. The truth is, the general effect of the schoolroom, with its scores of young girls, all their eyes naturally centring on him with fixed or furtive glances, was enough to bewilder and confuse a young man like Master Langdon, though he was not destitute of self-possession, as we have already seen.

You cannot get together a hundred girls, taking them as they come, from the comfortable and affluent classes, probably anywhere, certainly not in New England, without seeing a good deal of beauty. In fact, we very commonly mean by beauty the way young girls look when there is nothing to hinder their looking as Nature meant them to. And the great schoolroom of the Apollinean Institute did really make so pretty a show on the morning when Master Langdon entered it, that he might be pardoned for asking Miss Darley more questions about his scholars than about their lessons.

There were girls of all ages: little creatures, some pallid and delicate-looking, the offspring of invalid parents,—much given to books, not much to mischief, commonly spoken of as particularly good children, and contrasted with another sort, girls of more vigorous organization, who were disposed to laughing and play, and required a strong hand to manage them;—then young growing misses of every shade of Saxon complexion, and here and there one of more Southern hue: blondes, some of them so translucent-looking, that it seemed as if you could see the souls in their bodies, like bubbles in glass, if souls were objects of sight; brunettes, some with rose-red colors, and some with that swarthy hue which often carries with it a heavily-shaded lip, and which with pure outlines and outspoken reliefs gives us some of our handsomest women,—the women whom ornaments of pure gold adorn more than any other parures; and again, but only here and there, one with dark hair and gray or blue eyes, a Celtic type, perhaps, but found in our native stock occasionally; rarest of all, a light-haired girl with dark eyes, hazel, brown, or of the color of that mountain-brook spoken of in this chapter, where it ran through shadowy woodlands. With these were to be seen at intervals some of maturer years, full-blown flowers among[Pg 235] the opening buds, with that conscious look upon their faces which so many women wear during the period when they never meet a single man without having his monosyllable ready for him,—tied as they are, poor things! on the rock of expectation, each of them an Andromeda waiting for her Perseus.

"Who is that girl in ringlets,—the fourth in the third row on the right?" said Master Langdon.

"Emma Dean,—day-scholar,—Squire Dean's daughter,—nice girl,—second medal last year."

The master asked these two questions in a careless kind of way, and did not seem to pay any too much attention to the answers.

"And who and what is that," he said,—"sitting a little apart there,—that strange, wild-looking girl?"

This time he put the real question he wanted answered;—the other two were asked at random, as masks for the third.

The lady-teacher's face changed;—one would have said she was frightened or troubled. She looked at the girl doubtfully, as if she might hear the master's question and its answer. But the girl did not look up;—she was winding a gold chain about her wrist, and then uncoiling it, as if in a kind of reverie.

Miss Darley drew close to the master and placed her hand so as to hide her lips. "Don't look at her as if we were talking about her," she whispered softly;—"that is Elsie Venner."

MEXICO.

A certain immortal fool, who had, like most admitted fools, great wisdom, once said, that the number of truces between the Christians and Saracens in Palestine made an old man of him; for he had known three of them, so that he must be at least one hundred and fifty years old. The saying occurs in a romance, to be sure, but one which is not half so romantic as the best-accredited decade of Titus Livius, and is quite as authentic as most of what Sir Archibald Alison says, when he writes on the United States.

What Palestine and the Crusades were to the witty son of Witless, Mexico and her politics are to moderns, not even excepting the predestined devourers of the Aztec land, who ought to know something of the country they purpose bringing within the full light of civilization through the aid of slaughter and slavery. There are some myriads of "Americans of the North" yet living, and who entertain not the remotest idea of dying, who remember Mexico as a Spanish dependency quite as submissive to Viceroy Iturrigaray as Cuba is now to Captain-General Serrano; and who have seen her both an Empire and a Republic, and the theatre of more revolutions than England has known since the days of the Octarchy. The mere thought of the changes that have occurred there bewilders the mind; and the inhabitants of orderly countries, whether that order be the consequence of despotism or of constitutionalism, wonder that society should continue to exist in a country where government appears to be unknown.

Less than fifty years cover the time between the appearance of Hidalgo and that of Miramon; and between the dates of the leaderships of the two men, Mexico[Pg 236] has had an army of generals, of whom little is now known beyond their names. Hidalgo, Morelos, Mina, Bravo, Iturbide, Guerrero, Bustamente, Victoria, Pedraza, Gomez Farias, Paredes, and Herrera,—such are the names that were once familiar to our countrymen in connection with Mexican affairs. We have now a new race of Mexican chiefs,—Alvarez, Comonfort, Zuloaga, Uraga, Juarez, Vidaurri, Haro y Tamariz, Degollado, and Miramon. Some of these last-named chiefs might, perhaps, be classed with those first named, from years and services; but whatever of political importance they have belongs to the present time; and the most important man of them all, Miramon, is said to be very young, and was not born until many years after the last vestiges of the vice-regal rule had been removed. Santa Aña, but for his shifting round so often,—now an absolute ruler, and then an absolute runaway, yet ever contriving to get the better of his antagonists, whether they happen to be clever Mexicans or dull Americans,—might be called the isthmus that connects the first generation of leaders with that which now misleads his country. Santa Aña's public life synchronizes with the independence of Mexico of foreign rule, and his career can hardly be pronounced at an end. It would be of the nature of a newspaper coincidence, were he to know his "last of earth" at the very time when, by all indications, Mexico stands in greater danger of losing her national life than she has known since the day when Barradas was sent to play the part of Cortés, but proved himself not quite equal to that of Narvaez. Santa Aña owed much of his power to his victory over the Spaniards in 1830, though pestilence did half the work to his hand; and perhaps no better evidence of the hatred of the Mexicans for Spanish rule can be adduced, than the hold which he has maintained over their minds, in consequence of the part he took in overthrowing that rule, and in rendering its return impossible.

Provoked by the anarchy which has so long existed in Mexico, American writers, and writers of other countries, have sometimes contrasted the condition of that nation with the order that prevailed there during the Spanish ascendency, and it is not uncommon to hear Americans say that the worst thing that ever happened to the Mexicans was the overthrow of that ascendency. They forget that the causes of Mexican anarchy were of Spanish creation, and that it must have exhibited itself, all the same, if Mexico had not achieved her independence. The shock caused by the seizure of the Spanish throne by Napoleon I. led to that war against the Spaniards in Mexico which prematurely broke out in 1810, and which was of the nature of a Jacquerie, but which would have been completely successful, had Hidalgo been equal to his position. It had been intended that the blow should be struck against the Gachupines,—European Spaniards, or persons of pure Spanish blood,—who were partisans of Spain, whether Spain were ruled by Bourbons or Bonapartes; and it was to have been delivered by the Creoles, who remained faithful to the House of Bourbon. Circumstances caused the Indian races to commence the war, and this was fatal to the original project, as it led to the union of both Spaniards and Creoles against the followers of Hidalgo. The army with which Calleja overthrew the forces of Hidalgo was an army of Creoles. It was composed of the very men who would have been foremost in putting down the Spaniards, if the Indians had remained quiet. From that time dates the disorder of Mexico, which has ever since continued, though at intervals the country has known short periods of comparative repose.

In 1811 Morelos was the most conspicuous of the insurgent chiefs, and the next year he was successful in several engagements; and it was not until the end of 1815 that he fell into the hands of his enemies, by whom he was shot, sharing the fate of Hidalgo.[Pg 237] During the four years that he led the people, efforts were made to settle the controversy on an equitable basis that would have left the King of Spain master of Mexico; but the pride of the Spaniards would not allow them to listen to justice. They acted in Mexico as their ancestors had acted in the Netherlands. It is the chief characteristic of the Spaniard, that, in dealing with foreigners, he always assumes a Roman-like superiority, without possessing the Roman's sense and shrewdness. The treatment of the Capuans by the Romans, as told by Livy in his narrative of the Hannibalian War, might be read as a history of the manner in which the Spaniards ever treat "rebels"; and never did they behave more cruelly than they behaved toward the Mexicans in the last days of the viceroys. This fact is to be borne in mind, when we think of the sanguinary character of Mexican contests; for that character originated in the action of the Spaniards during their struggles with the Patriots. The latter were not faultless, but they often exhibited a generosity and a self-denial that promised much for the future of their country, which promise would have been realized but for the ferocious tone of the warfare of the old governing race. The Spaniards were ultimately beaten, but they left behind them an evil that marred the victory of the Patriots, and which has done much to prevent it from proving useful to those who obtained it at great cost to themselves and their country.

The defeat and death of Morelos proved fatal, for the time, to regular opposition on the part of the Patriots, and it was not until the arrival of Mina in Mexico that they renewed the war in force. This was in April, 1817; and Mina was defeated and put to death in seven months after he landed. At the beginning of 1818, the viceroy Apodaca announced to the home government, "that he would be answerable for the safety of Mexico without a single additional soldier being sent out to reinforce the armies that were in the field." Had he been a wise man, the event might have justified this boast; but as he was neither wise nor honest, and as he sought to restore the old state of things in all its impurity, his confidence was fatal to the Spanish cause. The Spanish Constitution of 1812 had been proclaimed in Mexico in the autumn of that year, and its existence kept the Liberal cause alive. So long as the Patriots had any power in the field, Apodaca, though an enemy of the Constitution, dared not seek its destruction; but after the overthrow of Mina, when he believed the Patriot party was "crushed out," he plotted against the Constitution, and resolved to restore the system that had existed down to 1812. Not a vestige of Liberalism was to remain. He selected for his chief tool the once famous Agustin de Iturbide, who turned out an edged tool, so sharp, indeed, that he not only cut the viceroy's fingers, but severed forever the connection between Mexico and Spain. Iturbide had eminently distinguished himself in the royal army, and to him it was owing that Morelos had been defeated. He was brave, ambitious, and able, and he possessed a handsome person and elegant manners. He was appointed to head an army in Western Mexico, on condition that he should "pronounce" in favor of the restoration of absolute royal authority. He accepted the command; but on the 24th of February, 1821, he astonished his employer by proclaiming, not the plan upon which they had agreed, but what is known as the Plan of Iguala, from the town where the proclamation was made. This plan provided that Mexico should be independent of Spain, and for the erection of the country into a constitutional monarchy, the throne of which should be filled by Ferdinand VII., or by one of his brothers,—or by some person chosen from among reigning families, should the Spanish Bourbons decline the invitation. The monarch was to be called Emperor, a title made fashionable and cheap by Bonaparte's example. Perfect equality was established, and all distinction of castes was abolished. Saving that[Pg 238] the Catholic religion was declared the national religion, the twenty-four articles of this Plan were of a liberal character, and leave an impression on the mind highly favorable to their author. Viewing it in the light of thirty-nine years, and seeing that republicanism has not succeeded in Mexico, even a democrat may regret that the Plan of Iguala did not become the constitution of that country.

The simple abolition of Spanish rule would have satisfied the mass of the inhabitants, who cared little for political institutions, but who knew the evils they suffered from the tyranny of a class that did not number above one-eightieth part of the population. For the time, the Plan was successful: the clergy, the military, the people, and the old partisans of independence all supported it; and O'Donoju, who had arrived as successor to Apodaca, recognized Mexican independence. The victors entered the capital September 27, 1821, and established a provisional Junta, which created a regency, with Iturbide for President. On the 24th of February, 1822, a Congress assembled, which contained three parties, the representatives of those which existed in the country:—1. The Bourbonists, who desired that the Plan of Iguala should be adhered to in all its details; 2. The Iturbideans, who wished for a monarchy, with their chief as Emperor; and, 3. The Republicans, who were hostile to monarchical institutions as well as to Spanish rule. It is possible that the first party might have triumphed, had Spain been under the dominion of sagacious men; for the clergy must have preferred it, not only because it was that polity under which they were sure to have most consideration, but because the whole power of Rome might have been brought to bear in its behalf, and that the clergy never would have seriously thought of resisting;—and the influence of the clergy was great over the mass of the people. But the Spanish government would not ratify the treaty made by O'Donoju, or abandon its claim on Mexico. This left but two factions in the Congress, and their quarrel had a sudden termination, for the moment, in the elevation of Iturbide to the imperial throne, May 18th, 1822. This was the work of a handful of the lowest rabble of the capital, the select few of a vagabondage compared with whom the inhabitants of the Five Points may be counted grave constitutional politicians. The legislature went through the farce of approval, and the people acquiesced,—as they would have done, had he been proclaimed Cham. Had Iturbide understood his trade, he might have reigned long, perhaps have established a dynasty; but he did what nearly every Mexican chief since his time has done, and what, to be just, nearly every revolutionary government has sought to do: he endeavored to establish a tyranny. He dissolved the Congress, substituting a Junta for it, composed of his own adherents. The consequence was revolt in various parts of the empire. Santa Aña, then Governor of Vera Cruz, "pronounced" against the Emperor; and Echavari, who was sent to punish him, played the same part toward Iturbide that Iturbide had played toward Apodaca: he joined the enemies of the imperial government. As Iturbide had triumphed over the viceroy by the aid of men of all parties but that of the old Spaniards, so was he overthrown by a coalition of an equally various character. He gave up the crown, after having worn it not quite ten months, and was allowed to depart, with the promise of an annual pension of twenty-five thousand dollars. Seeking to recover the crown in 1824, he was seized and shot,—a fate of which he could not complain, as he was a man of bloody hand, and, as a royalist leader, had caused prisoners to be butchered by the hundred.

The Republicans were now triumphant, but their conduct showed that they were not much better qualified to rule than were the Imperialists. They made a Federal Constitution,—that which is commonly known as the Constitution of 1824,—which was principally modelled on that[Pg 239] of the United States. This imitation would have been ridiculous, if it had not been mischievous. Between the circumstances of America and those of Mexico there was no resemblance whatever, and hence the polity which is good for the one could be good for nothing to the other. One fact alone ought to have convinced the Mexican Constitutionalists of the absurdity of their doings. Their Constitution recognized the Catholic religion as the religion of the state, and absolutely forbade the profession of any other form of faith! In what part of our Constitution they found authority for such a provision as this, no man can say. It has been mentioned, reproachfully, that our Constitution does not even recognize God; yet on a Constitution modelled upon ours Mexican statesmen could graft an Established Church, with a monopoly of religion! Just where imitation would have been more creditable to them than originality, they became original. It has been said, in their defence, that the Church was so powerful that they could not choose but admit its claim. This would be a good defence, had they sought to make a Constitution in accordance with views admitting the validity of an Ecclesiastical Establishment. The charge against them is not, that they sanctioned an Establishment, but that they sought to couple with it a liberal republican Constitution, and thus to reconcile contradictions,—an end not to be attained anywhere, and least of all in a country like Mexico.

The factions that arose in Mexico after the establishment of the Republic were the Federalists and the Centralists, being substantially the same as those which yet exist there. The Federalists have been the true liberals throughout the disturbances and troubles of a generation, and, though not faultless, are better entitled to the name of patriots than are the men by whom they have been opposed. They have been the foes of the priesthood, and have often sought to lessen its power and destroy its influence. If they could have had their will any time during the last thirty-five years, the priests would have been reduced to a condition of apostolic simplicity, and the Church's vast property been put to uses such as the Apostles would have approved. Guadalupe Victoria would probably have been as little averse to the confiscation of ecclesiastical property as was Thomas Cromwell himself. The fear that a firm and stable federal government would interfere with the privileges of the Church, and would not cease such interference until the change had been made perfect, which implied the Church's political destruction, is one of the chief reasons why no such government has ever had an existence in Mexico. The Church has favored every party and faction that has been opposed to order and liberty. Royalism, centralism, despotism, and even foreign conquest has it preferred to any state of things in which there should be found that due union of liberty and law without which no country can expect to have constitutional freedom. Had it ever been possible to establish a strong central government in Mexico, it is very probable the Church would have been one of its firmest pillars. The character and organization of that institution, its desire to maintain possession of its property, and its aversion to liberty of every kind, would all have united to make such a government worthy of the Church's support, provided it had supported the Church in its turn. The ecclesiastical influence is everywhere observable in the history of Mexico, from the beginning of the struggle for independence. The clergy were supporters of independence, not because they wished for liberty to the country, but that they might monopolize the vast power of their order. They hated the Spaniards as bitterly as they were hated by any other portion of the inhabitants of Mexico. But they never meant that republicanism should obtain the ascendency in the country. A powerful monarchy, an empire, was what they aimed at; and the government which Iturbide established was one that would have received their aid, could it have brought any power to[Pg 240] the political firm the clergy desired to see in existence. It may be assumed that the clergy would have preferred a Spanish prince as emperor, for they were too sagacious not to know that the best part of royalty is that which is under ground. Kings must be born to their trade to succeed in it; and a brand-new emperor, like Iturbide, unless highly favored by circumstances, or singularly endowed with intellectual qualifications, could be of little service to the clerical party. He fell, as we have seen; but the clerical party remained, and, having continued to flourish, is at this time, it is probable, stronger than it was in 1822. It is owing to this party that the idea has never been altogether abandoned that Mexico should resume monarchical institutions; and every attempt that has been made to favor what in this country is known as consolidation has either been initiated by it or has received its assistance. That we do not misrepresent the so-called clerical party, in attributing to it a desire to see a king in Mexico, is clear from the candid admission of one of its members, who has written at length, and with much ability, in defence of its opinions and actions. "Had it been given to that party which is taxed with being absolutist," he says, "to see such a government in Mexico as the government of Brazil, (not to take examples out of the American continent,) their earnest desires would have been accomplished. It is therefore wrongfully that that party is the object of the curses lavished upon it." This is plain speaking, indeed,—the Brazilian government being one of the strongest monarchies in the world, and deriving its strength from the fact that it seeks the good of its subjects. The blindest republican who ever dreamed it was in the power of institutions to "cause or cure" the ills of humanity must admit, that, if Bourbon rule in Mexico could have produced results similar to those which have proceeded from Braganza rule in Brazil, it would have been the best fortune that the former country could have known, had Don Carlos or Don Francisco de Paula been allowed to wear the imperial crown which was set up in 1822. With less ability than Iturbide, either of those princes would have made a better monarch than that adventurer. It is not so much intellect as influence that makes a sovereign useful, the man being of far less consequence than the institution. Even the case of Napoleon I. affords no exception to this rule; for his dynasty and his empire fell with him, because they lacked the stability which comes from prescription alone. Had Marlborough and Eugene penetrated to Paris, as did Wellington and Blücher a century later, they never would have thought of subverting the Bourbon line; but the Bonaparte line was cut off as of course when its chief was defeated. The first king may have been a fortunate soldier only, but it requires several generations of royalty to give power to a reigning house, as in old times it required several descents to give to a man the flavor of genuine nobility. If it be objected to this, that it is an admission of the power which is claimed for flunkeyism, we can only meet the charge by saying that there is much of the flunkey in man, and that whoso shall endeavor to construct a government without recognizing a truth which is universal, though not great, will find that his structure can better be compared to the Syrian flower than to the Syrian cedar. The age of Model Republics has passed away even from dreams.

We have called the party in Mexico which represents a certain fixed principle the clerical party; but we have done so more for the sake of convenience, and from deference to ordinary usage, than because the words accurately describe the Mexican reactionists. Conservative party would, perhaps, be the better name; and the word conservative would not be any more out of place in such a connection, or more perverted from its just meaning, than it is in England and the United States. The clergy form, as it were, the core of this party, and give to it a shape and consistency it could not have without their alliance. Yet, if we[Pg 241] can believe the Mexican already quoted, and who is apparently well acquainted with the subject on which he has sought to enlighten the English mind, the party that is opposed to the Liberals is quite as much in favor of freedom as are the latter, and is utterly hostile to either religious or political despotism. After objecting to the course of those Mexicans who found a political pattern in the United States, and showing the evils that have followed from their awkward imitation, he says,—"No wonder, then, that some men, actuated by the love of their country, convinced of the danger to Mexican nationality from such a state of things, seeing clearly through all these American intrigues, and determined to oppose them by all the means in their power, should have formed long ago, and as soon as the first symptoms of anarchy and the cause of them became apparent, the centre of a party, which, having necessarily to combat the so-called 'Liberal party,' or, in other words, the American army, is accused of being a retrograde, absolutist, clerical party, bent on nothing but the reëstablishment of the Inquisition and the 'worst of the worst times.' Nothing, however, is less true. That party contains in its bosom the most enlightened and the most respectable part of the community, men who have not as yet to learn the advantages and benefits of civil and religious liberty, and who would be happy indeed to see liberty established in their country; but liberty under the law, rational and wise liberty, liberty compatible with order and tranquillity, liberty, in a word, for good purposes,—not that savage, licentious, and tyrannical liberty, the object of which is anarchy, so well answering the private ends of its partisans, and, above all, the iniquitous views of an ambitious neighbor.... For the present, no doubt, their object is limited to obtain the triumph over their enemies, who are the enemies of Mexico, and to put down anarchy, as the first and most pressing want of the country, no matter under what form of government or by what means. In pursuance of such an object, the clergy naturally side with them; and hence, for those who are ignorant of the bottom of things in Mexican affairs, the denomination given to this party of 'Clerical party' supported by military despotism; whereas the 'Anarchical party' is favored with the name of 'Liberal Constitutional party.' It is, however, easy to see that those two parties would be more exactly designated, the one as the Mexican Party, the other as the American Party."

If this delineation of the Conservative party be a fair one,—as probably it is, after making allowance for partisan coloring,—it is easy to see, that, while the clergy are with it, they are not of it; and also, that it would be involved in a quarrel with the priesthood in a week after it should have succeeded in its contest with the Liberals. Where, then, would be the restoration of order, of which this Mexican writer has so much to say? The clergy of Mexico are too powerful to become the tools of any political organization. They use politicians and parties,—are not used by them. The Conservative party, therefore, is not the coming party, either for the clergy or for Mexico. It answers the clergy's purpose of making it a shield against the Liberals, whose palms itch to be at the property of the Church; but it never could become their sword; and it is a sword, and a sharp and pointed one, firmly held, that the clergy desire, and must have, if their end is to be achieved. The defensive is not and cannot be their policy. They must rule or perish. Hence the victory of the Conservatives would be the signal for the opening of a new warfare, and the clergy would seek to found their power solidly on the bodies of the men whom they had used to destroy the Liberals. They have pursued one course for thirty-eight years, and will not be moved from it by any appeals that shall be made to them in the name of order and of law, appeals to which they have been utterly insensible when made by Liberals. Indeed, they will not be able to see any difference between the two parties, but will hate the[Pg 242] Conservatives with most bitterness, because standing more immediately in their way. A combat would be inevitable, with the chance that the American Eagle would descend upon the combatants and swoop them away.

If anarchy were a reason for the formation of a league in Mexico, composed of all the conservative men of the country, it ought to have been formed long ago. Anarchy was organized there with the Republic, and was made much more permanent than Carnot made victory. Unequivocal evidences of its existence became visible before the Constitution was in a condition to be violated; and when that instrument was accepted, it appeared to have been set up in order that politicians and parties might have something definite to disregard. The first President was Guadalupe Victoria, an honest Republican, whose name has become somewhat dimmed by time. With him was associated Nicolas Bravo, as Vice-President. It was while Victoria was President that the masonic parties appeared, known as the Scotch masons and the York masons, or Escoceses and Yorkinos, which were nothing but clubs of the Centralists and the Federalists. The President was of the Yorkinos or Federalists, and the Vice-President was of the other lodge. Bravo and his party were for such changes as should substitute a constitutional monarchy, with a Spanish prince at its head, for the Constitution of 1824. Bravo "pronounced" openly against Victoria,—a proceeding of which the reader can form some idea by supposing Mr. Breckinridge heading a rabble force to expel Mr. Buchanan from Washington, for the purpose of calling in some member of the English royal family to sit on an American throne. Through the aid of Guerrero, a man of ability and integrity, and very popular, the Liberals triumphed in the field; but Congress elected his competitor, Pedraza, President, though the people were mostly for Guerrero. This was a most unfortunate circumstance, and to its occurrence much of the evil that Mexico has known for thirty years may be directly traced. Instead of submitting to the strictly legal choice of President, made by the members of Congress, the Federalists set the open example of revolting against the action of men who had performed their duties according to the requirements of the Constitution. Guerrero was violently made President. That the other party contemplated the destruction of the Constitution is very probable; but the worst that they, its enemies, could have done against it would have been a trifle in comparison with the demoralizing consequences of the violation of that instrument by its friends. Yet the Presidency of Guerrero will ever have honorable mention in history, for one most excellent reason: Slavery was abolished by him on the anniversary of Mexican independence, 1829, he deeming it proper to signalize that anniversary "by an act of national justice and beneficence." Will the time ever come when the Fourth of July shall have the same double claim to the reverence of mankind?

Guerrero perished by the sword, as he had risen by it. The Vice-President, Bustamente, revolted, and was aided by Santa Aña. His popularity was too great to allow him to be spared, and when he was captured, Guerrero was shot, in 1831. Of the many infamous acts of which Santa Aña has been guilty, the murder of Guerrero is the worst. Possibly it would have ruined him, but for his services against the Spaniards, at about the same time. He was now the chief man in Mexico, and became President in 1833. The next year he dissolved Congress, and established a military government. The Constitution of 1824 was formally abolished in 1835, and a Central Constitution was proclaimed the next year, by which the States were converted into Departments. Santa Aña kept as much aloof from these proceedings as he could, and sought to add to his popularity by attacking Texas, where he reaped a plentiful crop of cypress.

The triumph of the Centralists was the[Pg 243] turning-point in the fortunes of Mexico, as it furnished a plausible pretext for American interference in her affairs, the end of which is rapidly approaching. The Texan revolt had no other justification than that which it derived from the overthrow of the Federal Constitution; but that was ample, and, had it not been for the introduction of slavery into Texas, the judgment of the civilized world would have been entirely in favor of the Texans. In 1844, when our Presidential election was made to turn upon the question of the annexation of Texas to the United States, the grand argument of the annexationists was drawn from the circumstance that the Mexicans had abrogated the Federal Constitution, thereby releasing the Texans from their obligations to Mexico. This was an argument to which Americans, and especially democrats, those sworn foes of consolidation, were prone to lend a favorable ear; and it is certain that it had much weight in promoting the election of Mr. Polk. Had the Texan revolt been one of ambition merely, and not justifiable on political grounds apart from the Slavery question, the decision might have been different, if, indeed, the question had ever been introduced into the politics of this country. The sagacious men who managed the affairs of the Democratic party knew their business too well to attempt the extension of slave-holding territory in the gross and palpable form that is common in these shameless days. But Texas, as an injured party that had valiantly sustained its constitutional rights, was a very different thing from a province that had revolted against Mexico because forbidden by Mexican authority to allow the existence of slavery within its borders. There was much deception in the business, but there was sufficient truth and justice in the argument used to deceive honest men who do not trouble themselves to look beyond the surface of things. For more than twenty years our political controversies have all been colored by the triumph of the Mexican Centralists in 1835-6; and but for that triumph, it is altogether likely that our territory would not have been increased, and that the Slavery question, instead of absorbing the American mind, would have held but a subordinate place in our party debates. It may, perhaps, be deemed worthy of especial mention, that the action of the Centralists of Mexico, destined to affect us so sensibly, was initiated at the same time that the modern phase of the Slavery question was opened in the United States. The same year that saw the Federal Constitution of Mexico abolished saw our government laboring to destroy freedom of the press and the sanctity of the mails, by throwing its influence in favor of the bill to prevent the circulation of "incendiary publications," that is, publications drawn from the writings of Washington and Jefferson; and the same year that witnessed the final effort of Santa Aña to "subdue" Texas to Centralization beheld General Cushing declaring that slavery should not be introduced into the North, thus "agitating" the country, and winning for himself that Abolition support without which his political career must have been cut short in the morning of its existence. Such are the coincidences of history!

From the time of the victory of the Centralists until the commencement of the war with the United States, Mexico was the scene of perpetual disturbances. Mexia, a rash, but honest man, made an attempt to free his country in 1838, but failed, being defeated and executed by Santa Aña, who came from the retirement to which his Texan failure had consigned him, as champion of the government. After some years of apparent anarchy, Santa Aña became Dictator, and in 1843 a new Constitution, more centralizing in its nature than its immediate predecessor, was framed under his direction. At the beginning of 1845 he fell, and became an exile. His successor was General Herrera, who was desirous to avoid war with the United States, on which account he was violently opposed by Paredes, with success, the[Pg 244] latter usurping the Presidency. Aided by our government, Santa Aña returned to Mexico, and infused new vigor into his countrymen. On his return, he avowed himself a Federalist, and recommended a recurrence to the Constitution of 1824, which was proclaimed. Paredes had fallen before a "revolution," and was allowed to proceed to Europe. He was a monarchist, and at that time the friends of monarchy in Mexico had some hopes of success. It is believed that the governments of England and France were desirous of establishing a Mexican monarchy, and their intervention in the affairs of Mexico was feared by our government. Two things, however, prevented their action, if ever they seriously contemplated armed intervention. The first was the rapid success of our armies, coupled as it was with the exhibition of a military spirit and capacity for which European nations had not been prepared by anything in our previous history; and the second was the potato-rot, which brought Great Britain to the verge of famine, and broke up the Tory party. The ill feeling, too, that was created between the English and French governments by the Montpensier marriage, and the discontent of the French people, which led to the Revolution of 1848, were not without their effect on affairs. Had our government resolved to seize all Mexico, it could have done so without encountering European resistance in 1848, when there was not a stable Continental government of the first class west of the Niemen, and when England was too much occupied with home matters, and with the revolutions that were happening all around her, to pay any regard to the course of events in the Occident. But the Polk administration was not equal to the work that was before it; and though members of the Democratic party did think of acting, and men of property in Mexico were anxious for annexation, nothing was done. The American forces left Mexico, and the old routine of weakness and disorder was there resumed. Perhaps it would be better to say it was continued; for the war had witnessed no intermission of the senseless proceedings of the Mexican politicians. Their contests were waged as bitterly as they had been while the country enjoyed external peace.

Several persons held the Presidential chair after the resignation of Herrera. Organic changes were made. The clergy exhibited the same selfishness that had characterized their action for five-and-twenty years. An Extraordinary Constituent Congress confirmed the readoption of the Constitution of 1824, making such slight changes as were deemed necessary. Santa Aña again became President. Some of the States formed associations for defence, acting independently of the general government. After the loss of the capital, Santa Aña resigned the Presidency, and Peña y Peña succeeded him, followed by Anaya; but the first soon returned to office. Peace was made, and Santa Aña again went into exile. Herrera was chosen President, and for more than two years devoted himself to the work of reformation, with considerable success, though outbreaks and rebellions occurred in many quarters. President Arista also showed himself to be a firm and patriotic chief. But in 1852 a reaction took place, under favor of which Santa Aña returned home and became President for the fifth time, and Arista was banished. The government of Santa Aña was absolute in its character, and much resembled that which Napoleon III. has established in France,—with this difference, that it wanted that strength which is the chief merit of the French imperial system. It encountered opposition of the usual form, from time to time, until it was broken down, in August, 1855, when the President left both office and the country, and has since resided abroad. The new revolution favored Federalism. Alvarez was chosen President, but he was too liberal for the Church party, being so unreasonable as to require that the property of the Church should be taxed. Plots and conspiracies were formed against him,[Pg 245] and it being discovered that the climate of the capital did not agree with him, he resigned, and was succeeded by General Comonfort. Half a dozen leaders "pronounced" against Comonfort, one of them announcing his purpose to establish an Empire. Government made head against these attacks, and seized property belonging to the Church. Some eminent Church officers were banished, for the part they had taken in exciting insurrections. At the close of 1857, Comonfort made himself Dictator; but the very men who urged him to the step became his enemies, and he was deprived of power. Zuloaga, who was one of his advisers and subsequent enemies, succeeded him, being chosen President by a Council of Notables. Comonfort's measures for the confiscation of Church property were repealed. The Constitution of 1857 placed the Presidential power in the hands of the Chief Justice, on the resignation of the President, whence the prominence of Juarez lately, he being Chief Justice when Comonfort resigned. Assembling troops, he encountered Zuloaga, but was defeated. The Juarez "government" then left the country, but shortly after returned. Insurrections broke out in different places, and confusion reigned on all sides. General Robles deposed Zuloaga, and made an honest effort to unite the Liberals and Conservatives; but the Junta which he assembled elected Miramon President, a new man, who had distinguished himself as a leader of the Conservative forces. Miramon reinstated Zuloaga, but accepted the Presidency on the latter's abdication, and has since been the principal personage in Mexico, and, though he has experienced occasional reverses, has far more power than Juarez. At the close of the year 1859, the greater part of Mexico was either disposed to submit to the Miramon government, or cared little for either Miramon or Juarez.

It is impossible to believe that the Juarez government is possessed of much strength; and the gentleman who lately represented the United States in Mexico (Mr. Forsyth) is of opinion that it is powerless. Nevertheless, our government acknowledges that of Juarez, and has made itself a party to the contests in Mexico. In his last Annual Message, President Buchanan devotes much space to Mexican affairs, drawing a deplorable picture thereof, and recommending armed intervention by the United States in behalf of the Liberal party. "I recommend to Congress," says the President, "to pass a law authorizing the President, under such conditions as they may deem expedient, to employ a sufficient military force to enter Mexico for the purpose of obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future." This force, should Congress respond favorably to the Presidential recommendation, is to act in concert with the Juarez government, and to "restore" it to power. In return for such aid, that government is to indemnify the Americans, and to provide that no more Americans shall be wronged by Mexican governments. Does the President believe this theory of Mexican settlement will be accepted by the world? If yes, then is he a man of marvellous faith, considering the uncommonly excellent opportunities he has had to learn what the political settlements of Mexico really mean. If no, then he has a meaning beneath his words, and that meaning is the conquest of Mexico. We do not charge duplicity upon President Buchanan, but it is vexatious and humiliating to be compelled to choose between such charge and the belief of a degree of simplicity in him that would be astonishing in a yearling politician, and which is astounding in a man who has held high office for well-nigh forty years. Let us suppose that Congress should kindly listen to President Buchanan's recommendation,—that a strong fleet and a great army should be sent to the aid of the Juarez government, and should establish it in the capital of Mexico, and then leave the country and the coasts of "our sister Republic,"—what would follow? Why, exactly what we have seen follow the Peace of 1848. The Juarez[Pg 246] government could not be stronger or more honest than was that of Herrera, or more anxious to effect the rehabilitation of Mexico; yet Herrera's government had to encounter rebellions, and outrages were common during its existence, and afterward, when men of similar views held sway, or what passes for sway in "our sister Republic." So would it be again, should we effect a "restoration" of the Liberals. In a week after our last regiment should have returned home, there would be rebellions for our allies to suppress. If they should succeed in maintaining their power, it would be as the consequence of a violation of their agreement with us; and where, then, would be the "indemnity" for which we are to fight? If they should be overthrown, as probably would be their fate, where would be the "security" for which we are to pay so highly in blood and gold? It is useless to quote the treaty which the Juarez government has just made with our government, as evidence of its liberality and good faith. That treaty is of no more value than would be one between the United States and the ex-king of Delhi. Nothing is more notorious than the liberality of parties that are not in power. There is no stipulation to which they will not assent, and violate, if their interest should be supposed to lie in the direction of perjury. Have we, in the hour of our success, been invariably true to the promises made in the hour of our necessities? A study of the treaty we made with France in 1778, by the light of after years, would be useful to men who think that a treaty made is an accomplished fact. The people of the United States have to choose between the conquest of Mexico and non-intervention in Mexican affairs. There may be something to be said in favor of conquest, though the President's arguments in that direction—for such they are, disguised though they be—remind us strongly of those which were put forth in justification of the partition of Poland; but the policy of intervention does not bear criticism for one moment. Either it is conquest veiled, or it is a blunder, the chance to commit which is to be purchased at an enormous price; and blunders are to be had for nothing, and without the expenditure of life and money.

We had purposed speaking of the condition of Mexico, the character of her population, and the probable effect of her absorption by the United States; but the length to which our article has been drawn in the statement of preliminary facts—a statement made necessary by the general disregard of Mexican matters by most Americans—warns us to forbear. We may return to the subject, should the action of Congress on the President's recommendation lead to the placing of the Mexican question on the list of those questions that must be decided by the event of the national election of the current year.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

The Florence Stories. By Jacob Abbott. Florence and John. New York: Sheldon & Co. 16mo. pp. 252.

Ernest Bracebridge, or Schoolboy Days. By W. H. G. Kingston. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 344.

Three rules will suffice. It should be written clearly and simply; for young minds will spend little time in difficult investigation. It should have a good moral. It should be interesting; or it will generally be left unread, and thus any other excellence that it may possess will be useless. Some writers seem to have a fourth rule,—that it should be instructive; but, really, it is no great matter, if a child should have some books without wisdom. Moreover, this maxim is eminently perilous in its practical application, and, indeed, is seldom followed but at the expense of the other three.

To these three rules all writers of children's books profess to conform; yet a good book for children is a rarity; for, simple as the rules are, they are very little understood. While all admit that the style should be simple and familiar, some appear to think that anything simple to them will be equally simple to their child-readers, and write as nearly as possible in the style of "The Rambler." Such a book is "The Percy Family," whose author is guilty of an additional impropriety in putting his ponderous sentences into the mouth of a child not ten years old. Another and more numerous class, evidently piquing themselves not a little upon avoiding this error, fall into another by fancying it necessary to write down to their young readers. They explain everything with a tiresome minuteness of detail, although any observer of children ought to know that a child's mind does not want everything explained. They think that simplicity demands this lengthy discussion of every trivial matter. There is such a thing as a conceited simplicity, and there is a technical simplicity, that in its barrenness and insipidity is worthy only of a simpleton. In Jacob Abbott's "Juveniles" especially, by means of this minuteness, a very scanty stock of ideas is made to go a great way. Does simplicity require such trash as this?

The object of all this is, doubtless, to impart valuable information. But while such slipshod writing is singularly uninteresting, it may also be censured as inaccurate. Mr. Abbott seems to think all polygons necessarily regular. Any child can make a heptagon at once, notwithstanding Mr. Abbott calls it so difficult. A regular heptagon, indeed, is another matter. Then what does he mean by saying octagons and hexagons are very regular? A regular octagon is regular, though an octagon in general is no more regular than any other figure. But Mr. Abbott continues:—

Must we have no more pennyworths of sense to such a monstrous quantity of verbiage than Mr. Abbott gives us here? We would defy any man to parody that. He could teach the penny-a-liners a trick of the trade worth knowing. The great Chrononhotonthologos, crying,

"Go call a coach, and let a coach be called,
And let the man that calleth be the caller,
And when he calleth, let him nothing call
But 'Coach! coach! coach! Oh, for a coach, ye gods!'"

is comparatively a very Spartan for brevity. This may be a cheap way of writing books; but the books are a dear bargain to the buyer.

A book is not necessarily ill adapted to a child because its ideas and expressions are over his head. Some books, that were not written for children and would shock all Mr. Abbott's most dearly cherished ideas, are still excellent reading for them. Walter Scott's poems and novels will please an intelligent child. Cooper's Leatherstocking tales will not be read by the lad of fourteen more eagerly than by his little sister who cannot understand half of them. A child fond of reading can have no more delightful book than the "Faërie Queene," unless it be the "Arabian Nights," which was not written as a "juvenile." There are pages by the score in "Robinson Crusoe" that a child cannot understand,—and it is all the better reading for him on that account. A child has a comfort in unintelligible words that few men can understand. Homer's "Iliad" is good reading, though only a small part may be comprehended. (We are not, however, so much in favor of mystery as to recommend the original Greek.) Do our children of the year 1860 ever read a book called "The Pilgrim's Progress"? Hawthorne's "Wonder-Book" is good for children, though better for adults.

Then look at our second rule. What, after all, constitutes a "good moral"? We say that no book has a good moral which teaches a child that goodness and effeminacy, laziness and virtue, are convertible terms; no book is good that is "goody," no book is moral that moralizes. The intention may be good, but the teaching is not. Have as much as you will of poetical justice, but beware of making your books mere vehicles for conveying maxims of propriety. You cannot so deceive a child. You may talk at him, while pretending to tell him a story, but he will soon be shy of you. He has learned by bitter experience too much of the falseness of this world, and has been too often beguiled by sugared pills, to be slow in detecting the sugared pills of your literature,—especially, O Jacob Abbott! when the pills have so little, so very little, sugar.

Our notion of a good moral is a strong, breezy, open-air moral, one that teaches courage, and therefore truth. These are the most important things for a child to know, and a book which teaches these alone is moral enough. And these can be taught without offending the mind of the young reader, however keenly suspicious. But if you wish to teach gentleness and kindness as well, let them be shown in your story by some noisy boy who can climb trees, or some active, merry, hoydenish girl who can run like Atalanta; and don't imply a falsehood by attributing them always to the quiet children.

Mr. Abbott's books have spoiled our children's books, and have done their best to spoil our children, too. There is no fresh, manly life in his stories; anything of the kind is sourly frowned down. Rollo, while strolling along, picturesquely, perhaps, but stupidly, sees A Noisy Boy, and is warned by his insufferable father to keep out of that boy's way. That Noisy Boy infallibly turns out vicious. Is that sound doctrine? Will that teach a child to admire courage and activity? If he is ever able to appreciate the swing and vigor of Macaulay's Lays, it will not be because you trained him on such lyrics as

"In the winter, when 'tis mild,
We may run, but not be wild;
But in summer, we must walk,
And improve our time by talk" (!)

but because that Noisy Boy found him out,—and, quarrelling with him, (your boy, marvellous to relate! having provoked the quarrel by some mean trick, in spite of his seraphic training,) gave him a black eye,—and[Pg 249] afterwards, turning out to be the best-hearted Noisy Boy in the world, taught him to climb trees and hunt for birds' nests,—and stopped him when he was going to kill the little birds, (for your pattern boy—poor child! how could he help it?—was as cruel as he was timid,)—and imparted to him the sublime mysteries of base-ball and tag and hockey,—and taught him to swim and row, and to fight bigger boys and leave smaller boys in peace, instructions which he was at first inclined to reverse,—and put him in the way to be an honest, fearless man, when he was in danger of becoming a white-faced and white-livered spooney. And that Noisy Boy himself, perversely declining to verify Mr. Abbott's decorous prophecies, has not turned out badly, after all, but has Reverend before his name and reverence in his heart, and has his theology sound because his lungs are so. No doubt, Tom Jones often turns out badly, but Master Blifil always does,—a fact which Mr. Abbott would do well to note and perpend.

What! Because Rollo is virtuous, shall there be no more mud-cakes and ale? Marry, but there shall! Don't keep a boy out of his share of free movement and free air, and don't keep a girl out. Poor little child! she will be dieted soon enough on "stewed prunes." Children need air and water,—milk and water won't do. They are longing for our common mother earth, in the dear, familiar form of dirt; and it is no matter how much dirt they get on them, if they only have water enough to wash it off. The more they are allowed to eat literal dirt now, the less metaphorical dirt will they eat a few years hence. The great Free-Soil principle is good for their hearts, if not for their clothes; and which is it more important to have clean? Just make up your mind to let the clothes go; and if you can't afford to have your children soil and tear their laced pantalets and plumed hats and open-work stockings, why, take off all those devices of the enemy, and substitute stout cloth and stout boots. What have they to do with open-work stockings?

"Doff them for shame,
And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs."

Believe now, instead of learning by sad experience, that tin trumpets and torn clothes do not necessarily signify depravity, and that quiet children are not always free from deceit, cruelty, and meanness. The quiet, ideal child, of whom Mr. Abbott thinks so highly, generally proves, in real life, neither more nor less than a prig. He is more likely to die than live; and if he lives, you may wish he had died.

These models not only check a child's spirit, but tend to make him dishonest. Ask a child now what he thinks, and, ten to one, he mentally refers to some eminent exemplar of all the virtues for instructions, and, instead of telling you what he does think, quotes listlessly what he ought to think. So that his mincing affectation is not merely ungraceful, but is a sign of an inward taint, which may prove fatal to the whole character. It is very easy to make a child disingenuous; if he be at all timid, the work is already half done to one's hand. Of course, all children are not bad who are brought up on such books,—one circumstance or another may counteract their hurtful tendency,—but the tendency is no less evident, nor is it a vindication of any system to prove that some are good in its despite.

Again, the popularity of these tame, spiritless books is no conclusive evidence of their merit. The poor children are given nothing else to read, and, of course, they take what they can get as better than nothing. An eager child, fond of reading, will read the shipping intelligence in a newspaper, if there be nothing else at hand. Does that show that he is properly supplied with reading matter? They will read these books; but they would read better books with more pleasure and more profit.

For our third rule, let our children's stories have no lack of incident and adventure. That will redeem any number of faults. Thus, Marryatt's stories, and Mayne Reid's, although in many respects open to censure and ridicule, are very popular, and deserve to be. The books first put into a child's hands are right enough, for they are vivid. Whether the letter A be associated in our infant minds with the impressive moral of "In Adam's fall We sinned all," or gave us a foretaste of the Apollo in "A was an Archer, and shot at a Frog,"—in either case, the story is a plainly told incident, (carefully observing the unities,) which the child's fancy can embellish for itself, and the whole has an[Pg 250] additional charm from the gorgeous coloring of an accompanying picture. The vividness is good, and is the only thing that is good. Why, then, should this one merit be omitted, as our children grow a little older? A lifeless moral will not school a child into propriety. If a twig be unreasonably bent, it is very likely to struggle in quite a different direction, especially if in so doing it struggle towards the light. There is much truth in a blundering version of the old Scriptural maxim, "Chain up a child, and away he will go." If you want to do any good by your books, make them interesting.

And with reference to all three rules, remember that they are to be interpreted by the light of common sense, and you will hardly need the following remarks:—

It is alike uncomfortable and useless to a child to be perpetually waylaid by a moral. A child reading "The Pilgrim's Progress" will omit the occasional explanations of the allegory or resolutely ignore their meaning. If you want to keep a poor child on such dry food, don't mistake your own reason for doing so. It may be eminently proper, but it is very uncomfortable to him. If you want children to enjoy themselves, let them run about freely, and don't put them into a ring, in picturesque attitudes, and then throw bouquets of flowers at them. But, if you will do so, confess it is not for their gratification, but for your own.

If you choose to try the dangerous experiment of writing "instructive" stories, beware of defeating your own object. You write a story rather than a treatise, because information is often more effective when indirectly conveyed. Clearly, then, if you convey your information too directly, you lose all this advantage.

Perfection is as intolerable in these as in any other stories. We all want, especially children, some amiable weaknesses to sympathize with. Thus, in "Ernest Bracebridge," an English story of school-life, the hero is a dreadfully unpleasant boy who is always successful and always right, and we are soon heartily weary of him. Besides, he is a horrible boy for mastery of all the arts and sciences, and delivers brief and epigrammatic discourses, being about twelve years old. However, the book is full of adventure and out-door games, and so far is good.

After all, a child does not need many books. If, however, we are to have them, we may as well have good ones. There is no reason why dulness should be diverted from its legitimate channels into the writing of children's books. Let us disabuse ourselves of the idea that these are the easiest books to write. Let us remember that the alphabet is harder to teach than the Greek Drama, and no longer think that the proper man to write children's books is the man who is able to write nothing else.

The Simplicity of Christ's Teachings, set forth in Sermons. By Charles T. Brooks, Pastor of the Unitarian Church, Newport, R. I. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 1859. 16mo. pp. 342.

The name of the author of this volume has long been known as that of an accomplished man of letters. Successive volumes of poetic versions, chiefly from the German, had, by their various merit, gained for him a high rank among our translators, when four years ago, in 1856, by a translation of "Faust," he set himself at the head of living authors in this department of literature. It is little to say of his work, that it is the best of the numerous English renderings of Goethe's tragedy. It is not extravagant to assert that a better translation is scarcely possible. It is a work which combines extraordinary fidelity to the form of the original with true appreciation of its spirit. It is at once literal and free, and displays in its execution the qualities both of exact scholarship and of poetic feeling and capacity.

This work, and the others of a similar kind which preceded it, were the result of the intervals of leisure occurring in the course of their author's professional life as a clergyman. While the wider world has known him only through these volumes, a smaller circle has long known and loved him as the faithful and able preacher and pastor,—as one to whom the most beautiful description ever written of the character of a good parson might be truly applied; for

"A good man he was of religioun,
That was a poure Persone of a toun:
But riche he was of holy thought and werk;
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
[Pg 251]That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche,
His parishens devoutly wolde he teche.

* * * *

And Cristes lore and his apostles' twelve
He taught, but first he folwed it himselve."

And it is in this character that he now comes before us in the volume which is well entitled "The Simplicity of Christ's Teachings."

It is a misfortune that the qualities which distinguish most published sermons are not such as to recommend them on the score of literary merit. The volumes of religious discourses which are worthy to hold a place in literature, when judged by the usual critical standard, are very few. A very large proportion of those which are continually appearing from the press deserve no remembrance, and fortunately have no permanence. They are addressed to a special class of readers,—a class generally neither of highly cultivated taste, nor of acute critical perception. Their writers are rarely men of sufficient talent to win for themselves recognition out of their own narrow set. What in the slang of the day are called "sensation" sermons are no exception to the common rule. Their momentary effect, depending upon exaggeration and extravagance, is no indication of worth. We should no more think of criticizing them in a literary journal, than of criticizing the novels of Mr. Cobb or Mr. Reynolds. Some of the causes of the poverty of thought and of the negligence of style of average sermons are obvious. The very interest and importance of the subjects with which the preacher has to deal oftentimes serve to deaden rather than to excite the mind of one who takes them up in the formal round of duty. The pretensions of the clergy of many sects, pretensions as readily acknowledged as made, save them from the necessity of intellectual exertion. The frequent recurrence of the necessity of writing, whether they have anything to say or not, leads them into substituting words for thoughts, platitudes for truths. The natural weariness of long-continued solitary professional labor brings mental lassitude and feebleness. The absence of the fear of close and watchful criticism prevents them from bestowing suitable pains upon their composition. These and other causes combine to make the mass of the writing which is delivered from the pulpit poorer than any other which passes current in the world,—perhaps, indeed, not poorer in an absolute sense, but poorer when compared with the nature of the subjects that it treats. It is by no means, however, to be inferred, that, because a sermon is totally without merit as a work of literature, it is incapable of producing some good in those who listen to it. On the contrary, such is the frame of mind of many who regularly attend church, that they are not unlikely to derive good from a performance which, if weak, may yet be sincere, and which deals with the highest truths, even if it deal with them in an imperfect and unsatisfactory manner. And, indeed, as George Herbert says, good may be got from the worst preaching; for,

"if all want sense,
God takes the text, and preacheth patience."

Unquestionably, however, there is too much preaching in these days; too many sermons are written, and the spirit of Christianity is less effective than if the words concerning it were less numerous.

It is a rare satisfaction, therefore, to find such a volume of sermons as that of Mr. Brooks, which, though not possessing the highest merit in point of style, are the discourses of a thoughtful and cultivated man, with a peculiar spiritual refinement, and with a devout intellect, made clear by its combination with purity of heart and simplicity of faith. The religious questions which are chiefly stirring the minds of men are taken up in them and discussed with what may be called an earnest moderation, with elevation of feeling and insight of spirit.

The immediate cause of the republication of these letters is the recent death of Bettina, the child with whom Goethe corresponded. Though this fact, and the beauty of the volume, may quicken the sale of the work, and draw out fresh encomiums on its excellence, it has long since passed the critical crisis and taken its place as one of the most remarkable series of letters which the public have ever been invited to peruse. Something of the marvellous vanishes[Pg 252] from them, however, when we find that the title, "Correspondence with a Child," is a misnomer; Bettina having been, in truth, twenty-two years of age when she first visited Goethe. Yet while this important circumstance abates much of the wonder with which we once read her thoughts and confessions, they really become all the more valuable as studies in human nature when we learn that they are the exhalations of a heart in full flower, and one upon which the dews of morning should not linger. The poet had reached the age of sixty when this tide of tender sentiment, original ideas, and enthusiastic admiration began to flow in upon him. Their first interview, as Bettina describes it, with singular freedom, in one of the letters to Goethe's mother, will be found a useful key, though perhaps not a complete one, by which to interpret the glowing passion which gushed from her pen. That the poet was pleased with the homage of this sweet, graceful, and affectionate girl, and drew her on to the revealing of her whole nature, is readily perceived. But when we inquire, To what end? we should remember, that, like Parrhasius, Goethe was before all things an artist; and furthermore, the correspondence of time will show that from this crowning knowledge the "Elective Affinities" sprang. It may be that her admiration was for his genius alone; if so, she chose love's language for its wealth of expression. Were it so received, it could not but be regarded as a peerless offering, for she was certainly a kindred spirit. There are many rare thoughts and profound confessions in these letters, which would have commanded the praise of Goethe, had they been written by a rival; and coming, as they did, from a devotee who declared that she drew her inspiration from him alone, they must have filled his soul with incense, of which that burned by the priest in the temple of the gods is only an emblem. To be brief and compendious on this book, it appears to be a heart unveiled. German critics throw some doubts on the literal veracity of the book; but it belongs at any rate to the better class of the ben trovati, and among its leaves, the dreamer, the lover, and the poet will find that ambrosial fruit on which fancy loves to feed, but whose blossoms are so generally blasted by the common air that only the few favored ones have had their longings for it appeased. In imagination, at least, Bettina partook of this banquet, and had the genius to wreak on words the emotions which swept through her heart.

It is very plain that we have got a new poet,—a tremendous responsibility both for him who will have to learn how to carry the brimming vase of Art from the Pierian spring without squandering a drop, and for us critics who are to reconcile ourselves to what is new in him, and to hold him strictly to that apprenticeship to the old which is the condition of mastery at last.

Criticism in America has reached something like the state of the old Continental currency. There is no honest relation between the promises we make and the specie basis of meaning they profess to represent. "The most extraordinary book of the age" is published every week; "genius" springs up like mullein, wherever the soil is thin enough; the yearly catch of "weird imagination," "thrilling pathos," "splendid description," and "sublime imagery" does not fall short of an ordinary mackerel-crop; and "profound originality" is so plenty that one not in the secret would be apt to take it for commonplace. Now Tithonus, whom, as the oldest inhabitant, we have engaged to oversee the criticism of the "Atlantic," has a prodigiously long memory,—almost as long as one of Dickens's descriptive passages,—he remembers perfectly well all the promising young fellows from Orpheus down, and has made a notch on the stalk of a devil's-apron for every one who ever came to anything that was of more consequence to the world than to himself. His tally has not yet mounted to a baker's dozen. Accordingly, when a young enthusiast rushes to tell Tithonus that a surprising genius has turned up, that venerable and cautious being either puts his hand behind his ear and absconds into an extemporary deafness, or says dryly, "American kind, I suppose?" This coolness of our wary senior is infectious, and we confess ourselves so far disenchanted by it, that, when we go into a library, the lettering on the backs of nine-tenths of the volumes contrives[Pg 253] to shape itself into a laconic Hic jacet.

It is of prime necessity to bring back the currency of criticism to the old hard-money basis. We have been gradually losing all sense of the true relation between words and things,—the surest symptom of intellectual decline. And this looseness of criticism reacts in the most damaging way upon literature by continually debasing the standard, and by confounding all distinction between fame and notoriety. Ought it to be gratifying to the author of "Popular Sovereignty, a Poem in Twelve Cantos," to be called the most remarkable man of the age, when he knows that he shares that preëminence with Mr. Tupper, nay, with half the names in the Directory? Indiscriminate eulogy is the subtlest form of depreciation, for it makes all praise suspicious.

We look upon artistic genius as the rarest and most wayward apparition among mankind. It cannot be predicated upon any of Mr. Buckle's averages. Given the census, you may, perhaps, say so many murders, so many suicides, so many misdirected letters (and men of letters), but not so many geniuses. In this one thing old Mother Nature will be whimsical and womanish. This is a gift that John Bull, or Johnny Crapaud, or Brother Jonathan does not find in his stocking every Christmas. Crude imagination is common enough,—every hypochondriac has a more than Shakspearian allowance of it; fancy is cheap, or nobody would dream; eloquence sits ten deep on every platform. But genius in Art is that supreme organizing and idealizing faculty which, by combining, arranging, modulating, by suppressing the abnormal and perpetuating the essential, apes creation,—which from the shapeless terror or tipsy fancy of the benighted ploughman can conjure the sisters of Fores heath and the court of Titania,—which can make language thunder or coo at will,—which, in short, is the ruler of those qualities any one of which in excess is sure to overmaster the ordinary mind, and which can crystallize helpless vagary into the clearly outlined and imperishable forms of Art.

It is not, therefore, from any grudging incapacity to appreciate new authors, but from a strong feeling that we are to guard the graves of the dead from encroachment, and their fames from vulgarization, that the "Atlantic" has been and will be sparing in its use of the word genius. One may safely predicate power, nicety of thought and language, a clear eye for scenery and character, and grace of poetic conception of a book, without being willing to say that it gives proof of genius. For genius is the shaping faculty, the power of using material in the best way, and may not work itself clear of the besetting temptation of personal gifts and of circumstances in a first or even second work. It is something capable of education and accomplishment, and the patience with which it submits itself to this needful schooling and self-abnegation is one of the surest tests of its actual possession. Could even Shakspeare's poems and earlier plays come before us for judgment, we could only say of them, as of Keats's "Endymion," that they showed affluence, but made no sure prophecy of that artistic self-possession without which plenty is but confusion and incumbrance.

So much by way of preface, lest we might seem cold to the very remarkable merits of "Sir Rohan's Ghost," if we treated it as a book worth finding fault with, instead of condemning it to the indifferent limbo of general eulogy. It is our deliberate judgment that no first volume by any author has ever been published in America showing more undoubtful symptoms of genuine poetic power than this. There are passages in it where imagination and language combine in the most artistic completeness, and the first quatrain of the song which Sir Rohan fancies he hears,—

——"In a summer twilight,
While yet the dew was hoar,
I went plucking purple pansies
Till my love should come to shore,"—

seems to us absolutely perfect in its simplicity and suggestiveness. It has that wayward and seemingly accidental just-right-ness that is so delightful in old ballads. The hesitating cadence of the third line is impregnated with the very mood of the singer, and lingers like the action it pictures. All those passages in the book, too, where the symptoms of Sir Rohan's possession by his diseased memory are handled, where we see all outward nature but as wax to the plastic will of imagination, are to the utmost well-conceived and carried out. It was part of the necessity of the case that the book should be conjectural[Pg 254] and metaphysical, for it is plain that the author is young and has little experience of the actual. Accordingly, with a true instinct, she (for the newspapers ascribe the authorship of the book to Miss Prescott) calls her story a Romance, thus absolving it from any cumbersome allegiance to fact, and lays the scene of it in England, where she can have old castles, old traditions, old families, old servants, and all the other olds so essential to the young writer, ready to her hand.

We like the book better for being in the main subjective (to use the convenient word Mr. Ruskin is so angry with); for a young writer can only follow the German plan of conjuring things up "from the depths of his inward consciousness." The moment our author quits this sure ground, her touch becomes uncertain and her colors inharmonious. Character-painting is unessential to a romance, belonging as it does properly to the novel of actual life, in which the romantic element is equally out of place. Fielding, accordingly, the greatest artist in character since Shakspeare, hardly admits sentiment, and never romance, into his master-pieces. Hawthorne, again, another great master, feeling instinctively the poverty and want of sharp contrast in the externals of our New England life, always shades off the edges of the actual, till, at some indefinable line, they meet and mingle with the supersensual and imaginative.

The author of "Sir Rohan" attempts character in Redruth the butler, and in the villain and heroine of her story. We are inclined to think the villain the best hit of the three, because he is downright scoundrel without a redeeming point, as the Nemesis of the story required him to be, and because he is so far a purely ideal character. But there is no such thing possible as an ideal butler, at least in the sense our author assumes in the cellar-scene. The better poet, the worse butler; and so we are made impatient by his more than Redi-isms about wine, full of fancy as they are in themselves, because they are an impertinence. For the same reason, we forgive the heroine her rhapsodies about the figures of the Arthur-romances, but cannot pardon her descents into real life and her incursions on what should be the sanctuary of the breakfast-table. The author attributes to her a dash of gypsy blood; and if her style of humorous conversation be a fair type of that of the race in general, we no longer wonder that they are homeless exiles from human society. When will men learn the true nature of a pun,—that it is a play upon ideas, and not upon sounds,—and that a perfect one is as rare as a perfect poem?

In the prose "Edda," the dwarfs tell a monstrous fib, when they pretend that Kvasir, the inventor of poetry, has been suffocated by his own wisdom. Nevertheless, the little fellows showed thereby that they were not short of intelligence; for it is almost always in their own overflow that young poets are drowned. This superabundance seems to us the chief defect in "Sir Rohan's Ghost." The superabundance is all very fine, of the costliest kind; but was Clarence any the better for being done to death in Malmsey instead of water?

This fault we look on as a fault of promise. There is always a chance that luxuriance may be pruned, but none short of a miracle that a broomstick may be made to blossom. There is, however, one absolute, and not relative fault in the book, which we find it harder to forgive, since it is one of instinct rather than of Art. The author seems to us prone to confound the terrible, (the only true subject of Art) with the horrible. The one rouses moral terror or aversion, the other only physical disgust. This is one of the worst effects of the modern French school upon literature, the inevitable result of its degrading the sensuous into the sensual.

We have found all the fault we could with this volume, because we sincerely think that the author of it is destined for great things, and that she owes it to the rare gift she has been endowed with to do nothing inconsiderately, and by honest self-culture to raise natural qualities to conscious and beneficent powers.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 28, February, 1860

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. V.—FEBRUARY, 1860.—NO. XXVIII.

Contents

COUNTING AND MEASURING.

MY LAST LOVE.

A SHETLAND SHAWL.

ROBA DI ROMA.

[Continued.]

CHAPTER VI.

GAMES IN ROME.

FOOTNOTES:

THE AMBER GODS.

[Concluded.]

II.

III.

THE POET'S FRIENDS.

THE MEMORIAL OF A. B., OR MATILDA MUFFIN.

THE MEMORIAL OF A. B.

SOME ACCOUNT OF A VISIONARY.

THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA.

1675.

THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA.

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.

CHAPTER III.

MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MOTH FLIES INTO THE CANDLE.

MEXICO.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS

RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE