tr3rpttt^xpaci:ix
MARY LAKE MEMORIAL
•
'O
Digitized by the Internet Archive in
2007
with funding from
IVIicrosoft
Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/completewritings06whitrich
THIS EDITION
IS
ISSUED
UNDER ARRANGEMENT WITH
MESSRS. SMALL, MAYNARD,
&
CO.,
OF BOSTON
THE PUBLISHERS OF THE AUTHORIZED EDITIONS OF
THE WRITINGS OF WALT WHITMAN
PAUMANOK
EDITION
This Edition of the Complete Works of Walt
Whitman
printed on Ruisdael hand^made
is
paper, and limited
which
to
Three Hundred
this is
Number.
S.5 b
Sets,
of
n
THE
COMPLETE WRITINGS or
WALT
WHITMAN Issued under the editorial super-
vision of his Literary Execu-
Thomas B. Harned, and Horace
L. Traubel
With
additional
bibliographical
and
critical
ma-
prepared by Oscar Lovell friggs, Ph.D. terial
G.P.PinrNAM'3 SeNS THE KJaCRCWtCKCR PRE**
^
TME
COMPLETE «,
WRITINGS
M
WALT
WHITMAN Issued under the editorial super-
vision
of his
Literary Executors,
Richard
Maurice Bucke, Thomas B.Harned, and Horace L. Traubel
With
additional
bibliographical
and
critical
terial
ma-
prepared
by Oscar Lovell Triggs, Ph.D.
G.P.PUTNAM'3 52N5
NEWYeRK
^
LONDON
THE KNICKERB9CKER PRESS
THE COMPLETE PROSE WORKS OF
WALT WHITMAN
VOLUME
G, P.
III
PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON Xlbe Iknicftetbocfter
1902
press
Copyright 1881, 1888, 1891, BY
WALT WHITMAN
Copyright, 1902
THOMAS
By
B.
HARNED
and
HORACE
SURVIVING LITERARY EXECUTORS OF
L.
Entered at Stationers' Hall
•
«
••
• ••
• ••• •
•
•
• •
•
••••
Vbc
•
Unkfterbecftcr pretf,
TRAUBEL
WALT WHITMAN
lUw
Boct
Contents ~—
COLLEC T—Continued, Youth
Pieces in Early
p^c.
Dough- Face Song Death
in the
3
School-Room
One Wicked Impulse The Last Loyalist Wild Frank's Return
The Boy Lover The Child and the
.
5
15
!
28 .
•
.
49 60
Profligate
Lingave's Temptation Little
73
.
Jane
Dumb
39
80
Kate
85
Talk to an Art-Union
Blood-Money
....
90
Wounded
House of Friends
91
in the
88
.
Sailing the Mississippi at
Midnigh t
92
•
NOVEMBER BOUGHS. Our Eminent Visitors, The Bible as Poetry
Past, Present
and Future
.
What
A
97 104
Father Taylor (and Oratory)
The Spanish Element
.
in
our Nationality
.
.
Lurks Behind Shakspere's Historical Plays
.
Thought on Shakspere
.
no .116 .120 124
Robert Burns as Poet and Person
128
A Word
143
About Tennyson
VOL, VI. [iii]
273534
Contenta
NOyEMBER BOUGHS-^Contintud, Slang in America
....
...
An Indian Bureau Reminiscence Some Diary Notes at Random Negro Slaves
in
New
,^ 149
138
York
164
Ginada Nights
164
Country Days and Nights
16$
Central Park Notes
166
Plate Glass
Notes
168
Some War Memoranda Washington
The
Street Scenes
172
195th Pennsylvania
173
Left-hand Writing by Soldiers
.
.
.
.173
Central Virginia in '64
Paying the
ist
U. S. C.
174
T
176
Five Thousand Poems The Old Bowery
.182 184
Notes to Late English Books Preface to the Reader in the British Islands
.
.196
Additional Note, 1887
197
Preface to English Edition Democratic yistas
.
199
Abraham Lincoln
202
New
208
Small
Orleans in 1848
Memoranda Attorney General's Office, 1865
A
Glint Inside of
Abraham
.
.
.
Lincoln's Cabinet
.217 Ap-
pointments
219
Note to a Friend
221
an Album
Written Impromptu
in
The
Fills in
Last of the
Place Gratitude
War
Elias Hicks,
Cases
a Fine Character
.
222
.
222
224
Notes (such as they
are)
George Fox and Shakspere Chrl
-241 273
Contcnte
GOOD-BYE
MY FANCY
An Old Man's
Rejoinder
Old Poets
.
Ship
.
'
.
.
pagb
.
...
Ahoy
For Queen Victoria's Birthday
M
283 .
.289
....
296 297
irUustrations
IValt
Whitman
.
.
.
.
Frontispiece
From a photograph by Rockwood, New York
Robert Burns
.
.
.
.
From a photograph of the painting
.
.
by
128
Kramer
Lord Tennyson, 18^9 From
.
144
the painting by G. F. Watts,
Elias Hicks
R.A.
24/
From a photograph
[vii]
Collect (Continued)
VOL. VI.— I.
Eppenbii: pieces in iBntl^ l^outb 1834-42
BottQbi-jf ace
Sons
Like dough; soft; yielding to pressure; pale.
We are all
IVebster^s Dictionary.
docile dough-faces,
They knead us with
the
fist.
They, the dashing southern
We labor as For them
they
lords.
list;
we speak — or hold our we turn and twist.
tongues,
For them
We join them Free
soil
in their
and
That firebrand
'*
howl
against
abolition,"
— that assassin knife —
Which risk our land's condition. And leave no peace of life to any Dough-faced
To
put
down
politician.
'*
agitation,"
now.
We think the most judicious To damn Those
The
*'
For
all **
**
northern fanatics,"
traitors " black
reg'lar party
us,
and no
**
and vicious,
usages"
new
[3]
issues."
Collect
Things have come to a pretty
When
a
trifle
Moving and
small as this,
bartering nigger slaves.
Can open an abyss, With jaws a-gape for "
A
pretty thought,
1
two
great parties;
wis!
!
know
not where they
Rights of the masses
Words
!
found.
're
— progress! — bah
1
sound " o'er " practical men
that tickle and
But claiming to Is
the
— freedom — fiddlesticks
Principle
We
pass,
rule
very different ground.
Beyond
such
all
we know
a term
Charming to ears and eyes, With it we 'II stab young Freedom,
And do Speak
in disguise;
it
soft,
ye wily dough-faces
That term
And what
if
is
*'
compromise."
children,
growing up,
In future seasons read
The thing we do ? and
heart and tongue
Accurse us for the deed
The
?
future cannot touch us ;
The present gain we Then, Let
all
's
•
heed.
together, dough-faces!
stop the exciting
clatter.
And pacify slave-breeding wrath By yielding all the matter; For otherwise, as sure as guns,
The Union
it
will shatter. [4]
"
Collect
Besides, to
tell
the honest truth
(For us an innovation,
Keeping Is
in
with the slave power
our personal salvation
We 've very From Besides
Who What
t'
little
to expects
other part of the nation.
it 's
plain at
likeliest
Washington
wins the
earthly chance has " free soil
For any good
fat place ?
While many a daw has
By Take
race,
his
feather'd his nest.
creamy and meek dough-face.
heart, then,
sweet companions,
Be steady, Scripture Dick! Webster, Cooper, Walker,
To your allegiance
stick!
With Brooks, and Briggs and
Phoenix,
Stand up through thin and thick!
We do not ask a bold brave We never try that game;
front;
T would bring the storm upon our heads, A
huge mad storm of shame " compromise Evade it, brothers
—
"
Will answer just the same.
Paumanok.
Ting-a-ling-Iing-Iing
Schoolroom (A Fact)
was
went the little bell on
^^^ teacher's desk of a village-school one
morning,
when
part of the It
!
the studies of the earlier
day were about half completed.
well understood that this [5]
was
a
command
for
Collect
and attention; and when these had been obtained, the master spoke. He was a low thickset man, and his name was Lugare. ** Boys/* said he, "I have had a complaint entered, that last night some of you were stealing fruit silence
from Mr. Nichols's garden.
Tim
I
rather think
1
know
up here, sir." The one to whom he spoke came forward. He was a slight, fair-looking boy of about thirteen; and his face had a laughing, good-humor'd expression,
the
thief.
Barker, step
which even the charge now preferr'd against him, and the stern tone and threatening look of the The counteteacher, had not entirely dissipated. nance of the boy, however, was too unearthly for health; ful look, .
it
had, notwithstanding
a singular cast as
if
its
fair
fleshy, cheer-
some inward
disease,
were seated within. As the stripling stood before that place of judgment that place so often made the scene of heartless and coarse
and that a
fearful one,
—
brutality,
of timid
innocence
confused,
helpless
childhood outraged, and gentle feelings crush'd
—
Lugare looked on him with a frown which plainly
no very pleasant mood. (Happily a worthier and more philosophical system is proving to men that schools can be better govern 'd than by lashes and tears and sighs. We are waxing toward told that he
felt in
consummation when one of the old-fashion'd school-masters with his cowhide, his heavy birchrod, and his many ingenious methods of child-
that
[6]
Collect
be gazed upon as a scorn 'd memento of an ignorant, cruel, and exploded doctrine. May
torture, will
propitious gales speed that day!)
*'Were you by Mr. Nichols's garden fence
last
night ? " said Lugare. ''Yes, sir," answer'd the boy, **
Well,
sir,
I
your confession. a
little
'' I
was."
'm glad to find you so ready with
And
so you thought you could do
robbing, and enjoy yourself in a
manner you
ought to be ashamed to own, without being punish'd,
you?"
did
'' I
have not been robbing," replied the boy quick-
was suffused, whether with resentment '' And did n't do or fright, it was difficult to tell. anything last night, that am ashamed to own." His face
ly.
I
1
''No impudence!" exclaim'd the teacher, passionately,
" give
as he grasp'd a long and
me none of your
sharp speeches, or
you till you beg like a dog." The youngster's face paled a er'd,
heavy
little;
I
'11
ratan:
thrash
his lip quiv-
but he did not speak.
"And ward
pray, sir," continued Lugare, as the out-
signs of wrath disappear 'd from his features;
"what were you about
the garden for?
Perhaps
you only receiv'd the plunder, and had an accomplice to do the more dangerous part of the job! " went that way because it is on my road home. was there again afterwards to meet an acquaintance; and and But did not go into the garden, I
I
—
—
I
[7]
Collect
nor take anything
away from
it.
I
would not
steal,
— hardly to save myself from starving." **
You had
You were
better
have stuck to that
Tim
seen,
Barker, to
Mr. Nichols's garden fence, a
with a bag
evening.
come from under
little after
nine o'clock,
of something or other over your
full
The bag had every appearance of being
shoulders.
with
filled
last
and
fruit,
this
morning the melon-beds
Now,
are found to have been completely cleared.
what was there
sir,
Like
fire itself
in
that bag ?
"
glow'd the face of the detected
lad.
He spoke
their
eyes directed at him.
down
his white forehead like rain-drops.
'*
Speak,
All
the school had
The
perspiration ran
not a word.
sir I"
exclaimed Lugare, with a loud
on the desk. The boy look'd as though he would
strike of his ratan
faint.
But
the unmerciful teacher, confident of having brought to light a criminal, and exulting in the idea of the
severe chastisement he should inflicting,
now
kept working himself up to a
and greater degree of passion. the child seem'd hardly to himself.
mouth.
was
be justified
His
tongue
Either he
In
was very much
greater
the meantime,
know what
cleav'd to
still
in
to
do with
the roof of his frightened, or
he
actually unwell.
say!" again thundered Lugare; and his hand, grasping his ratan, towered above his head **
in a
Speak,
1
very significant manner.
m
Collect
hardly can,
**I
sir/' said
was husky and some other time.
the poor fellow faintly. '*
His voice
thick.
some
Please let
—
1
you
will tell
me go
my
to
seat— a'n't well." *'0h yes; that's very likely;" and Mr. Lugare bulged out his nose and cheeks with contempt. '' Do you think to make me believe your lies ? Ve found you out, sir, plainly enough; and am satisfied that you are as precious a little villain as there 1
I
I
is
But
the State.
in
you
for
and
if
an hour yet.
you don't
tell
I
will
postpone settling with
shall
then
call
you up
the whole truth then,
I
again;
will give
make you remember Mr. many a month to come; go to
you something that Nichols's melons for
I
'11
—
your seat." Glad enough of the ungracious permission, and
answering not
a
to his bench.
He
as his
if
he was
arms on
them. for
The
in
sound, the child crept tremblingly felt
very strangely, dizzily
a dream than in real
his desk,
bow'd down
life;
— more
and laying
his face
between
pupils turn'd to their accustom'd studies,
during the reign of Lugare
in
the village-school,
they had been so used to scenes of violence and severe chastisement, that such things
made but
little
way. Now, while the intervening hour is passing, we will clear up the mystery of the bag, and of young Barker being under the garden fence on the preceding night. The boy's mother was a widow, and interruption in the tenor of their
[9]
Collect
they both had to
His father had died little
Tim was
left
no one expected to prise of
all,
the very narrowest limits.
live in
when he was
six years old,
a sickly emaciated infant live
To
many months.
however, the poor child kept
and
whom
the sur-
alive,
and
seem'd to recover his health, as he certainly did his size
This was owing to the kind
and good looks.
offices of
who had a countryand who had been in-
an eminent physician
seat in the neighborhood,
terested
in
the widow's
little
Tim, the
family.
physician said, might possibly outgrow his disease;
but everything was uncertain.
and
baffling
malady; and
it
It
was
a mysterious
would not be wonderful
some moment of apparent health be suddenly taken away. The poor widow was at first if
he should
in
in a continual state
of uneasiness; but several years
had now pass'd, and none of the impending evils had fallen upon the boy's head. His mother seem'd to feel confident that he would live, and be a help and an honor to her old age; and the two struggled on
happy in each other, and enduring much of poverty and discomfort without repin-
together, mutually
ing,
each for the other's sake.
Tim's pleasant disposition had made him friends in the village,
farmer
named
Jones,
work'd a large farm
in
and among the
who, with
rest a
many young
his elder brother,
the neighborhood on shares.
Jones very frequently made Tim a present of a bag of potatoes or corn,
or
some garden
[10]
vegetables,
Collect
which he took from
his
own
stock; but as his part-
was a parsimonious, high-tempered man, and had often said that Tim was an idle fellow, and ner
ought not to be help'd because he did not work,
made his gifts in such a manner no one knew anything about them, except
Jones generally that
himself and the grateful objects of his kindness.
It
might be, too, that the widow was loth to have
it
understood by the neighbors that she received food
from anyone;
for there is often
an excusable pride
in
people of her condition which makes them shrink
from being consider'd as objects of
would from the severest
Tim had been
pains.
''
charity " as they
On the night in ques-
would send them a bag of potatoes, and the place at which they were to be waiting for him was fixed at Mr. Nichols's garden fence. It was this bag that Tim had been seen staggering under, and which caused the unlucky boy to be accused and convicted by his teacher as a thief. That teacher was one little fitted for his important and responsible office. Hasty to decide, and inflexibly severe, he was the terror of the little Punishment he world he ruled so despotically. seemed to delight in. Knowing little of those sweet fountains which in children's breasts ever open
tion,
quickly at the
he was none.
call
told that Jones
of gentleness and kind words,
by all for his sternness, and loved by would that he were an isolated instance in
fear'd I
his profession. [II]
Collect
The hour
drawn to its which it was usual
of grace had
the time approach'd at to give his
close, for
and
Lugare
school a joyfully-receiv'd dismission.
Now
and then one of the scholars would direct a furtive glance at Tim, sometimes in pity, sometimes in
They knew
indifference or inquiry.
he
that
would have no mercy shown him, and though most of them loved him, whipping was too common there to exact
much sympathy.
Every inquiring glance,
however, remained unsatisfied, hour,
and
Tim remained with
his
head bow'd
lean'd himself
end of the
his face completely hidden,
in his
when he
for at the
arms, precisely as he had
first
went
to his seat.
Lu-
gare look'd at the boy occasionally with a scowl
which seem'd to bode vengeance for his sullenness. At length the last class had been heard, and the last lesson recited, and Lugare seated himself behind his desk on the platform, with his longest and stoutest ratan before him.
'*Now, Barker," he business of yours,
Tim
said,
just step
**
we'll settle that
little
up here."
The school-room was as still sound was to be heard, except
did not move.
Not a
as the grave.
occasionally a long-drawn breath.
**Mind me,
sir,
or
it
will
be the worse
for
you.
Step up here, and take off your jacket!
The boy
been of wood. still
any more than if he had Lugare shook with passion. He sat
did not
a minute, as
if
stir
considering the best
way
to
Collect
wreak
That
vengeance.
his
death-like silence,
was
it
whiten'd with
slowly dropp'd away,
passed
some
a fearful one to
children, for their faces
seem'd, as
minute,
like
in
of the
fright.
It
the minute
which precedes the climax of an exquisitely-performed tragedy, when some mighty master of the histrionic art is treading the stage, and you and the multitude around you are waiting, with stretch 'd nerves and suspended breath, in expectation of the terrible catastrophe.
*'Tim
boys
who
is
asleep, sir," at length said
one of the
sat near him.
Lugare, at this intelligence, allow'd his features to relax from their expression of savage anger into a smile, but that smile look'd ble,
more malignant
than his former scowls.
amused
It
if
possi-
might be that he
felt
on the faces of those about him; or it might be that he was gloating in pleasure on the way in which he intended to wake at the horror depicted
the slumberer.
my young
''Asleep! are you,
he; 'Met us see
we
if
your eyes open.
can't find
There
's
best of a bad case, boys.
not to be worried for the
in his
thought of
it
gentleman!" said
something to
nothing
mind about a can't
even
making the
like
Tim, here,
tickle
is
determin'd
little
flogging,
keep the
little
scoundrel awake."
Lugare smiled again as he made the tion.
He
last
observa-
grasp'd his ratan firmly, and descended [13]
Collect
With
and stealthy steps he cross'd the room and stood by the unlucky sleeper. The boy was still as unconscious of his impending from his
seat.
light
punishment as ever. He might be dreaming Some golden dream of youth and pleasure; perhaps he
away
was
far
and
feeling delights,
in
the world of fancy, seeing scenes,
Lugare
bestow.
which cold
lifted his ratan
reality
never can
high over his head,
and with the true and expert aim which he had acquired by long practice, brought it down on Tim's back with a force and whacking sound which seem'd sufficient to
Quick and
wake
fast,
a freezing
man
in his last lethargy.
blow follow'd blow.
ing to see the effect of the
first
Without waitcut,
wretch plied his instrument of torture
the brutal
first
on one
and then on the other, and only stopped at the end of two or three minutes from very weariness. But still Tim showed no signs side of the boy's back,
of motion; and as Lugare, provoked at his torpidity, jerk'd
away one
of the child's arms, on which he
had been leaning over the desk, his head dropped down on the board with a dull sound, and his face lay turn'd
saw
it,
up and exposed to view.
he stood
like
When
one transfix'd by a
Lugare basilisk.
His countenance turn'd to a leaden whiteness; the ratan dropp'd from his grasp;
wide open, glared as of horror and death.
at
and
his eyes, stretch'd
some monstrous spectacle The sweat started in great
globules seemingly from every pore in his face; his [14]
Collect
skinny
lips contracted,
when he
and show'd
his teeth;
at length stretch'd forth his arm,
and
and with
the end of one of his fingers touch'd the child's cheek, each limb quiver'd like the tongue of a snake;
seemed
would moHe had mentarily fail him. The boy was dead. probably been so for some time, for his eyes were turn'd up, and his body was quite cold. Death was in the schoolroom, and Lugare had been flogging a and
his strength
as
though
it
CORPSE.
—Democratic Review, August, 1841. That section of Nassau Street which runs One Wicked Impulse
° ^^^^ ^^^.^ ^f ^^^ york brokers and stock-jobbers, has for a long time been j^^^^ ^j^^
much occupied by practitioners of the law. Tolerably well-known amid this class some years since, was Adam Covert, a middle-aged man of rather limited means, who, to
tell
the truth, gained more by trick-
ery than he did in the legitimate and honorable exer-
He was a tall, bilious-faced of two children; and had lately
cise of his profession.
widower; the father been seeking to better his fortunes by a rich marriage. But somehow or other his wooing did not seem to thrive well, and, with perhaps one exception, the lawyer's prospects in the
matrimonial
way
were hopelessly gloomy.
Among
the early clients of Mr. Covert had been a
distant relative
named Marsh, who, dying somewhat [15]
Collect
suddenly,
left
his
son and daughter, and some
property, to the care of Covert, under a will
little
drawn
At no time caught
out by that gentleman himself.
without his eyes open, the cunning lawyer, aided
by much sad confusion
in
the emergency which had
caused his services to be called
for,
and disguising
his object under a cloud of technicalities, inserted
provisions in the will, giving himself an almost arbitrary control over the property
whom
it
was
designed.
and over those
This control was even
for
made
beyond the time when the children would arrive at mature age. The son, Philip, a spirited and high-temper'd fellow, had some time since passed that age. Esther, the girl, a plain, and somewhat devotional young woman, was in her nineteenth year. Having such power over his wards, Covert did to extend
not scruple openly to use his advantage,
in
his claims as a suitor for Esthers hand.
pressing
Since the
which had been in real estate, and was to be divided equally between the brother and sister, had risen to very considerable value; and Esther's share was to a man in Covert's death of Marsh, the property he
situation a prize very well
time, while really
young orphans
sum
of
money
owning
often
felt
left,
worth seeking.
All this
a respectable income, the
the want of the smallest
— and Esther, on
Philip's account,
was
—
more than once driven to various contrivances the pawnshop, sales of her own little luxuries, and the like, to furnish him with means. ÂŁi6]
Collect
Though she had
frequently
shown
her guardian
unequivocal evidence of her aversion, Esther continued to suffer from his persecutions, until one day
he proceeded
and was more pressing than
farther
She possessed some of her brother's mettlesome temper, and gave him an abrupt and most With dignity, she exposed the decided refusal. baseness of his conduct, and forbade him ever again usual.
mentioning marriage to her.
He
vaunted his hold on her and
Philip,
retorted bitterly,
and swore an
oath that unless she became his wife, they should
both thenceforward become penniless. habitual
self-control
Losing his
his exasperation,
in
he even
added insults such as woman never receives from any one deserving the name of man, and at his own That day, Philip reconvenience left the house. turn'd to
New
York,
after
an absence of several
weeks on the business of a mercantile house in whose employment he had lately engaged. Toward the latter part of the same afternoon, Mr. Covert was sitting in his office, in Nassau Street, busily at work, when a knock at the door announc'd a visitor, and directly afterward young Marsh enter'd the room.
His face exhibited a peculiar pallid ap-
pearance that did not strike Covert at
and he
call'd his clerk
I
agreeably,
from an adjoining room, and
gave him something to do ''
all
at a
desk near by.
wish to see you alone, Mr. Covert,
nient," said the VOL. VI.—a.
newcomer. _
_-
[17]
if
conve-
Collect
*'
We can
talk quite well **
answered the lawyer; I
have any
enough where
indeed,
leisure to talk at
are,"
know that am just now
don't
I
all,
we
for
1
very much pressed with business." " But must speak to you," rejoined Philip sternly, 1
must say one thing, and that is, Mr. Covert, that you are a villain " Insolent " exclaimed the lawyer, rising behind "at
least
I
I
!
*'
the table, and pointing to the door.
your
method.
see
you the other may reach the landing by quicker
Let one minute longer find
that, sir ? side, or
Do you
feet
Begone,
sir
I
Such a threat was the more harsh to Philip, for he had rather high-strung feelings of honor. He grew almost '* I
livid
with suppressed agitation.
will see
you again very soon,"
but distinct manner, his
and
left
The day
the
lips
said he, in a
trembling as he spoke;
office.
incidents of the rest of that pleasant
left little
He roam'd
low
to
summer
impression on the young man's mind.
and
fro
without any object or destina-
Along South Street and by Whitehall, he watch'd with curious eyes the movements of the shipping, and the loading and unloading of cargoes; and listened to the merry heave-yo of the sailors and
tion.
stevedores.
There are some minds upon which great
excitement produces the singular
effect of uniting
two
utterly inconsistent faculties
— a sort of cold apathy,
and a sharp sensitiveness to
all
[x8]
that
is
going on at the
Collect
same
time.
Philip's
was one
of this sort; he noticed
the various differences in the apparel of a gang of wharf-laborers
— turn'd over
in his brain
whether they
wages enough to keep them comfortable, and and if they had families or not, their families also which he tried to tell by their looks. In such petty receiv'd
—
And
away.
reflections the daylight passed
all
the
while the master wish of Philip's thoughts was a desire to see
was by no means Nightfall came at last.
himself
man
For what purpose he
the lawyer Covert. clear.
did not direct his steps
Still,
however, the young
He
homeward.
felt
more
calm, however, and entering an eating house, order'd
something
for his supper,
which,
and
to him, he merely tasted,
when
it
was brought
stroll'd forth again.
There was a kind of gnawing sensation of thirst within
him
yet,
that one
the thing.
and as he pass'd a
hotel,
he bethought him
would perhaps be just He drank, and hour after hour wore away
little
glass of spirits
unconsciously; he drank not one glass, but three or four,
and strong glasses they were to him,
for
he was
habitually abstemious.
had been a hot day and evening, and when Philip, at an advanced period of the night, emerged It
from the bar-room into the
street,
thunderstorm had just commenced.
he found that a
He
resolutely
walk'd on, however, although at every step
more and more blustering. The rain now pour'd down a [19]
cataract
;
it
grew
the shops
Collect
were all shut; few of the street lamps were lighted; and there was little except the frequent flashes of
show him his way. When about half the Chatham Street, which lay in the direction
lightning to
length of
he had to take, the momentary fury of the tempest
him
forced
to turn aside into a sort of shelter form'd
by the corners of the deep entrance to a Jew pawnbroker's shop there. He had hardly drawn himself in as closely as possible,
to
him
anted '*
when
the lightning revealed
that the opposite corner of the
nook was ten-
also.
A sharp rain,
this," said the other occupant,
who
simultaneously beheld Philip.
The
young man's ears a note which almost made him sober again. It was certainly the voice of Adam Covert. He made some commonvoice sounded to the
place reply, and waited for another flash of lightning to
show him the
stranger's face.
that his companion
was indeed
It
came, and he saw
his guardian.
—
Marsh had drank deeply (let us plead all that may be possible to you, stern moralist). Upon his mind came swarming, and he could not drive them away, thoughts of all those insults his sister had told him of, and the bitter words Covert had spoken to her; he reflected, too, on the injuries Esther as well Philip
as himself had receiv'd, and
were still likely to receive, at the hands of that bold, bad man how mean, selfish, and unprincipled was his character what base and cruel advantages he had taken of many poor people, ;
—
[20]
Collect
entangled
power, and of
in his
how much wrong and
he had been the author, and might be again
suffering
The very
through future years. ments, the harsh
turmoil of the ele-
of the thunder, the vindictive
roll
beating of the rain, and the fierce glare of the wild
seem'd to
fluid that
riot in
the ferocity of the storm
around him, kindled a strange sympathetic fury
young man's mind.
Heaven
his imaginations) appear'd to
in
(so deranged
itself
have provided a
the
were
fitting
scene and time for a deed of retribution, which to his disorder'd passion half wore the semblance of a divine justice.
He remember'd not the ready solution
found
Covert's pressure of business, which had no
in
doubt kept him
in
be
than usual; but fancied some
later
mysterious intent
to
the ordaining that he should be
there,
and that they two should meet
hour.
All this whirl of influence
with startling quickness
at that
at that
untimely
came over Philip He horrid moment.
stepp'd to the side of his guardian. **
ert ?
Ho
!
" said he,
You
children!
'*
traitor to I
have
my
fear to think
we met
so soon, Mr. Cov-
dead father— robber of his
on what
I
think
now
!
The lawyer's natural effrontery did not desert him. *' Unless you 'd like to spend a night in the watchhouse, young gentleman, " said he, after a short pause, '' move on. Your father was a weak man, rememI
ber; as for his son, his foe.
say,
I
own wicked
heart
have never done wrong to either
and swear
it
1
[21]
is
his
worst
— that
I
can
Collect
" Insolent out sparks of
liar
!
"exclaimed
fire in
Philip, his
eye flashing
the darkness.
Covert made no reply except a cool, contemptuous
which stung the excited young man to double He sprang upon the lawyer, and clutch'd him
laugh, fury.
by the neckcloth. *' Take it, then " he cried hoarsely, for his throat was impeded by the fiendish rage which in that black hour possess'd him. " You are not fit to live He dragged his guardian to the earth and fell crushingly upon him, choking the shriek the poor victim I
I
but just began to
utter.
Then, with monstrous im-
precations, he twisted a tight knot around the gasping
drew
creature's neck,
and touching the eager for
its
spring, the long sharp blade, too
bloody work, flew open.
During the the prostrate of agony.
a clasp knife from his pocket,
lull
man
of the storm, the last strength of burst forth into one short loud cry
At the same instant, the arm of the mur-
derer thrust the blade, once, twice, thrice, deep in his
enemy's bosom fatal
I
Not a minute had passed
exasperating laugh
since that
—but the deed was done, and
the instinctive thought which came at once to the guilty one, In
was
a thought of fear and escape.
the unearthly pause which follow'd, Philip's
eyes gave one long searching sweep tion,
there?
eye!
every direc-
^bovel God of the What, and who was that figure
above and around him.
all-seeing
in
Collect
**
but clear
name, forbear;" cried a and melodious voice.
was
some accusing
Forbear
shrill, It
as
In Jehovah's
1
if
had come down
spirit
to bear witness against the deed of blood. far
Leaning
out of an open window, appear'd a white draper-
ied shape,
its
face possess'd of a
Long
wonderful youthful
glows of lightning gave Philip a full opportunity to see as clearly as though the sun had been shining at noonday. One hand of the figure was raised upward in a deprecating attitude, and his large bright black eyes bent down upon the scene below with an expression of horror and shrinking pain. Such heavenly looks, and the peculiar circumbeauty.
vivid
stance of the time,
*'0h, again, '
*'
not yet too
if it is
spare
fill'd Phillip's
him.
In
Thou shalt do no murder The words rang like a
ror-stricken
heart with awe.
spoke the youth
late,''
God's voice, !
I
command,
'
knell in the ear of the ter-
and already remorseful
Philip.
Springing
from the body, he gave a second glance up and the walk, which
was
totally
lonesome and deserted
then crossing into Reade Street, he
way
in
down
made
his fearful
a half state of stupor, half-bewilderment,
by
the nearest avenues to his home.
When the corpse of the murder'd lawyer was found in the
morning, and the
their inquiry, suspicion
and he was ever,
arrested.
brought to
officers ofjustice
commenced
immediately
upon
The most
light
Philip,
rigorous search,
nothing at [23]
fell
all
how-
implicating the
Collect
young man, except
his visit to Covert's office the
That
evening before, and his angry language there.
was by no means enough
to fix so heavy a charge
upon him.
The second day afterward, the whole business came before the ordinary judicial tribunal, in order that Philip might be either
or discharged.
stood alone. in his
The testimony
One
for
the crime,
of Mr. Covert's clerk
of his employers, who, believing
innocence, had deserted him not in this
had provided him with the
New
committed
crisis,
ablest criminal counsel in
The proof was declared entirely insufficient, and Philip was discharged. The crowded court-room made way for him as he came out; hundreds of curious looks fixed upon his York.
features, all
and many a
that arena of human faces, he
pale, black-eyed one, rest.
He had seen
upon him.
But of
saw only one
— a sad,
jibe pass'd
cowering
in
the centre of the
that face twice before
— the
time as a warning spectre—the second time
immediately
after his arrest
— now
first
in prison,
for the last time.
This young stranger— the son of a scorn 'd race
—com-
unhappy duty, with the intention of testifying to what he had seen, melted at the sight of Philip's bloodless cheek, and of his sister's convulsive sobs, and forbore witnessing Shall we applaud or condemn against the murderer. him? Let every reader answer the question for him-
ing to the court-room to perform an
self.
£^1
Collect
That afternoon
Philip left
New York.
His friendly
employer own'd a small farm some miles up the Hud-
was
son, and until the excitement of the affair
he advised the young man to go
prepara-
took a hurried leave of Esther, and by
nightfall
was settled in his new abode. And how, think you, rested night?
much
Philip
made a few
thankfully accepted the proposal, tions,
thither.
over,
Rested, indeed!
for the halter
O,
and the
if
Philip
those
Marsh that
who
clamor so
scaffold to punish crime,
could have seen that sight, they might have learn 'd a lesson then!
Four days had elapsed since he that
upon the bed there had slumber'd. Not the slightest intermission had come to his awaken'd and tensely strung sense, during those frightful days. Disturb'd waking dreams came to him, as he thought what he might do to gain his lost peace. Far, far away would he go! The cold roll of the murder'd man's eye, as it turn'd up its last glance into his face lay tossing
— the
shrill
exclamation of pain
—
all
the unearthly
vividness of the posture, motions, and looks of the
dead—the warning
voice from above
—pursued
him
and were never absent from his mind, asleep or awake, that long weary night. Anything, any place, to escape such horrid companionship He would travel inland hire himself to do
like
tormenting
furies,
!
hard drudgery upon some
— farm — work
incessantly
through the wide summer days, and thus force nature to bestow oblivion
upon [35]
his senses, at least a
Collect
little
while
now and
He would
then.
fly on, on, on,
amid different scenes and a new life, the old memories were rubb*d entirely out. He would fight until,
bravely
in
For peace he
himself for peace of mind.
would labor and struggle— for peace he would pray! At length after a feverish slumber of some thirty or forty minutes, the unhappy youth, waking with a nervous start, raised himself in bed, and saw the blessed daylight beginning to dawn. He felt the sweat trickling down his naked breast; the sheet where he had lain was quite wet with it. Dragging himself wearily, he opened the window. Ahl that good morning air how it refreshed him how he leaned out, and drank in the fragrance of the blossoms below, and almost for the first time in his life felt how beautifully indeed God had made the earth, and that there was wonderful sweetness in mere existence. And amidst the thousand mute mouths and eloquent eyes, which appeared as it were to look up and speak
—
in
—
every direction, he fancied so
many
invitations to
come among them.
Not without effort, for he was very weak, he dress'd himself, and issued forth into the open air. Clouds of pale gold and transparent crimson .
"^N
whose face was not yet
draperied the eastern sky, but the sun,
gladdened them
into
above the horizon. rare,
It
that glory,
all
was
a time
such Eden-like beauty!
summit of an upward
slope, [26]
and place of such
Philip
paused
at the
and gazed around him.
Collect
Some few Hudson cliffs
miles off he could see a gleam of the
River,
and above
it
a spur of those rugged
Nearer by
scatter'd along its western shores.
were cultivated
The
fields.
clover
grew
richly there,
young grain bent to the early breeze, and the At his air was filled with an intoxicating perfume. side was the large well-kept garden of his host, in which were many pretty flowers, grass plots, and a, wide avenue of noble trees. As Philip gazed, the invisible the holy calming power of Nature the
—
spirit
of so
melted into the feverish
much beauty and so much innocence, his soul. The disturbed passions and conflict subsided. He even felt some-
thing like envied peace of mind in
the presence of
as
fair
all
to him, guilty
purest of the pure.
— a sort of joy even
the unmarr'd goodness.
It
was
though he had been, as to the No accusing frowns show'd in
the face of the flowers, or in the green shrubs, or the branches of the trees.
They, more forgiving
than mankind, and distinguishing not between the children
of darkness and the children of light
Was
they at least treated him with gentleness. then, a being so accurs'd ?
Involuntarily,
—
he,
he bent
over a branch of red roses, and took them softly be-
tween
his
hands
— those murderous, bloody hands!
But the red roses neither withered nor smell'd fragrant.
And
as the
young man
dropp'd a tear upon them,
it
kiss'd
them, and
seem'd to him that
he had found pity and sympathy from Heaven [27]
less
itself.
Collect
Though
against
the rules of story-writing,
all
we
continue our narrative of these mainly true incidents (for
such they are) no
further.
the murderer soon departed for a
Only to say that
new
field
of ac-
—
and that this is but tion—that he is still living one of thousands of cases of unravePd, unpunished crime left, not to the tribunals of man, but to a
—
wider power and judgment.
am
The Last
The
Loyaiist
tional reminiscence of a country place, in
**sbecMmtu>
niy rambles about which
story
I
going to
tell
is
a tradi-
have often
I
nc L^gwre passed the house, now unoccupied, and p^Qs^jy jp fuins, that was the scene of the cannot, of course, convey to others transaction. that particular kind of influence which is derived from my being so familiar with the locality, and with the very people whose grandfathers or fathers were contemporaries of the actors in the drama shall must hardly expect, therefore, that to transcribe. back DO trestL"
1
1
I
those
who
hear
it
thro' the
medium
narration will possess as life-like
character as
On in the
City,
it
of
my
and interesting a
does to myself.
a large and
fertile
neck of land that juts out
Sound, stretching to the east of there stood,
in
the
latter
part
New
been built by one of the
New
World; and
first settlers its [28]
York
of the last
century, an old-fashion'd country-residence.
of the
pen, the
It
had
of this section
occupant was originally
Collect
owner of the extensive
tract lying
house, and pushing into waters.
It
the
adjacent to his
bosom
of the salt
was during the troubled times which
mark'd our American Revolution that the incidents occurred
my
which are the foundation of
Some time
story.
commencement of the war, shall call Vanhome, was taken the owner, whom For some time before his death he sick and died. before the 1
had
lived a
widower; and
his only child, a lad of
was thus left an orphan. By his this child was placed implicitly under
ten years old, father's will
the guardianship of an uncle, a middle-aged man,
who had
been of
care and interest, however,
while laid
the family.
His
were needed but a
little
late a resident in
— not two years elaps'd
away
after
the parents were
to their last repose before another grave
had to be prepared for the son —the child who had been so haplessly deprived of their fostering care.
The period now
arrived
convulsion burst forth.
when
the great national
Sounds of
strife
and the
and the angry voices of disputants, were borne along by the air, and week after week grew to still louder clamor. Families were divided; adherents to the crown, and ardent upholders of the rebellion, were often found in the bosom of the same domestic circle. Vanhome, the uncle spoken clash of arms,
of as guardian to the
young
heir,
was
a
man who
and the severe. He soon became known among the most energetic
lean'd to the stern, the high-handed
[29]
Collect
So decided were his sentiments that, leaving the estate which he had inherited from his brother and nephew, he join'd the forces of the British king. Thenceforward, whenever his old neighbors heard of him, it was as being engaged in of the loyalists.
the boldest inroads, or the
the cruelest outrages,
most determined attacks upon the army of his countrymen or their peaceful settlements. Eight years brought the rebel States and their
when
leaders to that glorious epoch
the last rem-
nant of a monarch's rule was to leave their shores
— when the to flutter as
and
its
waving of the
last
should be haul'd
it
place
fill'd
royal standard
down from
the
was
staff,
by the proud testimonial of our
warriors' success.
Pleasantly over the
November
sun,
when
autumn a
shone
fields
horseman, of somewhat
military look, plodded slowly along the led
to the
old
nothing peculiar
Vanhome farmhouse. in
his attire, unless
a red scarf which he
the
wore
tied
road that
There was it
might be
round his waist.
He was a dark-featured, sullen-eyed man; and as his glance was thrown restlessly to the right and left, whole manner appeared to be that of a person moving amid familiar and accustom'd scenes. Occasionally he stopp'd, and looking long and steadily his
at
some
object that attracted his attention, mutter'd
to himself, like one in
were moving.
whose
His course [30]
breast busy thoughts
was
evidently to the
Collect
homestead
at
itself,
He dismounted,
which
in
due time he
led his horse to the
arrived.
stables,
and
then, without knocking, though there were evident signs of occupancy around the building, the traveler
made
his
entrance as composedly and
boldly as
though he were master of the whole establishment. Now the house being in a measure deserted for
many strife
years,
and the successful termination of the
rendering
probable that the
it
would be confiscated
to the
Vanhome
estate
new government,
an
aged, poverty-stricken couple had been encouraged
by the neighbors the place.
to take possession as tenants of
name was
Their
Gills;
and these people
the traveler found upon his entrance were likely to
be his host and hostess. did
by so
opposition
Holding their right as they
slight a tenure,
when
they ventur'd to
offer
no
the stranger signified his intention
of passing several hours there.
and the sun went down in the interloper, gloomy and taciturn,
The day wore
on,
the west;
still
made no
signs of departing.
But as the evening
advanced (whether the darkness was congenial to
sombre thoughts, or whether it merely chanced so) he seem'd to grow more affable and communicative, and informed Gills that he should pass the night there, tendering him at the same time ample remuneration, which the latter accepted with many
his
thanks.
"Tell me," said he to his aged host, [31]
when they
(ToIIect
were
all
sitting
around the
ample hearth,
conclusion of their evening meal,
thing to while **
new
Ah!
away
at the
me some-
the hours."
answered
sir,"
**tell
'*
Gills,
We
or interesting events.
this live
is
no place
for
here from year
we find ourselves which we filled in the
to year, and at the end of one at
about the same place
beginning."
**Gin you relate nothing, then?" rejoin'd the guest, and a singular smile passed over his features;
"can you say nothing about your own place? house or
this
its
—
former inhabitants, or former his-
tory?"
The
old
man glanced
across to his wife, and a
look expressive of sympathetic feeling started
in
the
''
and
face of each.
"
may
It is
an unfortunate story,
cast a chill
feeling
which
it
sir," said Gills,
upon you, instead of the pleasant would be best to foster when in
strange walls." *'
Strange walls! " echoed he of the red
and
for the first
but
it
was not
scarf,
time since his arrival he half laughed,
the laugh which comes from a man's
heart.
"You must know,
sir,"
continued
ers
"I am
—
The Vanhomes was the name of the former residents and ownhave never seen; for when came to these
myself a sort of intruder here. that
Gills,
—
I
parts the last occupant
I
had
left
to join the red-coat
Collect
am told that he is to lands, now that the war
soldiery.
foreign
sail
I
is
with them
for
ended, and his
property almost certain to pass into other hands."
his
As the old man went on, the stranger cast down eyes, and listen'd with an appearance of great in-
though a transient smile or a brightening of the eye would occasionally disturb the serenity of his terest,
deportment.
''The old owners of this place," continued the white-haired narrator,
''
were well
and bore a good name among brother of Sergeant
off in the world,
their neighbors.
The
Vanhome, now the only one of
the name, died ten or twelve years since, leaving a
son
— a child
so small that the father's will
up by
provision for his being brought
whom
1
mentioned but
now
made
his uncle,
as of the British army.
He was a strange man, this uncle; disliked by all who knew him; passionate, vindictive, and, it was said, ''
very avaricious, even from his childhood.
Well, not long after the death of the parents, dark
stories
began to be circulated about cruelty and pun-
by People who had
ishment and whippings and starvation
new
the
master upon his nephew.
inflicted
business at the homestead would frequently,
they came away, relate the most manager, and
was
fearful things of its
he misused his brother's
child.
It
half hinted that he strove to get the youngster
out of the fall
how
when
into
way in order that the whole estate might own hands. As told you before,
his
I
VOL. VI.— 3.
[33]
Collect
however, nobody liked the man; and perhaps they
judged him too uncharitably.
had gone on in this way for some time, a countryman, a laborer, who was hired to do farm-work upon the place, one evening observed that the little orphan Vanhome was more faint and pale even than usual, for he was always delicate, and **
After things
why think it possible that his death, of which am now going to tell you, was but the result of his own weak constitution, and nothing that
is
one reason
I
1
The
else.
house.
night at the farm-
laborer slept that
Just before the time at
which they usually
retired to bed, this person, feeling sleepy
day*s
way
toil,
to rest.
to pass a sir,
left
the kitchen hearth and In
with his
wended
his
going to his place of repose he had
chamber— the
are to sleep to-night
very chamber where you,
— and
there he heard the
voice of the orphan child uttering half-suppress'd
exclamations as
if
Upon stopelder Vanhome,
in pitiful entreaty.
ping, he heard also the tones of the
The sound of blows followed. As each one fell it was accompanied by a groan or shriek, and so they continued for some time. Shocked and indignant, the countryman would have but they were harsh and
bitter.
burst open the door and interfered to prevent this brutal
proceeding, but he bethought him that he
might get himself into trouble, and perhaps find that he could do no good
after
to his room. C34]
all,
and so he passed on
Collect
"Well,
sir,
the following day the child did not
come out among the work-people as usual. taken very ill. No physician was sent for next afternoon; and though one arrived of the night,
it
was too
late
— the
in
He was until the
the course
poor boy died be-
fore morning.
People talk'd threateningly upon the subject,
''
but nothing could be proved against Vanhome.
At
one period there were efforts made to have the whole Perhaps that would have taken affair investigated.
had not every one's attention been swallow'd up by the rumors of difficulty and war, which were
place,
then beginning to disturb the country. ''
Vanhome joined
the army of the king.
His ene-
mies said that he feared to be on the side of the rebels,
because
they were routed his property
if
would be taken from him. But events have shown that, if this was indeed what he dreaded, it has happen'd to him from the very means which he took to prevent it"
The
old
man
He had
paused.
For some minutes
himself with so long talking. there
was unbroken
quite wearied
silence.
Presently the stranger signified his intention of retiring for the night.
a
light
for
He
the purpose
rose,
and
his host
of ushering
him
to
took his
apartment.
When
Gills return'd to his
in the large
accustomed situation
arm-chair by the chimney-hearth, his [35]
Collect
With the simthe bed stood in the same
ancient helpmate had retired to rest. plicity of their times,
room where the three had been seated during the last few hours; and now the remaining two talk'd together about the singular events of the evening.
As the time wore on, leave his cosy chair;
bending over the
show'd no disposition to but sat toasting his feet, and
Gills
Gradually the insidious
coals.
heat and the lateness of the hour began to exercise their influence over the old
The drowsy
man.
indo-
which every one has experienced in getting thoroughly heated through by close contact with a glowing fire, spread in each vein and sinew, and relaxed its tone. He lean'd back in his chair and slept. For a long time his repose went on quietly and lent feeling
soundly.
He could not tell how many hours elapsed
but, a while after midnight, the torpid senses of the
slumberer were awaken 'd by a startling shock.
was
a cry as of a strong
not very loud cry, but
blood
in his
fearful,
like cold, polished steel.
himself
in his seat
For a minute, night.
man
Then
all
and
—a
shrill,
and creeping into the
The
listen'd, at
old
once
was the solemn
man
fully
raised
awake.
stillness of
mid-
rose that horrid tone again, wailing
and wild, and making the hearer's end.
agony
It
One moment more, and
hair to stand
on
the trampling of hasty
sounded in the passage outside. The door was thrown open, and the form of the stranger, more like a corpse than living man, rushed into the room. feet
[36]
Collect
"All white !" yell'd the conscience-stricken creature—'' all white, and with the grave-clothes around him.
One
per'd,
''
and
I
came
I
shoulder
saw blue
cried
was
my very my face.
upon
streaks
aloud.
He
and
bare,
I
saw," he whisIt
it.
was
stepp'd toward
horrible,
me
I
He
hand almost touch'd could not bear it, and fled." The miserable man bent his head down upon his bosom; convulsive rattlings shook his throat; and his whole frame waver'd to and fro like a tree in a storm. Bewilder'd and shocked. Gills look'd at his apparently deranged guest, and knew not what answer to make, or what course of conduct to pursue. Thrusting out his arms and his extended fingers, and bending down his eyes, as men do when shading them from a glare of lightning, the stranger stagbedside;
to
ger'd from the
his small
I
door,
and,
in
a
moment
further,
dash'd madly through the passage which led through the kitchen into the outer road.
The
old
man
heard
the noise of his falling footsteps, sounding fainter
and
fainter
dropp'd his
in
own
the distance, and then, retreating,
exhausted limbs into the chair from
which he had been arous'd so
terribly.
It
was many
minutes before his energies recover'd their accus-
tomed tone again. Strangely enough, his wife, unawaken'd by the stranger's ravings, still slumber'd on as profoundly as ever. Pass we on to a far different scene —the embarkation of the British troops for the distant land [37]
whose
Collect
monarch was never more to wield the sceptre over a kingdom lost by his imprudence and tyranny. With frowning brow and sullen pace the martial ranks
moved
Boat after boat was
on.
discharged
its
complement
heaving their anchors
the
in
ships that lay
the stream,
in
and, as each
filled,
it
returned,
and
was soon filled with another load. And at length it became time for the last soldier to lift his eye and glance at the broad banner of England's
take a
last
pride,
which
highest
staff"
flapped
its
folds from the top of the
on the Battery.
As the warning sound of a trumpet called together all who were laggards those taking leave of friends, and those who were arranging their own
—
private affairs,
left
until the last
A
made
— a single
down
the
red scarf tightly encircled his waist.
He
horseman was seen street.
moment
furiously
directly for the shore,
gathered started back in
dashing
and the crowd there
wonderment
his disheveFd appearance
and ghastly
as they beheld face.
Throw-
ing himself violently from his saddle, he flung the bridle over the animal's neck,
and gave him a sharp
cut with a small riding- whip.
He made
for
the boat;
one minute later, and he had been left. They were pushing the keel from the landing— the stranger
sprang— a space vened
— he
of
two
or three feet already inter-
—
and the Last gunwale Soldier of King George had left the American struck on the
shores. [38]
Collect
As the sun, one August day some fifty years ago, had just pass'd the meridian of ^ *• f \ T ^ ^ ^ Country town m the eastern section of Long Island, a single traveler came up to
"VTiid
Frank's
•
Return
the quaint low-roof d village tavern, open'd door, and enter'd the
common
room.
its half-
Dust covered
brow was moist lagging, weary way;
the clothes of the wayfarer, and his
He
with sweat.
though
his
trod in
a
form and features told of an age not more
Over one shoulder and in his hand he carried
than nineteen or twenty years.
was slung a
little
a sailor's jacket,
bundle.
told a ferpale
Sitting
down on
who made
a rude bench, he
her appearance behind the
bar, that
he would have a glass of brandy and sugar.
He took
off the liquor at a draught: after
which he lit and began to smoke a cigar, with which he supplied himself from his pocket— stretching out one leg, and leaning his elbow down on the bench, in
man who takes an indolent lounge. Do you know one Richard Hall that lives somewhere here among you ? " said he. Mr. Hall's is down the lane that turns off by that big locust tree," answer'd the woman, pointing the attitude of a *'
''
to the direction through the
open door;
*'it 's
about
half a mile from here to his house."
The youth, for a minute or two, puff 'd the smoke from his mouth very leisurely in silence. His manner had an air of vacant self-sufficiency, rather strange in
one of so few years. [39]
Collect
—
a
wish to see Mr. Hall," he said at length Here 's a silver sixpence, for any one who will I
'*
carry a message to him."
"The
folks are
and your limbs
was not
all
away.
It *s
but a short walk,
altogether pleased with the easy
making himself
at
who way of
young," replied the female,
are
home which marked
her shabby-
That individual, however, seem'd to give small attention to the hint, but lean'd and looking customer.
puff *d his cigar-smoke as leisurely as before. **
woman,
Unless," continued the
ond glance
at the
the stable, as he
sixpence;
's
'*
catching a sec-
unless old Joe
very likely to be.
1 '11
And she push'd open
find out for you."
her back, stepp'd through an adjoining a yard,
at
go and
a door at
room
into
whence her voice was the next moment
heard calling the person she had mention'd, cents
is
by no means remarkable
for their
in ac-
melody or
softness.
Her search was successful. She soon returned with him who was to act as messenger a little,
—
withered, ragged old
unshaven late
— a hanger-on there, whose
face told plainly
intemperate habits
too
man
to be
enough the story of
his
— those deeply seated habits, now
uprooted, that would ere long lay
him in a drunkard's grave. The youth inform'dhim what the required service was, and promised him the reward as soon as he should return. **Tell Richard Hall that [40]
1
am
going to his
father's
Collect
house
this
afternoon.
he asks
If
who
that
is
it
wishes him here, say the person sent no name," continued the stranger, sitting up from his indolent
were about leaving the
posture, as the feet of old Joe
door-stone, and his blear'd eyes turned to catch the last
sentence of the mandate.
And yet, perhaps you may as well," added communing a moment with himself: ''you may '*
he, tell
him his brother Frank, Wild Frank, it is, who wishes him to come." The old man departed on his errand, and he who call'd himself Wild Frank, toss'd his nearly smoked cigar out of the window, and folded his arms in thought.
No
better place than this, probably, will occur to
some former events
give a brief account of life
of the
young
in
and waiting
named
Hall, a
man
of
good
— required
all
his
portion to their age; and his
might not be called Richard.
faced
at the
repute, well-off
the world, and head of a large family.
fond of gain
the
Fifteen miles east of that inn lived a
village inn.
farmer
stranger, resting
in
favorite,
He was
boys to labor in proright hand man, if he
was
his
eldest son
This eldest son, an industrious, sober-
young
fellow,
was
the powers of second swift obedience
was
in
by his father with command; and as strict and invested
a prime tenet in the farmer's
domestic government, the children mitted to their brother's
sway— all [41]
all
tacitly
sub-
but one, and that
Collect
was
The
Frank.
in rather
farmer*s wife
was
a quiet
tender health; and though for
all
woman, her
off-
spring she had a mother's love, Frank's kiss ever
She favor'd him more than the rest in a hundred similar instances, for his being so often at fault, and so often blamed. In truth, however, he seldom received more blame than he deserv'd, for he was a capricious, high-temper'd lad, and up to all kinds of mischief. From these traits he was known in the neighborhood by the name of Wild Frank. seem'd sweetest to her
lips.
— perhaps, as
Among
the farmer's stock there
was
a fine
young
blood mare — a beautiful creature, large and graceful,
with eyes
like
dark-hued jewels, and her color that of
the deep night.
It
being the custom of the farmer to
boys have something about the farm that they could call their own, and take care of as such, Black let his
Nell, as the
mare was
had somehow or other He was very proud of her,
called,
fallen to Frank's share.
and thought as much of her comfort as his own. elder brother, however,
saw
fit
The
to claim for himself,
and several times to exercise, a privilege of managing and using Black Nell, notwithstanding what
Frank consider'd his prerogative.
On
occasions a hot dispute arose, and, after blood,
it
was
He decided
in
referr'd to the
just;
and Wild Frank's
much angry
farmer for settlement.
favor of Richard,
lecture to his other son.
one of these
and added a harsh
The farmer was
really
face paled with rage [42]
un-
and
Collect
mortification.
That furious temper which he had
never been taught to curb,
flowing torrent.
With
now
swell'd like an over-
difficulty restraining the ex-
hibition of his passions, as soon as
he got by himself
he swore that not another sun should
roll
by and
him under that roof. Late at night he silently arose, and turning his back on what he thought an inhospitable home, in mood in which the child find
should never leave the parental
toward the It
may
roof,
bent his steps
city.
well be imagined that alarm and grief
pervaded the whole of the family, on discovering Frank's departure.
And
as
week
after
week melted
away and brought no tidings of him, his poor mother's heart grew wearier and wearier. She spoke not much, but was evidently sick in spirit. Nearly two years had elaps'd when about a week before the incidents at the commencement of this were joyfully surprised by receiving a letter from the long absent son. He had been to sea, and was then in New York, at which port his vessel had just arrived. He wrote in a gay strain; appear'd to have lost the angry feeling which caused his flight from home; and said he heard in the city that Richard had married, and settled several miles distant, where he wished him all good luck and happiness. Wild Frank wound up his letter by promising, as soon as he could get through the imperative business of his ship, to pay a visit to his story, the farmer's family
[43]
Collect
On Tuesday
parents and native place.
of the suc-
ceeding week, he said he would be with them.
Within half an hour
after the departure of old joe,
was seen slowly
the form of that ancient personage
wheeling round the locust-tree
at the
end of the
accompanied by a stout young man in primitive homespun apparel. The meeting between Wild
lane,
Frank and his brother Richard, though hardly of that kind which generally takes place between persons so closely related, could not exactly be call'd distant or
Richard pressed his brother to go with
cool either.
him
some hours
self for
''They
he
will
*'
said, '*
and repose him-
to the farmhouse, and refresh
I
all
but Frank declined.
at least,
expect
me home
wrote to them
I
But you must be very
this afternoon,"
would be there to-day."
tired,
Frank," rejoin'd the
some of us harness up and " he stopp'd a moment, carry you ? Or if you like and a trifling suffusion spread over his face; '* if you other;
'*
won't you
let
—
like, ril
at
my
put the saddle on Black Nell
— she
now, and you can
home
place
ride
's
here
like a
lord."
Frank's face colored a
moment
in
too.
little,
thought — he
was
He paused
**
You know
the speed of Nell, as well as
when
Richard; *M
say she
good order
in
day — so
he
offer.
'11
's
and
really foot-sore,
exhausted with his journey that hot accepted his brother's
for a
warrant
I
bring her here
as ever." [44]
So
telling
I,"
said
you '11 him to
Collect
amuse himself for Richard
left
a
few minutes as well as he could,
the tavern.
Could it be that Black Nell knew her early master ? She neigh'd and rubb'd her nose on his shoulder; and as he put his foot in the stirrup and rose on her back, it was evident that they were both highly pleased with their meeting.
Bidding his brother
young man set forth on his journey to his father's house. As he left the village behind, and came upon the long mofarewell,
and not forgetting old
Joe, the
notonous road before him, he thought on the circumstances of his leaving
home
— and he
thought, too,
on his course of life, how it was being frittered away and lost. Very gentle influences, doubtless, came over Wild Frank's mind then, and he yearn'd to
show
was
sorry for the trouble
He blamed
himself for his former
his parents that he
he had cost them. follies,
and even
felt
remorse that he had not acted
more kindly to Richard, and gone to his house. Oh, it had been a sad mistake of the farmer that he did not teach his children to love one another. It was a foolish thing that he prided himself on governing his
little
flock well,
when sweet
affection, gentle for-
bearance, and brotherly faith, were almost
unknown
among them. The day was now advanced, though the heat pour'd down with a strength little less oppressive than at noon.
Frank had accomplish'd the greater
part of his journey; he
was within two [45]
miles of his
Collect
home. The road here led over a high, tiresome and he determined to stop on the top of it and
How
And
knew
well he
rest
few
himself, as well as give the animal he rode a
minutes* breath.
hill,
the place
that mighty oak, standing just outside the fence
on the very summit of the
hill,
often had he reposed
would be pleasant
few minutes to stretch his limbs there again as of old, he thought to himself; and he dismounted from the Mindful saddle and led Black Nell under the tree. under
its
shade.
It
for a
of the comfort of his favorite, he took from his
little
bundle, which he had strapped behind him on the
mare's back, a piece of strong cord, four or five yards in length,
and
which he
tied to the bridle,
and wound
own
tied the other end, for security, over his
upon the ground, Black Nell was at liberty to graze around him, without danger of straying away. It was a calm scene, and a pleasant. There was no rude sound hardly even a chirping insect to break the sleepy silence of the place. The atmosphere had a dim, hazy cast, and was impregnated with overpowering heat. The young man lay there wrist; then
throwing himself
at full length
—
minute for
after
away unnoticed; repose was sweet to
minute, as time glided
he was very
him.
—
tired,
and
his
Occasionally he raised himself and cast a
less look at the distant landscape,
the slight mist.
veiFd as
it
list-
was by
At length his repose was without
such interruptions.
His eyes closed, and though at [463
Collect
first
they open'd languidly again at
Could
while they shut altogether. slept ?
It
was
intervals, after a it
be that he
Yielding to the drowsy
so indeed.
influences about him, and to his prolong'd weariness
of travel, he had fallen into a deep, sound slumber.
Thus he
lay;
and Black
his departure from his
the companion of his
Nell, the original cause of
— by a singular chance, return — quietly cropp'd the
home
grass at his side.
An hour
man
nearly pass'd away, and yet the
The
young
and heat were not glaring now; a change had come over earth and heaven. slept on.
light
There were signs of one of those thunderstorms that in
our climate spring up and pass over so quickly
and so
terribly.
horizon,
and
Masses of vapor loom'd up
and a dark shadow
fields.
The
settled
the
on the woods
leaves of the great oak rustled to-
gether over the youth's head. in
in
Clouds
flitted swiftly
men coming up to leader's trumpet. A thick
the sky, like bodies of armed
battle at the call of their
rain-drop
fell
now and then,
while occasionally hoarse
mutterings of thunder sounded the slumberer
was not
arous'd.
in It
the distance; yet
was strange
that
Wild Frank did not awake. Perhaps his ocean life had taught him to rest undisturbed amid the jarring of elements. Though the storm was now coming on in its fury, he slept like a babe in its cradle. Black Nell had ceased grazing, and stood by her sleeping master with ears erect, and her long mane [47]
Collect
and tail waving in the wind. It seem'd quite darlc, so heavy were the clouds. The blast blew sweepingly, the lightning flashed, and the rain fell in torCrash after crash of thunder seem'd to shake rents. the solid earth. And Black Nell, she stood now, an image of beautiful terror, with her fore feet thrust out, her neck arch'd, and her eyes glaring balls of fear. At length, after a dazzling and lurid glare, there great
—a
came a peal axle was rent.
deafening crash
God
of Spirits
!
— as
if
the
the startled
Her mare sprang off like a ship in an ocean-storm eyes were blinded with light; she dashed madly down the hill, and plunge after plunge far, far away swift as an arrow dragging the hapless body of the youth behind her !
—
—
—
In the low, old-fashion'd
there
was
dwelling of the farmer
a large family group.
The men and boys
had gathered under shelter at the approach of the storm; and the subject of their talk was the return of the long absent son. The mother spoke of him, too,
and her eyes brightened with pleasure as she
spoke.
She made
— cook'd his his
own
to
the
little
favorite dishes
bed, in
mounted
all
its
its
own
domestic preparations
— and arranged
old place.
for
him
As the tempest
fury they discussed the probability of
his getting soak'd
by
it;
and the provident dame had
some dry garments for a change. But the rain was soon over, and nature smiled again in her invigorated beauty. The sun shone
already selected
[48]
Collect
was dipping
out as
it
on the
leaf-tips
in
the west.
Drops sparkled
— coolness and clearness were
in
the
air.
came to the ears It was on the of those who were gather'd there. other side of the house that the wagon road lead;
The
clattering of a horse's hoofs
and they open'd the door and rush'd in a tumult of glad anticipations, through the adjoining room to the porch.
What
a sight
was
it
met them there
that
!
Black Nell stood a few feet from the door, with her
neck crouch 'd down; she drew her breath long and deep, and vapor rose from every part of her reeking
body.
And with eyes
starting from their sockets,
and mouths agape with stupefying terror, they beheld on the ground near her a mangled, hideous mass the rough semblance of a human form all Attached to it was batter'd, and cut, and bloody.
—
—
the
fatal cord,
dabbled over with gore.
—
And
as the
mother gazed for she could not withdraw her eyes and the appalling truth came upon her mind, she
—
sank
down without
shriek or utterance, into a deep,
deathly swoon.
Listen, and the old will
°^
the young.
speak a chronicle for
Ah, youth
thou art one day coming to be old, too. And let me tell thee how thou mayest get a useful lesson. For an hour, dream thyself old. Realize, in thy thoughts and conLover
!
sciousness, that vigor and strength are VOL. VI.—4.
[49]
subdued
in
Collect
— that the color of the shroud likened those leaping desires, luxthy very hairs — that
thy sinews
in
is
all
urious hopes, beautiful aspirations, and proud con-
younger
fidences, of thy
have long been buried
life,
(a funeral for the better part of thee) in that grave
which must soon close over thy tottering limbs. Look back, then, through the long track of the past
How has
years.
it
been with thee
?
Are there bright
beacons of happiness enjoy'd, and of good done by
way
the
Glimmer gentle rays of what was scatfrom a holy heart? Have benevolence, and and undeviating honesty left tokens on which
tered
love,
?
thy eyes can
rest
sweetly
Answerest thou,
thus?
It
?
Is
it
well with thee,
Or answerest
is?
thou,
gloom and and the wreck of good resolves, and a broken heart, filled with sickness, and troubled among its ruined chambers with the phantoms of many follies ? O, youth youth this dream will one day be a I
see nothing but
!
reality—2l
shattered hours,
!
reality, either of
heavenly peace or agoniz-
ing sorrow.
And
yet not
for all is
it
decreed to attain the neigh-
borhood of the three score and ten years—the span of life. am to speak of one who died young. Very awkward was his childhood—but most fragile and I
sensitive
!
So
unnoticed plant tiful, it is
may exist
delicate a nature !
and dropped
Let the
away
boy
rest
;
betimes.
a singular story, to which ISO]
let
in
a rough,
—he was not beauBut
for
the cause
crusted worldlings
Collect
pay the their
tribute of a light
own hollow
laugh—light and empty
as
hearts.
which with its cankerseed of decay within, has sent young men and maidens to a long'd-for, but Love the child-monarch that too premature burial. Death itself cannot conquer; that has its tokens on slabs at the head of grass-cover'd tombs tokens more Love
!
!
—
visible to the
eye of the stranger, yet not so deeply
graven as the face and the remembrances cut upon Love! the sweet, the pure,
the heart of the living.
the innocent; yet the causer of fierce hate, of wishes for
deadly revenge, of bloody deeds, and madness,
and the horrors of
Love! that wanders over
hell.
up mangled human trunks, and parting back the hair from gory faces, and daring the points of swords and the thunder of artillery, without
battlefields, turning
a fear or a
Words
thought of danger.
begin to see am, indeed, an words old man, and garrulous Let me go back yes, see it must be many years !
!
I
I
—
!
I
!
It
was
at the close of the last century.
One
foreigner,
of his clients
who
kept a
little
was an
was
at
my
father fol-
elderly
widow, a
that time studying law, the profession
lowed.
I
ale-house, on the banks of
two miles from what is now the centre of the city. Then the spot was quite out of town and surrounded by fields and green trees. The widow often invited me to come and pay her a visit, when had a leisure afternoon including also the North River, at about
—
I
[SI]
Collect
in
my
the invitation
two other students
brother and
who were in my father's office. Matthew, the brother I
mention, was a boy of sixteen; he was troubled with
an inward illness—though
it
temper, which ever retained cidity
and gentleness.
boisterous,
had no power over his the most admirable pla-
He was
cheerful, but never
and everybody loved him
;
mind seem'd age, though his
his
more developed than is usual for his personal appearance was exceedingly plain. Wheaton and Brown, the names of the other students, were spirited, clever young fellows, with most of the traits that those in their position of
life
generally possess.
The first was as generous and brave as any man ever knew. He was very passionate, too, but the whirlwind soon blew over, and left everything quiet again. Frank Brown was slim, graceful, and handsome. He I
profess'd to be fond of sentiment, ularly in love
The
once a month.
half of every
ourselves,
and used to fall reg-
Wednesday we four youths had to
and were
or a walk together.
in
the habit of taking a
sail,
a ride,
One of these afternoons, of a pleas-
ant day in April, the sun shining, and the
air clear,
1
bethought myself of the widow and her beer— about which latter article had made inquiries, and heard it I
spoken of in termsof high commendation. the matter to
we
Matthew and to
agreed to
house.
fill
in
mentioned
my fellow-students, and
up our holiday by a jaunt to the ale-
Accordingly,
walk, arrived
I
we
set forth, and, after a fine
glorious spirits at our destination. [5^]
Collect
Ah how !
shall
I
describe the quiet beauties of the
low piazza looking out upon the river, and its clean homely tables, and the tankards of real silver in which the ale was given us, and the There was the flavor of that excellent liquor itself. widow; and there was a sober, stately old woman, half companion, half servant, Margery by name; and spot, with
long,
its
was (good God my fingers quiver yet as write the word!) young Ninon, the daughter of the widow. there
I
!
no more, my memory strays back, and that whole scene comes up before me once again and the brightest part of the picture O, through the years that
live
—
is
the strange ethereal beauty of that
young
girl
She was apparently about the age of my brother Matthew, and the most fascinating, artless creature had ever beheld. She had blue eyes and light hair, and I
an expression of childish simplicity which was charm-
have no doubt that ere half an hour had elapsed from the time we enter'd the tavern and saw ing indeed.
I
Ninon, every one of the four of us loved the
girl
to
much money, nor drank
as
the very depth of passion.
We much home.
neither spent so
beer, as
we had
intended before starting from
The widow was very
civil,
being pleased to
see us, and Margery served our wants with a deal of
— but
was
Ninon that the afternoon's pleasure was attributable; for though we were strangers, we became acquainted at once the manners of politeness
it
to
—
[53]
Collect
merry as she was, putting entirely out of view the most distant imputation of indecorum—and the the
girl,
widow and Margery
presence of the in
the
common room
(for
we were
all
together, there being no other
company), serving to make us
all
disembarrassed, and
at ease. It
was not
started
until quite a
while
on our return to the
city.
after
sunset that
We
made
we
several
attempts to revive the mirth and lively talk that usually signalized
our rambles, but they seem'd forced
and discordant, brother
laughter in a sick-room.
like
was the only one who preserved
My
his usual
tenor of temper and conduct.
need hardly say that thenceforward every Wednesday afternoon was spent at the widow's tavern. I
Strangely, neither
Matthew
or
my two
friends, or
myself, spoke to each other of the sentiment that filled
us
in reference to
Ninon.
Yet
we
all
knew
the
thoughts and feelings of the others, and each, perhaps, felt
confident that his love alone
was unsuspected by
his companions.
The ple one.
story of the
widow was
She was by
a touching yet sim-
birth a Swiss.
In
one of the
cantons of her native land, she had grown up, and married, and lived for a time in
happy comfort.
A
son was born to her, and a daughter, the beautiful Ninon.
By some
reverse of fortune, the father and
head of the family had the greater portion of his possessions swept from him. [54]
He
struggled for a time
Collect
againsttheevil influence,but it pressed upon
him harder and harder. He had heard of a people in the Western world a new and swarming land where the stranger was welcom'd, and peace and the protection He had not of the strong arm thrown around him. heart to stay and struggle amid the scenes of his former prosperity, and he determined to go and make his home in that distant republic of the West. So with his wife and children, and the proceeds of what little
—
property
—
was
was never
left,
he took passage
for
New York.
to reach his journey's end.
cares that weighed
upon
his mind, or
He
Either the
some other cause,
hammock, from which he only through the Great Dismisser. He was
consign'd him to a sick
found
relief
buried
in
at the
the sea, and in due time his family arrived
American emporium.
But there, the son too
sicken'd— died, ere long, and was buried likewise.
They would not bury him by the
solitary
widow soon
in
the
city,
but
away
banks of the Hudson; on which the
afterwards took up her abode.
Ninon was too young to feel much grief at these sad occurrences; and the mother, whatever she might have suffer'd inwardly, had .a good deal of phlegm and patience, and set about making herself and her remaining child as comfortable as might be.
had
still
They
sum in cash, and after due widow purchas'd the little quiet
a respectable
deliberation, the
tavern, not far from the grave of her boy;
days and holidays she took [55]
in
and of Sun-
considerable
money
Collect
enough to make a decent support for them in their humble way of living, French and Germans visited the house frequently, and quite a number of young Americans the
latter
too.
was
Probably the greatest attraction to
the sweet face of Ninon.
Spring passed, and
summer
crept in and wasted
away, and autumn had arrived. Every New Yorker knows what delicious weather we have, in these regions, of the early October days; how calm, clear, and divested of sultriness, is the air, and how decently nature seems preparing for her winter sleep.
Thus
it
was the
last
Wednesday we
started on our
months had elapsed since our first visit, and, as then, we were full of the exuFrequent and berance of young and joyful hearts. hearty were our jokes, by no means particular about the theme or the method, and long and loud the peals accustomed excursion.
Six
of laughter that rang over the fields or along the shore.
We table,
took our seats round the same clean, white
and received our
favorite beverage in the
They were
bright tankards.
set before
sober Margery, no one else being
we were
same
us by the
visible.
As
fre-
company. Walking and breathing the keen, fine air had made us dry, and we soon drain'd the foaming vessels, and remember well an animated chat caird for more. we had about some poems that had just made their appearance from a great British author, and were creThere was one, a tale of ating quite a public stir. quently happened,
1
[56]
the
only
Collect
passion and despair, which
Wheaton had
of which he gave us a transcript.
and dreamy, perhaps
it
Wild,
and
read,
startling,
threw over our minds
its
peculiar cast.
An hour moved
off,
we began
and
strange that neither Ninon or the
One
the room.
to think
widow came
into
of us gave a hint to that effect to
Margery; but she made no answer, and went on
way
her usual '*
The grim
it
in
as before.
Wheaton, '' if she were " in Spain, they 'd make her a premier duenna ask'd the woman about Ninon and the widow. She seemed disturbed, thought; but, making no reold thing," said
!
I
1
ply to the tress
was
first
in
part of
my question,
said that her mis-
another part of the house, and did not
wish to be with company, *'Then be kind enough, Mrs. Vinegar," resumed
Wheaton, good-naturedly, ''be kind enough to go and ask the widow if we can see Ninon." Our attendant's face turn'd as pale as ashes, and she precipitately
left
the apartment.
her agitation, which Frank
merry
We
laugh'd at
Brown assigned
to our
ridicule.
Quite a quarter of an hour elaps'd before Margery's return.
the
When
she appear'd she told us briefly that
widow had bidden
we
her obey our behest, and now,
would conduct us to the daughter's presence. There was a singular expression in the woman's eyes, and the whole affair began to strike us
if
desired, she
[57]
Collect
somewhat odd; but we
and taking our caps, followed her as she stepped through the door. Back of the house were some fields, and a path leading into clumps of trees. At some thirty rods distant from the as
arose,
one of those clumps, the larger tree whereof was a willow, Margery stopped and pausing
tavern, nigh
a minute, while
we came
up, spoke in tones calm
and
low:
"Ninon
is
there!"
She pointed downward with her finger. Great God There was a grave, new made, and with the sods loosely joined, and a rough brown stone at each extremity! Some earth yet lay upon the grass near If we had look'd, we might have seen the restby. ing-place of the widow's son, Ninon's brother— for it was close at hand. But amid the whole scene our !
eyes took
in
nothing except that horrible covering of
My
death—the oven-shaped mound. to waver,
my
head
felt
dizzy,
and a
sight
seemed
feeling of deadly
came over me. heard a stifled exclamation, and looking round, saw Frank Brown leaning against sickness
I
the nearest tree, great sweat upon his forehead, and
Wheaton gave way than ever had known a man
his cheeks bloodless as chalk.
agony more fully before; he had fallen sobbing
to his
—
ing his hands.
It is
1
like a child,
and wring-
impossible to describe the sud-
denness and fearfulness of the sickening truth that
came upon us like a stroke of thunder. Of all of us, my brother Matthew [58]
neither shed
Collect
tears, or
turned pale, or fainted, or exposed any other
evidence of inward depth of pain. ant voice
which
was indeed
His quiet, pleas-
a tone lower, but
the lapse of
recall'd us, after
many
it
was
that
long min-
utes, to ourselves.
had died and been buried. We were of an illness that had seized her the very day af-
So the told
girl
ter our last preceding visit;
but
we
inquired not into
the particulars.
And now come
I
to the conclusion of
my
story,
and to the most singular part of it. The evening of the third day afterward, Wheaton, who had wept scalding tears, and Brown, whose cheeks had recover'd their color,
my
and myself, that
for
an hour thought
would never rebound again from the fearful that evening, say, we three were seated
heart
shock
—
I
around a table
in
another tavern, drinking other
and laughing but a little less cheerfully, and as though we had never known the widow or her
beer,
daughter into our
—neither of whom,
I
venture to affirm, came
minds once the whole
night, or but to be
dismiss'd again, carelessly, like the remembrance of faces seen in a crowd.
Strange are the contradictions of the things of life!
The seventh day after that dreadful visit saw my brother Matthew the delicate one, who, while bold men writhed in torture, had kept the same placid face, and the same untrembling fingers him that seventh day saw a clay-cold corpse, carried to the repose of
—
—
[59]
Collect
the churchyard. within,
youth
The
shaft, rankling far
wrought a poison too great
down and
show, and the
for
died.
one evening in summer —that pleasant hour when the air is balmy.
Just after sunset, ^
Sf
ISd
Profligate
the light loses
its
glare,
and
around
all
is
—
imbued with soothing quiet on the doorstep of a house there sat an elderly woman waiting the arrival of her son.
The house was
in a
straggling
some fifty miles from New York City. She who sat on the door-step was a widow; her white cap covered locks of gray, and her dress, though clean, was village
exceedingly homely.
she occupied was her
Her house
own—was
Trees clustered around
old.
it
—
for
very
the tenement little
and very
so thickly as almost to
color— that blackish gray color which belongs to old wooden houses that have never been painted; and to get into it you had to enter a little rickety gate hide
its
and walk through a short path, border'd by beds and beets and other vegetables. she was expecting was her only child. before he had been
bound apprentice
carrot
The son whom About
a year
to a rich farmer
was
in
the place, and after finishing his daily task he
in
the habit of spending half an hour at his mothers.
On
the present occasion the shadows of night had
settled heavily before the
When all
his
youth made
his appearance.
walk was slow and dragging, and motions were languid, as if from great wearihe
did, his
[60]
Collect
ness.
He open'd the
came through the
gate,
path,
and sat down by his mother in silence. *'You are sullen to-night, Charley," said the widow, after a moment's pause, when she found
no answer to her greeting. As she spoke she put her hand fondly on his head; it seem'd moist as if it had been dipped in the water. His shirt, too, was soak'd; and as she pass'd her fingers down his shoulder she felt a sharp twinge in that he return 'd
her heart, for she
knew
that moisture to be the hard
wrung sweat of severe toil, exacted from her young child (he was but thirteen years old) by an unyielding task-master.
You have work'd hard to-day, my son." ''I Ve been mowing." The widow's heart felt another pang. *' Not all day, Charley ? " she said, in a low voice; and there was a slight quiver in it. ''
*'Yes, mother, Ellis said
he could
are so high.
I
all
n't afford to hire
've
swung
hour before sunrise.
There were Tears started trust herself
in
day," replied the boy; ''Mr. for
wages
the scythe ever since an
Feel of
blisters
men,
my
on them
hands." like great
the widow's eyes.
lumps.
She dared not
with a reply, though her heart was
bursting with the thought that she could not better
There was no earthly means of support on which she had dependence enough to en-
his condition.
courage her child
in
the wish she [6i]
knew he was
Collect
forming— the wish not
utter'dfor the
first
time
—
to be freed from his bondage.
" Mother," It
no
at length said the boy,
longer.
I
'M can stand
cannot and will not stay at Mr.
went into his house Ve been a slave; and if have to work so much longer know shall run off and go to sea or some'd as leave be in my grave as there." where else. Ever since the day
Ellis's.
1
first
I
I
I
I
I
And
the child burst into a passionate
His mother After
herself.
fit
of weeping.
was silent, for she was in deep grief some minutes had flown, however,
she gathered sufficient self-possession to speak to her soothing tone, endeavoring to win him from
son
in a
his
sorrows and cheer up his heart.
— troubles — with
She told him
was swift that in the course of a few that all people years he would be his own master
that time
have
their
—
many
other ready argu-
ments which, though they had little effect in calming her own distress, she hoped would act as a solace to the disturb'd temper of the boy. And as the half hour to which he was limited had now elaps'd, she took him by the hand and led him to the gate, to set forth on his return. The youth seemed pacified, though occasionally one of those convulsive sighs that remain after a fit of weeping, would break from his throat. At the gate he threw his arms about his mother's neck; each press'd a long kiss on the lips of the other, and the youngster bent his steps towards his master's house. [to]
Collect
As her
child pass'd out of sight the
widow
re-
turn'd, shut the gate and enter'd her lonely room.
There was no the heart of
light in the old cottage that night its
—
occupant was dark and cheerless.
Love, agony, and
and convulsive The thought of a beloved
and
grief,
wrestlings were there.
son condemned to labor
tears
— labor
that
would break
down a man — struggling from day to day under the
hard rule of a soulless gold-worshipper; the knowledge that years must pass thus; the sickening idea of her
own
poverty, and of living mainly on the
grudged charity of neighbors
—
— thoughts, too, of
for-
mer happy days these rack'd the widow's heart, and made her bed a sleepless one without repose. The boy bent his steps to his employer's, as has said. In his way down the village street he had to pass a public house, the only one the place contain'd; and when he came off against it he heard
been
the sound of a fiddle
— drown'd, however,
at inter-
by much laughter and talking. The windows were up, and, the house standing close to the road, Charles thought it no harm to take a look and see what was going on within. Half a dozen footsteps brought him to the low casement, on which he lean'd his elbow, and where he had a full view of the room and its occupants. In one corner was an old man, known in the village as Black Dave he it was whose musical performances had a moment before drawn Charles's attention to the tavern; and he it vals,
—
[63]
Collect
was who now exerted himself
in a
violent
manner
to give, with divers flourishes and extra twangs, a
among that thick-lipp'd
tune very popular
fondness for melody dle of the
room were
is
so well known.
five or six sailors,
race
In
whose
the mid-
some
of them
quite drunk, and others in the earlier stages of that process, while on benches around
were more
sailors,
and here and there a person dress'd in landsman's attire. The men in the middle of the room were dancing; that
they were going through certain
is,
contortions and shufflings,
varied occasionally
by
upon the sanded floor. In short, the whole party were engaged in a drunken frolic, which was in no respect different from a thousand other drunken frolics, except, perhaps, that exceeding hearty stamps
there
and
was
less
quarreling.
than the ordinary amount of anger Indeed everyone seem'd
in
remark-
ably good humor.
But what excited the boy's attention more than
any other object was an individual, seated on one of the benches opposite, who, though evidently enjoying the spree as much as if he were an old hand at such business, seem'd in every other particular to be
was youthHe might have been twenty-one or two years ful. His countenance was intelligent, and had the old. He was dress'd not air of city life and society. far
out of his element.
His appearance
gaudily, but in every respect fashionably; his coat
being of the finest broadcloth, his linen delicate and [641
Collect
whole aspect that of one whose counterpart may now and then be seen upon the pave in Broadway of a fine afternoon. He laugh 'd and talk'd with the rest, and it must be confess'd his spotless as
snow, and
his
— the most of those that pass'd current their there — were by no means distinguish'd
jokes
like
for
finement or purity.
re-
Near the door was a small
cover'd with decanters and glasses,
some
table,
of which
had been used, but were used again indiscriminately,
and a box of very thick and very long cigars. One of the sailors and it was he who made the had but one eye. His largest share of the hubbub
—
—
chin and cheeks were cover'd with huge, bushy
whiskers, and altogether he had quite a brutal appearance.
*'Come, boys," said
''come,
us take a drink.
let
getting dry
";
and he clench'd
1
this
gentleman,
know you're
his invitation
all
a
with an
appalling oath.
This politeness was responded to by a general
moving of the company toward the
table holding the
before-mention'd decanters and glasses.
Clustering
there around, each one help'd himself to a very hand-
some
portion of that particular liquor
his fancy;
which suited
and steadiness and accuracy being
moment by no means
at that
distinguishing traits of the
arms and legs of the party, a goodly amount of the fluid
was
spiird
upon the
travagance excited the
ire
the ''treat"; and that
ire
floor.
This piece of ex-
of the personage
was
VOL. VI.— 5.
[65]
still
who
gave
further increas'd
Collect
when he discovered two or three loiterers who seem'd disposed to slight his request to drink.
we
Charles, as
have before mentioned, was looking
window. *'Walk
up,
boys! walk up!
among
skulker
us,
blast
my
at the
there be any
If
eyes
in
if
he shan't go
down on his marrow bones and taste the we have spilt Hallo he exclaimed as he
liquor
''
!
**
Charles;
you chap
hallo,
in
the
spied
window, come
here and take a sup."
As he spoke he stepped to the open casement, put his brawny hands under the boy's arms, and lifted him into the room bodily. "There, my lads," said he, turning to his companions, ''there's a new recruit for you. Not so coarse a one, either," he added as he took a fair view of the boy, who, though not what is called pretty, was fresh and manly looking, and large for his age. ''Come, youngster, take a glass," he continued.
And he
Now was
pour'd one nearly
was not
Charles
full
of strong brandy.
exactly frighten'd, for he
and had often been at the country merry-makings, and at the parties of the place; but he was certainly rather abash'd at his abrupt a lively fellow,
So, putting
introduction to the midst of strangers.
the glass aside, he look'd up with a pleasant smile in his
"
I
new 've
acquaintance's face.
no need
I'm just as
much
for
anything now," he
obliged to [66]
you
as
if
I
said,
was."
"but
Collect
''Poh
" drink
!
it
man, drink it down/' rejoin'd the it won't hurt you. down
sailor,
—
And, by
way
of
showing
excellence, the one-
its
eyed worthy drain 'd it himself to the last drop. Then filling it again, he renew'd his efforts to make the
go through the same operation. Besides, my mother has often 've no occasion. pray'd me not to drink, and promised to obey her." A little irritated by his continued refusal, the lad
''
I
I
sailor,
with a loud oath, declared that Charles should
swallow the brandy, whether he would or no. Placing one of his tremendous paws on the back of the boy's head, with the other he thrust the edge of the glass to his lips, swearing at the
he shook
it
so as to
spill
its
same
time, that
if
contents the conse-
quences would be of a nature by no means agreeable to his back
and shoulders.
Disliking the liquor, and
angry at the attempt to overbear him, the undaunted
hand and struck the arm of the sailor with a blow so sudden that the glass fell and was smash'd to pieces on the floor; while the brandy was about equally divided between the face of Charles, the clothes of the sailor, and the sand. By this time the whole of the company had their attention drawn to the scene. Some of them laugh'd child lifted his
when they saw
Charles's undisguised antipathy to
when
the drink; but they laughed
still
more
he discomfited the
sailor.
All
of them, however,
were content to
the matter go as chance
let
[ÂŤ73
heartily
would
Collect
have
it
—
all
but the young
man
of the black coat,
who has been spoken of. What was there in the words which
Charles had
spoken that carried the mind of the young man back to former times
— to
a period
when he was more
now ?
''My mother has often
pure and innocent than
prafd
ine not to
months
drink T'
how
Ah,
the mist of
and presented to his souKs eye mother, and a prayer of exactly
roll'd aside,
the picture of his similar purport
I
Why
was
it,
too, that the
young
man's heart moved with a feeling of kindness toward the harshly treated child ?
Charles stood, his cheek flushed and his heart throbbing, wiping the trickling drops from his face
At
with a handkerchief. his
first
the
sailor,
between
drunkenness and his surprise, was much
in
the
condition of one suddenly awaken'd out of a deep
who
sleep,
When
cannot
call his
consciousness about him.
he saw the state of things, however, and
heard the jeering laugh of his companions, his dull
eye lighting up with anger,
had withstood him.
He
fell
upon the boy
who
seized Charles with a grip
of iron, and with the side of his heavy boot gave him a sharp and solid kick.
performance grasp
— but
— for all
He was about
the child
hung
repeating the
like a rag in
of a sudden his ears rang, as
if
his
pistols
were snapped close to them; lights of various hues flickered in his eye (he had but one, it will be remembered), and a strong propelling power caused him to
Collect
move from his position, and keep moving until he was brought up by the wall. A blow, a cuff given in it
such a
scientific
manner
hand from which
that the
proceeded was evidently no stranger to the pugi-
had been suddenly planted in the ear of the sailor. It was planted by the young man of the black coat. He had watch'd with interest the proceeding of the sailor and the boy two or three times he was on the point of interfering; but when listic art,
—
the kick
was
given, his rage
sprang from his seat
was
He
uncontrollable.
the attitude of a boxer
in
—
manner to cause those unpleasand ant sensations which have been described would probably have followed up the attack, had not struck the sailor in a
—
Charles, legs
now
thoroughly
terrified,
clung around his
and prevented his advancing.
The scene was quite a silent one. their seats,
and
— every nerve He seem'd
The company had
for a
strain'd positions.
the young man,
a strange one, and for the time
In
in his
out,
moment
started from
held breathless but
the middle of the room stood
not at
and
all
ungraceful attitude
his eyes flashing brilliantly.
rooted like a rock; and clasping him, with
an appearance of confidence
in his protection,
clung
the boy. ''
You scoundrel
!
" cried
the young man, his voice
thick with passion, ''dare to touch the
and
I'll
thrash
you
till
no sense
body." [69]
is
boy
left
in
again,
your
Collect
The
sailor,
now
made some
partially recovered,
gestures of a belligerent nature. '*
Come **
youth;
I
on, drunken brute
wish you would
what you deserve
Upon
1
"
continued the angry
You Ve not had
!
half
I
and sense more fully taking their power in the brains of the one-eyed mariner, however, that worthy determined in his own mind that it would be most prudent to let the matter drop. sobriety
Expressing therefore his conviction to that
adding certain remarks to the purport that he
'*
effect,
meant
no harm to the lad," that he was surprised at such a gentleman being angry at '*a little piece of fun, "and so forth
— he proposed that
on with
their jollity just as
In truth,
the if
company should go
nothing had happened.
he of the single eye was not a bad fellow at
enemy whose advances he had so often courted that night, had stolen away his good feelings, and set busy devils at work within him, that might have made his hands do some dreadheart, after all; the fiery
ful
deed, had not the stranger interposed. In a
its
few minutes the
former footing.
frolic
of the party
The young man
sat
one of the benches, with the boy by
was upon
down upon
his side,
and
while the rest were loudly laughing and talking,
they two convers'd together.
from Charles
— how
all
The
stranger learned
the particulars of his simple story
—
had died years since how his mother worked hard for a bare living— and how he his father
[70]
Collect
himself, for
many
dreary months, had been the ser-
More
vant of a hard-hearted, avaricious master.
and more interested, drawing the child close to his side, the young man listened to his plainly told hisand thus an hour passed away. tory
—
It
was now
Charles that on the relieve
The young man
past midnight.
him from
morrow he would
his servitude
— that
told
take steps to
for the present
would probably give him a lodgand little persuading did the host
night the landlord
ing at the inn
need
for that.
As he filled
—
the
very pleasant thoughts
retired to sleep,
mind of the young man
— thoughts
of a
—
worthy action performed thoughts, too, newly awakened ones, of walking in a steadier and wiser path than formerly.
That
roof, then, sheltered
two beings
— one of them innocent and sinless the other — oh, to that other what
of
evil
that night
all
wrong
—
had not been
present, either in action or to his desires!
Who
was the
To those
stranger ?
of relationship or otherwise,
the answer to that question
felt
His
—
companions
an interest
was not
name was Langton sipated young man a brawler upon.
that,
from in
ties
him,
pleasant to dwell
— parentless — a — one whose too
disfre-
were rowdies, blacklegs, and swindlers. The New York police offices were not strangers to his countenance. He had been bred to the profession of medicine; besides, he had a very quent
[71]
Collect
respectable income, and his house street
on the west side of the
was
in a pleasant Little
city.
of his
time, however, did Mr. John Langton spend at his
domestic hearth; and the elderly lady as his housekeeper
have him gone
for a
who
officiated
was by no means surprised to week or a month at a time, and
she knowing nothing of his whereabouts.
young man was an un-
Living as he did, the
happy
being.
was not so much
It
that his asso-
—
were below his own capacity for Langton, though sensible and well bred, was not highly talented or refined but that he lived without any steady purpose, that he had no one to attract him to his home, that he too easily allowed himself to be which caused his life to be, of late, one tempted ciates
—
—
continued scene of dissatisfaction. tion
he sought to drive away by the brandy
and mixing
was
This dissatisfac-
in all
pleasure.
bottle,
kinds of parties where the object
On
the present occasion he had
left
the city a few days before, and passing his time at a place
mother
near the lived.
who were
He
village fell in,
where Charles and
his
during the day, with those
companions of the tavern spree; and thus it happened that they were all together. Langton hesitated not to make himself at home with any his
associate that suited his fancy.
The next morning the poor widow sleepless cot;
and from that lucky
rose from her
trait in
our nature
which makes one extreme follow another, she [72]
set
Collect
about her
with a lightened heart.
toil
Ellis,
the
farmer, rose, too, short as the nights were, an hour
before day; for his
was
of his creed
god was
gain,
much work
to get as
from every one around him.
day
Ellis
was
and a prime
In
article
as possible
the course of the
upon by young Langton, and
called
was the farmer puzzled
never perhaps
in
more than
his desire young man's proposal the widow's family, a family that
to
his
life
—
at the
provide for
could do him no pecuniary good, and his willingness
money
to disburse too,
was
The widow,
for that purpose.
on that day, but the
called upon, not only
next and the next. It
needs not that
I
should particularize the subse-
quent events of Langton's and the boy's history
how
—
the reformation of the profligate might be dated
— how he gradually sever'd that had so long the guilty him — how he enjoy'd his own home again — how the friendship of Charles and himself grew not slack with time —
to begin from that time
gall'd
ties
and how, when in the course of seasons he became head of a family of his own, he would shudder at the
remembrance of his early dangers and *' ^
Temptation
Another day,"
^^
^^ awoke
day comes
utter'd the poet Lingave,
the morning, and turn'd
in
him drowsily on
his hard pallet,
out, burthen 'd with
Of what use
is
his escapes.
existence to [73]
its
me?
'*
another
weight of woes. Crush'd
down
Collect
beneath the
merciless
me
promise of hope to cheer prospect but a
life
of
heel
and no
poverty,
what have
on,
in
I
neglected, and a death of misery?
The youth paused; but
"
receiving no answer to
his questions, thought proper to continue the peevish
soliloquy.
am
*M
speaker smiled
and food.
Why
me
have
should
not apparel
exist in the world,
1
all
their souls can desire?
1
un-
many
behold
— see the respectful presence of pride — and curse the con-
bow
at the
trast
between
cratic
is
pressed with cares, while so
the splendid equipages
rich.
they say," and the
**but genius
bitterly,
known, unloved, around
a genius,
roll
by
I
1
my own
The lofty demeanor
lot,
and the fortune of the
— the show of dress — the aristo— the of jewels — dazzle my air
glitter
eyes; and sharp-tooth'd envy works within me.
hate these haughty and favor'd ones.
my
Why
1
should
much rougher than theirs? Pitiable, am! to be placed beneath man that
path be so
unfortunate
those
whom
I
in
my
heart
I
despise
— and to be con-
stantly tantalized with the presence of that wealth I
cannot enjoy!"
And
the poet covered his eyes
with his hands, and wept from very passion and fretfulness.
O, Lingave! be more of a man!
Have you not
the treasures of health and untainted propensities,
which many of those you envy never enjoy? Are you not their superior in mental power, in liberal views of mankind, and in comprehensive intellect? [741
Collect
And even shudder
allowing you the choice,
how would you
at changing, in total, conditions
with them!
were you willing to devote all your time and energies, you could gain property too: squeeze, and toil, and worry, and twist everything into a matter of profit, and you can become a great man, Besides,
money goes to make greatness. Retreat, then, man of the polish'd
as far as
those
complaints against your
irritable
longings for wealth
and
puerile
soul, lot
from
— those
distinction,
not
worthy your class. Do justice, philosopher, to your own powers. While the world runs after its shadows and its bubbles, (thus commune in your own mind) we will fold ourselves in our circle of understanding, and look with an eye of apathy on those things it considers so mighty and so enviable. Let the proud let
man
the gay flutter
his folly,
glory;
we
different
lowly
in finery
—
pompous glance
let
will
from
in his
gaze without desire on all
pleasures.
their
Not
theirs.
flights of their crippled
ledge no fellowship with
for
perishing all
their
Our destiny
such as we, the
wings.
them
—
the foolish enjoy
and the beautiful move on
possessions, and is
pass with his
in
We
acknow-
ambition.
We
composedly look down on the paths where they walk, and pursue our own, vv^ithout uttering a wish to descend, and be as they. What is it to us that the mass pay us not that deference which wealth
commands?
We
desire [75]
no
applause,
save
the
Collect
applause of the good and discriminating
among men.
Our
— the choice
would be sullied, were the vulgar to approximate to it, by professing to readily enter in, and praising it. Our pride is a towering, and thrice refined pride. When Lingave had given way to his temper some half hour, or thereabout, he grew more calm, and spirits
intellect
bethought himself that he was acting a very
He
part. carts,
listened a
moment
to the clatter of the
and the tramp of early passengers on the pave
below, as they wended along to daily
silly
toil.
summer.
It
was
A
little
just sunrise,
commence
and the season was
canary bird, the only pet poor
Lingave could afford to keep, chirp'd merrily
cage on the wall.
their
How
in its
slight a circumstance will
sometimes change the whole current of our thoughtsi The music of that bird abstracting the mind of the poet but a
moment from
for his natural
his sorrows,
buoyancy
gave a chance
to act again.
Lingave sprang lightly from his bed, and performed his ablutions
and his simple
toilet
— then hanging the
window, and speaking an endearment to the songster, which brought a perfect flood of melody in return— he slowly passed through cage on a
his door, stairs,
nail outside the
descended the long narrow turnings of the
and stood
in
the open street.
Undetermined
as to any particular destination, he folded his hands
behind him, cast his glance upon the ground, and
moved
listlessly
onward. [76]
Collect
—
Hour after hour the poet walk'd along up this he reck'd not how or where. street and down that And as crowded thoroughfares are hardly the most
—
fit
man
places for a
to let his fancy soar in the
— many a push
and shove and curse did the dreamer get bestow'd upon him. clouds
The booming hour twelve
of the city clock sounded forth the
— high noon.
''Hoi Lingave! " cried a voice from an open base-
ment window
He
unwittingly would have
stopp'd, and then
walked on ''
as the poet pass'd.
still,
Lingave,
person to
I
not fully awaken'd from his reverie. say! " cried the voice again, and the
whom
head quite out
the voice belong'd stretch'd his
into the area in front, ''Stop,
Have you forgotten your appointment
"Oh! ah!"
said the poet,
man.
" ?
and he smiled un-
meaningly, and descending the steps, went into the office of
him
Ridman, whose
in his
Who
call
it
was
that had startled
walk.
was Ridman
While the poet
?
the convenience of that personage,
it
is
may be
waiting as well
to describe him.
Ridman was
a money-maker.
penetration, considerable
He had much
knowledge of the world,
and a disposition to be constantly in the midst of enterprise, excitement, and stir. His schemes for gaining wealth were various; he had dipp'd into almost every branch and channel of business. [77]
A
Collect
slight acquaintance of several years' standing sub-
between him and the poet. The day previous a boy had caird with a note from Ridman to Linsisted
gave, desiring the
presence
of the latter at the
money-maker's room. The poet returned for answer that he would be there. This was the engagement which he came near breaking.
Ridman had a smooth tongue. was needed in the explanation to
why and It
is
wherefore the
ingenuity
companion of had been sent for. his
not requisite to state specifically the offer
made by in
latter
All his
the
one of
man
Ridman,
of wealth to the poet.
his enterprises,
found
it
necessary to pro-
cure the aid of such a person as Lingave
—a
writer
of power, a master of elegant diction, of fine taste, in
style
passionate yet pure, and of the delicate
imagery that belongs to the children of song. The youth was absolutely startled at the magnificent and
permanent remuneration which was held out to him for a moderate exercise of his talents. But the nature of the service required!
All
the
Ridman could not veil its repulsiveness. The poet was to labor for the advancement of what he felt to be unholy he was to inculcate what would lower the perfection of man.
sophistry and art of
—
He promised
succeeding day, and
Now going on
during the in
answer to the proposal the
to give an left
the place.
many hours
the heart
was a war of the poor poet. He was [7ÂŤ]
there
Collect
indeed poor; often he had no certainty whether he should be able to procure the next day's meals.
And the poet knew the beauty not
in
the
of truth, and adored,
merely, but in
abstract
practice,
the
excellence of upright principles.
Night came. let
Lingave, wearied, lay upon his pal-
The misty veil thrown over poesy came to his visions, and
again and slept.
him, the
of
spirit
stood beside him, and look'd
down
pleasantly with
her large eyes, which were bright and liquid like the reflection of stars in a lake.
Virtue (such imagining, then, seem'd conscious to the soul of the dreamer)
is
ever the sinew of true
two
in
one, they are endow'd
genius.
Together, the
with immortal strength, and approach from
whom
both spring.
loftily to
Him
Yet there are those that
having great powers, bend them to the slavery of
wrong.
God
them!
forgive
they surely do
Oh, could he
ignorantly or heedlessly. tosses around
for
him the seeds of
who
it
lightly
evil in his writings,
—
words could he see how, haply, they are to spring up in distant time and poison the air, and putrefy, and cause to sicken would he not shrink back in horror ? A bad principle, jestingly spoken a falsehood, but of a word may taint a whole nation! or his enduring thoughts, or his chance
—
—
—
Let the
man
to
whom
the great Master has given
the might of mind, beware If
for the
how he
uses that might.
furtherance of bad ends, [79]
what can be
Collect
expected but that, as the hour of the closing scene
draws nigh, thoughts of harm done, and capacities distorted from their proper aim, and strength so laid out that
men must be worse
strength —
through the exertion of that
and swarm
like spectres
instead of
around him
will
better,
come
?
Be and continue poor, young man," so taught one whose counsels should be graven on the heart of every youth, *' while others around you grow rich **
by fraud and
disloyalty.
Be without place and
power, while others beg their
way upward.
Bear
the pain of disappointed hopes, while others gain
Forego the
the accomplishment of their flattery.
gracious pressure of a hand, for which others cringe
and crawl.
Wrap
yourself
in
your
seek a friend and your daily bread.
own If
virtue,
and
you have,
in
such a course, grown gray with unblench'd honor,
God and
bless
When
die."
awoke the next morning, he
Lingave
despatched his answer to his wealthy friend, and
then plodded on as
*'Lift Little
Jane
^^^
the days before.
in
was ejaculated as a signall ^^^^ ^^^ glasses in the hands
up!"
^|j^|^|
of a party of tipsy men, drinking one night at the bar of one of the middling order of taverns.
many
And
and many a terrible blasphemy, and many an impure phrase sounded a wild gibe
was
utter'd,
out the pollution of the hearts of these half-crazed
Collect
creatures, as they toss'd
made the
down
their
walls echo with their uproar.
and foremost
in
recklessness
was
liquor,
and
The
first
a girlish-faced,
fair-
twenty-two or three years. They him Mike. He seem'd to be look'd upon by
hair'd fellow of called
the others as a sort of prompter, from
whom
they
were to take cue. And if the brazen wickedness evinced by him in a hundred freaks and remarks to were there might hardly be one any test of his capacity more fit to go forward as a guide on the road of From the conversation of the party, it destruction. appeared that they had been spending the early part of the evening in a gambling house. A second, third and fourth time were the glasses fiird; and the effect thereof began to be perceiv'd in a still higher degree of noise and loquacity among companions, during their stay
his
in that place,
—
the revellers.
One
of the serving-men
came
in at
moment, and whisper'd the barkeeper, who went out, and in a moment return'd again.
this
''
A
person," he said,
*'
wish'd to speak with Mr.
He waited on the walk in front." The individual whose name was mentioned, made his excuses to the others, telling them he would be Michael.
As he shut the door behind him, and stepp'd into the open air, he saw one of his brothers his elder by eight or ten years pacing to and fro with rapid and uneven steps. As the man turn'd in his walk, and the glare back
in
a moment, and
left
the room.
—
—
VOL. VI.—6.
[8x]
Collect
of the street lamp
benumb'd as
fell
upon
his face, the youth, half-
his senses were,
at its paleness
and evident perturbation.
**Come with me!" riedly, **the illness of
have been sent
for
said the elder brother, hur-
our
little
Jane
is
worse, and
I
you."
young drunkard, very
answered the
**Poh!"
was somewhat startled
composedly, 'Ms that all?
shall
1
be
home by-
and-by," and he turn'd back again.
"But, brother, she Perhaps
The
when you
is
worse than ever
arrive she
paused in
tipsy one
may
before.
be dead/'
his
retreat,
perhaps
alarm'd at the utterance of that dread word, which
seldom
to shoot a chill to the hearts of mortals.
fails
But he soon calm'd himself, and waving his hand to the other: '*
have
Why,
been
I
good
see," said he, ''a score of times at least,
little
call'd
sister
away
to the last sickness of our
and each time
;
nothing worse than some physician. live
whim
Three years has the
of the nurse or
been able to
girl
very heartily under her disease;
bound
And
she'll stay
and
1
11
be
on earth three years longer."
as he concluded this wicked and most brutal
reply, the speaker
the bar-room.
open'd the door and went into
But
in
his intoxication, during the
hour that follow'd, Mike was
far
from being at ease.
At the end of that hour, the words,
you
proves to be
it
arrive she
may be
**
Perhaps
when
dead/' were not effaced from [8a]
Collect
and he started for home. The elder brother had wended his way back in sorrow. Let me go before the younger one, awhile, to a
his hearing yet,
room in that home. A little girl lay there dying. She had been ill a long time; so it was no sudden thing for her parents, and her brethren and sisters, to be called for the witness of the death agony.
The And
girl
was not what might be
yet, there
is
a solemn kind of loveliness that
always surrounds a sick the
weak and
own
called beautiful.
child.
The sympathy
for
helpless sufferer, perhaps, increases
it
The ashiness and the moisture on the brow, and the film over the eyeballs what man can look upon the sight, and not feel his heart awed within him ? Children, have sometimes fanin
our
ideas.
—
I
cied too, increase in beauty as their illness deepens.
Besides the nearest relatives of
little
Jane, stand-
was the family doctor. He had just laid her wrist down upon the coverlet, and the look he gave the mother, was a look in which there was no hope. *'My child! " she cried, in uncontrollable agony, ing round her bedside,
''O!
my
child!"
And the father, and the sons and daughters, were bowed down in grief, and thick tears rippled between the fingers held before their eyes. Then there was silence awhile. During the hour just by-gone, jane had, in her childish way, bestow'd a little gift upon each of her kindred, as a [83]
Collect
remembrancer when she should be dead and buried in the grave. And there was one of these simple tokens which had not reached its destination. She held
in
it
her hand now.
thumbed book
—a
her by her mother
It
was
a very small
much-
religious story for infants, given
when
she had
first
learn'd to
read.
While they were
all
keeping this solemn
stillness
— broken only by the suppress'd sobs of those who stood and watch'd for the passing
away
of the
girl's
soul — a confusion of some one entering rudely, and
speaking
in a
turbulent voice,
was
it
father
bade one of
forth
an ad-
the voice of the drunkard Mike, and the his sons
'Mf nought else
him
in
Again the voice roughly sounded
joining apartment. out;
was heard
by
go and quiet the
will do," said
strength.
We
intruder.
he sternly, ''put
want no
tipsy brawlers
here, to disturb such a scene as this.''
For what
moved
the sick
girl
uneasily on her
and raised her neck, and motion'd to her mother ? She would that Mike should be brought And it was enjoin'd on him whom the to her side. father had bade to eject the noisy one, that he pillow,
should
tell
Mike
come to her. He came.
his sister's request,
The
and beg him to
— his mind sober'd by scene — stood there, and
inebriate
the deep solemnity of the
leaned over to catch the last accounts of one
who
soon was to be with the
was
spirits £84]
of heaven.
All
Collect
The dying
the silence of the deepest night.
held the
young man's hand
other she slowly lifted
one of hers; with the the trifling memorial she had in
assigned especially for him, aloft
shook— her
eyes,
child
in
the
now becoming
air.
Her arm
glassy with the
death-damps, were cast toward her brother's
face.
She smiled pleasantly, and as an indistinct gurgle came from her throat, the uplifted hand fell suddenly into the open palm of her brother's, depositing the Little Jane was dead. tiny volume there. From that night, the young man stepped no more in his
wild courses, but
was reform 'd.
Not many years since— and yet long enough to have been before the abundance of railroads, and similar speedy modes of conveyance
— the travelers from Amboy village to the metropolis of our republic were permitted to refresh themselves,
and the horses of the stage had a breathing certain old-fashion'd tavern,
two
spell at a
about halfway between
was a quaint, comfortable, ancient house, that tavern. Huge button wood trees embower'd it round about, and there was a long porch in front, the trellis'd work whereof, though old and
the
places.
It
moulder'd, had been, and promised years, held together
by the tangled
vine wreath'd about
it
like a
still
to be for
folds of a grape
tremendous serpent.
How clean and fragrant everything was there How bright the pewter tankards wherefrom cider I
[85]
Collect
or ale
went
into the parch'd throat of the thirsty
man
How
pleasing to look into the expressive eyes
I
who
of Kate, the landlord's lovely daughter,
kept
everything so clean and bright!
Now
why
the reason
Kate's eyes had
become so
expressive was, that, besides their proper and natural office,
they stood to the poor
tongue and ears birth.
and
child.
many
light hair, silky, that
common set off
dumb from her helpless creature when
Gentle, timid, and affectionate
beautiful as the
cultivate so
the place of
Kate had been
Everybody loved the
she was a she,
also.
in
girl
every
and the
lilies
was
of which she loved to
summer
in
Her
her garden.
light-color'd lashes, so long
and
droop'd over her blue eyes of such un-
size
by a
— her rounded shape, well modest art of dress — her smile —
and softness
little
the graceful ease of her motions, always attracted the
admiration of the strangers
who
stopped there, and
were quite a pride to her parents and friends. How could it happen that so beautiful and fensive a being should taste, even to
its
inof-
dregs, the
Oh, there must indeed be a mysterious, unfathomable meaning in the decrees of Providence which is beyond the comprehension of man; for no one on earth less deserved or needed bitterest
unhappiness?
*'the uses of adversity" than
the mighty and
lawless
Dumb
passion,
Kate.
came
Love,
into the
sanctuary of the maid's pure breast, and the dove of peace fled
away
forever. [86]
Collect
One
who had
of the persons
most frequently
occasion to stop
at the tavern kept
by
Dumb
Kate's
young man, the son of a wealthy farmer, who own'd an estate in the neighborhood. He saw Kate, and was struck with her natural elegance. Though not of thoroughly wicked propensities, the fascination of so fine a prize made this parents
was
a
youth determine to gain her love, and,
if
possible,
win her to himself At first he hardly dared, even amid the depths of his own soul, to entertain thoughts of vileness against one so confiding and childlike. But in a short time such feelings wore away, and he made up his mind to become the beto
trayer of poor Kate.
He was
a good-looking fellow,
and made but too sure of his victim. Kate was lost! The villain came to New York soon after, and engaged in a business which prospered well, and which has no doubt by this time made him what is
caird a
man
of fortune.
Not long did sickness of the heart wear into the life and happiness of Dumb Kate. One pleasant spring day, the neighbors having been called by a notice the previous morning, the old churchyard
thrown open, and a
coffin
was borne over the
grass that seem'd so delicate with
hue.
There was a
side the
bier
moment
until
boy,
was
new made rested
by
— while
curiosity, [87]
light
grave, and
holy words had been
call'd there
its
was
early
green
by
its
they paused a said.
An
saw something
idle
lying
Collect
on the
fresh earth
thrown out from the grave, which
A
attracted his attention.
little
blossom, the only
one to be seen around, had grown exactly on the spot where the sexton chose to dig poor Kate's last resting-place.
and
now
was
It
where
lay
it
a
weak but
lovely flower,
had been carelessly toss'd The boy twirl'd it a mo-
amid the coarse gravel. ment in his fingers the bruis'd fragments gave out a momentary perfume, and then fell to the edge of the pit, over which the child at that moment lean'd, and gazed in his inquisitiveness. As they dropped they were wafted to the bottom of the grave. The last look was bestow'd on the dead girl's face by those who loved her so well in life, and then she
—
was
softly laid
away
to her sleep beneath that green
grass covering.
Yet
in
the churchyard on the
There stands a
hill is
white stone
Kate's grave.
and there; and gossips, sometimes
little
verdure grows richly
at the head,
of a Sabbath afternoon, rambling over that gatheringplace of the
over the
gone from
dumb It is
Talk to an
Art-Umon
AB
ki
fragment
girl's
earth, stop a while,
hapless story.
something of the artist .
P^ 'Jve
men contain them. And per-
a beautiful truth that
,
,
.
'* ^^
and con
,
^^^^
^
in
all
.
,
greatest artists
and die, the world and themselves alike
ignorant
what they
possess.
Who would
not mourn that an ample palace, of surpassingly grace[88]
Collect
ful architecture, fiird
and sculpture, should stand cold and and vacant, and never be known or enjoy'd by
with still
its
with luxuries, and embellished
fine pictures
Would such
owner?
sadness?
Then be
sad.
you
a fact as this cause
For there
is
a palace, to
which the courts of the most sumptuous kings are it is always waiting for them, not one of its owners ever enters there with any genuine sense of its grandeur and glory. I think of few heroic actions, which cannot be but a frivolous patch, and, though
He who does
traced to the artistical impulse.
great
does them from his innate sensitiveness to
deeds,
moral beauty.
they are also
Such men are not merely
artistic material.
Washington
artists,
in
some
Lawrence on the bloody deck of the Chesapeake, Mary Stuart at the block, Kossuth in captivity, and Mazzini in exile all great rebels and
great
crisis,
—
innovators, exhibit the highest phases of the artist
The
spirit.
painter, the sculptor, the poet, express
heroic beauty better in description; but the others
are heroic beauty, the best belov'd of
Talk not so much, then, young great old masters,
Study not only
who
with coal from the
artist,
of the
but painted and chiseird.
their productions.
higher school for him
art.
who would
There
a
still
kindle his
fire
is
virtues,
and purest is the school of all grand actions and grand of heroism, of the death of patriots and
martyrs
— of
art.
It
all
altar of
the
loftiest
the mighty deeds written in the [89]
Collect
pages of history
— deeds of daring, and
enthusiasm,
devotion, and fortitude.
r **CMUfy oftks bod/ and
th4 blood of Christ."
I
Of
olden time,
when
it
came
to pass
That the beautiful god, Jesus, should
Then went
And took pay Curs'd
And
finish his
work on
earth,
Judas, and sold the divine youth, for his
body.
was the deed, even grew dry;
before the sweat of the clutching hand
darkness frown'd upon the
Where, as though
seller
of the like of God,
earth lifted her breast to
throw him
fi-om her,
and heaven refused him.
He hung The
in the air, self-slaughter'd.
cycles,
with their long shadows, have stalk'd
silently for-
ward. Since those ancient days
— many
a pouch enwrapping
mean-
while Its fee, like that
paid for the son of Mary.
And still goes one, saying, " What will ye give me, and will deliver this man unto you ? " And they make the covenant, and pay the pieces of silver. I
U Look
forth, deliverer,
Look
forth, first-born of the dead,
bo]
Collect
Over the tree-tops of Paradise; See thyself in yet continued bonds,
Toilsome and poor, thou bear'st man's form again.
Thou
put into prison.
art reviled, scourged,
Hunted from the arrogant equality of the
With
staves and
rest;
swords throng the willing servants of
Again they surround thee,
mad with
Toward thee
hands of a multitude,
stretch the
authority.
devilish spite like
vultures'
talons.
The meanest
spit in thy face,
Bruised, bloody,
and pinion'd
More sorrowful than death
is
they smite thee with their palms; is
Witness of anguish, brother of
Not with thy
And
still
thy body,
thy soul. slaves.
price closed the price of thine
image:
Iscariot plies his trade.
Paumanok.
April, 184^,
TOoun&e& " And one shall
shall
in tbe
say unto him,
answer Those with which
Douse
What are I
these
ot jftien^s
wounds
was wounded
in thy
in the
hands?
house of
my
Zechariakxui.,6.
If
thou
art balk'd,
O
Freedom,
The victory is not to thy manlier foes From the house of friends comes the death Virginia,
mother of greatness,
Blush not for being also mother of slaves;
You might have borne deeper Doughfaces, crawlers, Terrific
Who
lice
slaves
—
of humanity
—
screamers of freedom,
roar
and bawl, and get hot [91]
i'
the face,
stab.
Then he friends."—
Collect
But were they not incapable of august crime,
Would quench
the hopes of ages for a drink
—
Muck-worms, creeping flat to the ground, A dollar dearer to them than Christ's blessing; thought of gain.
All loves, all hopes, less than the
In
life
walking
Men whom
in that as in a
shroud
the throes of heroes.
Great deeds at which the gods might stand appai'd,
The The
shriek of the drown'd, the appeal of
women.
exulting laugh of untied empires,
Would
touch them never in the heart.
But only
in the pocket.
Hot-headed Carolina,
Well may you
With
all
Which
curi
your
lip
your bondsmen, bless the destiny
brings you no such breed as this.
Arise,
young North cowards:
Our
elder blood flows in the veins of
The The
gray-hair'd sneak, the blanch'd poltroon, feign'd or real shiverer at tongues,
That nursing babes need hardly cry the Are they to be our tokens always
less for
?
r Sailing tbe Aidsisdippi at /l>i^nidbt
Vast and
starless, the pall of
Laps on the
And
trailing pall
heaven
below
forward, forward, in solemn darkness.
As
Now
if
to the sea of the lost
drawn nigh
we
go.
the edge of the river.
Weird-like creatures suddenly [9a]
rise
Collect
Shapes that
fade, dissolving outlines
Baffle the gazer's straining eyes.
Towering upward and bending forward,
Wild and wide
Ready
arms are thrown,
their
to pierce with forked fingers
Him who
touches their realm upon.
Tide of youth, thus thickly planted,
While in the eddies onward you swim. Thus on the shore stands a phantom army. Lining forever the channel's rim. Steady, helmsman! you guide the immortal;
Many a wreck is beneath you Many a brave yet unwary sailor Over these waters has been
Nor
is it
is it
Will
But
beguiled.
the storm or the scowling midnight,
Cold, or sickness, or
Nor
piled.
the
peril
when
reef, or
fire's
dismay
—
treacherous quicksand.
you most on your twisted way.
there
comes
a voluptuous languor.
Soft the sunshine, silent the
Bewitching your Then, young
craft
air,
with safety and sweetness,
pilot of
life,
[93]
beware.
November Bouobs
[95]
®ut iSminent
IDxsitors
pastt ipresent and jfutute
them each and all! They do good— though the deepest, widest, most needed good which quite certainly not in the ways attempted
Welcome
to
— —
have, at times, something irresistibly comic.
can be more
farcical, for instance,
What
than the sight of a
worthy gentleman coming three or four thousand miles through wet and wind to speak complacently and at great length on matters of which he both entirely mistakes or knows nothing before crowds of auditors equally complacent and equally at fault ? Yet welcome and thanks, we say, to those visitors we have, and have had, from abroad among us and may the procession continue! We have had Dickens and Thackeray, Froude, Herbert Spencer,
—
—
Oscar
Wilde,
Lord
Coleridge
— soldiers,
savants,
poets— and now Matthew Arnold and Irving the actor. Some have come to make money some for a ''good time" some to help us along and give us advice and some undoubtedly to investigate,
—
—
—
bona
fide, this great
VOL. VI.— 7.
problem, democratic America, ,
,
[97]
Hovember Bouoba looming upon the world with such cumulative power
now
through a hundred years,
with the evident
in-
tention (since the secession war) to stay, and take a
many
leading hand, for
and humanity's
zation's
that very investigation
gation lessly
a century to come, in
—
eternal
game.
civili-
But
alasl
— the method of that investi-
where the deficit most surely and helpcomes in. Let not Lord Coleridge and Mr. is
Arnold (to say nothing of the
im-
illustrious actor)
when they have met and
surveyed the
eti-
quettical gatherings of our wealthy, distinguish'd
and
agine that
sure-to-be-put-forward-on-such-occasions citizens
(New
York, Boston, Philadelphia, &c., have certain
stereotyped strings of them, continually lined and
paraded
like
the
lists
— you again —
of dishes at hotel tables
same over and over it is and the bowing and introducing, the
are sure to get the
very amusing)
—
receptions at the swell clubs, the eating and drinking
and praising and praising back
— and the
riding about Central Park, or doing the stitutions
"—and
*'
next day Public In-
so passing through, one after an-
other, the full-dress coteries of the Atlantic cities,
grammatical and
cultured
and
all
with the
correct,
toned-down manners of the gentlemen, and the kidgloves, and luncheons and finger-glasses let not our eminent visitors, we say, suppose that, by means
—
of these experiences, they have **seen America," or captur'd any distinctive clew or purport
Not a
bit
of
it.
Of
the pulse-beats that
M
thereof.
lie
within
movembet
ffiougba
—
of the hardand vitalize this Commonweal to-day pan purports and idiosyncrasies pursued faithfully and triumphantly by its bulk of men North and
South, generation after generation, superficially unconscious of their ing
own
aims, yet none the less press-
onward with deathless intuition— those
do not furnish the
World the best
faintest
flavor
and significance of a race may
possibly need to be look'd for in its
gentries,
its
this,
its
''
court, its etat major.
States the rule
is
the Old
In
scintilla.
coteries
revers'd.
perhaps deepest of
all),
upper classes," In the
United
Besides (and a point,
the special marks of our
grouping and design are not going to be understood in a hurry.
ground are
The
lesson and scanning right on the
difficult;
I
possible to foreigners
was going
—but
I
to say they are im-
have occasionally found
coming from far-off quarters. Surely nothing could be more apt, not only for our eminent visitors present and to come, but for
the clearest appreciation of
home
all,
study, than the following editorial criticism of
the London Times on Mr. Froude's
visits
and lectures
here a few years ago, and the culminating dinner given at Delmonico's, with
"We
read the
list,"
its brilliant
array of guests:
says the Times, **of those
who
assem-
bled to do honor to Mr. Froude: there were Mr. Emerson, Mr. Beecher, Mr. Curtis, Mr. Bryant;
who
we
add the names of those
sent letters of regret that they could not attend in person
Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Whittier.
known
They
are
names which
—almost as well known and as much honor'd [99]
in
are well
England
November Bouflbe as in America; and yet
what must we say
American people outside
this
end?
in the
assemblage of writers
is
The
something
vaster and greater than they, singly or together, can comprehend. It
cannot be said of any or
their nation.
We who
them
of
all
that they can speak for
look on at this distance are able perhaps
on that account to see the more
clearly that there are qualities of
the American people which find no representation,
among
And what
these their spokesmen.
of the English class of
ambassador.
whom
Mr. Froude
true of
is
character as the subject of his study, he
short time in so comprehending
its
may
is
true
to be the
style.
He has
Taking any single
the gift of grace and the gift of sympathy.
succeed
after a
very
workings as to be able
present a living figure to the intelligence and readers.
them
Mr. Froude may be said
master of a charming
is
no voice,
memory
to
of his
But the movements of a nation, the voiceless purpose
of a people which cannot put
upon them
its
own thoughts
in each successive generation
within his grasp.
.
.
.
The
into words, yet acts
—these things do not
lie
functions of literature such as he
represents are limited in their action; the influence he can wield is artificial
and
restricted, and,
while he and his hearers please
and are pleas'd with pleasant periods, life
will flow
around them unmov'd
this great
mass of national
in its tides
by action as
powerless as that of the dwellers by the shore to direct the currents of the ocean."
A
thought, here, that needs to be echoed, ex-
panded, permanently treasured by our
and educators.
literary classes
(The gestation, the youth, the
ting preparations, are
now
over,
and
How
it
is full
knit-
time
few think of it, though it is the impetus and background of our whole Nationality and popular life. In the present for definite
purpose, result.)
[100]
movember brief
memorandum
awake
ffiousbe
very likely
I
for
the
first
and
''the intelligent reader" to the idea
quiry whether there
is n't
time in-
such a thing as the distinc-
tive genius of our democratic
New
World, universal,
immanent, bringing to a head the best experience of the past
— not specially
merely ''good,"
(in
ance Society sense,)
literary or intellectual
— not
the Sunday School and Temper-
—some invisible
spine and great
sympathetic to these States, resident only
in
average people,
physi-
in their practical life, in their
the
ology, in their emotions, in their nebulous yet fiery patriotism, in the armies (both sides) through
the
—
an identity and character whole secession war which indeed so far "finds no voice among their spokesmen." To my mind America, vast and fruitful as it appears to-day, is even yet, for its most important results, entirely in the tentative state; its
tion-stir
and whirling
and picturesque, to
very forma-
and essays more splendid thinking, than the accom-
trials
my
growths and shows of other lands, through European history, or Greece, or all the past. Surely
plish'd
a
New World literature, worthy the name,
if it
ever comes,
some
not to be,
fiction, or fancy, or bit
timentalism or polish'd abstraction.
is
work merely by
So long as such
of sen-
itself,
literature is
or in
no born
branch and offshoot of the Nationality, rooted and
grown from
its
roots,
never answer any deep
and fibred with call
its fibre, it
or perennial need.
[lOl]
can
Perhaps
flovcinbcr Bouflba
the untaught Republic
The
best literature
far greater
there
result of
something
Before there can be recorded history or
must be the
old masterpieces, the epics, the
always a
teachers.
its
than itself— not the hero, but the portrait
of the hero.
poem
is
wiser than
is
Beyond the the interminable Hindu
transaction.
Iliad,
Greek tragedies, even the Bible
itself,
range
immense facts of what must have preceded them, their sine qua non—the veritable poems and masterthe
pieces, of
which, grand as they
are,
the word-state-
ments are but shreds and cartoons. think the For to-day and the States,
vividest,
1
most stupendous processes ever known, ever perform'd by man or nation, on the largest scales and in countless varieties, are now and here Not as our poets and preachers are presented. rapidest,
always conventionally putting ent.
Some
it
— but
quite differ-
colossal foundry, the flaming of the
fire,
the melted metal, the pounding trip-hammers, the
workmen
surging crowds of point, the
shifting
murky shadows, the
from point to
rolling haze, the dis-
cord, the crudeness, the deafening din, the disorder,
the dross and clouds of dust, the waste and extrav-
agance of material, the shafts of darted sunshine through the vast open roof-scuttles aloft—the mighty castings,
many
of
them not yet
layed long, yet each in
place and use and
its
fitted,
due time, with
meaning — such,
symbol of America. [103]
perhaps de-
more
definite
like, is
a
IRovember Bougba After
we
all
of which, returning to our starting-pointy
reiterate,
come
and
the whole Land's name, a wel-
in
to our eminent guests.
hospitalities,
and hand-shaking, and
and the distant brought near
face,
solvents they are!
face
— what
divine
Travel, reciprocity, ''interview-
intercommunion of lands
ing,"
and meeting
Visits like theirs,
— what are they but
Democracy's and the highest Law's best aids that our
— could
own
country
annually,
— that every land
continually,
thinkers, scientists, even
the
other lands, as honor'd guests. States, especially the
in
O
O
the world^
receive the
official
?
poets,
magnates, of
that the United
West, could have had a good
and explorative jaunt, from the noble and melancholy Tourgueneff, before he died or from long
visit
Hugo
—
— or
Thomas Carlyle, Castelar, Tennyson, any of the two or three great Parisian essayists—were they and we to come face to face, how
Victor
is it
possible but that the right understanding
ensue
?
[103]
would
Zhc Bible as I
Ipoetrig
SUPPOSE one cannot at this day say anything
new, from a
of view, about
literary point
— the
autochthonic bequests of Asia
those
Hebrew
Bible,
the mighty Hindu epics, and a hundred lesser but
works (not now definitely including the Iliad— though that work was certainly of Asiatic typical
genesis, as
Homer
himself
was
which seem curiously ignored).
— considerations
But
will there ever
be a time or place — ever a student, however
em, of the grand will not afford
art,
to
whom
those compositions
profounder lessons than
their kind in the
mod-
all
garnerage of the past?
else of
Could
more opportune suggestion, to the current popular writer and reader of verse, what the and is yet office of poet was in primeval times capable of being, anew, adjusted entirely to the modern ? All the poems of Orientalism, with the Old and New Testaments at the centre, tend to deep and wide (I don't know but the deepest and widest) with little, or nothing psychological development at all, of the mere esthetic, the principal verse-
there be any
—
—
[104]
November Bougbe Very
requirement of our day.
comes
to every capable student the perception that
not
it is
but unerringly,
late,
in
beauty,
it is
not in
art, it is
not even
science, that the profoundest laws of the case
sway and outcropping. discourse on '' Hebrew poets
in
have
their eternal In his
Mendes **
ality,
jects,
God and
God
of the sanctuary,
and
City,
of
istic
lov'd
and subjects
Palestine
with
said that
Hebrew poetry
for epic display
at
all.
pleasant
its **
God
in
to Nature's
— the
glory
ritual,
the Holy
valleys
and wild
rhyming was not
a character-
Metre was not a necessary mark
Great poets discarded
the early Jewish poets
it;
Compared with the famed
epics of Greece,
and
ones since, the spinal supports of the Bible
are simple
and meagre.
All its history, biography,
narratives, &c., are as beads, strung
ing the eternal thread of the
power.
on and
Deific
Yet with only deepest
and such
indicat-
purpose and
faith for
impetus,
Deific purpose for palpable or impalpable
theme,
it
and
masterpieces.
all
sub-
not."
it
lesser
Israel,
hymns and odes
the offerings, the splendid
Mendes
Dr.
of poetry.
knew
nation-
Its
then the checker'd history of the nation furnish'd
allusions, illustrations,
tracts."
Sola
the Creator and Governor, Nature
majesty and beauty, inspired
And
Hebrew
the
religious.
Providence, the covenants with
Nature, and as reveal'd,
God.
De
said:
The fundamental feature of Judaism, of was religion; its poetry was naturally
in her
"
often transcends the masterpieces of Hellas,
The metaphors daring beyond [105]
%
'ttopember
Bougba
account, the lawless soul, extravagant by our stand-
the glow of love and friendship, the fervent
ards,
kiss
— nothing
in proverbs,
common
in
in
argument or
religious ecstasy,
mortality and death,
izers—the
everything,
spirit
scented
faith
limitless,
spiritual
its
— an
non-worldliness and dew-
all-inclusive
illiteracy (the
ceremonies and
the
immensely
sensuousness
incredible,
suggestions of
in
man*s great equal-
forms of the churches nothing,
immense
but unsurpassed
logic,
antipodes of our Nineteenth
Century business absorption and morbid refinement) no hair-splitting doubts, no sickly sulking and
—
no Hamlet, no Adonais, no Thanatopsis, no In Memoriam.
sniffling,
The culminated proof is
the equality of
its
of the poetry of a country
personnel, which, in any race,
can never be really superior without superior poems.
The (in
finest
my
Iliad,
blending of individuality with universality
opinion
or Shakspere*s heroes, or from the
sonian Idylls, so fied in the
and
nothing out of the galaxies of the
women
lofty,
devoted and
Tenny-
starlike), typi-
songs of those old Asiatic lands. as great columnar trees.
the abnegation of self towering
in
Nowhere
Men else
such quaint sub-
nowhere else the simplest human emotions conquering the gods of heaven, and fate itself. (The episode, for instance, toward the close of the Malimity;
habharata
— the journey of the wife
god of death, Yama, [106]
Savitri
with the
IRovember Bougbe "One
terrible to see
— blood-red his garb,
His body huge and dark, bloodshot his eyes,
Which flamed like suns beneath Arm'd was he with a noose,"
who
carries off the soul of the
his turban doth,
dead husband, the
wife tenaciously following, and — by the charm of perfect poetic recitation! — eventually
resistless re-
deeming her captive mate.) remember how enthusiastically William H. Seward, in his last days, once expatiated on these themes, from his travels in Turkey, Egypt, and Asia I
Minor, finding the oldest Biblical narratives exactly illustrated
there to-day with apparently no break
or change along three thousand years
women, all
— the
veil'd
the costumes, the gravity and simplicity,
the manners just the same.
The veteran Tre-
lawney said he found the only real nobleman of the world in a good average specimen of the mid-aged or elderly Oriental.
always leading,
is
In
the old man, majestic, with flow-
ing beard, paternal, &c. is,
as
we know,
handsome and
the East the grand figure,
In
Europe and America,
the young fellow
interesting hero,
—
in
novels,
more or
it
a
less ju-
venile—in operas, a tenor with blooming cheeks, black mustache, superficial animation, and perhaps good lungs, but no more depth than skim milk. tion
But reading folks probably get their informaof those
Bible
depicted in print
areas and current peoples, as
by English and French [107]
cads, the
November Bougba most shallow,
impudent,
brood
supercilious
on
earth. I
have said nothing yet of the cumulus of associa-
tions (perfectly legitimate parts of finally in
many
its
and
influence,
respects the dominant parts) of the
and of every portion of
Bible as a poetic entity,
it.
Not the old edifice only — the congeries also of events and struggles and surroundings, of which it has been the scene and motive even the horrors, dreads, deaths. How many ages and generations have brooded and wept and agonized over this book! What untenable joys and ecstasies what support to martyrs at the stake from it. (No really great song can ever attain full purport till long after the
—
—
—
death of
porated the it
has
singer
its
many
—
till
passions,
joys and sorrows, has
Translated
in all
whose
it
nay,
that
bring us is
thick-studded
what
is
clasp'd within
the least of
thousands, there
is
with
civilized
of our retrospects has
what
it
it
not
Not only
interwoven and link'd and permeated?
does
been
languages,
Of
has united this diverse world!
lands to-day,
it
safety — the refuge from driv-
ing tempest and wreck! it
many
To what myriads
itself arous'd.)
the shore and rock of
how
has accrued and incor-
it
its
brings.
covers;
Of
its
not a verse, not a word, but
human
is
emotions, successions
of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, of our
own
antecedents, inseparable from that background
of us, on which, phantasmal [108]
as
it
is,
all
that
we
IRovember Bougbe are to-day inevitably depends
— our
ancestry, our
past.
Strange, but true,
cohering the nations,
that the eras
principal
factor
in
and paradoxes of the
by giving them a common platform of two or three great ideas, a commonalty of origin, and projecting kosmic brotherhood, the dream of all hope,
globe,
all
— that the
time
long trains, gestations, attempts
and failures, resulting in the Nev/ World, and in modern solidarity and politics are to be identified and resolv'd back into a collection of old poetic lore,
—
which, more than any one thing else, has been the axis of civilization and history through thousands of years
— and its
except for which this America of ours, with
polity
No
and
essentials, could not
now
be existing.
true bard will ever contravene the Bible.
the time ever comes
tremest Bible in
in its
when iconoclasm does
ex-
one direction against the Books of the
must
present form, the collection
survive in another, and dominate just as hitherto, or
its
If
more than
hitherto,
through
still
much its
as
divine
and primal poetic structure. To me, that is the living and definite element-principle of the work, evolving everything
else.
Then the
oldest and newest Asiatic utterance
and
all
between, holding together,
continuity; the
and character, like
the appari-
and coming to us the same. Even to our Nineteenth Century here are the fountainheads of song. tion of the sky,
[109]
jfatbcr trailer (anb ©rator^)
HAVE never heard but one essentially perfect
I
— one who those depths of the emotional nature that most cases go through quite — untouched, unfed who held every hearer by spells which no conventionalist, high or low — nor any — pride or composure, nor resistance of orator
satisfied
in
life
intellect
could stand against for ten minutes.
And by
the way,
class genius
humanity's
in
is
it
not strange, of this
first-
the rarest and most profound of
arts, that
will
it
forgotten and rubb'd out
is
be necessary (so nearly his
name by
whirl of the last twenty-five years) to current readers that he
the rushing first
was an orthodox
of no particular celebrity,
who
inform
minister,
during a long
life
preach'd especially to Yankee sailors
in
an old fourth-
down by
in
Boston
— had
been a seafaring man through his
earlier
class
church
practically
years
— and
turn'd,
His
the wharves
died April
6,
1871,
*'just as the tide
going out with the ebb as an old
name
of Boston
is
now
salt
should " ?
comparatively unknown, outside
— and even
there, (though Dickens, Mr. [no]
movember Bougba Jameson, Dr. Bartol and Bishop Haven have commemorated him,) is mostly but a reminiscence.
my
During
visits to
''
the Hub," in 1859 and '60
saw and heard Father Taylor. autumn, quiet Sunday forenoons,
several times
spring or
I
the
In
liked
I
go down early to the quaint ship-cabin-looking to enter and church where the old man minister'd leisurely scan the building, the low ceiling, everything strongly timbered (polish'd and rubb'd apparto
—
ently),
dark
the
half-light — and
watch the
rich
the
colors,
gallery,
smell the aroma of old
all
in
wood — to
auditors, sailors, mates, ''matlows," offi-
cers, singly or in groups, as
physiognomies, forms, dress,
they came
in
— their
as they walk'd
gait,
— their postures, seating themselves along the the rude, roomy, undoor'd, uncushion'd pews — aisles
in
and the evident
effect
upon them of the
place,
occasion, and atmosphere.
The
twelve
pulpit, rising ten or
the rear wall, painting, in
oil
was back'd by
— showing
feet high, against
a significant mural
out
its
bold lines and
strong hues through the subdued light of the build-
ing—of
waves
a stormy sea, the
amid them an
old-style ship,
through the gale, and
in
all
high-rolling,
and
bent over, driving
great peril
—a
vivid
and
meant for the criticism of artists (though think it had merit even from that standpoint), but for its effect upon the congregation, and what it would convey to them. effectual piece of limning, not I
[Ill]
flovember Bougbe Father Taylor
was a moderate-sized man, indeed
almost small, (reminded
me
of old Booth, the great
and my favorite of those and preceding days,) well advanced in years, but alert, with mild blue or gray eyes, and good presence and voice. Soon as he open'd his mouth ceas'd to pay any attention to actor,
1
church or audience, or pictures or lights and shades;
more potent charm
sway'd me. In the course of the sermon, (there was no sign of any MS., or reading from notes,) some of the parts a
far
would be
in
turesque.
entirely
the highest degree majestic and pic-
Colloquial
in
a severe sense,
it
often
and Oriental forms. Especially were all allusions to ships and the ocean and sailors' lives, of unrival'd power and life-likeness. Someleaned to Biblical
times there were passages of fine language and composition,
even from the
purist's point of view.
A
few arguments, and of the best, but always brief and simple. One realized what grip there might have been
in
such words-of-mouth talk as that of
Socrates and Epictetus.
In the
main,
I
should say,
of any of these discourses, that the old Demosthe-
nean rule and requirement of tion," first in
and
its
restrain'd)
its
**
action, action, ac-
inward and then (very moderate
outward sense, was the quality
that had leading fulfilment. I
remember
I
felt
the deepest impression from
the old man's prayers, which invariably affected to tears.
me
Never, on similar or any other occasions, [1X3]
movembet aSouobe heard such impassion'd pleading— such human-harassing reproach (like Hamlet to his mother,
have in
I
the closet)
— such
probing to the very depths of
that latent conscience and remorse lie
somev/here For
soul.
in
the background of every
when
the rhetoric and
which probably life,
every
Father Taylor preach'd or pray'd,
art,
the mere words, (which usually
play such a big part,) seem'd altogether to disappear,
and the
live feeling
advanced upon you and
seiz'd
power before unknown. Everybody felt One young this marvellous and awful influence. sailor, a Rhode Islander, (who came every Sunday, and got acquainted with, and talk'd to once or twice as we went away,) told me, *'That must be
you with
a
I
the Holy Ghost I
we
read of in the Testament."
should be at a loss to make any comparison
with other preachers or public speakers. child
I
had heard
(though so
was
Elias Hicks
— and
When
a
Father Taylor
different in personal appearance, for Elias
and most shapely form, with black eyes that blazed at times like meteors) always reminded me of him. Both had the same inner, apparently of
tall
inexhaustible, fund of latent volcanic passion
— the
same tenderness, blended with a curious remorseless firmness, as of some surgeon operating on a belov'd patient. Hearing such men sends to the winds all the books, and formulas, and polish'd speaking, and rules of oratory.
Talking of orator^,'
why
VOL. VI.—8.
,i;"3]
is it
that the unsophisti-
November JSougbe cated practices often strike deeper than the train 'd
Why
do our experiences perhaps of some
ones
?
local
country exhorter—or often
at political
my
In
in
meetings—bring the most
time
and such
cilibres;
minor but life-eloquence of men
two
Cassius Clay, and one or fanatics "
not
—
I
West
ahead of
all
definite results ?
important quality of
yet
like
John
anyhow.
the
P. Hale,
of the old abolition
—the
Is
and most
first, last,
in training for a ''finish'd
all,
speaker," generally unsought, unreck'd
Though maybe
teacher and pupil ?
recall
I
those stereotyped fames.
sometimes question
taught,
or South
have heard Webster, Clay, Edward
I
Everett, Phillips,
**
the
At any
rate,
we
both by
of,
cannot be
it
need to clearly
understand the distinction between oratory and elocution.
Under the
order, there
is
latter art, including
indeed no scarcity
in
some
of high
the United States,
With
preachers, lawyers, actors, lecturers, &c.
all,
—
almost none. seem to be few real orators it (more as sugI repeat, and would dwell upon gestion than mere fact) among all the brilliant lights
there
—
of bar or stage
New
I
have heard
York and other
witness notable
trials,
my
in
cities
I
time
(for years in
haunted the courts to
and have heard
all
the famous
actors and actresses that have been in America the
past
fifty
years) though
1
recall
from one or other of them, in
the
way
I
marvellous effects
never had anything
of vocal utterance to shake
and through, and become
fix'd,
["43
with
its
me
through
accompani-
IRovember BouQba ments,
in
my memory,
like
those prayers and ser-
mons—like Father Taylor's personal electricity and the whole scene there the prone ship in the gale, in the and dashing wave and foam for background
—
little
old sea-church in Boston, those
—
summer Sun-
days just before the secession war broke out.
["53
TTbe
Spanish lElement
in
®ur
Bationalit^ [Our friends
at Santa F6,
New Mexico,
have
just finish'd their
long-drawn-out anniversary of the 333d year of the settlement of their city
by the Spanish.
asked to write them a
wrote them a
letter as
The good, gray Walt Whitman was
poem
in
commemoration.
Instead he
follows \—Philadelphia Press, August
5,
1883.]
Camden,
To Messrs,
Griffin,
New
July 20, 1883. Martine;(, Prince, and other GenJersey,
tlemen at Santa Fe:
Dear Sirs:— Your kind deliver a
poem
for
invitation to visit
the 333d Anniversary of founding
Santa F6 has reached
me
so late that
cline,
with sincere regret.
words
off hand.
We Americans
you and
But
have yet to
1
I
have to de-
will
say a few
really learn our
antecedents, and sort them, to unify them. will
own
They
be found ampler than has been supposed, and
widely different sources.
New
Thus
far,
in
impressed by
England writers and schoolmasters,
we
tacitly
abandon ourselves to the notion that our United [1X6]
November
ffiougba
States have been fashion'd from the British Islands
and
only,
which for
is
essentially form a
second England only
Many
a very great mistake.
—
leading traits
our future national personality, and some of the
best ones, will certainly prove to have originated
As
from other than British stock.
and German, valuable as they are
Or
ready threaten excess.
in
the British
is,
it
the concrete,
rather,
I
al-
should say,
To-day,
they have certainly reach'd that excess.
something outside of them, and to counterbalance them,
seriously needed.
is
The seething
materialistic
and business vortices
of the United States, in their present devouring relations, controlling in
my
the
and
belittling
everything
else, are,
opinion, but a vast and indispensable stage in
new
world's development, and are certainly to
be follow'd by something entirely different
by immense modifications. Character, society worthy the name, are yet to be through a nationality of noblest democratic attributes definitely exists
—
at least
literature,
a
established,
spiritual, heroic
and
— not one of which at present
— entirely
from the past,
different
though unerringly founded on it, and to justify it. To that composite American identity of the future, Spanish character will supply some of the most
needed
parts.
retrospect
stock
— grander
for patriotism, (It is
No
shows
a
grander historic
in religiousness
and
loyalty, or
courage, decorum, gravity and honor.
time to dismiss utterly the illusion-compound, ["7]
Dopember Bougba half raw-head-and-bloody-bones
and half Mysteries-
of-Udolpho, inherited from the English writers of the past for
it is
two hundred
certainly true
any more
years.
— that
It is
time to realize
—
there will not be found
cruelty, tyranny, superstition, &c., in the
risumi of past Spanish history than
in
the corre-
sponding risunU of Anglo-Norman history.
Nay,
I
think there will not be found so much.)
Then another
point, relating to
ogy, past and to come,
I
will here
American ethnoltouch upon at a
As to our aboriginal or Indian population the Aztec in the South, and many a tribe in the North and West know it seems to be agreed that they must gradually dwindle as time rolls on, and in a few generations more leave only a reminiscence, a blank. But am not at all clear about that. As America, from its many far-back sources and current venture.
—
—
I
I
supplies, develops, adapts, entwines, faithfully identifies its
— are
own
and using
all
we
to see
it
cheerfully accepting
the contributions of foreign lands from
— and then rejecting the only own — the autochthonic ones ?
the whole outside globe
ones distinctively
its
As to the Spanish stock of our Southwest, it is certain to me that we do not begin to appreciate the splendor and sterling value of its race element.
Who
knows but
that element, like the course of
some subterranean river, dipping invisibly for a hundred or two years, is now to emerge in broadest flow and permanent action ? [118]
IRovember ISougba If
might assume to do
I
you the most
so,
I
cordial, heartfelt
would
friends in the Northern
send
congratulations of
your American fellow-countrymen here.
more
like to
You have
and Atlantic regions
than you suppose, and they are deeply interested
in
the development of the great Southwestern interior,
and
in
what your
festival
would arouse to
public
attention.
Very
respectfully, &c.,
Walt Whitman.
["9]
Mbat Xurks
Bebinb Sbakspere's
Ibistodcal plains
We
all
know how much
Shakspere question as
it
tnythus there
stands to-day.
is in
the
Beneath a
few foundations of proved facts are certainly engulfd far more dim and elusive ones, of deepest impor-
—
— tantalizing
and half suspected suggesting explanations that one dare not put in plain statement. But coming at once to the point, the English
tance
historical plays are to
me
not only the most eminent
as dramatic performances
(my maturest judgment
confirming the impressions of
my
early years, that
the distinctiveness and glory of the Poet reside not in
his
vaunted dramas of the passions, but those
founded on the contests of English dynasties, and the French wars), but form, as
we
get
it
all,
the
Conceived out of
chief in a complexity of puzzles.
the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism personifying in unparalleFd tocracy, caste,
its
with
towering its
own
ways the
spirit
mediaeval aris-
of ruthless and gigantic
peculiar air
and arrogance (no
mere imitation)— only one of the [wo]
—
**
wolfish earls"
IRovember Bougba
some born might seem to be the true descendant and knower, amazing works works in some author of those
so plenteous in the plays themselves, or
—
respects
greater
than
anything
else
in
recorded
literature.
The start and germ-stock of the pieces on which the present speculation
is
founded are undoubtedly (with,
no small amount of bungling work) in Henry VL It is plain to me that as profound and forecasting a brain and pen as ever appear'd in literat the outset,
ature, after floundering
somewhat
in
the
first
part of
that trilogy — or perhaps draughting more or — experimentally or by accident afterward developed less
it
and defined his plan in the Second and Third Parts, and from time to time, thenceforward, systematically enlarged it to majestic and mature proportions in Richard II, Richard III, King John, Henry IV, Henry For V, and even in Macbeth, Coriolanus, and Lear, it is impossible to grasp the whole cluster of those plays, however wide the intervals and different circumstances of their composition, without thinking of them as, in a free sense, the result of an essentially controling plan.
what was certainly
veil'd
What was
that plan?
behind it? —
me
there
was
Even the episodes of and the like (which sometimes
something so
Cade, Joan of Arc,
for to
Or, rather,
veil'd.
seem to me like interpolations allow'd), may be meant to foil the possible sleuth, and throw any too 'cute pursuer off the scent. In the whole matter I [121]
Tlovcmbcr Bougba
much
should specially dwell on, and make
of,
that
inexplicable element of every highest poetic nature
which causes it to cover up and involve its real purpose and meanings in folded removes and far rehiding the nest where comOf this trait cesses.
—
mon
may
seekers
never find
it
— the
Shaksperean
most numerous and mark'd illuswould even call that trait trations known to me. the leading one through the whole of those works.
works
afford the
I
All the foregoing to
how and where
1
get
premise a brief statement of
my new
on Shakspere.
light
my
Speaking of the special English plays,
friend
William O'Connor says:
"They seem
simply and rudely historical
in their motive, as
aiming to give in the rough a tableau of warring dynasties,
and carry to me
a lurking sense of being in aid of
some
—
ulterior
design, probably well enough understood in that age, which
perhaps time and criticism will reveal. phere
is
make us
.
.
Their atmos-
.
one of barbarous and tumultuous gloom, love the times they limn,
believe that the
greatest
.
.
.
and
it is
of the Elizabethan
— they do not impossible to
men
could have
sought to indoctrinate the age with the love of feudalism which his
own drama
true, certainly
in its entirety, if the
view taken of
Reading the just-specified play Mr. O'Connor's suggestion,
such
new and deep
ink,
warm'd by the
Will
it
1
herein be
is
in
the light of
defy any one to escape
utterance-meanings, like magic fire,
and previously
not indeed be strange
and Hamlet
it
and subtly saps and mines."
if
invisible.
the author of Othello
destined to live in America, in a gene[xaa]
November Bougbe ration or two, less as the
cunning draughtsman of
the passions, and more as putting on record the full
expose
— and
by
first
the most vivid one, im-
far
—
measurably ahead of doctrinaires and economists of the political theory and results, or the reason-why
and necessity
for
earth to abnegate
them which America has come on and replace
?
The summary of my suggestion would be, therefore, that while the more the rich and tangled jungle of the Shaksperean area
is
travers'd
and studied, and
the more baffled and mix'd, as so tar appears, be-
comes the exploring student (who at last surmises everything, and remains certain of nothing), it is possible a future age of criticism, diving deeper, mapping the land and lines freer, completer than hitherto,
may
named
the scientific (Ba-
inauguration of modern
democracy— furn-
discover in the plays
conian
?)
ishing realistic
and
first-class artistic portraitures of
the mediaeval world, the feudal personalities, tutes, in their politics
pan, far
insti-
morbid accumulations, deposits, upon
and sociology,
— may penetrate to that hard-
down and back
of the ostent of to-day, on
which (and on which only) the progressism of the last two centuries has built this Democracy which now holds secure lodgment over the whole civilized world. Whether such was the unconscious, or (as think likely) the more or less conscious, purpose of him who fashioned those marvellous architectonics, I
is
a secondary question. ["3]
H
XTbouQbt on Sbahspere
The most
distinctive
poems
— the
most perma-
nently rooted and with heartiest reason for being
—
the copious cycle of Arthurian legends, or the almost equally copious Charlemagne cycle, or the
poems
of the Cid, or Scandinavian Eddas, or Nibelungen, or Chaucer, or Spenser, or bona fide Ossian, or
ferno
— probably had their
rise in
M-
the great historic
which they came in to sum up and confirm, indirectly embodying results to date. Then however precious to *' culture," the grandest of those poems, it may be said, preserve and typify results offensive to the modern spirit, and long past away. To state it briefly, and taking the strongest examples, in Homer lives the ruthless military prow-
perturbations,
ess of
Greece,
and of
special
its
god-descended
dynastic houses; in Shakspere the dragon-rancors
and stormy feudal splendor of mediaeval Poetry, largely consider'd,
is
caste.
an evolution, send-
ing out improved and ever-expanded types sense, the past, even the best of
ing place, and dying out.
it,
—
in
one
necessarily giv-
For our existing world,
November Bougb0 the bases on which built
all
have become vacuums
many
poems were
the grand old
— and
even those of
comparatively modern ones are broken and
half-gone.
For us to-day, not their
value, vast as that
poems
— but
is,
own
intrinsic
backs and maintains those
a mountain-high growth of associa-
Everywhere their own lands included (is there not something terrible in the tenacity with which the one the Homeric book out of millions holds its grip?) and Virgilian works, the interminable ballad-romances of the middle ages, the utterances of Dante, Spenser, and others, are upheld by their cumulusentrenchment in scholarship, and as precious, always welcome, unspeakably valuable reminiscences. Even the one who at present reigns unquestioned of Shakspere for all he stands for so much in modern literature, he stands entirely for the mighty tions, the
layers of successive ages.
—
—
—
—
—
esthetic sceptres
of the past, not for the spiritual
and democratic, the sceptres of the future. The inward and outward characteristics of Shakspere are his vast and rich variety of persons and themes, with his wondrous delineation of each and
all
— not
only limitless funds of verbal and pictorial resource,
but great excess, superfoetation fine, aristocratic
— mannerism,
perfume, holding a touch of
(Euphues, his mark)
— with
like
a
musk
boundless sumptuousand adornment, real velvet and gems, not shoddy nor paste but a good deal of bombast ness
—
[125]
November Bouflba and
— (certainly
fustian
Shakspere)
some
all
is,
objective and physiological kind of
the soul finds
grand of the
Shakspere
in
sort,
but
in
my
—a
modern and
satisfying
American purposes. or
is
it
mostly an
power and beauty supremely
style
opinion stopping short
of the grandest sort, at any rate for
ravines,
in
I
Superb and inimitable as
primeval,
mouthing
terrific
fulfilling
and
scientific
and
democratic
Think, not of growths as forests
Yellowstone
or
geysers,
Colorado
but of costly marble palaces, and palace
rooms, and the noblest fixings and furniture, and noble owners and occupants to correspond of carefully
built
— think
gardens from the beautiful but
sophisticated gardening art at
its
best,
with walks
and bowers and artificial lakes, and appropriate statue-groups and the finest cultivated roses and and you have the lilies and japonicas in plenty tally of Shakspere. The low characters, mechanics,
—
even the loyal henchmen ing
— serve
as capital
—
foils
all in
themselves noth-
to the aristocracy.
comedies (exquisite as they certainly in
admirably portray'd
common
are) bringing
characters,
have the
unmistakable hue of plays, portraits, made divertisement only of the
from
its
point of view.
61ite
The
for the
of the castle, and
The comedies
are altogether
non-acceptable to America and Democracy.
But to the deepest soul, •
it
seems
a
shame
and choose from the riches Shakspere has [ia6]
to pick
left
us
—
IRovember Bougba to criticise his infinitely royal, multiform quality
—
to gauge, with optic glasses, the dazzle of his sunlike
beams.
The
best poetic utterance, after
hint, or remind, often
removes.
Aught of
all,
can merely
very indirectly, or at distant
real
perfection, or the solution
of any deep problem, or any completed statement
of the moral, the true, greatest, deftest
uncaught
poet
—
the beautiful, eludes the flies
bird.
[1273
away
like
an always
li
I IRobert
Burns as poet anb Iperson
What the
future will decide about Robert Burns
works
— what
them on that great roster of geniuses and genius which can only be finished by the slow but sure balancing of the centuries with their ample average of and
his
place will be assifei'd
—
course cannot
tell.
But as
we know
I
him, from his
recorded utterances, and after nearly one century,
and
diligence of collections, songs, letters, anec-
its
dotes, presenting the figure of the in
a fullness and detail wonderfully complete, and
the lines mainly by his in
canny Scotchman
some
among
respects, the singers.
own
hand, he forms to-day,
most
interesting personality
Then
there
are
many
things in
poems and character that specially endear America. He was essentially a Republican
Burns's
—
him to would have been at home in the Western United He States, and probably become eminent there.
was an average sample
of the good-natured,
blooded, proud-spirited, vivial,
alimentive, con-
young and early-middle-aged man of the
decent-born
how.
amative,
warm-
middle classes everywhere and any-
Without the race of which he [138]
is
a distinct
»i
Uobcrt
f^oet
v<
isfi
''^^^
and
on
^m
anb Ipetson
uct
Hicc
ut -
t»
Robert
Bums
?fd
them which
^*^sic
^nfiK^-
li
c^ c
lancing
Robert Burns
a^ryt
average-^
'^
cky\ 'Jf^^<^^otopi^i»f tkt paiHhngky
K^
one century,
its dt
.
dotes, pr' in
V
a fullncb:^ miu
some
among
respects, singers.
\t
Then
forms to-day,
many
t
poems and He was America.
lly
—
He )od-naturedj| warm-
-minent thefe.
oi
blooded, proud-spirited,
a Republican
he Western United
I
was an average sample
things in
specially endear
him to would have been at States, and probably bf
anuuve, alimentive> con-
young and early-middle-aged man of the
decent-born
how.
ichman
ting personality
i
Burns's
vivial,
anec-
complete, and
;
the lines mainly b\ in
of
from his
recorded
and
I
middle classes everywhere and any-
Without the race of which he [laS]
is
a distinct
.
-^-- 4- v-.wi»»«>r4vrv;-^tk.>»-',
5^ "
^ ^ 1
IRovember Bougba specimen,
(and perhaps his poems,) America and
her powerful Democracy could not exist to-day
could not project with unparallel'd historic
—
sway
into the future.
Perhaps the peculiar coloring of the era of Burns needs always first to be consider'd. It included the times of the '76-'83 Revolution
in
America, of the
French Revolution, and an unparallel'd chaos devel-
opment
in
Europe and elsewhere.
ment, shining and strange names, rising,
some
Franklin,
in
meridian,
some
In
every depart-
like
stars,
declining
some
— Voltaire,
Washington, Kant, Goethe, Fulton, Napo-
mark the era. And while so much, and of grandest moment, fit for the trumpet of the world's fame, was being transacted that little tragi-comedy of R. B.'s life and death was going on in a country leon,
—
by-place in Scotland! Burns's correspondence, generally collected and publish'd since his death, gives wonderful glints into
both the amiable and weak (and worse than weak) parts of his portraiture, habits,
ambition and associations. lop,
Dr.
good and bad
luck,
His letters to Mrs. Dun-
Thompson, Moore, Robert Muir, Mr. Cunningham, Miss Mrs.
McLehose,
(Clarinda,)
Margaret Chalmers, Peter
Hill,
Mr.
Richard Brown, Mrs.
Riddel, Robert Ainslie, and Robert
Graham, afford valuable lights and shades to the outline, and with numerous others, help to a touch here, and fill-in there, of poet and poems. There are suspicions, VOL. VI.—9.
[129]
Tlopember Bougba it is
true, of
The Genteel Letter-Wtiter, with scraps
and words from the Manual of French Quotations, and, in the love-letters, some hollow mouthings.
we would n't on any
Yet
A
full
and true
account lack the
always what
portrait is
veracity at every hazard.
do
Besides,
is
letters.
wanted;
we
not
all
see by this time that the story of Burns, even for its
own
several,
with
nothing
out?
left
every point minutely told out
and
justifies itself— (as
He
is
best
whole and Completely and
sake, requires the record of the
perhaps almost any
very close to the earth.
words and tunes
singers, but tells
explains
fullest,
its
He
life
pick'd
directly from the Scotch
Thompson they would
does).
up
his
home-
not please
"I call them simple you would pronounce them silly." Yes, indeed; the idiom was undoubtedly his happiest his,
T.'s,
''learned
adding,
lugs,"
—
Yet Dr. Moore,
hit. I
1789, writes to Burns,
*Mf
would be that in your productions you should abandon the Scotch
were to
future
in
offer
an opinion,
stanza and dialect,
and
it
adopt
the
language of modern English poetry!
measure and
"
As the 128th birth-anniversary of the poet draws on, (January, 1887,) with
its
increasing club-suppers,
vehement celebrations, letters, speeches, and so on (mostly, as William O'Connor says, from people who would not have noticed R. B. at all during his actual life, nor kept his company, or read his verses, on any account) it may be opportune to
—
—
[130]
IRovember BouQb6 print I
some
take
my
leisurely-jotted notes
find in
I
my budget.
observation of the Scottish bard by con-
amid the crov/ded and fairly inclusters, galaxies, of the old v/orld quiring and suggesting what out of these myriads he too may be to the Western Republic. In the sidering
individual
—
record so fully bequeaths
place no poet on
first
own
his
him as an
personal magnetism,^ nor illustrates
how
pointedly
one's verses,
by time and
can so curiously fuse with the
and death, and give I
would say
final light
versifier's
and shade to
reading,
own
life
all.
a large part of the fascination of
Burns's homely, simple dialect-melodies all
more
due, for
is
current and future readers, to the poet's personal
''errors," the general bleakness of his
grain'd pensiveness, tantalizing,
his
brief
and
and
in debt, sick
sore,
his in-
dash into dazzling,
evanescent sunshine
ing in those last years of his
lot,
—
life,
finally culminat-
his being taboo'd
yaw'd as by contending
—
—
* Probably no man that ever lived a friend has made this statement was by men and women, as Robert Burns. The reason is not hard to find he had a real heart of flesh and blood beating in his bosom you
so fondly loved, both :
;
could almost hear
"Some
you had shaken hands with him his hand would have burnt yours. The gods, indeed, made him poetical, but Nature had a hand in him first. His heart was in the right place; he did not pile up cantos of poetic diction; he pluck'd the mountain daisy under his feet; it
throb.
one
said, that
if
he wrote of field-mouse hurrying from its ruin'd dwelling. He held the plough or the pen with the same firm, manly grasp. And he was loved. The simple roll of the women who gave him their affection and their sympathy would make a long manuscript; and most of these were of such noble worth that, as Robert Chambers says,
'
their character
may
understand, the foregoing
Kilmarnock.
1
find the
stand as a testimony in favor of that of Burns.' " is
[As I from an extremely rare book publish'd by M'Kie, in
whole
beautiful paragraph in a capital paper
Amelia Barr.]
[131]
on Bums, by
November Bouflba gales, deeply dissatisfied with everything, all
with himself
— high-spirited
too— (no man
Robert Burns).
really higher-spirited than it
a perfectly legitimate part too.
come
to be an
most of ever
think
I
At any rate
it
has
impalpable aroma through which
only both the songs and their singer must hence-
Through that viewmedium of misfortune of a noble spirit in low environments, and of a squalid and premature death we view the undoubted facts, (giving, as we read them now, a sad kind of pungency,) that
forth
be read and absorbed.
—
—
Burns's were, before
and carousing
all else,
intoxication.
the lyrics of
Perhaps even
strange, impalpable post-mortem
ence
referr'd to, that gives
illicit
them
it
loves
is
comment and
this
influ-
their contrast, attrac-
making the zest of their author's after-fame. If he had lived steady, fat, moral, comfortable, wellto-do years, on his own grade, (let alone, what of course was out of the question, the ease and velvet and rosewood and copious royalties of Tennyson or Victor Hugo or Longfellow,) and died well-ripen'd and respectable, where could have come in that burst of passionate sobbing and remorse which weird forth instantly and generally in Scotland, and soon follow'd everywhere among English-speaking races, on the announcement of his death? and which, with no sign of stopping, only regulated and vein'd
tion,
with
fitting appreciation,
flows deeply, widely yet?
Dear Rob! manly, witty, fond,
friendly, full of
IRovember »ougb0
weak of so
spots as well as strong ones
— perhaps
many thousands
just said, of the decent-born
— essential type the average, as
young men and the
early-mid-aged, not only of the British
Isles,
but
America, too, North and South, just the same. think, indeed,
one best part of Burns
tionable proof he presents of the
ence
among
I
the unques-
is
perennial exist-
the laboring classes, especially farmers,
of the finest latent poetic elements in their blood,
(How
clear
it
is
always been, and such gems.)
me
to
that the
common
soil
has
now, thickly strewn with just He is well called the Ploughman, is
''Holding the plough," said his brother
*'was the favorite situation with Robert
Gilbert,
for poetic
and some of his best verses were produced while he was at that exercise." '' must return to my humble station, and woo my rustic
compositions;
I
muse
in
my wonted way, at
He has no high
to the Earl of Buchan.]
poet or the poet's
the plough-tail."
[1787,
ideal of the
indeed quite a low and
office;
contracted notion of both: **
Fortune!
if
thou
'II
but gie
me
still
Hale breeks, a scone, and whiskey
An' rowth
o'
rhyme
Tak'
a'
See also his rhym'd invoking patronage; cairn,
being dead,
gill.
to rave at will,
the rest."
letters to
Robert Graham
'*one stronghold," Lord Glen-
now
these appeals to [133]
''
Fintra,
flovembcr Bou^ba
my other stay/* (with
in
one
of vituperation generally). there
no
is
particular
letter
a copious shower
In his collected
poems be
unity, nothing that can
called a leading theory, no unmistakable spine or
Perhaps, indeed, their very desultoriness
skeleton. is
the charm of his songs:
**
Thompson,
other," he says in a letter to
the bee of the
take up one or an-
1
moment buzzes
in
my
'*just as
bonnet-lug."
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; yet
Consonantly with the customs of the time markedly inconsistent in spirit with Burns's case, (and not a
as depicting
little
some
painful as
it
own
remains on record,
features of the bard himself,) the
between the nobiland literary people on
relation called patronage existed
and gentry on one side, the other, and gives one of the strongest side-lights It to the general coloring of poems and poets. crops out a good deal in Burns's Letters, and even neity
cessitated a certain flunkeyism on occasions, through It
life.
probably, with
helped in
its
requirements, (while
money and countenance,)
did as
much
it
as
any one cause in making that life a chafed and unhappy one, ended by a premature and miserable death.
Yes, there
is
something about Burns peculiarly
acceptable to the concrete,
He
human
points of view.
poetizes work-a-day agricultural labor and
and sympathies, as well as practicalare much the same everywhere,) and treats
(whose ities,
life,
spirit
fresh, often coarse, natural occurrences, loves, per[134]
IRovember
many new and some
sons, not like
genteel style of
removes, but ter,
sweat,
'Mads
and china, or
gilt
own
in their
all
ages,
at
old poets, in a
second or third
born atmosphere, laugh-
Perhaps no one ever sang
unction.
and lasses" — that
same, too,
ffioufiba
universal race, mainly the
lands
all
He
— down
on
their
own
no philosophy worth mentioning; his morality is hardly more than parrottalk— not bad or deficient, but cheap, shopworn, the platitudes of old aunts and uncles to the youngsters (be good boys and keep your noses clean). Only when he gets at Poosie Nansie's, celebrating plane, as
he has.
the ''barley bree," or
exhibits
among
tramps, or democratic
bouts and drinking generally, (**
we have,
Freedom and whiskey gang
in his
own
thegither,")
unmistakable color and warmth,
those interiors of rake-helly
life
and tavern fun
cantabile of jolly beggars in highest jinks
— the
— lights
and groupings of rank glee and brawny amorousness, outvying the
best
painted pictures
of the
Dutch school, or any school. By America and her democracy such a poet, I cannot too often repeat, must be kept in loving remembrance; but it is best that discriminations be made. His admirers (as at those anniversary suppers,
over the " hot Scotch ") will not accept for
their favorite
anything
along side of Homer,
less
than the highest rank,
Shakspere, £x35]
etc.
Such,
in
candor, are not the true friends of the Ayrshire bard,
who
really
The
Iliad
needs a
diflFerent
by
place quite
himself.
and the Odyssey express courage,
craft,
full-grown heroism in situations of danger, the sense
of
command and
fullest
like
leadership, emulation, the last
and
evolution of self-poise as in kings, and god-
even while animal appetites.
The Shaksperean
compositions, on vertebers and framework of the
primary passions, portray (essentially the same as
Homer's) the the
Norman
nobler than
spirit
lord,
and
of the feudal world,
ambitious and arrogant,
common men â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with much
and gusts of heat and seas.
letter
cold, volcanoes
Burns (and some
will
taller
and
underplay
and stormy
say to his credit) at-
tempts none of these themes.
He
poetizes the
humor, riotous blood, sulks, amorous torments, fondness for the tavern and for cheap objective nature, with disgust at the grim and narrow ecclesiasticism of his time and land, of a young farmer on a bleak and hired farm in Scotland, through the years and under the circumstances of the British politics of that time,
and of
his short personal career as author, from 1783
to 1796.
He
is
intuitive
and
affectionate,
and just
emerged or emerging from the shackles of the kirk, from poverty, ignorance, and from his own rank (out of which latter, however, he never appetites It is to be said that amid not a extricated himself). little smoke and gas in his poems, there is in almost every piece a spark of fire, and now and then the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
C136]
movember Bougba He has been applauded as democratic, and with some warrant; while Shakspere, and with real afflatus.
the greatest warrant, has been called monarchical or aristocratic
(which he certainly
formulated on
personalizations of Shakspere, largest, freest,
me
most
most
heroic,
But the splendid
is).
artistic
the
mould, are
more precious even as models for Democracy, than the humdrum samples Burns presents. The motives of some of his
to
far
dearer as lessons, and
effusions are certainly discreditable personally
or
two of them markedly
and
no
or
little
This
spirituality.
defect, tried
by highest
he never reach'd (and yet to
He
it).
He
so.
I
— one
has, moreover,
last is his
mortal flaw
The
standards.
think he leads the
gives melodies, and
now and
ideal
way
then the
simplest and sweetest ones; but harmonies, complications, oratorios in words, never. this
any deprecatory sense.
in
memory he has
know
(I
do not speak
Blessed be
of the warm-hearted Scotchman for
left us,
just as
it
isl)
He
the
what
likewise did not
more ways than one. Though so really free and independent, he prided himself in his songs on being a reactionist and a Jacobite on perhimself, in
—
sistent sentimental
adherency to the cause of the
Stuarts—the weakest, thinnest, most less
faithless, brain-
dynasty that ever held a throne.
Thus, while Burns
is
not at
all
great for
New
World study, in the sense that Isaiah and Eschylus and the book of Job are unquestionably great is
—
[137]
flopcmbcr JSouQba
— hardly even Emerson — he has a
not to be mentioned with Shakspere
with current Tennyson or our
own,
nestling niche of his
quaint and homely
—a
all
fragrant, fond,
and
lodge built near but outside
—
the mighty temple of the gods of song and art
those universal
strivers,
through
harmony and melody and power, intimate man's crowning,
last,
himself of Real and Ideal. precious
beyond
all
works of
their
to ever
or
victorious fusion in
Precious, too
high
singers,
show
—
fit
and
low — will
or
Burns ever be to the native Scotch, especially to the working-classes of North Britain; so intensely one of them, and so racy of the
customs. or
would
He
soil,
is
were
be, enthusiastically patriotic.
was
declaredly to be all
and
often apostrophizes Scotland,
has lately commemorated him
aim
sights,
''
in
and
is,
His country
a statue.*
His
poems young manhood (he
a Rustic Bard."
written in youth or
local
His
more than a young man when he died). His collected works in giving everything, are nearly one half first drafts. His brightest hit is his use of little
The Dumfries statue of Robert Bums was successfully unvefl'd April, i88i by Lord Roscbcry, the occasion having been made national in its character. Before the ceremony, a large procession paraded the streets of the town, all the trades and ,
societies of that part of
Scotland being represented, at the head of which went
dairymen and ploughmen, the former driving
their carts and being accompanied by The statute is of Sicilian marble. It rests on a pedestal of gray stone five feet high. The poet is represented as sitting easily on an old tree root, holding in his left hand a cluster of daisies. His face is tum'd toward the right shoulder, and the eyes gaze into the distance. Near by lie a collie dog, a broad bonnet half covering a well-thumb'd song-book, and a rustic flageolet. The costume is taken from the Nasmyth portrait, which has been follow 'd for the features of the face.
their maids.
II3S1
movember Bougba the Scotch patois, so fruits or berries.
to Burns
full
Then
I
of terms flavored like wild
should make an allowance
which cannot be made
for
any other
poet.
Curiously even the frequent crudeness, haste, deficiencies (flatness
and
puerilities
prove upon the whole not out of keeping
sent),
any comprehensive printed,
''following copy," every piece, every line
Other poets might t^-emble
such boldness, such rawness.
odd-kind
In ''this
such points hardly mar the
chiel "
in
collection of his works, heroically
according to originals. for
by no means ab-
Not only
rest.
are they in consonance with the underlying spirit of
abandon and veracof the farm-fields and the home-brew'd flavor of
the pieces, but complete the ity
the Scotch vernacular.
thing
in
(Is
full
there not often some-
the very neglect, unfinish, careless nudity,
slovenly hiatus, coming from intrinsic genius, and
not "put on," that secretly pleases the soul more
than the wrought and re-wrought polish of the most perfect verse ?)
Mark the
native spice and untrans-
twang in the very names of his songs â&#x20AC;&#x201D;O ane and twenty, Tarn, John Barleycorn, Last May
latable
for
a braw Wooer, Rattlin', roarin' Willie, in the cauld, cauld blast,
Gude
Merry hae
I been teething
a Heckle,
mine,
and
lass,
O
wert thou
e'en to you,
O
Kimmer,
lay thy loofin
others.
The longer and more elaborated poems of Burns are just such as would please a natural but homely taste,
and cute but average [139]
intellect,
and
are inimi-
•Movcmbcr Boueba table in
their
The Twa Dogs, (one
way.
of the
best,) with the conversation between Caesar and Luath, the Brigs of Ayr, The Cotter's Saturday Night, Tarn O'Shanter—aW will be long read and re-read
With noand admired, and ever deserve to be. thing profound in any of them, what there is of moral and plot has an inimitably fresh and racy flavor.
If it
afford to
came
send
to question, Literature could well
adrift
many
a pretensive poem, and
even book of poems, before
it
could spare these
compositions.
Never indeed was there truer utterance
in
range of idiosyncrasy than by this poet.
a certain
Hardly a
piece of his, large or small, but has **snap'' and
He puts in cantering rhyme (often dogmuch cutting irony and idiomatic ear-cuffing
raciness.
gerel)
of the kirk-deacons
—
drily
good-natured addresses
would not stop us if he were here this moment, from classing that To the De'il among them,) To Mailie and her Lambs, To auld Mare Maggie, To a Mouse, to his cronies,
(he certainly
—
*'
Wee,
sleekit,
cowrin, timorous beastie,"
To a Mountain Daisy, To a Haggis, To a Louse, To the Toothache, &c.— and occasionally to his brother bards and lady or gentleman patrons, often with strokes of tenderest sensibility, idiopathic humor, and genuine poetic imagination still oftener with shrewd, original, sheeny, steel-flashes of wit, home-
—
Cmo]
movember Bougba spun
sense,
or
lance-blade
puncturing.
strangely, the basis of Burns's character, with
Then, all its
and manliness, was hypochondria, the blues, palpable enough in Despondency, Man was made to
fun
Mourn, Address to Ruin, A Bard's Epitaph, &c. From such deep-down elements sprout up, in very contrast and paradox, those riant utterances of which a superficial reading will not detect the hidden foundation.
Yet nothing
is
clearer to
me
than the black
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and desperate background behind those pieces as shall now specify them. find his most characteristic, nature's masterly touch and luxuriant life-blood, color and heat, not in Tarn O'Shanter, The Cotter's Saturday Night, Scots wha hae. Highland Mary, The Twa Dogs, and the like, but in The Jolly Beggars, Rigs of Barley, Scotch Drink, The Epistle to John Rankine, Holy Willie's Prayer, and in Halloween I
I
(to
say nothing of a certain
known
cluster,
still
good these com-
to a small inner circle in Scotland, but, for
reasons, not published anywhere). positions,
especially
the
first,
there
In
is
much
in-
(some editions flatly leave it out,) but the composer reigns alone, with handling free and broad and true, and is an artist. You may see and feel the man indirectly in his other verses, all delicacy,
of them, with I
have named
more
or less life-likeness
last call
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but
out pronouncedly
voice, "I, Rob,
am
[141]
here."
these
in his
own
November Bougba any summing-up of Burns, though so
Finally, in
much
is
to
be said
in
the
way
of fault-finding,
drawing black marks, and doubtless severe criticism
myself full '*
—
(in
the present outpouring
in," rather
1
have
literary **
kept
than allowed any free flow) —after
retrospect of his
works and
odd-kind chiel" remains to
life,
my
as almost the tenderest, manliest,
the aforesaid
heart and brain
and (even
tradictory) dearest flesh-and-blood figure in
streams and clusters of by -gone poets.
tM»]
if
con-
all
the
H
TlXDlorb
Hbout XCenn^son
Beautiful as the song was, the original Locksley
Hall of half a century ago was essentially morbid, heart-broken, finding fault with everything, especi-
money's being made (as it ever must and perhaps should be) the paramount matter in
ally the fact of
be,
worldly *'
affairs;
Every door
First,
is
and opens but to golden
barr'd with gold,
keys.**
a father, having fallen in battle, his child (the
singer) '*
Was
left
Of course
a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward."
the ideal of
one
false
woman,
false
man."
for
**
one; and as
the chant or
far as
appears
Woman
America.
(The heart
best of the piece of
cluding
in
the poet's reflections,
in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at any rate
**the lesser
The
The woman
love ensues.
monologue proves a
fifty
is
is
is
a
not
not the brain.)
years since
is its
con-
line,
For the mighty wind arises roaring seaward and
Then for this
I
current 1886-7, ^ just-out sequel,
(as an apparently authentic [143]
summary
says)
go."
which
flovember ÂŤou0b0 "reviews the
life
mankind during the past
of
and comes to the conclusion that
its
sixty years,
boasted progress
doubtful credit to the world in general and to
A
particular.
with the
Among
of
England
in
cynical vein of denunciation of democratic opin-
ions and aspirations runs throughout the trast
is
spirit
poem
in
mark'd con-
of the poet's youth."
the most striking lines of this sequel are the
following: **
mask of love, and, laughing sober fact to scorn, weakest as to strongest, Ye are equals, equal born,'
Envy wears
Cries to
*
Equal-born!
Charm Till
the
Oh
us, orator,
yes, till
if
yonder
be level with the
hill
the lion look
no
flat.
larger than the cat:
the cat, through that mirage of overheated language, loom
Larger than the lion
Demo â&#x20AC;&#x201D; end
in
working
its
own doom.
Tumble Nature heel o'er head, and, yelling with the yelling street,
Set the feet above the brain, and swear the brain
Bring the old dark ages back, without the
is in
faith,
the feet,
without the
hope Beneath the
down I
State, the
Church, the Throne, and
roll their
ruins
the slope."
should say that
all
this
is
a legitimate
consequence
of the tone and convictions of the earlier standards
and points of view.
Then some
reflections,
down
to the hard-pan of this sort of thing.
The course so certain and
Europe, that
of progressive politics (democracy)
is
America but
in
resistless,
we
not only
in
can well afford the warning
calls,
threats, checks, neutralizings, in imaginative literature,
or any department, of such deep-sounding, [144]
Doi^mber Sougbs icvicw>
inc
com«
and
{M
iiic
m«nKi
to die c^^^dtartm-
.
ttat
dou!
si;xiy
years,
boasted progress
Its
general
is
of
and to England
in
elation of democratic opin-
particular »
past
ihc
«.iLiiin|(
'
the
'
poem
in
mark'd con-
'h
tnfct
Am
^
cs ol
i^
mis sequel are the
folio WiiU '
Oie»
w.
sober fact to scom»
WW
!v
ilHl«f>»ym»
equal born,'
Ml the flat.
(
^'^cr
Lord Tennyson, />v., 0,e painting by G.
j8s9-
than the cat '
hn^uage, loom
^j^ffl^lfi^t^
OWn dOOm.
^HHng with Set the feet »
-m,
m4
<?
Bring the old dark aifm
brain
he
the yelling
is in
fiiith,
the feet,
without the
hope Beneath the
down I
State, the rhufc^h
fh^
TK.i.iii*.
and
roll their
ruins
the slope"
should say that
all t^'
te
of the tone and convi.v
and points of view.
consequence
arlier
TL
standards
reflections,
down
to the hard-pan of this sort
The course of so certain and Europe, that
progressive
resistless,
we
^
tk s
(democracy)
is
not only in America but in
can well afford the warning
calls,
threats, checks, neutralizings, in imaginative literature,
or
any department, of such deep-sounding, [144]
November Bougb0 and high-soaring voices as Carlyle's and Tennyson's. Nay, the blindness, excesses, of the prevalent ten-
dency—the dangers of the urgent trends of our times in my opinion, need such voices almost more
—
than any.
should, too,
I
call
a signal instance of
it
democratic humanity's luck that to contend with
But
why do
not Tennyson
I
— so
me assume
—a
—the
(like
is
an honest
true friend of our age ?
mo-
to pass verdict, or perhaps
the United States on this
for
remov'd and distant position giving some
What
advantages over a nigh one.
[should say
— or He
personal character.
at is
least
is in it)
— his
not forget
not to be mention'd as
a rugged, evolutionary, aboriginal force a great lesson
Tennyson's
is
and especially to America?
service to his race, times, First,
Upon the whole
?
— and was not Carlyle
mentary judgment, poet
has such enemies
candid, so fervid, so heroic.
say enemies
and stern physician) Let
it
— but
(and
he has been consistent through-
out with the native, healthy, patriotic spinal element
and promptings of himself. His moral line is and conventional, but it is vital and genuine. reflects
the uppercrust of his time,
thought
— even
friend John is
Burroughs
a glove of
silk,
is
He
pale cast of
its
Then the
ennui.
its
local
simile of
my
entirely true, ''His glove
but the hand
is
a
hand of
iron."
He shows how one can be
a royal laureate, quite
elegant and
and a
affected,
and
''aristocratic," at the
same time
VOL. VI.— lO.
[145]
little
perfectly
queer and
manly and
November Bougba As to his non-democracy, it fits him well, guess we all like and like him the better for it. do) some one who presents to have (I am sure natural.
I
I
I
those sides of a thought, or possibility, different
own — different and
from our
yet with a sort of
home-likeness— a tartness and contradiction offseting the theory as we view it, and construed from tastes and proclivities not all his own. To me, Tennyson shows more than any poet know (perhaps has been a warning to me) how much there is in finest verbalism. There is such I
charm
mere words, cunning collocutions, and in the voice ringing them, which he has caught as in the line, and brought out, beyond all others a latent
in
—
**And hollow, hollow, hollow,
all
delight,"
The Passing of Arthur, and evidenced in *' The Lady of Shalotty The Deserted House and many in
other pieces.
Among
the best
(1
often linger over
them again and again) are Lucretius, The Lotos His mannerEaters, and The Northern Farmer, ism is great, but it is a noble and welcome mannerism. in
His very best work,
to me,
is
contained
the books of The Idylls of the King, and
all
that
Though indeed we could Tennyson, however small or how-
has grown out of them. spare nothing of
ever the
peculiar— not Break, Break, nor Flower in Crannied Wall,
passion of
nor the
Edward Gray : [146]
old,
eternally-told
movember Bougbe **
Love may come and love may go, And fly like a bird from tree to tree. But
I
will love
Till Ellen
no more, no more,
come back
Adair
Yes, Alfred Tennyson's
is
to
me."
a superb character, and
through the long
will help give illustriousness,
of time, to our Nineteenth Century.
roll
bunch
In its
of orbic names, shining like a constellation of stars,
one of the brightest.
his will be
doubts,
swervings,
We
of a ship, casting off for
new
still
dwell
faults,
doublings upon himself, have
been typical of our age.
We would
His very
in
are like the voyagers seas,
distant shores.
the old suffocating and dead
haunts, remembering and magnifying their pleasant
experiences only, and more than once impell'd to
jump ashore
before
it
our fathers stay'd, and
Maybe
me
I
at least
in this
am
is
too
live as
non-literary
late,
they
and stay where lived.
and non-decorous
be human, and pay part of
word about Tennyson.
I
my
want him
(let
debt)
to real-
and ardent Nation that absorbs his songs, and has a respect and affection for him personally, as almost for no other foreigner. want this word to go to the old man at Farringford as conveying no more than the simple truth; and that truth (a little Christmas gift) no slight one either. have written impromptu, and shall let it all go at that. The readers of more than fifty ize
that here
is
a great
I
I
millions of people in the
New World
[147]
not only
owe
â&#x20AC;˘November Bougbe him some of their most agreeable and harmless and healthy hours, but he has entered into the
to
formative influences of character here, not only
in
the Atlantic cities but inland and far West, out
in
Missouri, in Kansas, and
away in Oregon,
in farmer's
house and miner's cabin. Best thanks,
anyhow,
thanks and appreciation
in
to
Alfred
Tennyson
America's name.
ri4ÂŤi
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Slana in Hmerica View'd
freely,
the English language
is
the accre-
and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition
tion of
From
all.
Language
in
the
this point of view,
largest
greatest of studies.
It
sense,
involves so
The scope
man and
not only of
Nature
in all
its
is
really the
much;
etymologies
civilization,
indeed
is
is
the scope
but the history of
departments, and of the organic Uni-
brought up to date;
verse, in
of
stands for
combiner, and con-
a sort of universal absorber, queror.
and
it
for all are
words, and their backgrounds.
comprehended This
is
when
words become vitalized, and stand for things, as they unerringly and soon come to do, in the mind that enters on their study with fitting spirit, grasp, and appreciation.
Slang, profoundly considered, nal
element, below
behind
all
rankness
poetry,
all
is
the lawless germi-
words and sentences, and
and proves a
and protestantism
United States inherit by
far
[Z49]
in
certain
perennial
speech.
As the
their
most precious
flovembex BouQba possessionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the language they talk and writeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; from the Old World, under and out of its feudal institutes,
1
allow myself to borrow a simile even of
will
those forms farthest removed from American
mocracy.
Considering
mighty potentate,
Language then
as
De-
some
into the majestic audience-hall of
the monarch ever enters a personage like one of Shakspere's clowns, and takes position there, and plays a part even in the stateliest ceremonies. is
Slang, or indirection, an attempt of
manity to escape from bald
literalism,
Such
common
hu-
and express
which in highest walks produces poets and poems, and doubtless in pre-historic times gave the start to, and perfected, the whole immense itself inimitably,
tangle of the old mythologies.
may
appear,
is
it
the same thing.
strictly
For, curious as
it
the same impulse-source,
Slang, too,
is
the
wholesome
fer-
mentation or eructation of those processes eternally
by which froth and specks are mostly to pass away; though occasion-
active in language,
thrown up,
ally to settle
To make
and permanently it
plainer,
it
is
crystallize.
certain that
words we generated from the daring and oldest
and
solidest
use,
many
were
of the
originally
license of slang.
In
the processes of word-formation, myriads die, but
here and there the attempt attracts superior mean-
becomes valuable and indispensable, and lives forever. Thus the term right means literally only straight. Wrong primarily meant twisted, distorted. ings,
[ISO]
IRovember ffiougba
A
flame.
meant breath, or person was one who rais'd
means oneness.
Integrity
supercilious
To
Spirit
was to leap against. If you influenced a man, you but flowed into him. The Hebrew word which is translated prophesy his eyebrows.
insult
meant to bubble up and pour forth as a fountain. The enthusiast bubbles up with the Spirit of God within him, and it pours forth from him like a fountain. The word '' prophecy " is misunderstood. Many suppose that it is limited to mere prediction; that
is
greater
The
but the lesser portion of prophecy.
work
ous enthusiast
Every true
to reveal God.
is is
religi-
a prophet.
Language, be
it
remember'd,
not an abstract
is
construction of the learn'd, or of dictionary-makers,
but
is
something arising out of the work, needs,
ties,
joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of hu-
manity, and has the ground.
Its
its
bases broad and low, close to
final
decisions are
made by the
masses, people nearest the concrete, having most to
do with actual land and
sea.
It
impermeates
the Past as well as the Present, and
triumph of the human
works of
we
call
art,"
intellect.
is
all,
the grandest
''Those mighty
says Addington Symonds, ''which
languages, in the construction of
which
whole peoples unconsciously co-operated, the forms of which were determined not by individual genius, but by the instincts of successive generations, acting to one end, inherent in the nature of the race [151]
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
November Bouoba those poems of pure thought and fancy, cadenced not
in
words, but
in living
imagery, fountain-heads of
mind of nascent nations, which we call Mythologiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; these surely are more marvellous in their infantine spontaneity than any more mature production of the races which evolv'd them. Yet we are utterly ignorant of their embryinspiration, mirrors of the
ology; the true science of Origins
Daring as
guage
it is
it
is
is
yet
to say so, in the
in its cradle."
growth of Lan-
certain that the retrospect of slang from
the start would be the recalling from their nebulous conditions of
human
utterance.
of late years, in
all
that
is
poetical in the stores of
Moreover, the honest delving, as
by the German and
British
workers
comparative philology, has pierc'd and dispers'd
many
of the falsest bubbles of centuries; and will
disperse
many
more.
It
was long recorded
Scandinavian mythology the heroes
in
that in
the Norse
Paradise drank out of the skulls of their slain enemies.
Later investigation proves the
word taken
for
mean horns of beasts slain in the hunt. And what reader had not been exercis'd over the traces of that feudal custom, by which seigneurs warmed their feet in the bowels of serfs, the abdomen being open'd for the purpose ? It now is made to appear that the serf was only required to submit his unharm'd abdomen as a foot cushion while his lord supp'd, and was required to chafe the skulls to
legs of the seigneur with his hands.
mopcmber Bougba It
curiously, in
is,
embryons and childhood and
among the illiterate, we always find the groundwork and start of this great science, and its noblest
What a relief most people have in speakman not by his true and formal name, with
products.
ing of a
a ''Mister" to
it,
but by some odd or homely ap-
The propensity
pellative.
to approach a
meaning
not directly and squarely, but by circuitous styles of expression, seems indeed a born quality of the
common
everywhere, evidenced by nick-
people
names, and the
inveterate
masses to bestow
sometimes very during
Mac"
sub-titles,
apt.
the secession
determination
sometimes
ridiculous,
Always among the war, one
of the
soldiers
heard of
**
Little
(Gen. McClellan), or of "Uncle Billy" (Gen.
Sherman).
''The old
man"
was, of course, very
common. Among the rank and file, both armies, it was very general to speak of the different States they came from by their slang names. Those from Maine were
call'd
Foxes;
New
Hampshire, Granite
Boys; Massachusetts, Bay Staters; Vermont, Green
Mountain Boys; Rhode necticut,
bockers;
Island,
Gun
Wooden Nutmegs; New
New Jersey, Clam
Flints;
Con-
York, Knicker-
Catchers; Pennsylvania,
Logher Heads; Delaware, Muskrats; Maryland, Claw
Thumpers; Virginia, Beagles; North Carolina, Tar Boilers; South Carolina, Weasels; Georgia, Buzzards; Louisiana, Creoles; Alabama, Lizards; Kentucky, Corn Crackers; Ohio, Buckeyes; Michigan, [153]
flopcmber Bouflbe Wolverines;
Indiana,
Hoosiers;
Illinois,
Suckers;
Missouri, Pukes; Mississippi, Tadpoles; Florida, Fly
up the Creeks; Wisconsin, Badgers; Iowa, HawkIndeed am not sure eyes; Oregon, Hard Cases. but slang names have more than once made Presidents. *'01d Hickory" (Gen. Jackson) is one case ** Tippecanoe, and Tyler too," another. in point. I find the same rule in the people's conversations I
everywhere. city horse-cars,
**snatcher"
among
heard this
I
where the conductor
men
the is
of the
often caird a
because his characteristic duty
(/. e,
is
to constantly pull or snatch the bell-strap, to stop or
go
on).
Two young
fellows are having a friendly
amid which, says ist conductor, you do before you was a snatcher?"
talk,
2d conductor, *'Naird."
''What
says
one editor
to
another.
temporary," says the other,
"Barefoot whiskey"
is
the undiluted stimulant.
the
is
did
Answer of of answer:
(Translation
*M work'd as carpenter.")
What
*'
a
'boom?'"
" Esteemed
"a boom
is
con-
a bulge."
Tennessee name
In the slang of the
for
New
common restaurant waiters a plate of ham and beans is known as " stars and stripes," codfish balls York
as "sleeve-buttons," and hash as "mystery."
The Western ever,
as
States of the
may be
slang, not only in localities, ler
towns,
Union
are,
how-
supposed, the special areas of
names of Oregon travel-
conversation, but in
rivers, etc.
says: [154]
A
late
IRovember ffiouaba way
'*0n your
to
Olympia by
Shookum-Chuck; your
rail,
you
cross a river called the
train stops at places
named Newaukum,
Tumwater, and Toutle; and if you seek further you will hear Wahkiakum, or Snohomish, or Kitsar,
of whole counties labell'd
or Klikatat; and Cowlitz,
Hookium, and Nenolelops greet and
offend you.
They complain
tory gets but
little
in
Olympia that Washington
immigration; but what wonder
?
Terri-
What man,
having the whole American continent to choose from, would willingly date his letters from the county of
up
his children in the city of
water
as
is,
am
I
Nenolelops
?
Snohomish or bring
The
village of
Tum-
ready to bear witness, very pretty indeed;
but surely an emigrant would think twice before he establish'd himself either there or at Toutle.
Seattle
no better; and
is
sufficiently barbar-
suspect that the Northern
ous; Stelicoom
is
Pacific Railroad
terminus has been fixed
I
at
Tacoma because
it is
one of the few places on Puget Sound whose name does not inspire horror."
Then a Nevada paper
chronicles the departure
of a mining party from Reno: *'The toughest set of roosters that ever shook the dust off
any town
left
Cornucopia.
were four three
Reno yesterday for They came here from
New
York
new mining district of Virginia. Among the crowd the
cock-fighters,
Baltimore bruisers,
two Chicago
murderers,
one Philadelphia prize-fighter, four
San Francisco hoodlums, three Virginia beats, two Union roughs, and
Among
two check
Pacific
guerrillas."
the far-west newspapers, have been, or are,
The Fairplay (Colorado) Flume, The Solid Muldoon, of Ouray, The Tombstone Epitaph, of Nevada, The fimplecute, of Texas, and The Ba^oo, of Missouri. Shirttail Bend, Whiskey Flat, Puppytown, [155]
November Bougba Wild Yankee Ranch, Squaw Loafer's Ravine,
Flat,
Rawhide Ranch,
Squitch Gulch, Toenail
Lake, are
names of places in Butte County, CaL Perhaps indeed no place or term gives more
a few of the
luxuriant illustrations of the fermentation processes I
have mentioned, and
their froth
and specks, than
those Mississippi and Pacific /Coast regions, at the
Hasty and grotesque as are some of
present day.
the names, others are of an appropriateness and originality
This applies to the In-
unsurpassable.
dian words, which are often perfect.
proposed
new
in
Congress
the
for
Hog-eye,
Territories.
Oklahoma
name
is
of one of our
Rake-pocket
Lickskillet,
and Steal-easy are the names of some Texan towns. Miss Bremer found among the aborigines the following names: Men's, Horn-point; Round-Wind
The - Cloud- that- goes - aside Seek -the -sun; Iron -flash; Red -bottle
Stand- and- look- out; Iron -toe;
White-spindle;
Black-dog;
Gray -grass; Bushy
Two-feathers-of-honor
Thunder
-tail;
the- burning-Sod; Spirits-of- the Keep-the-fi re
;
Spiritual-woman
-
-face;
Go-on-
IVomen's,
dead.
Second-daughter-
;
of-the-house; Blue-bird. Certainly philologists have attention to this element repeat, can probably
to-day,
and
and
not its
given
results,
enough which,
be found working everywhere
amid modern conditions, with as much
activity as in far-back
prehistoric ones.
I
Greece or
Then the wit [IS6]
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
India,
life
under
rich flashes
movember Bougba of humor and genius and poetry
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; darting out often
from a gang of laborers, railroad-men, miners, drivers or boatmen!
How
often have
I
hover'd at the edge
of a crowed of them, to hear their repartees and im-
promptus!
You
get more real fun from half an hour
with them than from the books of
all
'*
the American
humorists."
The
science of language has large and close an-
alogies in geological science, with lution,
its fossils,
layers
and hidden
the present.
and
ceaseless evo-
numberless
its
strata,
its
submerged
the infinite go-before of
Or, perhaps
Language
is
more
like
some vast living body, or perennial body of bodies. And slang not only brings the first feeders of it, but is
afterward
the start of fancy,
humor, breathing into
its nostrils
[157]
imagination and
the breath of
life.
Hn
IFnbian
Bureau IReminiscence
After the close of the secession war work'd several months
(until
Department
Bureau.
Along
at
1865,
Mr. Harlan turn'd
out for having written Leaves of Grass) terior
in
Washington,
this time there
in
came
in
'
me
the In-
the
Indian
to see their
Great Father an unusual number of aboriginal
visit-
ors, delegations for treaties, settlement of lands, &c.
— some young or middle-aged, but mainly old men, from the West, North, and occasionally from the
South
— parties
of from five to twenty each
— the
most wonderful proofs of what Nature can produce, (the survival of the fittest, no doubt all the frailer samples dropt, sorted out by death) as if to show how the earth and woods, the attrition of storms and elements, and the exigencies of life at first hand, can train and fashion men, indeed chiefs, in heroic massiveness, imperturbability, muscle, and that last and highest beauty consisting of strength the full exploitation and fruitage of a human identity, not from the culmination-points of ''culture" and arti-
— —
—
ficial civilization,
with giant,
but tallying our race, as
vital, gnarl'd,
enduring
C158]
it
trees, or
were,
mono-
November Boufiba liths
ing
of separate hardiest rocks, and humanity hold-
its
own
with the best of the said trees or rocks,
and outdoing them. There were Omahas,
Poncas,
Winnebagoes,
Cheyennes, Navahos, Apaches, and many others. see and Let me give a running account of what I
hear through one of these conference collections at the Indian Bureau, going back to the present tense.
Every head and face
impressive, even artistic;
is
Nature redeems herself out of her crudest recesses.
Most have red paint on their cheeks, however, or some other paint. C' Little Hill " makes the opening speech, which the interpreter translates by scraps.) Many wear head tires of gaudy-color'd braid, wound around thickly some with circlets of eagles' feath-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
ers.
Necklaces of bears' claws are plenty around
Most of the
their necks.
chiefs are
blankets of the brightest scarlet.
have blue, and ''the Flesh"
I
see one black.
now makes
wrapt
Two
(A wise
man
All the principal chiefs
some
of
them very
costly.
Plaid shirts
clean.
Now
speaking.
call'd
a short speech, apparently
swers him, and the interpreter translates hatchets,
or three
Indian Commissioner Dole an-
asking something.
again.)
in large
scraps
have tomahawks or
ornamented and are to be observed none too
a tall fellow,
He has
in
richly
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
''
Hole-in-the-Day,"
is
composed under which appears
a copious head-dress
of feathers and narrow ribbon, a countenance painted
all [159]
over a bilious
yellow.
flovembcr Bouobe Let us note this
young
'*
" is a
Hole-in-the-Day
calm, dress'd surtout,
and a
in
For
chief.
handsome
his paint,
all
Indian, mild
drab buckskin leggings, dark gray His costume will bear
soft black hat.
would accept him. and scant enough to show
observation, and even fashion
full
His apparel
is
worn
loose
his superb physique, especially in neck, chest,
C'The Apollo Belvedere!" was
legs.
saw
first
One empty
one
when
young Choctaw.)
a full-grown
— a wild, lean-looking the black woolen wrapper — has an
of the red visitors
dian, the
and
the involun-
tary exclamation of a famous European artist
he
and
in
In-
buffalo head, with the horns on, for his per-
sonal surmounting.
1
see a markedly Bourbonish
countenance among the chiefs
common among
them,
I
am
—
(it is
told).
not very un-
Most of them
avoided resting on chairs during the hour of their ''talk" sit
the Commissioner's office;
in
around on the
floor, leaning against
they would something,
by the walls, partially wrapt in their Though some of the young fellows were,
or stand up blankets.
as
I
have
said,
magnificent and beautiful animals,
think the palm of unique picturesqueness,
in
I
body,
physiognomy, &c., was borne by the old or elderly chiefs, and the wise men.
limb,
My
here -alluded -to experience
in
the
Indian
Bureau produced one very definite conviction, as follows:
There
Americans,
is
in their
something about these aboriginal highest characteristic representa[i6o]
movembet asougbe and the ensemble of their something very rephysique and physiognomy essential
tions,
mote, very
traits,
—
comparisons
arousing
lofty,
ow^n civilized ideals
— something that our
portrait painting, &c.,
literature,
have never caught, and that
even as a reminiscence.
future,
historian,
no
not grasp
it.
has grasp'd
artist, It
No it
so different, so
is
paint
— even
say the
many
I
have seen
saw many of the look'd at them ments, as
certainly
to
not, to
me
than
in
(at
any
rate, in
the description of
whom
I
There were mo-
or studied them,
when
exemplification of personality, dignity^ he-
roic presentation
society, or
even
sickly,
The
word
best.
I
seem'd
— did
specimens,
great aboriginal
outside our
in civilized society.
should not apply the word savage
the usual sense) as a leading
could
Their feathers,
seem any more ludicrous
of the fashions
own
far
the empty buffalo skull
least,
of those
biographer, no
— perhaps
standards of eminent humanity.
our
our
almost certainly never be transmitted to the
w^ill
I
w^ith
anyhow in
(as in the conventions of
the accepted
puny,
poems and
plays),
inferior.
interpreters, agents
of the
Indian Depart-
ment, or other whites accompanying the bands,
in
were always interesting
positions of responsibility,
me; had many talks with them. Occasionally I would go to the hotels where the bands were quarter'd, and spend an hour or two informally.
to
I
Of course we could not have much conversation VOL. VI.— II.
^
,
,
[i6i]
—
flovcmber Bouflba though (through the interpreters) more of this than might be supposed sometimes quite animated and
—
significant.
and treated by
receiv'd cordial
had the good luck to be invariably
I
of them
all
most
their
in
manner.
[Letter to
W. W.
from an
who
H.,
artist, B.
has
been much among the American Indians:] "I have
just receiv'd
little
paper on the Indian delega-
paragraph you say that there
In the fourth
tions.
about the essential
your
traits
certainly never be transmitted to the future.
nate as to regain
my
health
I
hope
statement, at least in so far as
mit
I
intend to spend
some
my
to
If
'
weaken
talent
It
life.
will certainly
certainly
and training
the Indian.
know them
I
of
up
stirr'd
beauty,
it
shall
en-
both
My
artistic
en-
by the
Indians.
and
nobility
Neither black nor Afghan, Arab nor all
pretty well), can hold a candle to
All of the other aboriginal types
— the blacks, thin-hipped, as perfect in form
seem
to be
human form
more
— as we
with bulbous limbs, not well
mark'd; the Arabs large-jointed, &c.
young Indian
as
dignity,
or less distorted from the model of perfect
know
will per-
wild individuality, than any of the other
indigenous types of man.
Malay (and
so fortu-
finer types,
be well worth the while.
own
am
I
of the characteristic features of their
have more
mingled with their
will almost
among them, and
years
thusiasm was never so thoroughly
They
*
the force of that
deavor to perpetuate on canvas some of the
men and women, and some
something
is
of our aborigines which
and
But
I
have seen
many
a
feature as a Greek statue —
very different from a Greek statue, of course, but as satisfying to the artistic perceptions and demand.
"
And
the worst, or perhaps the best of [i63]
it all
is
that
it
will
movember Bougb0 require an artist
impressions.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and a good one â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to record the
value of one really finely
No
one but an
real facts
and
Ten thousand photographs would not have the artist
felt
painting.
knows how much.
Color
An
is
all-important.
Indian
an Indian without the blue-black hair and the
is
only half
brilliant
eyes
shining out of the wonderful dusky ochre and rose complexion."
[163]
Some Wmx^ Botes I
CAN myself almost remember negro slaves
^^^ ^^^^
in^New Yoric '"
State, as
great-grandfather (at
New
County,
TRanbom
at
my grandfather and West
Suffolk
Hills,
The hard
York) own'd a number.
the floor of the
was mostly done by them, and on big kitchen, toward sundown, would
be squatting a
circle of
labor of the farm
twelve or fourteen
'*
picka-
ninnies," eating their supper of pudding (Indian corn
mush) and milk. A friend of my grandfather, named Wortman, of Oyster Bay, died in 1810, leaving ten slaves.
Jeanette Treadwell, the last of them, died
suddenly
in
Flushing
last
of ninety-four years. of the liberated
I
West
summer
remember Hills
(1884), at the age ''
slaves,
old Mose," one well.
He was
very genial, correct, manly, and cute, and a great friend of
Canada
my
childhood.
Three wondrous nights.
Effects of
moon,
Nightsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
clouds, stars, and night-sheen, never sur-
Latein
pass'd.
^"'^"' all.
already
how
1
am
out every night, enjoying
The sunset begins long
moon, an hour high
evening
it.
lingers
just after eight, [164]
(I
have said
here.) is
past
The her
IBovember Bouflbe and looks somehow more
half,
As
there than ever before.
it
like a
grows
human later,
up we have face
such gorgeous and broad cloud-effects, with Luna's
tawny
halos, silver edgings
— great
fleeces,
depths of
blue-black in patches, and occasionally long, low bars
hanging silently a while, and then gray bulging masses rolling along stately,
The moon
sometimes
in
long procession.
travels in Scorpion to-night,
and dims
all
the stars of that constellation except fiery Antares,
who
keeps on shining just to the big one's
Sept, 30, '82, 4.30 A.M. Country Days in Camden County,
—
New
^
^^
I
side.
am down
Jersey, at the
— have comet — have
^""farmhouse of the Staffords
looking a long while at the
been
in
my
time seen longer-tail'd ones, but never one so pro-
nounc'd fierce
the
— so
air
cometary character, and so spectral-
in
like
or sea.
some great, pale, living monster of The atmosphere and sky, an hour or
so before sunrise, so cool,
still,
translucent, give the
whole apparition to great advantage. It is low in the east. The head shows about as big as an ordinary good-sized saucer is a perfectly round and
—
—
defined disk
— the
not a
stripe,
but quite broad, and gradually expand-
ing.
Impress'd with the silent, inexplicably
tional sight, in
I
tail
linger
some
and look
sixty or seventy feet
till all
begins to
emoweaken
the break of day.
October
2.
— The
third
day of mellow,
[16S]
delicious,
Tlovember Souoba sunshiny weather.
my
of the old woods,
back against a
the
in
writing this
the recesses
in
on a big pine
seat
Am down
tree.
change, to bask
am
I
Autumn
log,
my
here a few days for a
sun, to idle lusciously
and simply, and to eat hearty meals, especially my Warm mid-days the other hours of the breakfast. twenty-four delightfully fresh and mild—cool evenThe scent of the ings, and early mornings perfect. woods, and the peculiar aroma of a great yet unreap'd
—
maize-field near
by
— the white butterflies
in
every
— the golden-rod, the wild night. and sunflowers — the song of the katydid direction
by day
asters,
all
Every day
in
Cooper's Woods, enjoying simple
and the passing hours — taking short — exercising arms and chest with the saplings, walks
existence
or
my
perfect
voice with
week
army songs
or
recitations.
weather; seven continuous days
for
bright and dry and cool splendid, with
full
star-shows up
in
The
and sunny.
moon — about
the east and south, Jupiter, Saturn,
Am
Am
Notes
pXJLn's
Prtnt
feeling
— am outdoors most of the time, absorb-
ing the days and nights
American Society
nights
lo the grandest of
Capella, Aldebaran, and great Orion.
pretty well
A
all
I
can.
—
New
visit York City, upper part Central Park almost every day (and have for the last three weeks) off and on, taking observations or short rambles, and
in
sometimes riding around. [166]
1
talk quite a
November
ffiougbe
good deal with one of the Park policemen, C. C, up toward the Ninetieth Street entrance. One day in particular got him a-going, and it proved deeply I
Our
interesting to me.
and
politics.
was
1
talk floated into sociology
curious to find
how
my friend,
appear'd on their surfaces to
these things
for
he plainly
possess'd sharp wits and good nature, and had been seeing, for years, broad streaks of
what out
of
my
latitude.
1
humanity some-
found that as he took
such appearances the inward caste-spirit of European **
aristocracy " pervaded rich America, with cynicism
and
artificiality at
the fore.
Of
the bulk of
official
persons. Executives, Congressmen, Legislators, Al-
dermen, Department Heads, &c., &c., or the candidates for those positions, nineteen in twenty, in the
policeman's judgment, were just players Liberty, Equality, Union,
and
all
in
a game.
the grand words of
the Republic, were, in their mouths, but lures, decoys, chisel'd likenesses of dead
wood, to catch the masses.
Of fine afternoons, along the broad tracks for many years, had swept by my friend, on guard, the
carriages, &c., of
of the Park, as he stood
American Gentility,
not by dozens or scores, but by hundreds and thousands.
Lucky brokers,
cery-men, successful dry goods'
folk,
&c.
capitalists,
contractors, gro-
political strikers,
And on
rich butchers,
a large proportion of
these vehicles, on panels or horse-trappings, were
conspicuously borne heraldic family this really
be true
?)
In
crests.
(Can
wish and willingness (and
ÂŁ167]
•Wovember Bougbe if
were
that
so,
what matter about the
of nobility, with a court and spheres talists,
reality ?) titles
fit
for
the capi-
the highly educated, and the carriage-riding
— to fence them from "the common peo-" ple — were the heart's desire of the *'good society — aye, of North and South. of our great So much speculations — my police which rather took me aback — and which have classes
off
"
cities
friend's
for
I
would just print doctor records symptoms).
thought
St. Louis, Missouri, Plate Glass
them
as he gave
I
November,
'79,
(as a
—What
^q y^^ think find manufactur'd out here and of a kind the clearest and largest, I
—
best,
and the most
finish'd
and luxurious
in
the world
— and with ample
demand for it too? Plate glass! One would suppose that was the last dainty outcome
of an old, almost effete-growing civilization; and yet
here
a few miles from St. Louis, on a charming
it is,
little river, in
sippi.
I
the wilds of the West, near the Missis-
went down
Mountain Railroad
that
way
to-day by the Iron
— was switch'd off on a side-track
four miles through
woods and
ravines,
to
Swash
Creek, so-call'd, and there found Crystal City, and
immense Glass Works,
built
(and evidently built to
stay) right in the pleasant rolling forest.
Spent most
of the day, and examined the inexhaustible and peculiar
made of— the original whitybanks saw the melting in the pots
sand the glass
gray stuff
in
the
is
—
[x68]
movember BouQba (a
wondrous
process, a real
poem)
undergoes
preparation the clay material great pots
(it
— saw the delicate
has to be kneaded finally by
no machinery answering, and
feet,
these
for
human
watch'd the
I
picturesque bare-legged Africans treading
it)
— saw
the molten stuff (a great mass of a glowing pale yel-
low
color) taken out of the furnaces
forget that pot, beautiful than
shall
never
shape, color, concomitants,
more
any antique
adjoining casting-room,
pour'd out on
study
its
bed
statue), pass'd into the
glowing, a newer, vaster
indescribable, a pale red-tinged
for colorists,
yellow, of tarry consistence,
heavy feet
by
roller into
by powerful machinery,
lifted (all
(I
all
rough plate
lambent),
glass,
I
roll'd
by a
should say ten
fourteen, then rapidly shov'd into the anneal-
ing oven, which stood ready for
it.
The
polishing
—
and grinding rooms afterward the great glass slabs, hundreds of them, on their flat beds, and the see-
saw music of the steam machinery constantly at work polishing them the myriads of human figures (the works employ'd 400 men) moving about, with
—
swart arms and necks, and no superfluous clothing
— the vast, rude
halls,
with immense play of shifting
shade, and slow-moving currents of smoke and steam,
and
shafts of light,
above with
sometimes sun,
effects
that
striking in from
would have
fill'd
Michel
Angelo with rapture.
Coming back down, and
for
to St. Louis this evening, at sun-
over an hour afterward, [169]
we
followed
flopembcr BouQba the Mississippi, close by
an ampler view of the
from any yet.
different
river,
In
me
western bank, giving
its
and with
effects a little
the eastern sky
hung the
planet Mars, just up, and of a very clear and vivid
yellow.
It
was
a soothing and pensive
spread of the river off there glints of the
in
hour—the
the half-light—the
down-bound steamboats plodding along
—and that yellow orb (apparently twice as large and significant as usual)
above the
Illinois
shore.
(All
along, these nights, nothing can exceed the calm, fierce,
golden, glistening domination of Mars over
the stars
in
all
the sky.)
As we came nearer St. Louis, the night having well set in, saw some (to me) novel effects in the zinc smelting establishments, the tall chimneys 1
belching flames at the top, while inside through the
openings (in
at the facades of the great
tanks burst forth
regular position) hundreds of fierce tufts of a
peculiar blue
(or green)
intensity, like electric
flame,
of a
vivid.
and
lights— illuminating not only
the great buildings themselves, but side,
purity
far
and near out-
hues of the aurora borealis, only more remembering the pot from the (So that
like
crystal furnace
—
— my jaunt
seem'd to give
revelations in the color line.)
[XTO]
me new
Some Mat HDemoranba 5otte^ 2)own at tbe
I
'*
FIND this incident in
my
chinning" in hospital with
who knew of it): When Kilpatrick and
Utme
notes
some
(I
suppose from
sick or
wounded
soldier
Brandy Station
(last
his forces
of September,
abouts), and the bands struck up
''
were cut '63,
off at
or there-
Yankee Doodle,"
enough in the Southern Confederacy to keep him and them ''in." It was when Meade fell back. K. had his large cavalry
there were not cannon
division (perhaps 5,000 men), but the rebs, in superior
had surrounded them. Things look'd exceedingly desperate. K. had two fine bands, and ordered them up immediately they join'd and play'd '' Yankee Doodle " with a will! It went through the men like Every lightning but to inspire, not to unnerve.
force,
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
man seem'd
They charged like a cyclone, and cut their way out. Their loss was but 20. It was about two in the afternoon. a giant.
[171]
'Hovcmbcr JSouflbe April Washington
^ft^^ the
forenoon,
storm of the past few days.
Street Scenes Walking Down
— Warmish
1864,
7,
•
xt.
See, passing up, in the
t_
I
j
broad space be-
tween the curbs, a big squad of a couple of hundred conscripts, surrounded by a strong cordon of arm'd guards, and others interspersed between the ranks. The Government has
Ij^e''*^
learned caution from
hundreds of
''
its
many as am
experiences; there are
bounty jumpers," and already,
I
Next (also passing up the Avenue,) a cavalry company, young, but evidently well drill'd and service-harden'd men.
told, eighty
thousand deserters!
Mark the upright posture in their saddles, the bronzed and bearded young faces, the easy swaying to the motions of the horses, and the carbines by their right knees; handsome and reckless, some eighty of them, riding with rapid gait, clattering along. Then the tinkling bells of passing cars, the
(some with
large
many shops
show-windows, some with swords,
straps for the shoulders of different ranks, hat-cords
with acorns, or other
insignia), the military patrol
marching along, with the orderly or second-lieuten-
passes— the forms, the faces, all sorts crowded together, the worn and pale, the pleas'd, some on their way to the railroad depot going home, the cripples, the darkeys, the long trains of government wagons, or the sad ant stopping different ones to examine
strings
many
of ambulances officers'
conveying wounded
— the
horses tied in front of the drinking or
movember
ffiougbe
by black men or boys, or
oyster saloons, or held orderlies.
Tuesday, Aug, The 195th
^j^j^
Pennsylvania
75^5.
i,
— About
3
o'clock
afternoon (sun broiling ^ o hot)/ in
Fif-
teenth Street, by the Treasury building, a
and handsome regiment, 195th Pennsylvania, were marching by as it happen 'd, receiv'd orders just here to halt and break ranks, so that they might large
—
rest
themselves awhile.
finer set of
looks,
all
men
I
thought
never saw a
I
— so hardy, candid, bright American warm
weather-beaten, and with
Every man was home-born.
My
heart
clothes.
was much
drawn toward them. They seem'd very tired, red, and streaming with sweat. It is a one-year regiment, mostly from Lancaster County, Pa.; have been
Shenandoah
Valley.
their knapsacks,
Some
and
On
halting, the
sat
down
men
in
unhitch'd
to rest themselves.
The fine physical appearance of the whole body was remarkable. Great, very great, must be the State where such young farmers and mechanics are the practical average. went around for half an hour lay flat
on the pavement or under
trees.
1
and
talk'd
with several of them, sometimes squatting
down with
the groups.
April Uft-Hand
"
^°^
by Soldiers
30, 1866.
^^j^^ fact,
— Here
is
a single signifi-
from which one
may judge
of
the character of the American soldiers in this just
concluded war
:
A
gentleman
[173]
J
in
Tlovcmbcr Bouflbe
New
York City, a while
since, took
it
into his
head
who had and afterwards learned
to collect specimens of writing from soldiers lost their right
to use the
and
hands
in battle,
He gave
left.
ofier'd prizes for
public notice of his desire,
the best of these specimens.
come
and by the time specified for awarding the prizes three hundred samples of such left-hand writing by maimed soldiers had Pretty soon they began to
in,
arrived. I
have just been looking over some of
A
ing.
great
many
a beautiful manner.
nearly
One
all
this writ-
of the specimens are written in All are
The
good.
writing in
cases slants backward instead of forward.
piece of writing, from a soldier
who had
both arms, was made by holding the pen
in
lost
his
mouth. Culpepper, where Centa-^
am
stopping, looks
two or three thousand inMust be one of the pleasantest
like a place of
habitants.
iQ ,5^
towns fences,
1
all
remains of
in Virginia.
Even now, dilapidated
broken down, windows out,
much
beauty.
1
am
it
standing on an emi-
nence overlooking the town, though within
To
its limits.
the west the long Blue Mountain range
plain, looks quite near,
distant,
is
is
very
though from 30 to 50 miles
with some gray splashes of snow yet
The show
has the
varied and fascinating.
I
visible.
see a great
eagle up there in the air sailing with pois'd wings, C174]
flovember ffiougb^ Squads of red-legged soldiers are drilling; I suppose some of the new men of the Brooklyn 14th; they march off presently with muskets on their shoulquite low.
ders.
In
another place, just below me, are some
soldiers squaring off logs to build a shanty
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; chop-
ping away, and the noise of the axes sounding sharp. I
hear the bellowing, unmusical screech of the mule.
mark the thin blue smoke rising from camp fires. Just below me is a collection of hospital tents, with a yellow flag elevated on a stick, and moving lanI
guidly
the breeze.
in
them both)
Two
One
are just leaving.
hardly walk; the other
is
men (1 know so weak he can
discharged is
stronger,
and
carries his
They move slowly along the muddy road toward the depot. The scenery is full
comrade's musket.
of breadth, and spread on the most generous scale
(everywhere sights,
in Virginia this
thought
fill'd
me).
The
the scenes, the groups, have been varied
and picturesque here beyond description, and main so. I
heard the
men
return in force the other night
re-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
heard the shouting, and got up and went out to hear
That night scene of so many hundred tramping steadily by, through the mud (some big flaring torches of pine knots), shall never forget. like to go to the paymaster's tent, and
what was the
matter.
I
I
watch the men getting paid off. Some have furloughs, and start at once for home, sometimes amid great chaffing and blarneying. There is every day [175]
flopember Bouflba the sound of the wood-chopping axe, and the plentiful
and mud.
sight of negroes, crows,
I
note large
The teamsters have camps go often among them. The offi-
droves and pens of cattle. of their own, and
1
me
cers occasionally invite
The
headquarters.
to dinner or supper at
fare is plain,
but you get some-
thing good to drink, and plenty of is
absent; Sedgwick
One Payingthe '
'
*
of
is
made
first
now no
there
was
Gen. Meade
command.
my war
time reminiscences com-
pnses the quiet side scene of a '
Troops, at their of their
is in
it.
visit
1
Regiment U. S. Color'd encampment, and on the occasion
to the First
paying
off,
July
1
1,
1863.
difference of opinion
Though
there
worth mentioning,
a powerful opposition to enlisting blacks
during the earlier years of the secession war. then, however, they had their champions.
Even '*That
the color'd race," said a good authority, 'Ms capable of military training and efficiency,
is
demonstrated
by the testimony of numberless witnesses, and by the eagerness displayed
and
in
the raising, organizing,
drilling of African troops.
make a
Few white
regiments
better appearance on parade than the First
and Second Louisiana Native Guards. The same remark is true of other color'd regiments. At Milliken's Bend, at Vicksburg, at Port Hudson, on Morris Island,
and wherever bravery,
tested, they
have exhibited determin'd
and compell'd the plaudits [176]
alike
of the
IRopember Bougbe thoughtful and thoughtless soldiery.
Hudson the question was
of Port
During the siege often ask'd those
who beheld their resolute charges, how behav'd under
fire;
'
! '
bully
1 '
to them.
were the usual
out to argue the case
start
niggers
'
and without exception the answer
was complimentary rate
the
'
O, tip-top
'
! '
first-
But I did not
replies. "
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; only to give my remin-
iscence literally, as jotted on the spot at the time.
write this on Mason's (otherwise Analostan)
I
Island,
under the fine shade trees of an old white the white stucco
stucco house, with big rooms;
house, originally a fine country seat (tradition says
the famous Virginia Mason, author of the Fugitive Slave Law,
was born
here).
I
reach'd the spot from
my
Washington quarters by ambulance up Pennsylvania Avenue, through Georgetown, across the Aqueduct Bridge, and around through a cut and winding road, with rocks and many bad gullies not lacking. After reaching the island,
midst of the
The
camp
we
get presently in the
of the ist Regiment U. S. C. T.
tents look clean
and good; indeed, altogether,
locality especially, the pleasantest
The spot
seen.
is
camp
I
in
have yet
umbrageous, high and dry, with
distant sounds of the city,
and the puffing steamers of the Potomac, up to Georgetown and back again. Birds are singing in the trees, the
able here in this moist shade,
and
freshness.
The
town. VOL.
VI.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 12.
A hundred
river
between
is
[177]
warmth
is
endur-
with the fragrance
rods across swell'd and
is
George-
muddy from
Vlopcmber Bougba So quiet
the late rains up country. vitality, all
sweep
my
around eye, of
in
here, yet
the far distance glimpses, as
I
verdure-clad, and with plen-
hills,
teous trees; right where
I
and many other
a few with
vines; just at
of
full
trees,
sit,
locust, sassafras, spice,
huge
hand the banks sloping
parasitic
to the river,
wild with beautiful, free vegetation, superb weeds,
growth and forms, than the Lots of luxuriant grape vines and
better, in their natural
best garden.
trumpet flowers; the
river
flowing
far
down
in
the
distance.
Now
the paying
to begin.
is
The Major (pay-
master) with his clerk seat themselves at a table the
rolls are
before
them
— the money box
is
—
open'd
— there
are packages of five, ten, twenty-five cent
pieces.
Here comes the
82 men,
all
first
Certes,
blacks.
Company
we
with the appearance of this crowd
They
they be. look as
if
name
many
up
after
some fault
— negroes though
manly enough, bright enough, of
The paying,
are march'd off*
cannot find
they had the soldier-stuff
hardy, patient, fellows.
are
(B),
I
in close
in
them, look
handsome young The men say, has begun. proximity. The clerk calls
them
real
name, and each walks up, receives
money, and passes along out of the way. It is a real study, both to see them come close, and to see them pass away, stand counting their cash (nearly all of this company get ten dollars and three cents each). The clerk calls George Washington. his
—
£178]
November Bougbe That distinguished personage steps from the ranks, in the shape of a very black man, good sized and shaped, and aged about 30, with a military mustache; he takes his *'ten three," and goes off evidently (There are about a dozen Washingwell pleas'd. tons
in
Let us hope they will do
the company.
honor to the name.) Major handles the
At the bills,
table,
counts
how
quickly the
without
trouble,
everything going on smoothly and quickly.
regiment numbers to-day about 1,000
men
The
(includ-
ing 20 officers, the only whites).
Now
These get $5.36 each. The men look well. They, too, have great names; besides the Washingtons aforesaid, John Quincy another company.
Adams, Daniel Webster, Calhoun, James Madison, Alfred Tennyson, John Brown, Benj. G. Tucker, Horace Greeley, &c. their
money with
The men
step off aside, count
a pleas'd, half-puzzled look.
casionally, but not often, there are
Oc-
some thoroughly
African physiognomies, very black in color, large,
low forehead, &c. But have to say that do not see one utterly revolting face. Then another company, each man of this getting $10.03 also. The pay proceeds very rapidly (the calculation, roll-signing, &c., having been arranged beforehand). Then some trouble. One company, by the rigid rules of official computation, gets only protruding
lips,
I
I
23 cents each man.
and
after
two
The company (K)
is
indignant,
or three are paid, the refusal to take [179]
flopcmber BouQba
sum
the paltry ofif
is
and the company marches
universal,
to quarters unpaid.
Another company
sullen, lowering, disappointed look
refuse
it
this case.
in
The
gets only 70 cents.
(I)
is
Half
general.
Company G,
in
full
dress,
with brass scales on shoulders, looked, perhaps, as well as any of the companies the men had an
—
unusually alert look.
These, then, are the black troops,
ginning of them.
under these circumstances, its
novitiate
—or
the be-
Well, no one can see them, even
— without
— their military career
feeling
well
in
pleas'd with
them.
As we
entered the island,
we saw
scores at a
washing their clothes, &c. The officers, as far as looks go, have a fine appearance, have good faces, and the air military. Altogether it is a significant show, and brings up some little
distance, bathing,
''abolition" thoughts.
The
scene, the porch of an
Old Virginia slave-owner's house, the Potomac
down
pling near, the Capitol just
rip-
three or four miles
through the pleasant blue haze of this
there, seen
July day. After a couple of hours
a ramble.
1
I
get tired, and go off for
write these concluding lines on a rock,
under the shade of a tree on the banks of the It
is
solitary here, the birds singing, the
island.
sluggish
muddy-yellow waters pouring down from the rains of the upper
late
Potomac; the green heights on [180]
November
ffiouaba
the south side of the river before me.
cannon from a neighboring to signal high
noon.
Analostan, enjoying in this solitary spot.
its
I
fort
have walk'd
is
all
luxuriant wildness,
A
single
has just been
fringed with a dense
vines, &c.
[xSi]
fired,
around
and stopt
water snake wriggles
the bank, disturbed, into the water.
by
The
down
The bank near
growth of shrubbery,
five (Tbousanb Ipoems There have been collected in a cluster nearly five thousand big and little American poems all that diligent and long-continued research could lay hands on The author of Old Grimes is Dead commenced it, more than fifty years ago; then the cluster was
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
I
passed on and accumulated
by C. F. Harris; then further pass'd on and added to by the late Senator Anthony, from whom the whole collection has been bequeathed to Brown University. A catalogue (such as it is) has been made and published of these five thousand poems and is probably the most curious and suggestive part of the whole affair. At any rate it has led me to some abstract reflection
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
like I
the following.
should
devout
like,
for myself, to
acknowledgment
not
put on record
only
of the
my
great
masterpieces of the past, but of the benefit of all poets, past in
its
and present, and of all poetic utterance
entirety
the dominant
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
moral factor of hu-
view of that progress, and of evolution, the religious and esthetic elements, the distinctive and most important of any, seem to me manity's progress.
In
[183]
November Bouaba more indebted to poetry than to all other means and influences combined. In a very profound sense Then the points religion is the poetry of humanity. of union and rapport among all the poems and poets of the world, however wide their separations of time and place and theme, are much more numerous and weighty than the points of contrast. Without relation as they may seem at first sight, the whole the Oriental, earth's poets and poetry en masse the oldthe Greek, and what there is of Roman the interminable ballad-romances of the est myths the hymns and psalms of worship Middle Ages the epics, plays, swarms of lyrics of the British Islands, or the Teutonic old or new or modern or what there is in America, Bryant's, for French
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
instance, or Whittier's, or Longfellow's
of
all
tongues and ages,
primitive times to our
combine
in
one
universe, with
all its
it,
all
forms,
own day
aggregate
held together by a repeat
all
and
all
— the
verse
subjects, from
inclusive electric
— really
globe or
numberless parts and radiations
common
To
centre or verteber.
poetry' thus has (to the point of
view
comprehensive enough) more features of resemblance than difference,
and becomes
essentially,
like
the
compact and orbic and whole. Nature seems to sow countless seeds makes incessant crude attempts thankful to get now and then, even at rare and long intervals, something approxiplanetary globe
itself,
—
—
mately good. [183]
Bowery
XTbe Šlb
B
l^emtnidcence ot Tlew
l?orft p[a)(>0
an
In
not long since,
article
Lady Macbeth,"
in
describing the bitter
the loss of those
an^ Hcttitd
Ego
fitt^ Ueatd
**
Mrs. Siddons as
The Nineteenth Century, after regretfulness to mankind from
first-class
poems, temples, pictures,
gone and vanished from any record of men, the writer (Fleeming Jenkin) continues: "
what
If
this
nature, last
be our feeling as to the more durable works of
we
shall
say of those triumphs which,
by
art,
very
their
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
no longer than the action which creates them
triumphs of the orator, the singer, or the actor?
There
anodyne
and there
in the
words, *must be
even some absurdity
in
'inevitable,'
so,'
longing
for
the
feel
when,
after hearing
is
now
left
of
it is
which memory bors'; as
when we from the
we
'
great performance,
we
send along
upon
my
my
nerves,
longer the print and
thrill
brain, the
mine and
must be
we
leave the
Well, this great thing has been, and
the feeble print
will
live
some
is
This
impossible.
anodyne and our sense of humor temper the unhappiness theatre and think,
an
is
all
that
little thrill
my
neigh-
feebler,
and
away the impress of the great artist will vanish The regret that a great art should in its world.'
pass
Cxa4l
IRovember BouQba nature be transitory, explains the lively interest
which many
feel
in reading anecdotes or descriptions of a great actor."
All this is emphatically
my own
feeling
and remi-
niscence about the best dramatic and lyric artists
have seen
bygone days
in
—
for instance,
I
Marietta
Alboni, the elder Booth, Forrest, the tenor Bettini,
the baritone Badiali, '*old
man Clarke"
—
(I
could
write a whole paper on the latter's peerless render-
Hamlet
ing of the Ghost in I
was
who
a
young
fellow)
— an
at the
actor
when
Park,
named Ranger,
appeared in America forty years ago in genre
Henry Placide, and many others. But will make a few memoranda at least of the best one knew. characters; I
1
For the elderly
New
Yorker of to-day, perhaps,
up memories of his early manhood than the mention of the Bowery and the elder Booth. At the date given, the more stylish and select theatre (prices, 50 cents pit, |i boxes) was '' The Park," a large and well-appointed house on Park Row, opposite the present Postoffice. English opera and the old comedies were nothing were more likely to
often given
in
capital
stars appeared here,
start
style; the
with
Italian
principal
foreign
opera at wide in-
The Park held a large part in my boyhood's and young manhood's life. Here heard the English
tervals.
I
actor,
Anderson,
in
fine part of Gisippus. ble, Charlotte
Charles de Moor, and
Here
I
heard Fanny
Cushman, the Seguins, Daddy [185]
in
the
KemRice,
Hopcmber »ouaba Hackett as
and
Nimrod
Falstaff,
in his
Yankee
Specimen Days.)
Wildfire, Rip
(See vol.
characters. It
iv., 25, 26,
was here (some years
the date in the headline) times, and at his best. in LucreJlia Borgia,
Van Winkle.
1
later
also heard Mario nnany
such parts as Gennaro,
In
— the
he was inimitable
est of voices, a pure tenor, of considerable
and respectable power. him, no longer
though, to the
Perhaps
than
sweet-
compass
was with fine Norma,
His wife, Grisi,
young
first-class or
—a
last.
my dearest amusement
those musical ones.
I
doubt
emotions of the future
ever the senses and
if
be
will
reminiscences are
thrill'd
as
were the
by the deep passion of Alboni's contralto (at the Broadway Theatre, south or by the trumpet notes side, near Pearl Street) of Badiali's baritone or Bettini's pensive and incomauditors of a generation ago
—
Fernando
parable tenor in
bass
in Faliero,
among
in
Favorita, or Marini*s
the Havana troupe, Castle
Garden.
But getting back more specifically to the date
and theme
1
started from
— the
heavy tragedy busi-
ness prevailed more decidedly at the Bowery Theatre,
where Booth and Forrest were frequently
heard.
ranging
Though Booth in
pdre, then
in
his
to be
prime,
age from 40 to 44 years (he was born
was the
and continuer of the traditions of orthodox English play-acting, he stood out '* himself alone" in many respects beyond any in
1796)
loyal child
[x86]
IRovember Bougba
ways traditions. He an actor '' whose in-
of his kind on record, and with effects and that broke through
has been well
all
rules
and
described as
all
and tremendous concentration of passion in delineations overwhelmed his audience, and
stant his
wrought
into
it
such enthusiasm that
partook of
it
own
the fever of inspiration surging through his
He seems
veins."
very honorable,
character, tured,
to have been of beautiful private affectionate,
good-na-
no arrogance, glad to give the other actors
He knew
the best chances.
stage points thor-
all
oughly, and curiously ignored the mere dignities.
I
man who had seen him do the Second Actor in the mock play to Charles Kean's Hamlet in Baltimore. He was a marvellous linguist. He play'd Shylock once in London, giving the dia-
once talk'd with a
Hebrew, and
logue
in
cine's
Andromaque)
habits,
was once
I
New
in
in
Orleans Oreste (Ra-
One
French.
have heard, was
strict
trait
vegetarianism.
exceptionally kind to the brute creation. in a
while he would
make
(He
He
Every
a break for solitude
or wild freedom, sometimes for a
times for days.
of his
few hours, some-
illustrated Plato's rule that to
the forming an artist of the very highest rank a dash
what the world calls insanity is indispensable.) He was a small-sized man yet sharp observers noticed that however crowded the stage of insanity or
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
might be
in
certain
overtopt or hidden.
scenes,
Booth never seem'd
He was
singularly spontaneous
[187]
fiovembcr Bouflba and
fluctuating;
in
from any and
differed
the same part each rendering all
He had no
others.
stereo-
typed positions and made no arbitrary requirements
on
his fellow-performers.
known to old play-goers, Booth's most effective part was Richard HI. Either that, or lago, or Shylock, or Pescara in The Apostate, was sure to draw a crowded house. (Remember heavy pieces were much more in demand those days than now.) He was also unapproachably grand in Sir Giles Overreach, in A New Way to Pay Old Debts, and As
is
well
the principal character in The Iron Chest. In
any
portraiture
Bowery Theatre, with lessee left
Booth, those years, the
of
leading lights, and the
its
and manager, Thomas Hamblin, cannot be
out.
It
Forrest (the
was
Bowery first saw Edwin play was John Howard Payne's Brutus, at the
I
or the Fall of Tarquin, and or rather
I
it
affected
might say permanently
me
weeks;
for
filtered into
my
whole
nature), then in the zenith of his
ability.
Sometimes (perhaps a veteran's benefit the Bowery would group together five or six
night),
of the first-class actors of those
daysâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Booth,
Cooper, Hamblin, and John R. Scott, that time and here George Jones
was a young, handsome remember seeing him I
Ccesar,
To
and a return
capital
actor, in
the
('*
to the [188]
At
Count Joannes")
title it
Forrest,
for instance.
and quite a
performance
specially
fame and
role
favorite. in
Julius
was.
manager.
Thomas
November Hamblin made a
ffiouoba
first-rate foil to
Booth, and
He had
quently cast with him.
was
fre-
a large, shapely,
imposing presence, and dark and flashing eyes.
remember well
I
rendering of the main role in
his
Maturin's Bertram, or the Castle of St. Aldobrand,
But
I
thought
Tom
Hamblin's best acting was
in
the comparatively minor part of Faulconbridge in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
he himself evidently revell'd in the part, King John and took away the house's applause from young Kean (the King) and Ellen Tree (Constance), and everybody else on the stage some time afterward Some of the Bowery actresses were at the Park. remarkably good. remember Mrs. Pritchard in Tour de Nesle, and Mrs. McClure in Fatal Curiosity, (I wonder and as Millwood in George Barnwell. what old fellow reading these lines will recall the fine comedietta of The Youth that Never Saw a Woman, and the jolly acting in it of Mrs. Herring
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
1
and old Gates.)
The Bowery, now and
then,
was the
place, too,
such as The Last Days of The Lion-Doom'd and the yet undying
for spectacular pieces,
Pompeii,
At one time Jonathan Bradford, or the Murder at the Roadside Inn, had a long and crowded
Ma:(eppa.
run; John Sefton and his brother William acted in it.
I
remember well the Frenchwoman
splendid pantomimist, and her emotional
Wish-ton-Wish. for
Celeste, a
Wept
of
But certainly the main ''reason
being", of the
Bowery Theatre those years [189]
Tlovember ffiouQbe
was
to furnish the public with Forrest's and Booth's
performances
— the
latter
admirers and
circles of enthusiastic
to the former
having a popularity and
— though
critics fully
equal
people were divided as
al-
For some reason or other, neither Forrest nor
ways.
Booth would accept engagements
And
ionable theatre, the Park.
at the
it is
more
fash-
a curious remi-
niscence, but a true one, that both these great actors
and
their
society" in
**
performances were taboo'd by
New
York and Boston
probably as being too robustuous.
at
polite
the time
—
But no such
scruples affected the Bowery.
Recalling from that period the occasion of either Forrest or Booth,
any good night
pack'd from ceiling to pit with of
alert,
at the old its
well-dress'd, full-blooded
Bowery,
audience mainly
young and mid-
dle-aged men, the best average of American-born
—the emotional nature of the whole mass arous'd by the power and magnetism of as mighty mimes as ever trod the stage — the whole crowded mechanics
auditorium, and its
faces
as any
what
and eyes, to
seeth'd in
me
— bursting forth
much
as
in
it,
and flush 'd from
a part of the
show
one of those long-kept-up
tempests of hand-clapping peculiar to the Bowery
—
no dainty kid-glove business, but electric force and (the muscle from perhaps 2,000 full-sinew'd men inimitable and chromatic tempest of one of those ovations to Edwin Forrest, welcoming him back after
—
an absence, comes up to
me
[190]
this
moment)
— such
November
ffiou^ba
sounds and scenes as here resumed to
many I
old
New
Yorkers some
can yet remember (for
1
will surely afford
fruitful recollections.
always scann'd an
audience as rigidly as a play) the faces of the leading authors, poets, editors, of those times
Cooper,
Bryant,
Paulding,
Watson Webb, N.
P.
Charles
Irving,
Willis,
— Fenimore
Hoffman,
King,
Halleck,
Mumford, Morris, Leggett, L. G. Clarke, R. A. Locke and others, occasionally peering from the first tier boxes; and even the great National Eminences, Presidents Adams, Jackson, Van Buren and Tyler, all made short visits there on their Eastern tours. Awhile after 1840 the character of the Bowery as hitherto described completely changed. prices
who pit
and vulgar programmes came of after years
in.
saw the pandemonium
Cheap People of the
and the doings on the boards must not gauge
by them the times and characters am describing. Not but what there was more or less rankness in the crowd even then. For types of sectional New York those days the streets east of the Bowery, that intersect Division, Grand, and up to Third Avenue types that never found their Dickens, or Hogarth, or Balzac, and have pass'd away unportraitured the young ship-builders, cartmen, I
—
—
—
butchers, firemen, (the old-time ''soap-lock" or ex-
''Mose" or ''Sikesey," of Chanfrau's plays,) they, too, were always to be seen in these audiences, racy of the East River and the Dry Dock. aggerated
[191]
November Bougba Slang, wit, occasional shirt sleeves, and a pictur-
esque freedom of looks and manners, with a rude good-nature and restless movement, were generally Yet there never were audiences that
noticeable.
good actor or an interesting play the compliment of more sustained attention or quicker rapport. Then at times came the exceptionally decorous and paid a
intellectual congregations
1
have hinted
at;
for the
Bowery really furnish'd plays and players you could get nowhere else. Notably, Booth always drew the best hearers; and to a specimen of his acting
now
attend
some
in
I
will
detail.
happen'd to see what has been reckoned by experts one of the most marvellous pieces of histrionism I
must have been about 1834 or '35. A favorite comedian and actress at the Bowery, Thomas Flynn and his wife, were to have a joint benefit, and, securing Booth for Richard, advertised the fact ever known.
many days
It
The house fill'd early from There was some uneasiness behind
beforehand.
top to bottom.
the scenes, for the afternoon arrived, and Booth had
not
come from down
in
Maryland, where he
lived.
However, a few minutes before ringing-up time he
made
his appearance in lively condition.
After a one-act farce over, as contrast and prelude,
the curtain rising for the tragedy,
good seat
in
the
pit,
I
Booth's quiet entrance from the side, bent, he slowly
and
can, from
my
pretty well front, see again
in silence [192]
as,
with head
(amid the tempest of
movember Bougba boisterous hand-clapping), walks
down
the stage to
the footlights with that peculiar and abstracted ges-
musingly kicking his sword, which he holds
ture,
from him by
its
Though
sash.
fifty
off
years have
can hear the clank, and
the
pass'd since then,
I
perfect following
hush of perhaps three thousand
people waiting.
(I
make more audience
in
never
saw an
actor
feel
who
could
of the said hush or wait, and hold the
an
indescribable,
half-delicious,
half-
irritating
suspense.)
And
play,
parts, voice,
atmosphere, magnetism, from
all
so throughout the entire
"Now is the winter of our discontent," to the closing death fight with Richmond, were of
The latter character was young fellow named Ingersoll.
the finest and grandest. play'd
by a stalwart
Indeed,
all
the renderings were wonderfully good.
upon the mass of hearers came from Booth. Especially was the dream scene very impressive. A shudder went through every nervous system in the audience; it certainly did But the great
spell cast
through mine.
Without question Booth was royal
heir
and
legit-
imate representative of the Garrick-Kemble-Siddons dramatic traditions; but he vitalized and gave an un-
namable race to those traditions with his tric
personal idiosyncrasy.
was the
(As
own
elec-
in all art-utterance it
subtle and powerful something special to the
individual that really conquered.) VOL. VI.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;13.
[193]
flovember Bouobe
To me, theatricals.
too, I
Booth stands
my seeing
consider that
years glimpsed for me, beyond
and form
spirit
vacity,
but
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
intrinsic
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; crystallizing
much
for
else besides
man
the
that inner
else,
all
those
unquestionable charm and
and
sophistication
vi-
artificiality
upon the English stage and literature at and after Shakspere's time, and coming on accumulatively through the seventeenth and rapidly
eighteenth centuries to the beginning,
or forty
fifty
years ago, of those disintegrating, decomposing processes
now
authoritatively going on.
Booth must be
Yes; although
classed in that antique, almost extinct
school, inflated, stagy, rendering Shakspere (perhaps inevitably, appropriately) from the
and often cockney conventions,
growth of arbitrary
his genius
my
one of the grandest revelations of of artistic expression.
''abandon/' found I
in
The words
''
was
to
me
life,
a lesson
**
energy,''
fire,"
him unprecedented meanings.
never heard a speaker or actor
a sting to hauteur or the taunt.
who 1
could give such
never heard from
any other the charm of unswervingly perfect vocalization without trenching at all on mere melody, the province of music.
So much
for a
Thespian temple of
New
York
years since, where ''sceptred Tragedy went
by
"
fifty
trailing
under the gaze of the Dry Dock youth, and both
players and auditors were of a character and like shall
never see again.
histrion of
modern
And
so
much
times, as near as [194]
I
for the
we
grandest
can deliberately
November SSougbe judge (and the phrenologists put
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; grander,
I
believe, than
electric passion, the artist.
fine
Kean
prime
For though those
my
caution " at 7) in the expression of
eligibility of
brilliant
and even magnificent
''
actors,
the tragic
years had
undoubtedly
Booth's death (in 1852) went the last and by noblest
Roman
of them
all.
[195]
many far
at
the
Tlotes to Xate lEnoHsb Boofts you will only take the following pages, ^s you do some long and gossipy letter written for you by a relative or friend traveling through distant scenes and incideuts, and jotting them down lazily and If
the Reader in the
f?^^ _ specuncn
Lys
t^on^^on, informally, June. 1887.
but
ever veraciously
(with
occasional diversions of critical thought
about somebody or something),
it
might remove
all
formal or literary impediments at once, and bring
you and me close together in the spirit in which the You have had, jottings were collated to be read. and have, plenty of public events and facts and genin the following book is eral statistics of America; a common individual New World private life, its
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
birth
and growth,
its
struggles for a living,
its
goings
and comings and observations (or representative portions of them) amid the United States of America the
last thirty or forty years,
and peace,
their
local
with their varied war
coloring,
the
unavoidable
egotism, and the lights and shades and sights and
joys and pains and sympathies ity.
Further introductory light [196]
common to humanmay be found in the
IRovember BouQb^
Happy Hour's Command," and the
paragraph, ''A
bottom note belonging to it, at the beginning of the book. I have said in the text that if were required to give good reason-for-being of Specimen Days, I should be unable to do so. Let me fondly hope that I
it
has at least the reason and excuse of such off-hand
gossipy
letter as just alluded to,
life-sights
portraying American
and incidents as they actually occurred
—
making additions as far as it goes, to the simple experience and association of your soul, from a comrade soul; and that also, in the volume, as below any page of mine, anywhere, ever their presentation,
—
remains, for seen or unseen basis-phrase, good-will
BETWEEN THE COMMON PEOPLE OF ALL NATIONS.
Additional
^^
Note, 1887
ing
'^Zn^'^LT'
Coming
^"^'
on
my
rest, as
1875,
broke
as
my
Camden,
in
porary I
Write these lines
'
I
this
way
supposed)
down
In the
how, during those 1876) from
my
Timber Creek,
New
still
continue
Jersey,
liv-
America.
from Washington City,
road to the sea-shore (and a tem-
all
the early
in
disabled,
central residence,
14 years.
I
and have dwelt
the time
preceding pages years,
I
summer
I
of
here,
since — almost
have described
partially recuperated (in
worst paralysis by going
down
to
and domiciling with my dear friends George and Susan Stafford. From 1877 or '8 to '83 or '4 was well enough to travel around, considerably— journey 'd westward living close to Nature,
I
[197]
Tiovcmber ffiouoba to Kansas, leisurely exploring the Prairies, and on to
another time Denver and the Rocky Mountains north to Canada, where spent most of the summer with my friend Dr. Bucke, and jaunted along the great lakes, and the St. Lawrence and Saguenay ;
I
another time to Boston, to properiy print the
rivers;
of
edition
final
my poems
months, and had a
'*
(I
good time
was
").
1
two
there over
have so brought
out the completed Leaves of Grass during this period; also Specimen Days, of which the foregoing is a
and re-edited the Democratic yistas cluster (see companion volume to the present) commemorated Abraham Lincoln's death, on
transcript;
collected
—
the successive anniversaries of delivering
"put
lecture
on
it
occurrence,
ten or twelve times
;
by and
many a month and season, the and resultless ways of most human lives.
in,"
aimless
my
its
through
Thus the
last 14
years have pass'd.
(end-days of March, 1887— 1 69th year)
I
find
am
At present
nigh entering
my
myself continuing on here, quite
dilapidated and even wreck'd bodily from the paralysis,
&c.— but
in
good heart (to use a Long Island
country phrase), and with the same mentality as ever.
The worst
of
it
is,
I
feebler quite rapidly for a year,
around—hardly from one room forced to stay in-doors and in
the time.
and
it
We
have been growing
and now
can't
to the next.
my
walk I
big chair neariy
am all
have had a sharp, dreary winter too,
has pinch'd me.
I
am
[198]
alone most of the time;
movember Bou0b0 every week, indeed almost every day, write some
—reminiscences, essays, sketches,
for the
magazines;
and read, or rather I should say dawdle over books spend half the day at and papers a good deal
—
that.
Nor can record
I
finish this note
—wafting
over sea from
without putting on
hence— my deepest
thanks to certain friends and helpers
them
all
(I
would
specify
and each by name, but imperative reasons,
outside of
my own
wishes, forbid) in the
Islands, as well as in America.
abstract,
such
is
to the soul
been, and
!
am
flattering unction
Nigher
if
still,
British
Dear, even in the
always no doubt
possible,
I
myself have
to-day indebted to such help for
my
very sustenance, clothing, shelter, and continuity.
And
I
would not go to the grave without
but plainly, as
I
Preface to
Mainly
Democratic
^q
other PaEngush
Edition,
—may
here do, acknowledging
say even glorying
pers—
briefly,
in
I
it
I
not
?
think
I
should base the request
Weigh the followiug pages on^ the assumption that they present, however indirectly, some views of the West and ^odem, or of a distinctly western and
modern (American) tendency, about
certain matters.
Then, too, the pages include (by attempting to
illus-
a theory herein immediately mentioned.
For
trate
it)
another and different point of the issue, the Enlight-
enment, Democracy and Fair-show of the bulk, the [199]
November Bougbe
common
people of America (from sources represent-
ing not only the British Islands, but
means,
at
least,
people of
the world,)
to Enlightenment,
eligibility
mocracy and Fair-show
all
for
De-
common
the bulk, the
civilized nations.
all
That positively ''the dry land has appeared/'
at
any rate, is an important fact. America is really the great test or trial case for all the problems and promises and speculations of humanity, and of the past and present. 1
say, too,
we*
are
changes, ameliorations, and adaptations as to those I
in
to
Politics
and (thence) domestic
of Literature
Sociology.
much
not to look so
have accordingly
in
the following
melange introduced many themes besides
political
ones.
Several of the pieces are ostensibly in explanation
my own
of
writings; but in that very process they
best include and set forth their side of principles and generalities
pressing vehemently for consideration
our age.
in
Upon are born
the whole, in,
and
(I
on the atmosphere they
is
hope) give out, more than any
specific piece or trait, I
it
I
would
think Literatureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a new,
literature
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
is
We who in
superb,
to be the medicine
Art) the chief influence in *
care to rest.
many
departments, ways,
and
modern
make
lever,
book.
[200]
and (with
civilization.
the building
I
up of the masses, by is the marrow of
building up grand individuals, our shibboleth: and in brief that this
democratic
IRopcmber ffiougbe have myself not so much made a dead theory, or attempted to present
mitted
it
had to
say.
serried
phalanxes
political
claims
to color In
:
directly, as ad-
and sometimes dominate what
both Europe and America
I
who promulge and go
for
we have
defend the
Walt Whitman.
New Jersey,
I
an equal force to uphold the
other.
Camden,
it
set at this
April, 1888.
[201]
Hbrabam Xincoln Glad am
to
I
—even the most ham
give— were anything
and shorn testimony of AbraEverything heard about him authen-
Lincoln.
brief
1
and every time
tically,
better lacking
I
was my pass a word
saw him (and
fortune through 1862 to '65 to see, or
it
with, or watch him, personally, perhaps twenty or thirty times),
added to and anneal'd
my
respect and
dwell on what moment. And as myself heard or saw of the mighty Westerner, and love at the
blend
it
with the history and
and of what
I
can get of
with his death, superior to
1
1
all
all
seems
it
else
my
age,
ages, and conclude
like
some
tragic
it
play,
know— vaster
I
more convulsionary,
literature of
for this
and fierier and America of ours, than
Eschylus or Shakspere ever drew for Athens or for England. ing
all!
And then
the Moral permeating, underly-
the Lesson that none so
illiterate— no
age,
remote— none so
no class— but may
directly
or
indirectly read
Abraham ters,
Lincoln's
was
the best of which
is
really
one of those charac-
the result of long trains of
cause and effect— needing a certain spaciousness of [203]
IRovcmber Bougba and perhaps even remoteness, to properly enhaving unequal'd influence on the shapclose them time,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
ing of this Republic (and therefore the world) as
more important in the future. Thus the time has by no means yet come for a thorough measurement of him. Nevertheless, we who live in his era who have seen him, and heard him, face to face, and are in the midst of, or just parting from, the strong and strange events which he and we have had to do with can in some to-day, and then far
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
respects bear valuable, perhaps indispensable testi-
mony I
concerning him.
should
first like
teristic likeness
to give a very
of Lincoln, as
him one afternoon
in
I
fair
and charac-
saw him and watch 'd
Washington,
hour, not long before his death.
for nearly half
It
was
an
as he stood
on the balcony of the National Hotel, Pennsylvania Avenue, making a short speech to the crowd in front, on the occasion either of a set of new colors presented to a famous
regiment, or of the
Illinois
daring capture, by the Western men, of
from ''the
enemy" (which
was not used by him
at
the picture happen'd to be 1
bought
it
latter phrase,
all in
some flags by the by,
his remarks).
made
I
How
do not know, but
a few days afterward in Washington, and
was endors'd by every one to whom show'd it. Though hundreds of portraits have been made, by painters and photographers (many to pass on, by it
copies, to future times),
I
I
have never seen one yet
[203]
l^ovember Bougba
my
that in
opinion deserved to be called a perfectly
good likeness; nor do
one is
in existence.
no
entirely
Abraham
I
believe there
May
I
is
competent and emblematic likeness of
cannot be
—any
is
to think
to-day,
if
way
is
not
fully appropriate literary
statement or summing-up of him yet best
such a
not say too, that, as there
Lincoln in picture or statue, there
—perhaps The
really
in
existence ?
to estimate the value of Lincoln
what the condition
of America
would be
he had never lived— never been President.
were mainly accidents, experiments. Severely view'd, one cannot think very much of American Political Parties, from His nomination and
first
election
the beginning, after the Revolutionary War, to the present time.
down
Doubtless, while they have
—
had their uses have been and are '*the grass on which the cow feeds " and indispensable economies of growth it is undeniable that under flippant names they have merely identified temporary passions, or
—
—
sometimes prejudice, ignorance, or hatred. The only thing like a great and worthy idea vital-
freaks, or
izing a party,
asm
and making
in '64 for re-electing
heroic,
was the
enthusi-
Abraham
Lincoln,
and the
it
reason behind that enthusiasm.
How ledged
**
does this
man compare with
Father of his country "
?
the acknow-
Washington was
modeled on the best Saxon, and Franklin age of the Stuarts (rooted
— was
in
— of the
the Elizabethan period)
essentially a noble Englishman,
and just the
movember
ffiougba
kind needed for the occasions and the times of 1776Lincoln, underneath
'83.
his
practicality,
was
far
European, was quite thoroughly Western, orig-
less
inal, essentially
non-conventional, and had a certain
outdoor or
sort of
prairie
One
stamp.
of the best
of the late commentators on Shakspere (Professor
Dowden) makes the
height and aggregate of his
quality as a poet to be, that he thoroughly blended
the ideal with the practical or I
realistic.
If
should say that what Shakspere did
pression,
Abraham Lincoln
sonal and
official
life.
this
be
in poetic
so,
ex-
essentially did in his per-
should say the invisible
I
foundations and vertebra of his character, more than
any man's and
in history,
spiritual
out of
all
of
were mystical,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; while upon them
all
radiated,
of
abstract, moral
them was
and a
life
often bent
urgent materialistic and
He seems
and
under the control of the
average of circumstances, what the vulgar sense,
built,
call horse-
by temporary but most
political reasons.
to have been
a
man
of indomitable
firmness (even obstinacy) on rare occasions, involving great points; but he flexible, tolerant,
matters.
I
was
generally very easy,
almost slouchy, respecting minor
note that even those reports and anec-
dotes intended to level him down,
all
leave the tinge
of a favorable impression of him.
As
to his religious
nature,
it
seems to
me
to have certainly been of the
amplest, deepest-rooted, loftiest kind.
Already a
new
generation begins to tread the [205]
1Ro\>ember
Bouaba
and events of the secession war. I have more than once fancied to myself the time when the present century has closed, and a new stage, since the persons
one opened, and the men and deeds of that contest fanhave become somewhat vague and mythical cied perhaps in some great Western city, or group
—
where the days of old, of 1863, and '4 and '5 are discuss'd some ancient soldier sitting in the background as the talk goes on, and betraying himself by his emotion and collected together, or public festival,
—
moist eyes
—
like
the journeying Ithacan at the ban-
quet of King Alcinous,
when
the bard sings the con-
tending warriors and their battles on the plains of
Troy:
"So from Fast
I
fell
the sluices of Ulysses' eyes
the tears, and sighs succeeded sighs."
have fancied,
I
say,
some such venerable
of this time of ours, preserv'd to the next or
next generation of America.
I
relic
still
the
have fancied, on such
young men gathering around; the awe, the eager questions: ''What! have you seen Abraham Lincoln and heard him speak and touched his hand ? Have you, with your own eyes, look'd " on Grant, and Lee, and Sherman ? occasion, the
—
—
Dear to Democracy, to the very
last!
And among
the paradoxes generated by America, not the least curious
was
that spectacle of
and emperors of the
earth,
all
the kings and queens
many from remote
dis-
movem&er
ffiougba
tances, sending tributes of condolence
memory age of
of one rais'd through the
life
—a
rail-splitter
and sorrow
commonest
and flat-boatman
aver-
!
Consider'd from contemporary points of view
who knows what
may
the future
decide
the
man was
like
The
passion or infatuation in
the passion for the Union of These
Abraham Lincoln seems to me the grandest yet, on all the crowded canvas of the Nine-
States),
figure
—
?—and from
the points of view of current Democracy and
Union (the only thing
in
teenth Century.
[207]
flew Štleans
1848
in
umalt Mbttman (3os0tps ot Dis Sojourn Dcre Uears Uqo as a flcwspaper Mritcr. flotes of Dts XTrip up tbc /IMs8t59ippi anb to "flew Borft
Among the
New Jersey, carrier,
J.
letters
brought
by
Jan. 15, 1887,)
G.,
is
this
morning (Camden,
my faithful
post-office
one as follows:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
'*New Orleans, Jan. 11, '87. We have been informed that when you were younger and less famous than now, you were in
New
Orleans and perhaps have helped on the Picayune.
If
you have any remembrance of the Picayune's young days, or of journalism in
New
Orleans of that
era,
and would put
writing (verse or prose) for the Picayune's Jan. 2$,
we
shall
be pleased,"
fiftieth
it
in
year edition,
etc.
went down to New Orleans early in 1848 to work on a daily newspaper, but it was not the Picayune, though saw quite a good deal of the editors of that paper, and knew its In
response to which:
I
I
personnel and ways.
some gossipy
But
let
me
indulge
recollections of that time
my journal
my and
pen
in
place,
up the Mississippi and across the great lakes to the Hudson. Probably the influence most deeply pervading with extracts from
[3081
movember Bougba everything at that time through the United States,
both
was the
physical facts and in sentiment,
in
Mexican War, then just ended. Following a brilliant campaign (in which our troops had march'd to the capital
we were
city,
Mexico, and taken
full
From the
returning after our victory.
ation of the country, the city of
been our channel and entrepot
and returning.
It
possession),
New
situ-
Orleans had
for everything,
going
had the best news and war cor-
had the most to say, through its leading papers, the Picayune and Delta especially, and its voice was readiest listened to; from it *' Chapparal " had gone out, and his army and battle letters were copied everywhere, not only in the respondents;
it
United States, but
and
results;
in
no one
Europe.
who
Then the
social cast
has never seen the society
of a city under similar circumstances can understand
what a strange vivacity and rattle were given throughout by such a situation. remember the crowds of soldiers, the gay young officers, going or 1
coming, the receipt of important news, the discussions, the returning
wounded, and so
on.
remember very well seeing Gen. Taylor with
I
his staff
and other
one evening
officers at
(after talking
the
St.
Charles Theatre
with them during the day).
There was a short play on the stage, but the cipal ''
many
performance was of Dr. Colyer's troupe of
Model
larity.
princi-
Artists," then in the full tide of their
They gave many
fine
VOL. VI.â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 24.
[209]
popu-
groups and solo shows.
flovember Bougba
The house was crowded with uniforms and shoulderstraps. Gen. T. himself, if remember right, was almost the only officer in civilian clothes; he was a I
man, with a wrinkled and, in ways and manners,
jovial, old, rather stout, plain
and dark-yellow
show'd the quette
face,
least of conventional
ever saw;
I
ceremony or
eti-
he laugh'd unrestrainedly
at
everything comical. (He had a great personal resemblance to Fenimore Cooper, the novelist, of New remember Gen. Pillow and quite a cluster York.) I
of other militaires also present.
One
New
of
my
Orleans
choice amusements during
was going down
my
to the old French
The show
Market, especially of a Sunday morning.
was
a varied and curious one;
stay in
among
the
rest,
Indian and negro hucksters with their wares.
the
For
there were always fine specimens of Indians, both
men and women, young and
old.
remember
I
I
nearly always on these occasions got a large cup of delicious coffee with a biscuit, for
my
breakfast, from
the immense shining copper kettle of a great Creole
mulatto I
woman
(I
believe she weigh'd 230 pounds).
About nice
never have had such coffee since.
drinks,
anyhow,
my
recollection of the
snow on top
(with strawberries and
'*
cobblers'*
of the large
tumblers), and also the exquisite wines, and the perfect
and mild French brandy, help the
reminiscence of
those days.
my New
And what
Orleans experiences of
splendid and
[210]
regretful
roomy and
movember Bougba grand ones of
leisurely bar-rooms! particularly the
the
St.
Charles and
St. Louis.
Bargains, auctions,
appointments, business conferences,
etc.,
were gen-
erally held in the spaces or recesses of these bar-
rooms. I
used to wander a midday hour or two
now and
then for amusement on the crowded and bustling levees,
on the banks of the
river.
The
diagonally
wedg'd-in boats, the stevedores, the piles of cotton
and other merchandise, the etc., I
carts,
afforded never-ending studies and sights to me.
made acquaintances among the
or other characters,
them
mules, negroes,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; sometimes
captains, boatmen,
and often had long finding a real
among my chance
encounters.
talks with
rough diamond
Sundays
I
some-
times went forenoons to the old Catholic Cathedral in
the French quarter.
in this
I
used to walk a good deal
arrondissement ; and
I
have deeply regretted
had such a good opportunity, the chance of better knowledge of French and Spanish Creole New Orleans people. (I have an idea that there is much and of importance since that
about the
did not cultivate, while
I
Latin
race
nationality in the
contributions
I
to
American
South and Southwest that
will
never be put with sympathetic understanding and tact on record.)
Let
me
say, for better detail, that through several
months (1848) Crescent;
my
I
work'd on a new daily paper, The
situation rather a pleasant one. [211]
My
flovember Âťoufib0
young brother, Jeff, was with me; and he not only grew very homesick, but the climate of the place, and
especially the water, seriously disagreed with
From
and other reasons (although was quite happily fix'd) made no very long stay in the him.
this
I
I
South.
In
due time
we
took passage northward
the Pride of the IVest steamer, which
St.
Louis
left
her wharf just at dusk.
in
for
My
brother
was unwell,
moment we left till the next morning; he seem'd to me to be in a fever, and felt alarm'd. However, the next morning he was all right again, much to my relief. Our voyage up the Mississippi was after the same sort as the voyage, some months before, down it. The shores of this great river are very monotonous and
lay in his berth from the
i
and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one
dull
continuous and rank
exception of a meagre stretch of
flat,
bluff,
neighborhood of Natchez, Memphis, &c.
we had good
with the
about the Fortunately
weather, and not a great crowd of
passengers, though the berths were
all
full.
The
Pride ]ogg' A along pretty well, and put us into Louis about noon Saturday. a
little
I
St.
After looking around
secured passage on the steamer Prairie Bird,
bound up the Illinois where we were to take canal for
(to leave late in the afternoon,)
River to La Salle,
Chicago.
During the day
I
rambled with
over a large portion of the town, refectory,
getting
and,
some
after
much
dinner. [aia]
my brother
search'd after a
trouble,
succeeded
in
November Bougba Our
Prairie Bird started out at dark^ and a couple
of hours after there
was
quite a rain and blow,
which
made them haul in along shore and tie fast. We made but thirty miles the whole night. The boat was excessively crowded with [passengers, and had withal so much freight that we could hardly turn around. slept on the floor, and the night was uncomfortable enough. The Illinois River is spotted I
with
little
ples,
&c.;
villages its
banks are low, and the vegetation
excessively rank.
pleasant town;
back
is all
with big names, Marseilles, Na-
I
went over the
distance up,
$4 an acre.
first
am
(I
is
a
place; the country
rich land, for sale cheap.
miles from P., land of the for $3 or
some
Peoria,
Three or four
quality can be
bought
transcribing from
my
notes written at the time.)
Tuesday morning, we went on board a canal-boat, had a detention by sticking on a mud bar, and then jogg'd along at a slow trot, some seventy of us, on a moderate-sized boat. (If the weather had n't been rather cool^ particularly at night, it would have been insufferable.) Illinois is the most splendid agricultural country ever saw; Arriving at La Salle
I
the land
is
of surpassing richness; the place par
excellence for farmers.
We
stopt at various points
along the canal, some of them pretty villages. It
was
10 o'clock A.M.
when we
too late for the steamer; so
got
we went
in
Chicago,
to an excellent
public house, the ''American Temperance," and [213]
I
Tlovember Bouflbe spent the time that day and
till
next morning, look-
ing around Chicago.
At 9 the next forenoon fith, (on board of which
1
we started on the am now inditing
Grif-
these
memoranda,) up the blue waters of Lake Michigan. was delighted with the appearance of the towns went on shore, along Wisconsin. At Milwaukee and walk'd around the place. They say the country back is beautiful and rich. (It seems to me that if we should ever remove from Long Island, Wisconsin would be the proper place to come to.) The towns have a remarkable appearance of good living, without any penury or want. The country is so good naturally, and labor is in such demand. About 5 o'clock one afternoon heard the cry of 1
1
I
woman overboard." It proved lady, who had become so from the *'a
a couple of weeks before.
to be a crazy loss of her
son
The small boat put
off,
and succeeded in picking her up, though she had been in the water 15 minutes. She was dead. Her husband was on board. They went off at the next While she lay in the water she stopping' place. probably recover'd her reason, as she toss'd up her arms and lifted her face toward the boat. Sunday Morning, June 11. We pass'd down Lake Huron yesterday and last night, and between 4 and 5 o'clock this morning we ran on the *' flats," and have been vainly trying, with the aid of a steam
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
tug and a lumbering
lighter, to get clear again.
[ÂŤ4]
The
IRovember ffiougba day
is
beautiful
Night before
last
and town,) and
and the water clear and calm. we stopt at Mackinaw, (the island
went up on the old
I
the oldest stations
get to Buffalo by to-morrow.
one of
expect to
The tug has
fasten'd
but some have been snapt and the others
lines to us,
have no
We
the Northwest.
in
fort,
We
effect.
seem to be firmly imbedded
(With the exception of a larger boat and better accommodations, it amounts to about the same thing as a becalmment I underwent on the Montauk voyage, East Long Island, last summer.) in
the sand.
Later,
— We
— expect to reach Detroit
are off again
before dinner.
We Lake
We
did not stop at Detroit.
Erie,
jogging along at a good round
we were on
couple of hours since Detroit seem'd to especially
are
liked
me
now on pace. A
the river above.
a pretty place and thrifty.
I
the looks of the Canadian shore
opposite and of the
village of
little
Windsor, and,
From the shrubbery and the neat appearance of some of the cottages, think it must have been settled by indeed,
along the banks of the
all
river.
I
the French.
While
distance ahead, Perry's fleet
England.
I
write
we
can see, a
little
the scene of the battle between
and the
The
now
British during the last
lake looks
to
me
a fine
We are having a beautiful day. June 12. —We stopt last evening at
war with sheet of
water.
and though
it
was
dark,
I
Cleveland,
took the opportunity of
[215]
flovcmbcr Bouflba rambling about the place; went up in the heart of the city and back to what appeared to be the
The
court-house.
wide, and
streets are unusually
the buildings appear to be substantial and comfortable.
We went down
some
distance along, several squares of ground very
with trees and looking attractive
prettily planted
Returned to the boat by
enough.
house on the imagine, a
way
of the light-
hill.
This morning I
through Main Street and found,
little
we
making
are
more than
for Buffalo, being,
half across Lake Erie.
The water is rougher than on Michigan (On St. Clair it was smooth as glass.) is
and dry, with a
bright
We
stiff
arriv'd in Buffalo
on Monday evening; spent
Then got
to Niagara;
went under the
pool and
the other sights.
all
Tuesday night night.
falls
started for
vated.
in
late
we
exploring.
I
started
Albany; traveled
arriv'd safely in
From
view
and well
culti-
rich
the
New
the
1
all
afforded us a
There was a
down
went
the whirl-
political
meet-
by.
Next
pass'd
Hudson
villages.
Spent the
arriv'd at Albany.
ing (Hunker) at the capitol, and
morning
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; saw
Every few miles were large towns or
Wednesday evening
seem'd very
all
day going round the cars and
in
From the time daylight
of the country
The day
head wind.
that night and a portion of next
the city exploring.
or Huron.
it
in
the Alida;
York that evening.
New Orleans
Picayune, Jan, 2^, 1887.
[2X6]
Small ^emoranba UbousanOe Xostâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;l)ere One ox XTwo pre5ert>*5
Attorney General's Office, IVashington, Aug. write this, about noon, the suite of 22, i86^.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;ks rooms here is fill'd with Southerners, standing in squads, or streaming in and out, some talking with the Pardon Clerk, some waiting to see the Attorney General, others discussing in low tones among themI
selves.
All are
The famous
1
mainly anxious about their pardons.
3th exception of the President's
nesty Proclamation of
,
makes
every secessionist, whose property
it
Am-
necessary that
worth $20,000 or over, shall get a special pardon, before he can transact any legal purchase, sale, &c. So hundreds and thousands of such property owners have either sent up here, for the last two months, or have been, or are
dons.
now coming They
Mississippi,
personally here, to get their par-
are from
Virginia, Georgia,
Alabama,
North and South Carolina, and every
Some
Southern State. very abject. adier
is
General
of their written petitions are
Secession officers of the rank of Brigor
higher, also [217]
need these special
flovember Bouobe
come here. see streams of the talk $20,000 men (and some women), every day. now and then with them, and learn much that is They
pardons.
also
I
I
and
interesting
All the
significant.
Southern
women
come (some splendid specimens, mothers, &c.)
that
are dress'd in deep black.
Immense numbers
(several thousands) of these
pardons have been pass'd upon favorably; the Par-
don Warrants
(like great
deeds) have been issued
from the State Department, on the requisition of
But
office.
yet
lie
for
some reason
me.
I
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as
and then
1
1
all
He seems
them wait. come here make a curious study get along, very sociably, with any of let them do all the talking; only now
The crowds them
or other, they nearly
awaiting the President's signature.
to be in no hurry about
for
this
it,
but
lets
that
have a long confab, or ask a suggestive
question or two. If
the thing continues as at present, the property
and wealth of the Southern States rest, for
one
is
going to legally
is
the future, on these pardons.
made out with
the condition that the grantee
shall respect the abolition of slavery,
an attempt to restore
Every single
and never make
it.
IVashington, Sept. 8,
9,
S-c, 7565. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;The arrivals,
swarms, &c., of the $20,000 men seeking pardons, still continue with increas'd numbers and pertinacity. I
yesterday
(I
am
eral's office here)
a clerk in the U. S. Attorney
made out
a long
[J18]
list
Gen-
from Alabama,
IRovember ffiougbe nearly 200,
recommended This
ional Governor.
list,
pardon by the Provis-
for in
the shape of a requisi-
tion from the Attorney General, goes to the State
Department. out,
There the Pardon Warrants are made
brought back here, and then sent to the Presi-
dent,
where they await
He
his signature.
signing
is
them very freely of late. The President, indeed, as at present appears, has fix'd his mind on a very generous and forgiving He will course toward the return'd secessionists. not countenance at all the demand of the extreme Philo-African element of the North, to
make the
right
qua
of negro voting at elections a condition and sine
non of the reconstruction of the United States South, and of their resumption of co-equality in the Union.
While of
AbrlS?^
suspense
in
One Item
who
should be appointed Secretary of the In-
Ap- the choice
pointments.
^^^^^^ ^^^
was very (.^,
Caleb Smith),
close
j^^^^ â&#x20AC;˘'
of
j^
between Mr.
Dubois, of '
IIH-
had many friends. He was competent, he was honest, and he Hois.
many
was
was hanging
terior (to take the place of
Lincoin's
Cabinet
it
a man,
The
latter
Mr. Harlan, in the race, finally gain'd
the Methodist interest, and got himself to be considered as identified
with
it;
and
his
appointment was
apparently ask'd for by that powerful body.
Bishop
Simpson, of Philadelphia, came on and spoke
for
selection.
The
President
was much
[219]
perplex'd.
the
The
November Bougba reasons for appointing Col. Dubois were very strong,
— yet the
argument for Mr. Harlan, under the adroit position he had plac'd himself, was heavy. Those who pressed him adduced the almost insuperable
magnitude of the Methodists as a body, their loyalty, more general and genuine than any other sect that
—
they represented the West, and had a right to be heard
— that
inations
had
all
or nearly
all
the other great denom-
their representatives in the
—
heads of the
that they as a body and the great secgovernment tarian power of the West, formally asked Mr. Harlan's appointment— that he was of them, having been that it would not do to offend a Methodist minister
—
them, but was highly necessary to propitiate them. Mr. Lincoln thought deeply over the whole matter.
He was
in
Let
it
subject.
more than usual tribulation on the be enough to say that though Mr.
Harlan finally received the Secretaryship, Col. Dubois
came
as near being appointed as a
The
not be.
decision
about 10 o'clock.
men and
was
finally
man could, and made one night
Bishop Simpson and other clergy-
leading persons in Mr. Harlan's behalf, had
been talking long and vehemently with the President.
A member
of
Dubois's claims,
Congress
was
told the Bishop that
who was
The President had he would make a decision that in waiting.
evening, and that he thought press'd
caird in
pressing Col.
it
unnecessary to be
any more on the subject. That night he the M. C. above alluded to, and said to him: [aao]
November Bougba ''Tell
Uncle Jesse that
I
want
pointment, and yet cannot. I
I
to give
will
him
this ap-
do almost anything
him am able. have thought the matter all over, and under the circumstances think the Methodists too good and too great a body to be slighted. They have stood by the government, and help'd us their very best. have had no better friends; and as the case stands, have decided to else in the
world
for
I
I
I
I
appoint Mr. Harlan." Pete, do
—
^ Friend^ Written on the flya copy Specimen Days, sent to Peter Doyle
—
^^ ^^''' those great long jovial walks we had at times for years (i866-'72), out ^
of^,,»,.
leaf of
at
you remember— (of course you do
Washington,
^^.
—
t-t
^
Washmgton City ofteu moonlight n r^ uights Way to Good Hope or, Sundays, up and down the Potomac of
—
.
;
—
sometimes ten miles at a stretch ? Or when you work'd on the horse-cars, and waited for you, coming home late together shores, one side or the other,
—
I
or resting and chatting at the Market, corner 7th Street
and the Avenue, and eating those nice musk or
Or during my tedious sickness and first paralysis ('73) how you used to come to my solitary garret-room and make up my bed, and enliven watermelons
me, and chat
?
for
an hour or so
— or perhaps go out
and get the medicines Dr. Drinkard had order'd for me before you went on duty ? Give my love to dear Mrs. and Mr. Nash, and tell them have not forgotten them, and never will. W. W.
—
.
.
.
I
[221]
November Bouabe Germantown, Phila., Dec, 26, *8}, In memory of these merry Christmas days to my friends Mr. and Mrs. ^"^ nights Aib^ Williams, Churchie, May, Gurney, and A heavy snow-storm blocking little Aubrey. ... im-
Written
^^
—
up everything, and keeping us thoughts, unloosed. big
And
so
But souls, hearts,
in.
— one and
— hav'n't we had a good time
all, little
and
W. W.
?
Scene,—k large family supper party, a night or two ago, with voices and laugh-
The Place
*^''
in a Fhie
^^
^^
young, mellow faces of the
and a by-and-by pause
Character
in
old,
the general
Srp.«~v: joviality. "Now, Mr. Whitman," spoke 'i^^:^^' up one of the girls, " what have you to say about Thanksgiving give us a sermon
The sage nodded blaze of the great
in
Won't you
?
down ? " moment at the
advance, to sober us
smilingly, look'd a
wood
fire,
ran his forefinger right
and left through the heavy white mustache that might have otherwise impeded his voice, and began: '*
Thanksgiving goes probably
folks suppose.
I
am
not sure but
the highest poetry — as kin, indeed,
far
makes the
in
deeper than you it is
the source of
central source of
all
to be praise (gratitude) to the Almighty for
the universe with **
We
its
I
great art life,
and
objects and play of action.
Americans devote an
year; yet
Rus-
parts of the Bible.
sometimes
official
day to
it
fear the real article is [223]
every
almost
November dead or dying public.
half
in
our
Gratitude,
ffiougb0
independent Re-
self-sufficient,
anyhow, has never been made
enough of by the moralists;
to a complete character,
it
indispensable
is
man's or woman's
That
disposition to be appreciative, thankful.
main matter, the element, gists call the trend.
inclination
Of my own
life
estimate the giving thanks part, with as essentially the best item. ity of gratitude I
it.
is
the
— what geoloand writings
what
it
I
infers,
should say the qual-
rounds the whole emotional nature;
should say love and
without
I
— the
faith
would
quite lack vitality
— shall them as things go — who have no
There are people
even religious people,
I
?
such trend to their disposition."
[223]
call
Xast of tbe WLnv Cases /l>cmoranM3e5 at tbe Xlimc, TOasbtnaton, 1865-^66
[Of reminiscences of the secession war, after the have thought it remains to give a few rest is said, I
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in some respects at the time the words typical words of all, and most definite of the samples of the kill'd and wounded in action, and of soldiers who linger'd afterward, from these wounds, or were laid up by obstinate disease or prostration. The general statistics have been printed already, but can bear to be briefly stated again. There were
special
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
over 3,000,000 large
men
(for
all
periods of enlistment,
and small) furnish'd to the Union army during
New
York State furnishing over 500,000, which was the greatest number of any one State.
the war.
The
by disease, wounds, kill'd in action, accidents, &c., were altogether about 600,000, or approximating to that number. Over 4,000,000 cases were losses
treated in the main and adjudicatory
The number sounds
strange, but
it
army is
hospitals.
true.
More
than two-thirds of the deaths were from prostration or disease.
To-day there
lie
[324]
buried over 300,000 sol-
IRovember ffiouabe
army Cemeteries, more of them (and that is really most signifi-
diers in the various National
than half
cant and eloquent bequest of the war) mark'd ''un-
known."
In full
mortuary
statistics of
the war, the
greatest deficiency arises from our not having the
even as
rolls,
far
most of a gap which proba-
were
as they
the Southern military prisons
—
kept,
of
bly both adds to, and helps conceal, the indescribable horrors of those places;
however
it is,
(restricting
one vivid point only), certain that over 30,000 Union soldiers died, largely of actual starvation, in them.
And now, I
feel
leaving
all
sure a few genuine
— some at the
and
figures
memoranda
down
cases jotted
their
'64, '65,
time and on the spot, with
all
''sum
totals,"
of such things
and
'66
— made
the associations
of those scenes and places brought back, will not
only go directest to the right spot, but give a clearer
and more actual sight of that period, than anything Before
else.
I
give the last cases
batim extracts from
letters
home
I
to
Brooklyn the second year of the war.
Washington, Oct,
new
lot
of
three days.
13, 1863.
I
I
in
has been a
Yesterday the worst, inevitably long
was cooler and more used to of some cases brought tears into my
thought
but the sight
eyes.
mother
—W. W.]
— There
many with bad and bloody wounds, it,
my
wounded and sick arriving for the last The first and second days, long strings
of ambulances with the sick.
neglected.
begin with ver-
I
had the luck yesterday, however, to do
VOL. VI.— 15.
[225]
lots
flcvcmbcr Bougba
Had provided many nourishing articles for the men for another quarter, but, fortunately, had my stores where could use them at once for of good.
I
these new-comers, as they arrived,
hungry,
faint,
fagg'd out from their journey, with soil'd clothes,
and
bloody.
all
distributed these articles, gave
I
knew, or to those in charge. found fed myself Then As many as possible a lot of oyster soup handy, and bought it all at partly to the nurses
I
I
1
once.
are
the most
is
It
first
brought
when the men from some camp hospital broke sight, this,
pitiful
in,
up, or a part of the
army moving.
were
like devils,
Kilpatrick's cavalry;
Meade's
retreat,
ar-
Our troops had but got the worst of it. They
rived yesterday are cavalry
fought
who
These
men.
were
in
the rear, part of
and the reb cavalry, knowing the
ground and taking a favorable opportunity, dash'd in between, cut them off, and shelPd them terribly. But Kilpatrick turn'd and brought them out mostly. It
was
sights
Sunday.
last
and tasks
Oct. 27,
is
(One of the most
terrible
of such receptions).
1863,— \{ any of the
their parents or folks) should call
are often anxious to have
my
soldiers
I
know
(or
—as they Brooklyn —
upon you
address
in
you know how, and if you happen to have pot-luck, and feel to ask them to have a take a bite, don't be afraid to do so.
you
just use
them
as
I
friend,
Thomas
Neat, 2d N. Y. Cavalry, [236]
wounded
in
movember Bougba
now home
leg,
probably
some
Jamaica, on furlough;
in
Then
call.
possibly a Mr.
deal.
and ask'd
(When
of the letters will
How
I
left
in
down
show you some &c.
sisters, fathers,
To
think
it is
over
home suddenly â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and have mostly The year has
front since.
And
me
cry.)
and oh, what scenes
that time!
occasionally
will
I
the time passes away!
down
swiftly,
come home
make you
a year since
been
was
get from mothers,
1
have written
his wife
York, and
I
or
York: he had
Brooklyn address; he said he had
New
children in there.
I
me my
will
Haskell,
was with the boy a good
and The old man and
a son died here,
They
New
of his folks, from western
he
the
war
I
vanish'd
have witnessed during
not settled yet; and one
is
does not see anything certain, or even promising, of a settlement.
But
I
do not lose the
myself, that the Union triumph it
be sooner or whether
roundabout
way we may
it
is
be
solid feeling, in
whether
assured, or
later,
whatever
be led there; and
I
find
don't change that conviction from any reverses
One
meet, nor delays, nor blunders. in
Washington the great
ones, of Lincoln; that
labors, is
it
its
throat cut.
any doubt of the 8th September,
army
hospital
I
even the negative
a big thing to have just
case:
down and
have not waver'd or had
issue, since
Gettysburg.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Here,
'63.
we
realizes here
kept the United States from being thrown
having
I
now,
is
Lorenzo Strong, [227]
a specimen
Co.
A,
9th
November Bougba United States Cavalry, shot by a
shell last
Sunday;
amputated on the field. Sent up here Monday night, 14th. Seemed to be doing pretty well till Wednesday noon, 16th, when he took a turn for the right leg
worse, and a strangely rapid and ensued. all.
It
soldiers'
fatal
termination
Though had much to do, staid and saw was a death-picture characteristic of these 1
I
hospitals— the perfect specimen of phy-
—
the one of the most magnificent ever saw convulsive spasms and working of muscles, mouth, and throat. There are two good women nurses, one sique,
1
on each little
The doctor comes
side.
One
chloroform.
him, for
it is
for
Mark
ebbs, runs
asks to be raised up,
He
call'd
" repeatedly, half-deliriously, all day.
Life
now
with the speed of a it
lays
his eyes turn back. offers a prayer, in
the bed; and
many
He
in a half-sitting posture.
splendid neck, as
cluding
and gives him a
of the nurses constantly fans
fearfully hot.
and they put him **
in
two
in
all
A
mill race; his
open, works
still,
religious person
subdued tones, bent
the space of the
slightly;
coming
in
at the foot of
aisle,
a crowd, in-
or three doctors, several students, and
soldiers,
has silently gathered.
It
is
very
still
and warm, as the struggle goes on, and dwindles, a little
more, and a
little
more
oblivion, painlessness, death.
drops away, a white bandage
— and A is
then welcome
pause, the
crowd
bound around and
under the jaw, the propping pillows are removed, the limpsy head
falls
down, the arms [aaS]
are softly placed
by
IRovember ISougba the side,
composed,
all
all still,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and the broad white
thrown over everything. April 10, /5^^.â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Unusual agitation
sheet
is
all
around
The
Exciting times in Congress.
concentrated here.
Copperheads are getting furious, and want to recog''This is a pretty nize the Southern Confederacy. time to talk of recognizing such sylvania officer in hospital to
what has
me
to-day,
''after
transpired the last three years.''
Fredericksburg
first
Penn-
," said a
I
doubted whether our
felt
discouraged myself, and
rulers could carry
But that has pass'd away.
After
on the war.
The war must be
carried
would willingly go in the ranks myself if thought it would profit more than as at present, and don't know sometimes but shall, as it is. Then on.
1
I
I
I
there
is
certainly
form'd or arous'd
name;
it
in
deep,
fervid
feeling
the land, hard to describe or
not a majority feeling, but
M., you don't
know what
it
will
make
a nature a
fel-
gets, not only after being a soldier a while,
but
itself felt.
low
is
a strange,
and influences of the camps, the wounded, &c. a nature he never experienced before. The stars and stripes, the tune of "Yankee Doodle," and similar things, produce such an effect on a fellow as never before. have seen them bring tears on some men's cheeks, and others turn pale with emotion. have a little flag (it belong'd to one of our cavalry regiments), presented to me by one of the wounded; it was taken by the secesh in after living in the sights
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
I
I
[229]
Tlopcmbcr fiouaba a fight, and rescued following.
It
in a
bloody skirmish
cost three men's lives to get back that
four-by-three flag
dead rebel —
by our men
— to
tear
from the breast of a
it
name of getting their little ** rag " back again. The man that secured it was very badly wounded, and they let him keep it. was with deal; him a good he wanted to give me some keepfor the
1
sake, he said,— he
me
gave
didn't expect to live,— so he
that flag.
The
there isn't a regiment,
would
n't
April it is
last
do the 1
like,
2th, —
I
best of
cavalry
on the
will finish
it all
or
night.
not
my
letter this
men
army
is
May
You ought
to
do) the soldiers talk; they are excited to
We
true 6,
morning;
that proposed rec-
shall
probably have hot times here,
the military fields alone.
in
that
like occasion.
ognizing the Southern Confederacy.
madness.
infantry,
1
session about expelling the
1
dear M.,
was up in Congress very late The House had a very excited night
a beautiful day.
hear (as
is,
and firm as the North
'64.— lA,, the poor
The body of the Star.
soldier with diarrhoea,
what a looking object Death would be a relief to him he cannot last many hours. Cunningham, the Ohio soldier, with leg amputated at thigh, has pick'd up beyond expectation; now looks indeed like getting well. (He died a few weeks afterwards.) The hospitals are very is still living,
but, oh,
!
—
am very May 2}, '6^.
full.
I
well indeed.
— Sometimes
Hot here to-day. I
think that should
it
movember Bougbe come when
it
must, to
over a son or brother
much
wounds
suffering from
worse than death in latter has no terrors
Then
concerned.
might be temper'd with Lingering and extreme
kill'd
to take the edge
off.
or sickness
battle.
for
anguish
in battle, one's
fall
seem to me
far
can honestly say the
I
me, as
far as
I
myself
am
should say, too, about death
I
in
and imaginations make a thousand times too much of the whole matter. Of war, that our feelings
many
the
I
have seen
or
die,
known
have not seen or known one
year,
I
with
terror.
welcome
relief
Yesterday
most cases and release. spent a good
In
I
I
of,
the past
who met
should say
it
death
was a
part of the afternoon
with a young soldier of seventeen, Charles Cutter, of Lawrence City, Massachusetts, ist Massachusetts
Heavy
Artillery,
Battery M.
one of the hospitals mortally Well,
I
thought to myself, as
ought to be a
how
relief to
he really
little
He was brought to wounded in abdomen. I
sat looking at him,
his folks
suffered.
He
if
they could see
lay very placid, in
As
a half lethargy, with his eyes closed.
extremely hot, and
I
sat a
it
good while
it
was
silently fan-
ning him, and wiping the sweat, at length he open'd
wide and clear, and look'd inquiringly around. said, ''What is it, my boy? Do you want anything?" He answered quietly, with a good-natured smile, '' Oh, nothing; was only looking around to see who was with me." His his eyes quite I
I
[231]
November Boiigba mind was somewhat wandering, yet he lay in an evident peacefulness that sanity and health might had to leave for other engagements. have envied. heard afterward, without any special He died, I
1
agitation, in the course of the night.
iVashingtan, thing of
May
commencing
talks, &c.,
'6^.â&#x20AC;&#x201D; M.,
'26,
1
think some-
a series of lectures, readings,
through the
the North, to sup-
cities of
ply myself with funds for hospital ministrations.
do not
like to
be so beholden to others;
I
I
need a
money, and the work grows upon me, and fascinates me. It is the most magpretty free supply of
netic as well
as terrible sight:
the lots of poor
wounded and helpless men depending so much, in one ward or another, upon my soothing or talking to them, or rousing them up a little, or perhaps petting, or feeding is
them
their dinner or supper (here
a patient, for instance,
wounded
in
both arms),
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
anysome trifle for a novelty or change however trivial, to break the monotony of
or giving thing,
those hospital hours. It is
curious:
when
I
am
present at the most ap-
palling scenes, deaths, operations, sickening
(perhaps
full
of maggots),
give out or budge, although
much when
wounds
keep cool and do not
I
my
sympathies are very
excited; but often, hours afterward, perhaps 1
am home,
or out walking alone,
and actually tremble, when before me.
I
recall
I
feel sick,
the case again
IRovember Bougba Sunday
afternoon, opening of /(S65.— Pass'd this
among
afternoon
wounded and hands.
I
a collection of unusually bad cases,
spent the previous Sunday afternoon there
Two
At that time two were dying.
also.
upon our
sick secession soldiers, left
others
Several of them are have died during the week. partly deranged. went around among them elaboI
Poor boys, they
rately.
up.
of
As all
I
sat
down by any
was postage stamps, and paper
distributed
all
I
Nobody seem'd to wish or drink. The main thing
within their sight.
ask'd for
fix
steadily riveted as long as
anything special to eat
1
particular one, the eyes
the rest in the neighboring cots would
upon me, and remain sat
needed to be cheer'd
all
the stamps
I
for writing.
Tobacco was
had.
wanted by some.
One
call'd
me
over to him and ask'd
tone what denomination
I
belonged
to.
me
in a
He
low
said
he
—
was a Catholic wish'd to find some one of the same faith wanted some good reading. gave him something to read, and sat down by him a few minutes. Moved around with a word for each. They were hardly any of them personally attractive cases, and no visitors come here. Of course they were all destitute of money. gave small sums to two or three, apparently the most needy. The men
—
I
I
are from
quite
all
the Southern
States,
Georgia,
Mississippi, Louisiana, &c.
Wrote
several letters.
One
[233]
for a
young
fellow
Hovcmbcr Bougba named Thomas diarrhoea.
J.
Was from
out four years.
Russell County, Alabama; been
Wrote
taken prisoner
last
kept there a long time; to get
paroled, but
on
in
Christmas,
sent to Nashville, then to
enough
had neither nine months.
to his mother;
heard from her nor written to her
Was
wound and
Byrd, with a bad
Camp
all
in
Tennessee;
Chase, Ohio, and
the while not
money
paper and postage stamps. his
way home
the
Was
wound took gan-
grene; had diarrhoea also; had evidently been very
Demeanor cool, and patient. A dark-skinn*d, quaint young fellow, with strong Southern idiom; low.
no education. Another letter for John W. Morgan, aged i8, from Shellot, Brunswick County, North Carolina; been out nine months; gunshot wound in right leg, above knee; also diarrhoea; wound getting along well; quite a gentle, affectionate boy; wish'd
put
in
the letter for his mother to kiss his
brother and sister for him.
[I
me
to
little
put strong envelopes
on these, and two or three other letters, directed them plainly and fully, and dropt them in the Washington post-office the next morning myself.]
The
large
ward
soldiers exclusively.
I
am
in
used
One man, about
age, emaciated with diarrhoea,
he lay with
is
I
was
for
secession
forty years of
attracted to, as
his eyes turn'd up, looking like death.
His weakness
was so extreme
that
it
took a minute
or so, every time, for him to talk with anything like [334]
IRovember ffiougba consecutive meaning; yet he
was
evidently a
of good intelligence and education.
would
thing, he
lie
a
moment
with closed eyes,
answer
voice, quite correct
and
tone that wrung
and child
my
in
As
perfectly
a
low,
said any-
I
He had
then,
still,
very slow
way and
sensible, but in a
heart.
man
a mother, wife,
living (or probably living) in his
home
in
was long, long since he had seen them. Had he caus'd a letter to be sent them since he got Mississippi.
here
in
It
Washington
?
No
answer.
question, very slowly and soothingly. tell
him
whether he had or not
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;things of
1
repeated the
He could not late
seem'd to
moment, said: ''Well, am going to walk down the ward a moment, and when come back you can tell me. If you have not written, will sit down and write." A few minutes after returned; he said he remember'd now that some one had written for him two or The presence of this man imthree days before. press'd me profoundly. The flesh was all sunken on face and arms; the eyes low in their sockets and glassy, and with purple rings around them. Two a dream.
like
After waiting a
I
I
I
I
I
or three great tears silently flow'd out from the eyes,
and
roll'd
down
his
temples (he was doubtless
unused to be spoken to as
I
was speaking
to him).
Sickness, imprisonment, exhaustion, &c., had con-
quered the body, yet the
mind held mastery still, and call'd even wandering remembrance back. There are some fifty Southern soldiers here; all [235]
November BouQba There
sad, sad cases.
some
distributed
is
paper,
a
good
deal of scurvy.
and
envelopes,
stamps, and wrote addresses
full
and
I
postage
on many
plain
of the envelopes. I
returned again Tuesday,
around
in
the
same manner
September 22,
'65.
W.
(Hiram
one of the
a couple of hours.
Dougbelonging to 2d New York
Frazee, Serg't),
compound
obstinate
and moved
i,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Afternoon and evening
las hospital to see a friend
Artillery
August
at
down with an
fracture of left leg received in
last battles
near Petersburg.
After sitting
went through several neighboring one of them found an old acquaintance
a while with him,
wards.
In
transferred here lately, a rebel prisoner, in a
condition.
Poor fellow, the look was already on
He gazed long at me. knew me. After a moment he
his face.
but inarticulately.
I
in
left
I
ask'd
He has
leg,
him
if
he
utter'd something,
have seen him
the last five months.
bad wound
dying
off
and on
suffered very
for
much; a
severely fractured, several
operations, cuttings, extractions of bone, splinters,
&c.
I
remember he seem'd
with him, a
to me, as
specimen of the main
fair
I
used to talk strata of the
Southerners, those without property or education,
but
and
still
with the stamp which comes from freedom
him; Jonathan Wallace, of Hurd Co., Georgia, age 30 (wife, Susan F. Wallace, Houston, Hurd Co., Georgia). [If any good soul of that county should see this, hope he will send her equality.
I
liked
I
[236]
IRovem&er ffiougbe
He had
had not heard from them since taken prisoner, now six months. I had written for him, and done trifles for him, before he came here. He made no outward show, was mild in his talk and behavior, but knew he worried much inwardly. But now all would be over very half sat upon the little stand near the head soon. Wallace was somewhat restless. of the bed. I word.]
this
a family;
I
I
placed
my
hand
just sliding
he
fell
it
over the surface. a calm,
into
on his forehead and
lightly
In a
moment
face,
or so
regular-breathing lethargy or
and remain'd so while I sat there. It was hardly know why dark, and the lights were lit. (death seem'd hovering near), but I stay'd nearly an
sleep,
I
hour.
A
Sister of Charity, dress'd in black,
with a
broad white linen bandage around her head and
under her chin, and a black crape over
all
and flow-
down from her head in long wide pieces, came to him, and moved around the bed. She bow'd low and solemn to me. For some time she moved around ing
there noiseless as a ghost, doing
little
things for the
dying man. December,
now the
'65.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;The
''Hare wood," out
city.
I
have been
only remaining hospital in
is
the woods, northwest of
visiting there regularly every
Sunday during these two months. January 24, '66.â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Went out to Hare wood early to-day, and remain'd all day. Sunday, February 4, 1866. Harewood Hospital
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
[237]
November Bougba Walked out this afternoon (bright, dry, ground Ward 6 is fiird frozen hard) through the woods. with blacks, some with wounds, some ill, two or three with limbs frozen. The boys made quite a Hardly any can picture sitting round the stove. again.
read or write.
I
some
lopes, give
write for three or four, direct envetobacco, &c.
Joseph Winder, a likely boy, aged twenty-three, belongs to loth Color'd Infantry (now
from
Eastville, Virginia.
Was
in
Texas);
is
a slave; belong'd to
The master was quite willing he should leave. Join'd the army two years ago; has been in one or two battles. Was sent to hosLafayette Homeston.
Has since been employ'd as His parents at Eastville he gets letters from cook. them, and has letters written to them by a friend. Many black boys left that part of Virginia and join'd the army; the loth, in fact, was made up of Virginia pital
with rheumatism.
;
As soon as discharged is to his parents and home, and
blacks from thereabouts.
going back to Eastville intends to stay there.
Thomas
King, formerly 2d District Color'd Regi-
ment, discharged
soldier.
(I
E, lay in a
dying
A
Catholic
was administering extreme unction
to him.
condition; his disease priest
Company
have seen
hospitals
;
was consumption.
this kind of sight several times in the
it is
very impressive.)
Harewood, April Poor Joseph Swiers,
29, 1866,
Sunday Afternoon.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Company
H,
155th Pennsyl-
movember Bougba vania, a
mere
lad (only eighteen years of age); his
Reedsburgh, Pennsylvania.
folks living in
known him
for nearly a year, transferr'd
thigh at Hatcher's Run, February
States
E.
Infantry. ;
a singularly nervous state
I
;
came
into hospital
fever.
Walk slowly around if
the
6, '65.
2d United Union folks. Brother impress'd, now no folks, left alone in the world,
with intermittent see
in
Ragan, Atlanta, Georgia;
deserted, died is in
have
from hos-
He was badly wounded
pital to hospital.
James
1
the ward, observing, and to
Two
can do anything.
or three are lying
very low with consumption, cannot recover
with old wounds
;
one with both
:
some
feet frozen off, so
that on one only the heel remains.
being given out
;
The supper
the liquid call'd tea, a thick
some stew'd apples. That was about the last saw of the
slice
is
of
bread, and
I
hospitals.
[239]
regular
army
^'.^^^
^MJj
Notes (such as they are) founded on
lElias 1)ickd
Prefatory
much
Note.— As myself a
little
boy hearing so
of E. H., at that time, long ago, in Suffolk and
—and more than once seein^^fftf ^^#ian — and my dear, dear
Queens and Kings Counties personally
and motfiW Iflffftfdf' listeners to him at the remember how I dream'dto write permeetings haps a piece about E. H. and his look and discourses,
father
—
ho\
'
I
^2:
afterward
the dear riiends too
has
but
at last
tention never
There pared to
my
And
the following
!
for
.
,
.
a sort of nature of personf
is
little
few
rills
of water, fresh,
one)— persons not
certainly of
them
area of humanity,
men of this class up
what
all a>
.
^d
^ .
in-
indeed an appro-
^
some e
u*i
.ami-
>w presMit "^
.^
have com-
fiom perennial
rur
w<"
and
Is
I
so very pi nty. yet
all tir.es,
"
in E. H.,
the sort, in
f
is
—and
yet
springs— (and the comparison priate
parents' sake
— ^^e out of it—the feeling and
al^ io.
—
.^,
^,
t
and
U i^ a speciwould sum
^*"'^d for the class,
.^j, not numerous,
Notes (such as they are) founded on
]EUa8
Note.—As myself a
Prefatory
much
Ibicfts
little
boy hearing so
of E. H., at that time, long ago, in Suffolk and
—and more than once man — and my dear, dear
Queens and Kings Counties personally seeing the old father
and mother
meetings
—
haps a piece
faithful
him
listeners to
remember how dream'dto write perabout E. H. and his look and discourses, I
1
however long afterward
—
my
the dear Friends too
And
the following
has at
but
last
at the
all
!
for
come out of it
parents' sake is
—and what
—the feeling and
in-
tention never forgotten yet
There pared to
is
a sort of nature of persons
little
of water, fresh,
rills
springs— (and the comparison
is
1
have com-
from perennial
indeed an appro-
one)— persons not so very plenty, yet some few certainly of them running over the surface and priate
area of humanity,
men of this up
the sort, in VOL.
VI,
—16.
times,
all
lands.
would now present and make his case stand
class
in E. H.,
all
all
1
ages,
all
It is I
would sum
for the class,
lands, sparse, not [241]
a speci-
numerous,
November Bougba yet enough to irrigate the
soil
—enough to prove the
inherent moral stock and irrepressible devotional as-
growing indigenously of themselves, always advancing, and never utterly gone under or lost. Always E. H. gives the service of pointing to the fountain of all naked theology, all religion, all worship, all the truth to which you are possibly eligible namely in yourself and your inherent relations. pirations
—
Others talk of Bibles, vicarious atonements
saints, churches, exhortations,
— the
canons outside of your-
and apart from man— E. H. to the religion inside This he incessantly of man's very own nature. labors to kindle, nourish, educate, bring forward and self
strengthen.
He
is
the most democratic of the re-
ligionists—the prophets. I
have no doubt that both the curious
fate
and
death of his four sons, and the facts (and dwelling
on them) of George Fox's strange early life, and permanent *' conversion," had much to do with the peculiar
and sombre ministry and
style of E. H. from
and confirmed him all through. One must not be dominated by the man's almost absurd saturation in cut and dried biblical phraseology, and in the
first,
ways, talk, and standard, regardful mainly of the one need he dwelt on, above all the rest. This main need he drove home to the soul the canting and ;
sermonizing soon exhale realizes
what
E.
paper (a broken
H.
is
away
for
and
memorandum [243]
'\
A
to
any auditor that
after.
The
present
of his formation, his
movember Bougb6 earlier life), is
the cross-notch that rude wanderers
make in the woods, to remind them afterward of some matter of first-rate importance and full investi(Remember too, that E. H. was a thorough gation. believer in the
Hebrew Scriptures,
The following recall 'd to
way.)
are really but disjointed fragments
serve and eke out here the lank printed
pages of what ago.
in his
Now,
I
as
commenced unwittingly two months am well in for it, comes an old I
attack, the sixth or seventh recurrence, of paralysis, dulling
me from
action,
Camden, N.
To BEGIN with, my theme less.
The
is
head or body. J., July, 1888,
comparatively feature-
great historian has pass'd
Elias Hicks quite
war-
putting the notes in shape,
and threatening any further
W. W.,
my
by the
without glance or touch.
man might commence and
overhaul
it
life
of
Yet a
as furnishing
and biography's backgrounds. While the foremost actors and events from 1750 to 1830 both in Europe and America were crowding each other on the world's stage— While so one of the amplest
many
historic
kings, queens, soldiers, philosophs, musicians,
voyagers, litterateurs, enter one side, cross the boards,
and disappear— amid loudest reverberating names — Frederick the Great, Swedenborg, Junius, Voltaire,
— curiously contemof Goethe — through the
Rousseau, Linnaeus, Herschel porary with the long
occupancy of the
life
British throne [243]
by George the Third
November ISouobe
—
arfiid
stupendous
visible political
and
social revolu-
more stupendous invisible moral ones while the many quarto volumes of the Encyclopaedia Fran9aise are being published at fits and while Haydn and intervals, by Diderot, in Paris Beethoven and Mozart and Weber are working out and
tions,
far
—
—
their
harmonic compositions
— while
Mrs. Siddons
and Talma and Kean are acting— while Mungo Park explores Africa, and Capt. Cook circumnavigates the globe through all the fortunes of the American Revolution, the beginning, continuation and end,
—
the battle of Brooklyn, the surrender at Saratoga, the
final
peace of
'83
— through the lurid tempest of
the French Revolution, the execution of the king and
— through the whole Washof the meteor-career of Napoleon —through Madison's, and Monington's, Adams's, — amid so many flashing of roe's Presidentiads queen, and the Reign of Terror
all
Jefferson's,
lists
names (indeed
seems hardly, in any department, any end to them. Old World or New), Franklin,
Sir
there
Joshua Reynolds, Mirabeau, Fox, Nelson, Paul
Jones, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, Fulton, Walter Scott,
Byron, Mesmer, Champollion
— Amid
pictures that
upon me even as speak, and glow and mix and coruscate and fade like aurora boreales Louis the i6th threaten'd by the mob, the trial of Warren dart
1
—
Hastings, the death-bed of Robert Burns, Wellington at Waterloo,
Decatur capturing the Macedonian, or
the sea-fight between the Chesapeake and the Shan[244]
November BouQba non
— During
and though on grade, running parallel and contem-
all
a far different
these whiles,
—a
porary with
all
centred in a
little
say,
I
quiet yet
curious,
busy
life
country village on Long Island,
and within sound on still nights of the mystic surfbeat of the sea. About this life, this Personality
—
neither soldier, nor scientist, nor litterateur
pose to occupy a few minutes to give
in
—
I
fragmentary
protalk,
some few melanges, disconnected impresthoughts
sions, statistics, resultant groups, pictures,
of him, or radiating from him. Elias Hicks
was born March
stead township.
19,
1748, in
Queens County, Long
Hemp-
Island,
New
York
State, near a village bearing the old Scripture
name
of Jericho (a mile or so north and east of the
present Hicksville, on the
L.
I.
Railroad).
and mother were Friends, of that their
own
working with
hands, and mark'd by neither riches nor
actual poverty.
education
class
His father
from
Elias as a child letters,
and youth had small
but largely learn'd from
He grew up even in his ladhood a thorough gunner and fisherman. The farm of his parents lay on the south or sea-shore side of Long
Nature's schooling.
had early removed from Jericho), one of the best regions in the world for wild fowl and for fishing. Elias became a good horseman, too, and Island (they
knew
the animal well, riding races
;
also a singer
fond of ''vain songs," as he afterwards a dancer, too, at the country balls. £245]
them a boy of
calls
When
flopcmber Bou9b9 he had gone to live with an elder brother; and when about 17 he changed again and went as ap13
The time
prentice to the carpenter's trade. this
was
before the
great-grandfather,
all
Revolutionary War, and the
40 miles from
locality 30 to
of
New
Whitman, was
York City.
My
often with Elias at
these periods, and at merry-makings and sleigh-rides in
winter over *'the plains."
How well
—
remember the region the flat plains of the middle of Long Island, as then, with their I
prairie-like vistas tion,
and the
''
and grassy patches
kill-calf "and
in
every direc-
herds of cattle and sheep.
Then the South Bay and shores and the salt meadows, and the sedgy smell, and the numberless little bayous and hummock-islands in the waters, the habitat of every sort of fish and aquatic fowl of North America. And the bay men a strong, wild, peculiar race
—
—
now
And the sometimes many miles
extinct, or rather entirely
beach outside the sandy at a stretch,
bars,
changed.
with their old history of wrecks and
— the weird, white-gray beach — not without tales of pathos — too, of grandest heroes
storms its
tales,
and heroisms. In
such scenes and elements and influences
—
in
the midst of Nature and along the shores of the sea
— Elias
Hicks was fashion'd through boyhood and
manhood, to maturity. But a moral and mental and emotional change was imminent. Along at this early
time he says:
movem&er Bougba My
now
apprenticeship being
from the company of
my
expir'd,
I
gradually withdrew
former associates, became more ac-
and was more frequent in my attendance of meetings; and although this was in some degree profitable to me, yet I made but slow progress in my religious with
quainted
Friends,
The occupation of
improvement.
part of
my
time
me
and fowling had frequently tended to preserve into hurtful associations; but
reproofs of divine grace in
manner
in
which
not without sin
while waiting
was
;
tunities
falling
through the rising intimations and
my heart, now I
began to
feel that
the
sometimes amus'd myself with my gun was for although I mostly preferr'd going alone, and I
in stillness for the
were seasons of
other occasions,
after
fishing
coming of the
fowl,
my mind
times so taken up in divine meditations, that the oppor-
at
ances,
in
from
and comfort to me;
instruction
when accompanied by some
of
my
yet,
on
acquaint-
and when no fowls appear'd which would be useful to us
being obtain'd,
we
sometimes, from wantonness or for
mere diversion, would destroy the small no service to us. This cruel procedure penning these
birds
which could be of
affects
my
heart while
lines.
was
by the Friends' ceremony, to Jemima Seaman. His wife was an only child; the parents were well off for common people, and at their request the son-in-law mov'd home with them and carried on the farm which at their decease became his own, and he liv'd there all his reIn his
23rd year Elias
married,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
maining
life.
Of this matrimonial
part of his career,
continued, and with unusual happiness, for 58
(it
years),
On
he says, giving the account of his marriage:
this
important occasion,
evidence of divine truth, and
our
spirits,
it
we
felt
the clear and consoling
remain'd with us as a seal upon
strengthening us mutually to bear, with becoming [247]
flovcmbcr Bouabe and
fortitude, the vicissitudes
which state.
we had a My wife,
trials
mother of eleven
Our second
weak
and of
four sons
constitutions,
seven
was
rest all arriv'd to years of discretion,
to be in a
however, were of
All our sons,
children.
dutiful
and
liv'd
the small-pox, and the youngest
The
birth.
children,
and afforded us considerable comfort, as they proved
good degree
lot,
daughter, a very lovely, promising child,
when young, with its
to our
although not of a very strong constitution,
to be the
not living at
fell
large share in passing through this probationary
daughters. died
which
and were not able to take care of themselves,
being so enfeebl'd as not to be able to walk
The two
tenth year of their age.
after the ninth or
eldest died in the fifteenth year
of their age, the third in his seventeenth year, and the youngest
was
nearly nineteen
when
the innocency of their
lives,
But, although thus helpless,
he died.
and the resign'd cheerfulness of their
dispositions to their allotments,
made
care of them agreeable and pleasant
serv'd from to be in
murmuring or
the labor and ;
and
1
trust
toil
we were
himself
wisdom, and according
And when
I
to the will
and gracious
have observ'd the great anxiety and
favour'd with health, especially their sons,
exceed ours.
exercises,
much
out of the
temptations of the world; and
we
to
afflic-
who
are
could perceive very
on that account, did not
The weakness and bodily
tended to keep them
I
dis-
known
which many parents have with undutiful children
few whose troubles and
pre-
repining, believing the dispensation
posing of an all-wise providence, for purposes best
tion
of taking
far
infirmity of our sons
way
of the troubles and
believ'd that in their death
they were happy, and admitted into the realms of peace and joy: a reflection, the most comfortable and joyous that parents can
have
in regard to their tender offspring.
Of
a serious and reflective turn,
by
nature,
and
from his reading and surroundings, Elias had more [248]
IRovember Bougbe than once markedly devotional inward intimations.
soon the following
until
About the twenty-sixth year of
by
although
and was
many remaining
were not yet aton'd
God
for,
again brought,
him
I
must walk,
and as
;
I
abode
This
my
in
to the heavenly
call, if it
Nevertheless, as
much weightiness
me
to
open a way before me,
to
seem'd, for
had
I
my mouth
I
in public
my mind
was, soon
future,
be
and resign'd
me
to
be
my
a meeting,
of spirit, a secret, though clear, intimation
speak a few words, which were then given
time, to cover
I
felt
my
I
did not yield to the
close rebuke,
mind; but as
he would pass by this
faithful, if
meetings was a
quiet
after, sitting in
of his countenance upon me, and enabl'd if
darkness
some time spoken on
for
under the Lord's mighty hand, he again
with him, that
my
should be made clear to
For this omission,
some
with
under close exercise and deep
to utter, yet fear so prevail'd, that
intimation.
self
me
endeavor'd to keep
me
which
monthly and preparative meetings, yet
the prospect of opening I
of,
I
began to have openings leading to
of spirit; for although
accompanied
guilty
now felt the judgments caus'd me to cry earnestly to
and
cry,
I
subjects of business in
duty.
still
youth,
watchfulness and deep humiliation be-
as the noon-day.
close trial; but
was
I
see, that
my
in order to experience reconciliation
the ministry, which brought travail
that
which
for
broke forth out of obscurity, and
fore him, light
became
and vanities of
sins
pardon and redemption, and he graciously
condescended to hear
wherein
and
upon me.
to rest
the Most High for
to
I
through adorable mercy, to
led,
had ceas'd from many
I
yet there were
in
my age was
the operative influence of divine grace, under deep concern
of mind;
of
and strength,
feelings increas'd in frequency
These
me
my
and judgment I
humbl'd my-
lifted
to
up the
light
renew covenant
offence,
I
would, in
he should again require such a service of me. [249]
â&#x20AC;˘November BouQbe
of
The Revolutionary War Friends more than any. between
steer
following, tried the sect
The
difficulty
their convictions as patriots,
Here
pledges of non-warring peace.
is
was
to
and
their
the
way
they solv'd the problem:
A
war, with
its
all
and destructive
cruel
raged for several years between the British Colonies
America and the mother
were expos'd colony of ples,
many
to
New
period at
York, Friends,
where the
who
stood
during the war, on
king's party had the rule
armies to attend
The
yearly
Long
Island,
ruled,
;
yet Friends from the Main,
had
passage through both
free
and any other meetings they were desirous
it,
of attending, except parties
in a
few
This
instances.
would not grant
were of a warlike
was
six times
I
to their best friends,
all
of this
during the war, without molestation, both parties
me
had to pass over a
with openness and
tract of country,
sometimes more than
much
who
pass'd myself through the lines of both armies
generally receiving I
a favor
which shows what great ad-
disposition;
vantages would redound to mankind, were they pacific spirit.
yet, in the
faithful to their princi-
in the controversy, had, after a short
steadily,
where the American army
which the
and sufferings;
trials
considerable favor allow'd them.
first,
meeting was held
North
in
country, Friends, as well as others,
severe
and did not meddle
having
effects,
and although
between the two armies,
thirty miles in
frequented by robbers, a
civility;
extent,
set, in
and which was
general,
of cruel, un-
principled banditti, issuing out from both parties, yet, excepting
once,
I
met with no
interruption even from them.
Friends in general experienc'd yet those scenes of
and provings 1
am
many
favors
But although
and deliverances,
war and confusion occasion'd many
in various
ways
willing to mention, as
to the faithful. it
caus'd
[250]
me
trials
One circumstance
considerable exercise
movember BouQbe There was a large
and concern.
house belonging to Friends
When
let as a store.
took possession of stores
new
and ascertaining what Friends had the care of
;
want of due
those Friends, for
meeting-
purpose of depositing their warlike
commissary came forward and
their
under the
York, which was generally
the king's troops enter'd the city, they
for the
it
cellar
New
in
offer'd to
letting
consideration, accepted
This
it.
who
caus'd great uneasiness to the concern'd part of the Society,
apprehended
not consistent with our peaceable principles to
it
payment
receive
The
houses.
the depositing of military stores in our
for
subject
and engag'd
1779,
had been active
its
was brought
in the reception of the
money
inconsistent, nor to return the
was
and
receiv'd;
referr'd to the
was
in order to justify
conduct of
money, and some few their proceedings to
to those from
whom
be it
themselves therein, they
Friends in Philadelphia in similar
unitedly concluded to refer the final determination thereof
to the yearly meeting of Pennsylvania; and several Friends
whom
was one
I
of the number.
We
accordingly set out on
the 9th day of the 9th month, 1779, and
from home by
my
dangers
two
much
we were
We
lay
grown up
expos'd
took a solemn leave of our
Believing
it,
families,
having to pass not only the
to,
between them,
in the streets,
mind was so
was accompanied who was likewise
anxiety at parting with us, on account of the
armies, but the deserted
try that
I
beloved friend John Willis,
on the appointment. they feeling
were
among
appointed to attend that meeting in relation thereto,
the
who
Matters thus appearing very difficult and embarrassing,
cases. it
before the yearly meeting in
careful attention; but those Friends,
were not willing to acknowledge
others,
it,
pay the rent; and
however, settled
many
places the
grass being
and many houses desolate and empty.
my
and
in
lines of
and almost uninhabited coun-
duty to proceed
in the
trust-fix'd in the divine
that faith seem'd to banish
all
fear,
[251]
service,
my
arm of power,
and cheerfulness and quiet
Vlovcmber resignation were,
We
journey.
believe,
I
my
ffiouijbe
constant companions during the
got permission, with but
the outguards of the king's
We
to Westchester.
army
little difficulty,
to pass
Kingsbridge, and proceeded
at
afterwards attended meetings at Har-
rison's Purchase,
and Oblong, having the concurrence of our
monthly meeting
to take
some meetings
leading thereto having for sometime
We
mind. their
in
our way, a concern
previously attended
monthly meeting, and then turn'd our faces towards
delphia, being join'd
New
attended
my
pass'd from thence to Nine Partners, and attended
by
Phila-
several others of the Committee.
We
Mariborough, Hardwick, and Kingswood meet-
ings on our journey, and arriv'd at Philadelphia on the 7th day
of the week, and 25th of 9th month, on which day
we
attended
the yearly meeting of Ministers and Elders, which began at the
eleventh hour.
meeting
I
also attended
until the 4th
the sittings of the yearly
all
day of the next week, and was then so
indispos'd with a fever, which had been increasing on several days, that
was
therefore
I
was not
not present
when
companion, that
matter
tum'd
was
was
into the office
from whence
for so
I
I
was discuss'd, was inform'd by
a very solemn opportunity, and the
resulted in advising that the
with our reasons
by the
it
for
the subject
which came from our yearly meeting; but
my
me
able to attend after that time.
it
was
doing: and this
money should be receiv'd,
was
re-
accompanied
accordingly done
direction of our yearly meeting the next year.
Then, season
pendence
after season,
when peace and
reign'd, year following year, this
Inde-
remains
to be (1791) a specimen of his personal labors: from home on this journey four months and eleven I was days; rode about one thousand five hundred miles, and attended forty-nine particular meetings
meetings,
six
among
monthly meetings, and
other people. [25a]
Friends, three quarterly forty meetings
among
IRovember Bougb6
And
again another experience
:
my mind was
In the forepart of this meeting,
such a state of great weakness and depression, that almost ready to that
I
was
experienc'd.
myself
to
doubting,
of
In this state
that
all
wound
myself to reproach, and
heavens seem'd
coldness and hardness,
I
I
baptism mind,
however
meeting a ray of in
nevertheless, as
;
in this conflicting dispensation,
allotment,
which the Shepherd of
Israel
was
opposition.
Then
ability
open the way of
was
works
his marvellous
glorious kingdom,
and
life
which
and by the clouds of
and the mysteries of
salvation,
are hid from the wise
and reveal'd only unto those
who
his
and prudent of
are reduc'd into
children and babes in Christ.
And concluding another jaunt was from home
in
this
in
1794
:
journey about five months, and
by land and water about two thousand two hundred
and eighty-three Friends in the
miles
having visited
;
New England
those of other professions
States, ;
all
the meetings of
and many meetings amongst
and also
visited
many
Friends and others, in the upper part of our
meeting
of the
redemption of souls, and
in the
little
among
my
and utterance given, to
receiv'd,
this world,
travell'd
latter part
scatter those
the state of
I
endeavor'd to quiet
and be resign'd to
pleas'd to arise,
glorious countenance, to
to
of
broke through the surrounding darkness,
light of his
speak of
I
was the depth
towards the
distressing,
light
in;
iron; such
thought, could scarcely have ever been
I
time
at this
wish
was embark'd
and the earth as
experienc'd before by any creature, so great
my my
to
should only expose
I
the cause
like brass,
heart, so
had ever before
was ready
I
home, from an apprehension that
at
for the
question
in
call
was
faith
which produc'd great searchings of
fail,
led
reduc'd into
my
;
and found
real
peace in
my
[253]
labors.
meetings,
own
yearly
flopembcr Bouflba Another ''tramp
" in 1798
was absent from home
I
journey about five months
in this
and two weeks, and rode about sixteen hundred
and
miles,
attended about one hundred and forty-three meetings.
Here are some memoranda of First day.
Our meeting
this
181
day pass'd
3,
near
in silent labor.
cloud rested on the tabernacle; and, although
much
rain
appear'd to
outwardly, yet very
among
distil
was witness'd towards
of the
little
home
was
it
dew
:
The
a day of
Hermon
of
Nevertheless, a comfortable calm
us.
we must
the close, which
render to the
account of unmerited mercy and love.
Most of
Second day. sick friend,
who
day was occupied
this
in a visit to a
appear'd comforted therewith.
Spent part of
the evening in reading part of Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
Third day. vocations.
was busied most
I
Spent
ians
;
in
evening
the
Found considerable
of this day in
principally
who were
knowledge of the
truth,
whom
all
in setting
without looking through and beyond first
cause and Author of every
month.
At our meeting to-day found
as usual, a very close steady exercise to keep the it
ought to
imperceptibly, as its
it
be.
What
were,
Felt a
little
mind
it,
center'd
a multitude of intruding thoughts
steal into the
proper object, whenever
against them.
too high
the praise and honor are due.
Fifth day, ist of 4th
where
Paul.
instrumental in bringing them to the
the instrument, to the great blessing, to
reading
satisfaction in his first epistle to the Corinth-
which he shows the danger of some
a value on those
in
my common
it
relaxes
mind, and turn
its
it
from
vigilance in watching
strength, just at the close, to remind
Friends of the necessity of a steady perseverance, by a recapitulation of the parable of the
unjust judge,
ought always to pray, and not to faint [3541
showing how men
November Bougb^ Nothing material occurr'd, but a
Sixth day.
much
cares of the world should engross too
Had an
Seventh day. friends,
whom
manual
in
But
we
I
have long
labor,
we
lov'd.
The
of
visit
my
time.
from two ancient
day
rest of the
I
employ'd
mostly in gardening.
find
shall lay
agreeable
fear lest the
if
we
attend to records and details,
We
out an endless task.
can briefly
whole life was a long religious missionary life of method, practicality, sincerity, earnestness, and pure piety as near to his time here, as one in Judea, far back or in any life, any age. The reader who feels interested must get with all its dryness and mere dates, absence of emotionality or literary quality, and whatever abstract say, summarily, that his
— —
—
attraction (with
even a suspicion of cant,
sniffling)
the Journal of the Life and Religious Labours of Elias Hicks, Written hy Himself, at
book-store.
(It
is
from this headquarters
extracted the preceding quotations.)
matured
life,
some Quaker
continued from
During
I
have
E. H.'s
to sixty years
fifty
—
while working steadily, earning his living and paying his
way without
intermission
— he
makes, as
previously memorandized, several hundred preaching of
visits,
not only through Long Island, but some
them away
into the Middle or Southern States, or
north into Canada, or the then
far
West
— extending
to thousands of miles, or filling several
sometimes
months.
These
religious
weeks and journeys
—
scrupulously accepting in payment only his trans[255]
I^ovcmbcr BouQbe portation from place to place, with his shelter,
and never receiving a
"salary" or preaching
—
dollar
through good bodily
Elias,
health and strength, continues
till
quite the age of
was thus at one of his Brooklyn city saw and heard him.
eighty.
It
latest jaunts in
This sight and
I
hearing shall
now
be described.
was
Elias Hicks
at this period in the latter part
(November or December) of tour of the
was
in
many
own food and of money for
1829.
was the
It
missions of the old man's
last
He
life.
the 8ist year of his age, and a few months
before he had lost
whom he
had
by death a beloved wife with
lived in unalloyed affection
and esteem
(But a few months after this meeting
for 58 years.
Though it is sixty and a little boy at the time in years ago since Brooklyn, New York can remember my father coming home toward sunset from his day's work as Elias
was paralyzed and
—
died.)
I
—
I
carpenter, and saying briefly, as he throws
down
armful of kindling-blocks with a bounce kitchen floor, night."
Then
''Come, mother,
my mother,
the table-cleaning
young woman, a keep house
for
ones to bed
on the
Elias preaches to-
hastening the supper and
afterward,
gets
a
neighboring
friend of the family, to step in
an hour or so
— and as
his
— puts
the
two
and little
had been behaving well that day, as a special reward was allowed to go also. We start for the meeting. Though, as said, the 1
1
1
stretch of
more than
half a century has pass'd over [356]
movember Bougba
me
war and peace, and all its joys and sins and deaths (and what a half century! how it comes up sometimes for an instant, like the since then, with
its
lightning flash in a storm at night!)
meeting
yet.
It is
buildings
— private
This time
it
anywhere
is
in
a
larly)
with ships
fill'd
respect to
handsome ball-room, on
New
and
sight of that great city,
rivers
— no
— anything that will accommo-
Brooklyn Heights, overlooking full
recall that
or public houses, school-rooms,
barns, even theatres date.
can
a strange place for religious de-
Elias preaches
votions.
I
—
is
its
York, and in
North and East
more
(to specify
particu-
the second story of ''Morrison's Hotel," used
most genteel concerts,
for the
balls,
and assemblies
a large, cheerful, gay-color'd room, with glass chandeliers bearing
myriads of sparkling pendants, plenty
of settees and chairs, and a sort of velvet divan run-
ning
and
all
all
round the side- walls.
Before long the divan
the settees and chairs are
ionables out of curiosity
;
all
fill'd
;
many
fash-
the principal dignitaries
of the town, Gen. Jeremiah Johnson, Judge Furman,
George
Hall, Mr.
Morse, Cyrus
Willoughby, Mr. Pierrepont, N. Smith, and
P.
F.
B.
Many women
C. Tucker.
young folks too some richly dress'd remember noticed with one party of ladies ;
;
I
a
group
of uniform'd officers, either from the U. S.
Navy
I
Yard, or fort.
some
On
ship in the stream, or
some adjacent
a slightly elevated platform at the head of
the room, facing the audience, VOL. VI.— 17.
[257]
sit
a dozen or more
November Bougbe most of them elderly, grim, and with their broad-brimmed hats on their heads. Three or four women, too, in their characteristic Quaker costumes and bonnets. All still as the grave. At length after a pause and stillness becoming almost painful, Elias rises and stands for a moment or Friends,
two without
A
a word.
tall,
stout nor very thin, dress'd
shaved
face,
straight figure, neither in
drab cloth, clean-
forehead of great expanse, and large and
clear black eyes,* long or middling-long
he was
at this
head
his
still
white
hair;
time between 80 and 81 years of age,
A moment
wearing the broad-brim.
looking around the audience with those piercing eyes,
amid the perfect stillness. (I can almost see him and the whole scene now.) Then the words come from his lips, very emphatically
a resonant, grave, chief end of
was I
melodious voice, IVhat
the
is
fervid,
it
I
cannot follow the discourse.
comes very
in
was told in my eariy youth, God, and seek and enjoy him forever.
man ?
to glorify
and slowly pronounced,
and
in
It
presently be-
the midst of
its
fervor he
takes the broad-brim hat from his head and almost
dashing
it
down with
violence on the seat behind,
continues with uninterrupted earnestness. say,
I
the differences and disputes of the formal di-
vision of the Society of Friends Walter Scott's reminiscences he speaks of
were even then under Bums
as having the
glowing, flashing, illuminated dark-orbed eyes he ever beheld in a I
I
cannot repeat, hardly suggest his sermon.
Though In
But,
think Elias Hicks's must have been like them.
[358]
most eloquent,
human
face
;
and
IRovember Bougb0 way, he did not allude to them
at
A
all.
pleading,
nearly agonizing conviction, and magnetic
tender,
stream of natural eloquence, before which
and natures,
all
all
emotions, high or low, gentle or
simple, yielded entirely without exception, cause, method, in tears.
minds
and
its
Many, very many were
effect.
Years afterward
was
in
Boston,
I
heard Father
Taylor, the sailor's preacher, and found in his passionate unstudied oratory the resemblance to Elias Hicks's
— not argumentative or ting — so different from anything
intellectual,
ferent as the fresh air of a
in
but so penetra-
the books
—
(dif-
May morning or a sea-shore
breeze from the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop).
While he goes on he falls into the nasality and singsong tone sometimes heard in such meetings; but in a moment or two more as if recollecting himself, he breaks off, stops, and resumes in a natural tone. This occurs three or four times during the talk of the evening,
Now
till all
concludes.
and then,
many
at the
scores and hundreds
— even thousands — of his discourses — as at one — he was very mystical and radical,* and *The
true Christian religion (such
was the teaching of
—
Elias
this
had
Hicks), consists
Sundays but in noiseless secret ecstasy and unremitted aspiration, in purity, in a good practical life, in charity to the poor and toleration to all. He said, " A man may keep the Sabbath, may belong to a church and attend all the observances, have regular family prayer, keep a well-bound copy neither in rites or Bibles or sermons or
of the
Hebrew
Scriptures in a conspicuous place in his house,
religious person at all."
E. believ'd little in a
with houses, ministers, or with vals,
&c.
salaries,
But he believ'd always
in
and yet not be a
church as organiz'd
— even
his
truly
own
—
creeds^ Sundays, saints, Bibles, holy festi-
the universal church, in the soul of man, invis-
ibly rapt, ever-waiting, ever-responding to universal truths.
[259]
— He was fond of pithy
November Bougba much
Very
to say of ''the light within."
likely this
same inner light (so dwelt upon by newer men, as by Fox and Barclay at the beginning, and all Friends and deep thinkers since and now), another
name
perhaps only
for the religious conscience.
opinion they have tors, the real
is
all
In
my
diagnos'd, like superior doc-
inmost disease of our times, probably
any times. Amid the huge inflammation call'd society, and that other inflammation call'd politics, what is there to-day of moral power and ethic sanity as antiseptic to them and all ? Though think the I
essential elements of the moral nature exist latent in
the good average people of the United States of to-day, and sometimes break out strongly,
it
is
cer-
any mark'd or dominating National Morality (if may use the phrase) has not only not yet been developed, but that at any rate when the point of view is turn'd on business, politics, competition, practical life, and in character and manners in our tain that I
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
New World â&#x20AC;&#x201D; there seems
to be a hideous depletion,
almost absence, of such moral nature. throughout, as George Fox began ated and verified
it,
ideals of character,
He
proverbs.
once to
my
devil than
said,
father,
It
stake, are to be conformed
creeds. Bibles, legislative
matters not where you
"They
reiter-
of justice, of religious action,
conventionalities, "
or rather
the Platonic doctrine that the
whenever the highest is at to no outside doctrine of enactments,
it,
Elias taught
talk of the devil
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
man." [260]
I
or
live, tell
but
even decorums, how you
He said b no worse
live."
thee, Walter, there
IRovem&er
ffioufiba
but are to follow the inward Deity-planted law of the emotional soul.
has
Friend,
faith;
and
strainingly carrying
New
only the true Quaker, or
In this
it
from
is
it
rigidly,
out, that both the
perhaps
Old and
England records of Quakerdom show some un-
seemly and insane one of the
In
acts.
lives of
Ralph Waldo Emerson
is
a
of lessons or instructions (''sealed orders" the
list
biographer for his
Go them light
own
calls
them), prepar'd by the sage himself
Here
guidance.
forth with thy
that they
must
is
one:
message among thy fellow-creatures; te^ch guided by that inner
trust themselves as
which dwells with the pure
heart,
in
to
whom
it
was
promis'd of old that they shall see God.
How
Then
Hicks. 1
thoroughly
sent
my
in
it fits
the
and theory of
life
Elias
Omar Khayyam:
soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that after-life to spell. And by-and-by my soul return'd to me. And answer'd, '* myself am Heaven and I
Hell."
Indeed, of this important element of the theory
and practice of Quakerism, the difficult-to-describe ** Light within" or ''Inward Law, by which all
must be
undertake where so
many have
making the statement of hension.
condemn'd,"
either justified or
We
it
for
fail'd
will not
the average compre-
will give, partly for the matter
partly as specimen of his speaking
what
I
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the task of
and writing
Elias Hicks himself says in allusion to [261]
it
and
style,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one
Tlovember »ougb0
two of very many
or
Most of
passages.
his dis-
courses, like those of Epictetus and the ancient peri-
have
patetics,
no record remaining— they were
left
extempore, and those were not the times of reporters.
Of one, however,
deliver'd in Chester, Pa.,
the latter part of his career, there
and from
cript;
it
hidden wheat that
(even
is
toward
a careful trans-
presenting you a sheaf of
if
may need
to be pick'd
and thrash'd
out several times before you get the grain),
we
give
the following extract: don't
I
want to express
to be call'd
home
recommend
*'God
him.
walk
to this Comforter,
is light,
in the light, as
with another."
and he
dwell in
and
if
in
is in
him
is
no darkness
the light,
Because the light
we
one
is
— that love which casts out God dwell "walk
they
in love, in
it,
my
sin,
was
the
it.
life
life
we
in
and therefore
all,
is
it
not only
it
light,
who in it;
So
son cleanseth us from
his
Did Jesus
friends ?
The
all
sin."
Christ, the Saviour,
Not a drop of
it,
my
soul of
friends
—
of
all
life
man
has no
outward material blood, created from
the
life
of these bodies of flesh, so with
respect to the soul, the immortal
which God breath'd
As we
if
have fellowship one
all fear.
of the soul of Jesus.
is
and
in
they have fellowship one with another,
material blood; but as the
that
at all;
That blood which cleanseth from the
the dust of the earth,
all
and they are constrain'd to walk
ever have any material blood?
not a drop of
want you
that they
and the blood of Jesus Christ But what blood,
I
which was the hght
binds us together in the bonds of love; for
but love
but
For the Scriptures, and
do no more; Jesus could do no more
the books in the world, can
than to
many words;
a great
to the substance.
into
and
invisible spirit, its blood
is
it.
read, in the beginning, that [262]
"God
form'd
man
of the
IRovember ffiougbe dust of the ground, and breath'd into him the breath of life, and
man became became
He
a living soul."
alive to
breath'd into that soul, and
it
God.
Then, from one of his
many
he seems
letters, for
to have delighted in correspondence:
Some may answer. heart,
ble
It is
and
query,
it.
the cross of Christ
is
To
?
these
I
the perfect law of God, written on the tablet of the
every rational creature, in such indeli-
in the heart of
characters that
obliterate
What
the
all
Neither
is
power
oi mortals
cannot erase nor
any power or means given or
there
dis-
pens'd to the children of men, but this inward law and
light,
which the
obtained.
And by
true
this
and saving knowledge of God can be
inward law and
condemn'd, and left
all
made
to
light, all will
know God
be either
by
justified or
for themselves,
and be
without excuse, agreeably to the prophecy of Jeremiah, and
the corroborating testimony of Jesus in his
mand
to his
disciples,
counsel and com-
last
not to depart from Jerusalem
till
they
should receive power from on high; assuring them that they should receive power,
when
they had receiv'd the pouring forth
of the spirit upon them, which
would
qualify
them
to bear wit-
ness of him in Judea, Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth
;
which was
verified in a marvellous
manner
on the day of Pentecost, when thousands were converted to the Christian faith in one day.
By which law, as
it
is
it is
evident that nothing but this inward light and
heeded and obey'd, ever
true and real Christian
and
child of
God.
sors of Christianity agree to lay aside religion,
and
rally to this
did, or ever can,
all
And
make
a
until the profes-
their non-essentials in
unchangeable foundation and standard
of truth, wars and fightings, confusion and error, will prevail, and the angelic song cannot be heard in our land
God
in the highest,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that of
and on earth peace and good [263]
**
will to
glory to
men."
November Bouaba when
But
law and then is
all
we
shall
And corded
is
faith,
above
then will
know and
through
all,
and they
be
fulfill'd
asp,
cockatrice's den.
They
lift
cow and
but
many
Lord,
people;
up the sword against na-
The wolf also
the bear shall feed
and the wean'd child put shall not hurt
for the earth," that is
his
nor destroy in
;
shall
and the
shall play
hand on the all
my
holy
our earthly tabernacle, "shall be
knowledge of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea."
exposition in the last sentence, that the terms
of the texts are not to be taken ing,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "He," the
straw with the ox; and the sucking child
on the hole of the
The
all.
they learn war any more. ;
of the
inward
and works,
swords into ploughshares, and their spears
dwell with the lamb and the
full
in
the nations, and shall rebuke
shall beat their
mountain;
this
believe alike, that there
and
all,
into pruning-hooks ; nation shall not
lion shall eat
make
their faith
those glorious and consoling prophecies re-
all
among
tion, neither shall
all
and but one baptism; one God and
in the scriptures of truth
"shall judge
willing to
and standard of
be brought to
but one Lord, one
Father, that
made
nations are
light the rule
in their spiritual
in their literal
mean-
one, and allude to a certain
wondrous exaltation of the body, through religious influences, is significant, and is but one ofa great number of instances of
much
that
is
obscure, to
*'
the world's
people,'* in the preachings of this remarkable
Then a word
nected with the preceding. there
is,
man.
about his physical oratory, conIf
there
is,
as doubtless
an unnameable something behind oratory, a
fund within or atmosphere without, deeper than
art,
deeper even than proof, that unnameable constitutional
something
Elias Hicks
emanated from
his very
IRovember ffiougba heart to the hearts of his audience, or carried with
him, or probed into, and shook and arous'd in them
—a
sympathetic germ, probably rapport, lurking
human
every
eligibility,
which no book, no
rule,
in
no
statement has given or can give inherent knowledge,
— not
intuition
even the best speech, or best put
human
but launched out only by powerful
forth,
magnetism Unheard by sharpest ear
Nor
lore,
in clearest eye, or
cunning-
mind,
est
And
— unform'd
nor fame, nor happiness, nor wealth.
yet the pulse of every heart and
life
throughout the world,
incessantly,
Which you and Open, but
a
still
I,
and
all,
pursuing ever, ever miss;
secret — the
real of the real
Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never
Which Which Which
poets vainly seek to put in
— an
man
rhyme
illusion;
the owner;
— historians
in prose
sculptor never chisel'd yet, nor painter painted; vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter' d.
—
aspiration
that mere worldly life towards the ideal, which, however over-
laid,
folded latent,
That remorse, lies
More
character.
(aided
by
my
too, for a
hidden,
perhaps every
in
definitely, as near as
I
remember
dear mother long afterward), Elias
Hicks's discourse there in the Brooklyn ball-room,
was one of
his old never-remitted appeals to that
moral mystical portion of light.
But
mainly
it is
personnel, that
I
recall
human
for the
scene
the incident. [265]
nature, the inner itself,
and
Elias's
November Bougba Soon afterward the old man died: On
day morning, the 14th of ad month (February, 1830,) in his room, writing to a friend, until a little
first
he was engaged
when he
after ten o'clock,
return'd to that occupied
by the fam-
apparently just attack'd by a paralytic affection, which nearly
ily,
deprived him of the use of his right side, and of the power
Being assisted to a chair near the
of speech.
by
signs, that the letter
which he had just
fire,
he manifested
finish'd,
and which had
been dropp'd by the way, should be taken care of; and on
its
be-
ing brought to him, appear'd satisfied, and manifested a desire that all
should
labours
sit
down and be
were brought
waiting the
to a close,
change.
final
still,
seemingly sensible that his
and only desirous of quietly
The solemn composure
manifest in his countenance,
was very
at this
time
impressive, indicating that
he was sensible the time of his departure was at hand, and that the prospect of death brought no terrors with illness, his
was
at times
him, that
During
it.
his last
mental faculties were occasionally obscured, yet he
all
enabled to give satisfactory evidence to those around
was
well,
and that he
nothing
felt
in his
way.
His funeral took place on fourth day, the 3d of 3d month.
was attended by a solid meeting was were
I
others,
It
and a
held on the occasion; after which, his remains
Friends' burial-ground at this place Qericho,
interr'd in
Qyeens County,
and
large concourse of Friends
New
York.)
have thought (even presented so incompletely,
with such
fearful hiatuses,
and waning
life)
and
in
one might well memorize
Though not eminent
Elias Hicks.
politics or inventions or business,
a few,
and
my own
is
significant. I2661
in
it is
feebleness this
life
of
literature or
a token of not
Such men do not cope
November with statesmen or soldiers
ffiougb^
— but
I
have thought they
deserve to be recorded and kept up as a sample that this one specially does.
pared
it
to a
little
flowing liquid
As
maintaining freshness.
smoke
I
if,
have already comrill
of Nature's
indeed,
— the
life,
under the
of battles, the blare of trumpets, and the
ness of contending hosts
—
mad-
screams of passion,
the groans of the suffering, the parching of struggles of
money and
politics,
and
all hell's
heat and noise
around — should
come and competition above and melting down from the mountains from sources of up there in God's hidden, untrodden recesses, and so rippling along among us low in the ground, at men's very feet, a curious little unpolluted snows,
brook of
clear
and
far
cool,
and ever-healthy, ever-living
water. Note.
— The Separation. — The
division vulgarly
between Orthodox and Hicksites in the Society of Friends took place in 1827, '8 and '9. Probably it had been preparing some time. One who call'd
was at a
present has since described to
meeting of Friends
in
me
Philadelphia
the climax,
crowded by a
great attendance of both sexes, with Elias as principal speaker.
In
the course of his utterance or argu-
ment he made use of these words: ''The blood of Christ— the blood of Christ— why, my friends, the actual blood of Christ in itself was no more effectual than the blood of bulls and goats not a bit more not a bit." At these words, after a momentary
—
—
[267]
flopcmber iSougba
commenced
Hundreds rose to Canes were thump'd upon the their feet. floor. From all parts of the house angry mutterings. Some left the place, but more remain 'd, with exclamations, flush'd faces and eyes. This was the definite utterance, the overt act, which led to the even husbands and Families diverged separation. wives, parents and children, were separated. hush,
.
a great tumult.
.
.
—
Of course what Elias promulg'd spread a great commotion among the Friends. Sometimes when he presented himself to speak
would be opposition unseemly
ures,
in
the meeting, there
— this led to angry words, gest-
noises, recriminations.
times,
was deeply affected—the tears
down
his cheeks ''
the dispute.
speak
!
silently
tried to bluff off
son objecting to the
new
some
such
roU'd in streams
waited the close of
Let the Friend speak;
he would say when
"
meeting
— he
Elias, at
let
the Friend
his supporters in the
violent orthodox per-
doctrinaire.
But he never
recanted.
A
reviewer of the old dispute and separation
made the
comments on them in a paper ten years ago 'Mt was in America, where there had been no persecution worth mentioning since Mary Dyer was hanged on Boston Common, that about following :
fifty
upon
years ago differences arose, singularly enough doctrinal points of the divinity of Christ
Whoever would know controversy, and how much of
the nature of the atonement.
how
bitter
was the
and
[a68]
IRovember Bougba
human
was found
infirmity
to be
lurking under
still
broad-brim hats and drab coats, must seek information in the Lives of Elias Hicks and of Shillitoe,
gifts as
a peacemaker with but
who little
Thomas
who
the latter an English Friend,
us at this unfortunate time, and
for the
visited
exercised his success.
The
meetings, according to his testimony, were some-
The
times turn'd into mobs.
disruption
was wide,
and seems to have been final. Six of the ten yearly meetings were divided; and since that time various sub-divisions have come, four or five in number.
There has never, however, been anything repetition of the
able state,
a
excitement of the Hicksite con-
troversy; and Friends of to have settled
like
down
all
kinds at present appear
into a solid, steady, comfort-
and to be working
their
in
own way
without troubling other Friends whose ways are different.
Note.â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Old persons, who heard day, and
who
saw of him
man
this
glean 'd impressions from
(judg'd from their
own
in his
what they
points of views),
have, in their conversation with me, dwelt on another point.
They think
Elias Hicks
had a large
element of personal ambition, the pride of leadership, of establishing perhaps a sect that should reflect his
own name, and
which he should give especial form and character. Very likely. Such indeed seems the means, all through progress and civilization, by which strong men and strong convictions achieve to
[269]
November BouQba anything
But the basic foundation of Elias
definite.
was undoubtedly genuine religious fervor. He was He had the spirit of like an old Hebrew prophet.
What
one, and in his later years look'd like one. Carlyle says of John
He
is
comes
Knox
an instance to us
heroic;
it
is
how
a man, by sincerity
the grand gift he has.
good, honest, intellectual
talent,
him:
will apply to
We
itself,
find in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a
no transcendent one;
row, inconsiderable man, as compared with Luther; but felt
instinctive
adherence to truth,
no superior; nay, one might of him
is
ask.
in sincerity as
What
of the true Prophet cast.
we
lies
a
nar-
in heart-
say, he has
equal he has
" He
be-
him
?
The
heart
there," said the Earl
of Morton at Knox's grave, **who never fear'd the face of man."
He
resembles,
Prophet.
more than any of the moderns, an
The same
inflexibility, intolerance, rigid,
old
Hebrew
narrow-look-
ing adherence to God's truth.
A
Note
under
all
The United States To-day,â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ^hWt
Yet,
previous conditions (even convictions) of
society, Oriental, Feudal, Ecclesiastical,
past
(or
present)
past, there existed,
and
in
all
Despotisms, through the entire
and
exists yet, in ally
and fusion
with them, and frequently forming the main part of them, certain churches, fervid beliefs,
&c.,
institutes,
practically
priesthoods,
promoting religious
and moral action to the fullest degrees of which humanity there under circumstances was capable, and often conserving all there was of justice, art, say, literature, and good mannersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; it is clear I
that,
under the Democratic Institutes of the United [270]
movem&er States,
now and
ffiougba
henceforth, there are no equally
genuine fountains of fervid
beliefs,
duce similar moral and religious to our circumstances. sects,
I
consider that the churches,
by any
States, exist not
according
results,
present day, in the United
of the
pulpits,
adapted to pro-
but by a
solid convictions,
Few
sort of tacit, supercilious, scornful suffrance.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; none
speak openly
officially
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; against them.
the ostent continuously imposing, that
any such
now utterly of men ?
not aware
is
them are and departed from the minds
living fountains of belief in
ceas'd
A Lingering Note.â&#x20AC;&#x201D; In all
who
But
the making of a
full
man,
the other consciences, (the emotional, courage-
ous,
intellectual,
esthetic,
&c.,) are to be crown'd
and effused by the
religious
higher structure of a
human
conscience.
self,
or of
In
the
community,
the Moral, the Religious, the Spiritual,
is
strictly
analogous to the subtle vitalization and antiseptic play caird Health in the physiologic structure.
To
person or State, the main verteber (or rather the verteber)
is
Morality.
That
vitalization of character,
even heroic and ality.
parts,
It
is
to
artistic
is
and of
indeed the only all
real
the supersensual,
portions of
man
or nation-
run through and knit the superior
and keep man or State
vital
and upright, as
and blooming. Of course a really grand and strong and beautiful character is probably to be slowly grown, and adjusted health keeps the
body
straight
[271]
flovembcr Bouflba with reference to
strictly
— with
social sphere
own
itself, its
personal and
(paradox though
may
it
be)
the clear understanding that the conventional theoof
ries
worldly ambition, wealth,
life,
fame,
office,
&c., are essentially but glittering mayas, delusions.
Doubtless the greatest scientists and theologians will
sometimes
those
find themselves saying,
who know
God's glory.
who
most,
only
most to
contribute
these very
Doubtless
is n't
It
scientists
at
times stand with bared heads before the humblest lives
and
greater
(is
For
personalities.
there not?) than
— above
of the world ing eternal
— above
all
all
there
the science and like
else,
Shakspere's plays, or Concord
that shines elusive, like
prov'd by after its
all
own
— the
of divine love and faith
in a
acter—blending
for
mon, and the
at
even-
the vaunted wealth and pride—
concomitants
for
— something
beams of Hesperus
practical outcropping in
its
poems
the stars shin-
philosophy, or artof Angelo or Raphael
ing—high above
something
is
all,
life,
each case
intuitive blending
human emotional
char-
the unlearn 'd, the com-
poor.
know
what book once read, (possibly the remark has been made in books, all ages,) that no life ever lived, even the most uneventful, but, probed to its centre, would be found in itself as subtle a drama as any that poets have ever sung, I
don't
in
I
or playwrights
fabled.
weight, that
suppos'd obscure.
life
Often,
too,
in
For
it
size
and
isn't only
IRovember ffiougba the palpable stars; astronomers say there are dark, or almost dark, unnotic'd orbs and suns, (like the
dusky companions of as our
own
Sirius,
seven times as large
sun,) rolling through space, real and
— perhaps
potent as any
Yet none recks of them.
the most real and potent. In the bright lexicon
we
give the spreading heavens, they have not even
Amid ceaseless sophistications all times, the soul would seem to glance yearningly around names. for
— such cool,
such contrasts
While we
still
are about
it,
offsets.
we must
almost
go back to the origin of the Society of which Elias Hicks has so far spere) prov'd to be the most mark'd individual We must revert to the latter part of the result. 6th, and all, or nearly all of that 17th century, crowded with so many important historical events, changes, and personages. Throughout Europe, and especially in what we call our Mother Country, men were unusually arous'd (some would say de-
f^d^Shlk!
i^^vitably
1
—
mented).
It
was
a special age of the insanity of
witch-trials
and witch-hangings.
were hung
for
alone.
It
was
witchcraft in
In
one year 60
one English county
peculiarly an age of military-religious
conflict.
Protestantism and Catholicism were wrest-
ling like
giants
for
the
mastery,
straining
Only to think of — that age! — persons Shakspere just dead, (his nerve.
it
its
every events,
folios published,
VOL. VI.— 18.
[273]
November Bougba
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Charles
complete)
shadowy spirit and To sum up all, it was the age
the solid block!
First,
the
of Cromwell!
As indispensable foreground, indeed, for Elias Hicks, and perhaps sine qua non to an estimate of the kind of man, we must briefly transport ourselves back to the England of that period. As say, it is the time of tremendous moral and political agitation; I
ideas of conflicting forms, governments, theologies,
seethe and dash like ocean storms, and ebb and
flow
mighty
like
tides.
It
was, or had been, the
time of the long feud between the Parliament and the Crown.
George Fox
In
began
the midst of the sprouts,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; born
eight years after the death of
He was the son of a weaver, himself shoemaker, and was *' converted " before the age
Shakspere. a
of 20.
O
But
the sufferings, mental and physical,
through which those years of the strange youth
He
pass'd!
*M come," he
mission.
the
claim'd to be sent
spirit
that gave
said,
forth
by God
fulfill
a
''to direct people to
the
range of his thought, even
to
Scriptures."
The
then, covered almost
every important subject of after times, anti-slavery,
women's
among
Though
rights, &c.
in a
low sphere, and
the masses, he forms a mark'd feature in
the age.
And how,
indeed,
and perturbed age!
beyond
all
any, that stormy
The foundations
of the old, the
superstitious, the conventionally poetic, the credu[^74]
November lous,
all
and
science
mad,
breaking
fierce,
— the
ffiouQbe
light of the
democracy,
definitely
almost crazy age!
The
new, and of beginning
political strug-
the reigns of the Charleses,
gles of
—
and of the
by theo-
Protectorate of Cromwell, heated to frenzy
Those were the years following the advent and practical working of the Reformation but Catholicism is yet strong, and yet seeks logical struggles.
—
We
supremacy.
men and
think our age
full
doings, and culminations of
of the flush of
war and peace;
and so it is. But there could hardly be a grander and more picturesque and varied age than that. Born out of and in this age, when Milton, Bunyan,
—
Dryden and John Locke were still living amid the memories of Queen Elizabeth and James First, and the events of their reigns
— when
the radiance of
that galaxy of poets, warriors, statesmen, captains, lords, explorers, wits
and gentlemen, that crowded
the courts and times of those sovereigns
the atmosphere
— when America
explored and settled as
to gather in
a
overthrow
destin'd to
calculations
one
new
and domestic
new
effort,
in a
to be
also to be suspected
like a sunset,
and
seem'd
circles of that
sphere
before the advance of
— amid the social period — indifferent to
incipient genius
reverberations that seem'd
and
commencing
glories, reminiscences, personalisms,
gorgeous
day, a
filfd
the old standards
— when Feudalism,
all its
last
commenc'd
still
far
enough
to
wake
the dead,
from the pageants of the court, [275]
November Bouflbs the
awe
charm of
of any personal rank or
intellect,
or literature, or the varying excitement of Parlia-
mentarian or Royalist fortunes rustic
— this curious young
down was of
goes wandering up and
George Fox, born ordinary lower
decent stock,
in
— as he grew along toward manshoemaking, also farm labors —
life
hood, work'd at loved to be
1624,
England.
at
much by
himself, half-hidden in the
— went
about from town
to town, dress'd in leather clothes
— walk'd much at
woods, reading the Bible
C'the inward divine sometimes goes among the
night, solitary, deeply troubled
—
teaching of the Lord ")
ecclesiastical gatherings of the great professors,
and
—
though a mere youth bears bold testimony goes to and fro disputing (must have had great personality)
—
— heard the
voice of the Lord speaking articulately
to him, as he walked in the fields
commands stain
—
feels resistless
not to be explained, but follow'd, to ab-
from taking off his hat, to say thee and thou,
and not bid others Good morning or Good evening
— was
illiterate,
against
could just read and write
—
testifies
shows, games, and frivolous pleasures
—
enters the courts and warns the judges that they
see to doing justice
— goes
into public houses
and
market-places, with denunciations of drunkenness
and money-making services,
—
and gives
rises in the
his
ministers' explanations,
texts
— sometimes
for
own
midst of the church-
explanations of the
and of Bible passages and such things put [276]
in
prison,
movember Bougbe on the mouth on the spot, or knock'd down, and lying there beaten and bloody was of keen wit, ready to any question with the
sometimes struck
fiercely
—
—
was sometimes pressed most apropos of answers was indeed terrifor a soldier, {him for a soldier!)
—
— often sleeping hay stacks — forever
bly buffeted; but goes, goes, goes
under hedges, or
out-doors,
taken before justices
— improving such, and
all
occa-
sions, to bear testimony, and give good advice —
still
enters the ''steeple-houses," (as he calls churches,)
and though often dragg'd out and whipt till he faints away, and lies like one dead, when he comes to
—
stands up again, and offering himself
bloody, cries out to his tormenters, again, here
''
all
bruis'd
where you have not yet touch'dl
arms, my head, my cheeks," —
Is at
and
Strike — strike
my
length arrested
and sent up to London, confers with the Protector, Cromwell, is set at liberty, and holds great meetings in London.
—
Thus going fascinates
on, there
is
something
in
him that
one or two here, and three or four there,
were others who went about in the same spirit, and by degrees the Society of Friends took shape, and stood among the thousand religious until gradually there
sects of the world.
Women also catch
the contagion,
and go round, often shamefully misused. By such contagion these ministerings, by scores, almost hundreds of poor travelling men and women, keep on year after year, through ridicule, whipping, [277]
Tlovcmbcr Bouobe
— some of the Friend-ministers England — where their treatment
imprisonment, &c.
New
emigrate to
makes the
New
blackest part of the early annals of the
World.
Some were
par-burnt, and scourged
executed, others maim'd,
— two hundred die
— some on the gallows, or
in prison
at the stake.
George Fox himself visited America, and found a refuge and hearers, and preach'd many times on Long In the village of Oyster Bay Island, New York State. they will show you the rock on which he stood, (1672,) addressing the multitude, in the
open
air
—
thus rigidly following the fashion of apostolic times.
—
(I
have heard myself many reminiscences of him.)
Flushing also contains (or contained
—
I
have seen
them) memorials of Fox, and his son, in two aged white-oak trees, that shaded him while he bore his Yes, testimony to people gathered in the highway. althe American Quakers were much persecuted most as much, by a sort of consent of all the other sects, as the Jews were in Europe in the middle In New England, the cruelest laws were ages. As said, pass'd, and put in execution against them. some were whipt women the same as men. Some had their ears cut off— others their tongues pierc'd
— —
—
with hot irons still,
a
(1660).
— others their
woman
and three
faces branded.
Worse
men had been hang'd
— Public opinion, and the statutes, join'd to-
gether, in an odious union, Quakers, Baptists,
Catholics and Witches.
—Such
Roman
a fragmentary sketch
IRovember BouQba of George Fox and his time *'
the Society of Friends " in
Strange as
it
may
Fox, (think of them
!
bred of similar stock,
and
station in
life
—
himself
—
One
to radiate
all
of
art's, all
— a splendor so dazzling that he
splendor
— his
the same
America.
compare them !) were born and in much the same surroundings from the same England and
almost lost
is
the advent of
sound, Shakspere and George
at a similar period. literature's
— and
in
it,
and
his contemporaries
Othello,
fictitious
Romeo, Hamlet,
any lords of England or Europe then more real to us, the mind sometimes
Lear, as real as
and there
—
man Shakspere himself. Then the we indeed name him the same day?
thinks, than the
other — may
What
poor plain George Fox compared to William
is
Shakspere
— to fancy's
lord, imagination's heir ?
—
Yet
—
George Fox stands for something too a thought the thought that wakes in silent hours— perhaps the
most
deepest,
This
soul.
is
all else.
the
and the immortality of this thought aye, greater
When
is
—
the gorgeous pageant of Art,
refulgent in the sunshine, color'd with roses
— with
all
human
right
Great, great
identity.
in
the thought of God, merged in the
thoughts of moral than
thought latent
eternal
and gold
the richest mere poetry, old or new, (even
Shakspere's,) with
all
music,
architecture,
satisfy
and please
wealth
flags,
that statue,
can
oratory,
— When
and beauty
painting,
effect,
ceases to
the eager chase after
itself
[279]
play,
becomes a loathing—
floveinbcr Bouflba
and when
worldly or carnal or esthetic, or even
having done their
values,
scientific
human
all
and minister'd
character,
velopment—then,
if
to the
their part to its de-
not before, comes forward this
over-arching thought, germinations.
office
and brings
Most neglected
attributes, easily covered
eligibilities,
its
humanity *s deluded and
in life of all
with
crust,
abused, rejected, yet the only certain source of what all
are seeking, but
few or none
find
—
self clearly see the first, the last, the
and highest heights of purposes of
life.
1
art,
example
is
man
life
or death,
set§ an incarnated
dearest to humanity
after the rest are gone.
And
ful in life,
and
here,
was
for
him,
in
— as the man George Fox him — lived long, and died,
Elias Hicks
done years before
my-
for
deepest depths
these purposes, and up to the light that
the
I
say whoever labors here, makes all
— remains
it
of literature, and of the
contributions here, or best of here, of
in
had
faith-
faithful in death.
[a8o]
(Boob^Bi^e
m^
[a8i]
jfanct
En
ÂŽlb mban's IRejoinber
domain of Literature loftily consider'd (an accomplish'd and veteran critic in his just out work* now says), the kingdom of the Father has pass'd the kingdom of the Son is passing the kingdom of the Spirit begins.' Leaving the reader to chew on and extract the juice and meaning of this, I will proceed to say in melanged form what have had brought out by the English author's essay (he discusses the poetic art mostly) on my own, real, or by him supposed, views and purports. If give any answers to him, or explanations of what my books intend, they will be not direct but indirect and derivaOf course this brief jotting is personal. Sometive. thing very like querulous egotism and growling may break through the narrative (for have been and am rejected by all the great magazines, carry now my 72d annual burden, and have been a paralytic for i8 In the
'
;
;
I
I
I
years). *
Two new
volumes, Essays Speculative
and
Suggestive,
by John Adding-
and my which and cited and dissected. It is this part of the vols, that has caused the off-hand lines above (first thanking Mr. S. for his invariable cour-
ton Symonds.
books
One
of the Essays
is
on
**
are largely alluded to
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
tesy of personal treatment).
[283]
Democratic Art,"
in
1
No
great
poem
work
or other literary or artistic
of any scope, old or new, can be essentially considered
without weighing politics)
and aim,
first
the age, politics (or want of
visible forms,
unseen soul, and
current times, out of the midst of which
formulated spirit
— as
:
it
and
rises
as the Biblic canticles and their days
the Homeric,
is
and
Dante's utterance, or
or
Shakspere's, or the old Scotch or Irish ballads, or
Ossian,
or
Omar Khayyam.
So
1
have conceived
and launched, and work'd for years at, my Leaves personal emanations only at best, but of Grass
—
with specialty of emergence and background
— the
ripening of the nineteenth century, the thought and fact
and radiation of individuality, of America, the
and showing the democratic con-
secession war,
them or impedes their aggregate way. Doubtless my poems illustrate (one of novel thousands to come for a long
ditions supplanting everything that insults
period) those conditions
;
have to wait long before lated 1
with
and defined will
now
for
—
if it
*'
but it
is
ever
is.
art,
art " will
satisfactorily
formu-
one indicative moment lock horns
what many think the
question of
democratic
so-caird.
I
greatest thing,
the
have not seen without
learning something therefrom,
how, with hardly an
exception, the poets of this age devote themselves,
always mainly, sometimes altogether, to
fine
rhyme,
spicy verbalism, the fabric and cut of the garment,
jewelry, concetti, style,
art. Caa4]
To-day these adjuncts
6oo&*'B?e nD^ fatten
beyond
are certainly the effort,
lesson of Nature undoubtedly single purpose
toward the
which the time has
for
Yet the
else.
all
to proceed with
is,
arrived, utterly regardless of
which
the outputs of shape, appearance or criticism, are always
left
not bother'd
to settle themselves.
much about
more
confess to
sometimes caught myself
I
have not only
style, form, art, etc.,
or less apathy
believe
(I
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
I
decided aversion
in
ward them throughout, asking nothing negative advantages
and
result necessitated,
of
have )
own
to-
them but
they should never im-
pede me, and never under any circumstances, or their
but
for
purposes only, assume any mastery over
me.
From the beginning
I
have watch'd the sharp and
sometimes heavy and deep-penetrating objections
and reviews against and audited them
my work,
hope entertained (for have probably had an advantage in constructing from a central and unitary principle since the first, but at long intervals and stages sometimes lapses of five or six years, or and
I
I
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
peace or war).
Ruskin, the Englishman, charges as
a fearful and serious lack that
humor.
A
profound German
my poems
have no
complains that,
critic
compared with the luxuriant and well-accepted songs of the world, there coldness, severity,
is
about
my
absence of spice, polish, or of
(The book is autobottom, and may-be do not exhibit
consecutive meaning and plot. biographic at
verse a certain
I
[285]
am partly and make ado about the stock passions of Quaker stock.) Then E. C. Stedman finds (or I
:
found) mark'd
me
with
fault
common
because while cele-
do not allow enough heroism and moral merit and good intentions
brating the
people en masse,
It
In the
matter.
the
first
quite probable that S.
is
main
looked, to the
United States even
I
myself look, and have from
bulky democratic torso of the
for esthetic
and moral attributes
— and refused to aim
anything
America
If
right in the
is
of serious account less.
the dtat-
the college-bred,
to the choicer classes,
major.
1
is
at or accept
only for the rule and
fashion and small typicality of other lands (the rule
of the Hat-major)
it
should to-day
that
feel
is
not the land
my
literary
I
take
it
for,
and
aim and theory
had been blanks and misdirections. Strictly judged, most modern poems are but larger or smaller lumps even of sugar, or slices of toothsome sweet cake
—
the banqueters dwelling on those glucose flavors as a main part of the dish.
Which perhaps
to have great heroic poetry
something:
leads to
we
great readers— a heroic appetite and audience.
we
at present
any such
Then the thought repeated.
Have
?
at
the centre, never too often
Boundless material wealth,
organization,
need
immense geographic
cedented ''business" and products
free political
area,
and unpre-
— even the most
and "culture'*— will not place this Commonwealth of ours on the topmost range of
active intellect
[286]
(Boob*»B?e flD? ffanc?
history
— or any eminence of " demo-
and humanity
art"— to say nothing of
cratic
Only
pinnacle.
its
the production (and on the most copious scale) of loftiest
moral, spiritual and heroic personal illustra-
tions—a
great
native
headed with a
Literature
Poetry stronger and sweeter than any yet.
If
there
can be any such thing as a kosmic modern and original song, In
my
America needs
and
it,
opinion to-day (bitter as
is
it is
worthy of
it.
to say so) the
outputs through civilized nations everywhere from the great words Literature, Art, Religion, &c., with their conventional administerers, stand squarely in
the
way
signify,
them
what the vitalities of those great words more than they really prepare the soil for of
— or plant the seeds, or cultivate or garner the My own
crop.
World
opinion has long been, that for
New
service our ideas of beauty (inherited from
the Greeks, and so on to Shakspere
them
verted from
and made anew standards.
But
if
— query — per-
need to be radically changed,
?)
for
to-day's purposes and finer
so,
it
will all
come
in
due time
the real change will be an autochthonic,
—
interior,
which our noare wondrous lovely,
constitutional, even local one, from
tions of beauty (lines
but character
is
lovelier) will
So much have rulity),
and colors
that there
I
is
now
branch or off-shoot.
rattled off (old age's gar-
not space for explaining the
most important and pregnant that
Art
is
one,
is
not
partial, [287]
principle of
but includes
all,
all
vi:(.,
times
and forms and sortsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; is not exclusively
aristocratic
or democratic, or oriental or occidental.
My favorite
symbol would be a good
font of type,
impeccable long-primer rejects nothing.
Dutch flour-miller, self what road the wheat and rye."
The art
font
is
who
said,
folks
come
** I
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
where the Or the old
never bother 1
my-
only want good
about the same forever.
Democratic
results of democratic development, from tinge,
true nationality, belief, in the one setting up from
CÂťwi
it.
®lb ipoets Poetry (I am clear) is eligible of something far more ripen'd and ample, our lands and pending days, than it has yet produced from any utterance old or
Modern
new.
challenging
— while
it
or
new
with severe
poetry,
too,
criticism,)
is
(viewing or largely a void
the very cognizance, or even suspicion of
that void, and the need of filling
it,
proves a certainty
of the hidden and waiting supply.
Leaving other
lands and languages to speak for themselves,
can abruptly but deeply suggest
— going
first
it
best from our
we own
to oversea illustrations, and standing
on them.
Think of Byron, Burns, Shelley, Keats, (even first-raters, ''the brothers of the radiant summit," as William O'Connor calls them,) as having done only their precursory and 'prentice work, and all their best and real poems being left yet unwrought, untouched. Is it difficult to imagine ahead of us and them, evolv'd from them, poesy completer far than any they themselves fulfill'd? One has in his eye and mind some very large, very old, entirely sound and vital tree or vine, like certain hardy, everfruitful VOL.
specimens — 19.
in California
VI.
[289]
and Canada, or down
<5ooNB?c in
Mexico, (and indeed
chronological
flD?
in
fane? beyond the
lands)
all
records — illustrations of growth, con-
power, amplitude and exploitation, almost
tinuity,
beyond statement, but proving
and
fact
possibility,
outside of argument.
Perhaps,
indeed,
the rarest and most blessed
quality of transcendent noble poetry
— as
of law,
and of the profoundest wisdom and estheticism (I
would suggest,) from sane, completed,
—
is,
vital,
capable old age.
The
final
proof of song or personality
is
a sort of
matured, accreted, superb, evoluted, almost divine, impalpable diffuseness and atmosphere or invisible
magnetism, dissolving and embracing all— and not
any
special
form,
achievement of passion, pride, metrical
epigram,
plot,
thought,
what
or
is
caird
beauty.
The bud
flower
beautiful, of course, but only the perfected
is
bloom or apple or rest Completed
of the rose or the half-blown
finished
beyond the comes (in my
wheat-head
fruitage like this
opinion) to a grand age, in
man
or
is
woman, through
an essentially sound continuated physiology and
psychology (both important) and glorious aureole of
all
it
others,
its
style uniting
Let us diversify the matter a [a90]
Like
stands at last in a
power and productiveness of
and of a sort and proofs and adherences.
all
the culminating
and several preceding.
the tree or vine just mentioned, beauty,
is
little
own, above
all
criticisms,
by portraying
some
of the American poets from our
own
point of
view. Longfellow, reminiscent, polish'd, elegant, with
the
air
of finest conventional library, picture-gallery
or parlor, with ladies and gentlemen in them, and
plush and rosewood, and ground-glass lamps, and
mahogany and ebony and scented
and a
furniture,
silver inkstand
satin paper to write on.
Whittier stands for morality (not in any all-accepting philosophic or Hegelian sense, but)
filter'd
through a Puritanical or Quaker filter— is incalculably valuable as a genuine utterance, (and the finest,)
—
—
all
many
with
hued with
and Yankee and genre
local
anti-slavery
and
posite ideal
the
— no
Americanism.
scientize
spirit
— not universal try — don't wish
and comto be) for
Americanism would take and law, and democratize and Ideal
and (thence) truly Christianize them
whole, the globe, facts, all
all
Greek
enough (don't
Greek
all
rather a grand figure, but pretty lean
is
ascetic
— (the genre and precious — help.)
coloring
anti-slavery contributions
Whittier's
bits
all
history,
good and bad. Ah
twentieths of us
all
!
What
all
this
for the
ranks and lands,
^^i— this
all
nineteen-
a stumbling-block
it
re-
— what a chance (the strange, clear-as-ever inscription on the old dug-up tablet) yet being translated —
mains
for poets
and metaphysicians it
what can be universe, and
its all
offers
purpose
for
in
? [291]
the God-scheme of this
(5ooN«?c
flfttj
fancp
Then William Cullen Bryant— meditative, from
to last tending to
first
mainly
lyrical
— when
serious,
threnodies— his genius
reading his pieces
who
could
expect or ask for more magnificent ones than such as ''The
and
Battle-Field,"
"A
Hymn";
Forest
Bryant, unrolling, prairie-like, notwithstanding his
mountains and lakes— moral enough (yet worldly
—
a naturalist, pedestrian, garand conventional) dener and fruiter— well aware of books, but mixing am not sure but to the last in cities and society. his name ought to lead the list of American bards. thought Emerson pre-eminent (and as Years ago to the last polish and intellectual cuteness maybe think so still) but, for reasons, have been gradu1
1
I
—
ally
I
tending to give the file-leading place for Ameri-
can native poesy to
Of Emerson
1
W.
C. B.
have to confirm
my already avow'd
opinion regarding his highest bardic and personal
Of
attitude. leck,
the galaxy of the past
— of Poe,
Hal-
Mrs. Sigourney, Allston, Willis, Dana, John
Pierpont,
W.
G. Simms, Robert Sands, Drake,
Hill-
house, Theodore Fay, Margaret Fuller, Epes Sargent, Boker, Paul Hayne,
Lanier,
essaying such a theme as their memories,
on the
list
may
and others, this,
I
fitly,
and reverence
in
for
at least give a heart-benison
of their names.
Time and
New World
humanity having the venerable resemblances more than anything else, and being** the same subject continued," just here in
(Boob^Bi^e
fll>?
fane?
one gets a curious nourishment and lift (I do) from all those grand old veterans, Bancroft, Kossuth, and such typical specimen-reminisvon Moltke cences as Sophocles and Goethe, genius, health, beauty of person, riches, rank, renown and length 1890,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
combining and centering in one case. Above everything, what could humanity and literature do without the mellow, last-justifying, averof days,
all
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
a great many, many years Every really first-class produc-
aging, bringing-up of
old age amplified ?
tion has likely to pass through the crucial tests of a
generation, perhaps several generations.
says the rate in
first
sight of
any work
really
Lord Bacon
new and
first-
beauty and originality always arouses some-
thing disagreeable and repulsive.
Voltaire term'd
the Shaksperean works ''a huge dunghill"; Hamlet
Academy, whose members listen'd with approbation) as ''the dream of a drunken savage, with a few flashes of beautiful thoughts." he described
And
(to the
not the Ferney sage alone; the orthodox judges
and law-givers of France, such as La Harpe, J. L. Geoffroy, and Chateaubriand, either join'd in Voltaire's verdict, or
cists is
went
and regulars there
very significant
anything
new as
in all
further. still
Indeed the
classi-
The
lesson
hold to
departments.
a personal insult.
it.
People resent
When umbrellas who carried them
were first used in England, those were hooted and pelted so furiously that their lives were endangered. The same rage encountered the ÂŁ293]
(SodMB^c attempt real
perform women's parts by
in theatricals to
women, which was
fancu
fl>?
publicly considered disgust-
ing and outrageous.
Byron thought Pope's verse incomparably ahead of Homer and Shakspere. One of the prevalent objections,
was, the learn'd
men
in
the days of
Columbus
boldly asserted that
if
a ship
should reach India she would never get back again,
because the rotundity of the globe would present a kind of mountain, up which to
sail
it
would be impossible
even with the most favorable wind.
Modern poets," says a leading Boston journal, "enjoy longevity. Browning lived to be seventyseven. Wordsworth, Bryant, Emerson, and LongWhittier, Tennyson, and fellow were old men. Walt Whitman still live." Started out by that item on Old Poets and Poetry **
American sustenance
for chyle to inner
gossipp'd about
it
all,
and treated
it
—
I
from
have thus
my own
point of view, taking the privilege of rambling wher-
Browning
ever the talk carried me.
is
lately dead;
Emerson and Longfellow have not long pass'd away; and yes, Whittier and Tennyson reBryant,
main, over eighty years old
— the
latter
having sent
out not long since a fresh volume, which the English-
speaking Old and
New
Worlds
have already put on record
my
are yet reading.
notions of T. and his
effusions: they are very attractive
me — but
I
and flowery to
flowers, too, are at least as profound as
anything; and by
common [294]
consent T.
is
settled as
©oob:*B?e {Si^ Jfancp the poetic cream-skimmer of our age's melody, ennui
and polish—a verdict
in
which
I
and should
agree,
say that nobody (not even Shakspere) goes deeper in
those exquisitely touch'd and half-hidden hints
and indirections of his lines.
perfumes
left like faint
Of Browning
I
don't
in
the crevices
know enough
to
say much; he must be studied deeply out, too, and quite certainly repays the trouble indolent,
— but
and cannot study (and never
I
am
old and
did).
Grand as to-day's accumulative fund of poetry is, there is certainly something unborn, not yet come forth, different from anything now formulated in any verse, or contributed by the past in any land something waited for, craved, hitherto non-express'd. What it will be, and how, no one knows. It will probably have to prove itself by itself and its readers. One thing, it must run through entire human(this ity new word and meaning Solidarity has arisen to us moderns) twining all lands like a divine thread,
—
stringing
all
the soul,
and
trating
all
beads, pebbles or gold, from
God and
like God's dynamics and sunshine illusand having reference to all. From any-
thing like a cosmical point of view, the entirety of imaginative literature's themes and results as
them to-day seems been put it
painfully narrow.
we
All that
get
has
statement, tremendous as it is, what is compared with the vast fields and values and in
varieties left unreap'd?
Of our own
country, the
splendid races North or South, and especially of the [295]
(5ooN«?e
flD? jfanc?
Western and Pacific regions, it sometimes seems to me their myriad noblest Homeric and Biblic elements are all untouched, left as if ashamed of, and only certain very minor occasional delirium tremens glints studiously sought and put in print, in short tales, I
poetry " or books.
**
give these speculations, or notions,
in all their
— perhaps
audacity, for the comfort of thousands
a
women's and young men's awe and despair before the immens-
majority of ardent minds,
— who stand ity of in
in
suns and stars already
the
in
Even
the firmament.
and Shakspere there is (is there not ?) a humiliation produced to us by the absorption
Iliad
certain
we sound in equality, or above them, due our own democratic era and sur-
of them, unless
the songs
roundings, and the
(such
in vain
is
my
cessfully to tune
opinion) will America seek suc-
any superb national song unless
the heartstrings of the people start breasts
And
assertion of ourselves.
full
it
from their
own
— to be returned and echoed there again. Sbtp Hboi?
In
dreams
Sailing
I
was
a ship,
and ever
upon the
sailing
and
—
sail'd
the boundless seas,
seas and into every port, or out
all
offing,
Saluting, cheerily hailing each mate,
"Ship ahoy!"
some
thro'
friendly
met or
trumpet or by voice
merry word
pass'd,
—
if
little
or big,
nothing more,
at least.
For companionship and good will for ever to [296]
all
and each.
(5oob^B?e jfot
An
Queen
American arbutus hunch
to he
flDp jfanc?
IDtctotta's BirtbDai? put in a
May
Lady, accept a birth-day thought
Right from the scented
soil's
vase on the royal hreakfast table
little
24th, /8po.
— haply an
idle gift
and token,
May-utterance here,
(Smelling of countless blessings, prayers, and old-time thanks,)*
A
bunch of white and pink arbutus,
From Hudson's, Delaware's, Note.
— Very
little,
as
we
silent, spicy, shy,
woody
or Potomac's
Americans stand
this day,
banks.
with our sixty-five or
seventy millions of population, an immense surplus in the treasury, and actual
do we
power
or reserve
realize that
power (land and
curious
sea) so dear to nations
crawling national shudder
promis'd to bring upon us a war with Great Britain that
when
— very
calamity
It
is
now
certain that
I
say
the "Trent affair"
— follow'd unquestionably, as
war would have, by recognition of the Southern Confederacy from
leading European nations.
that
all
little
all
hung on arrogant and peremptory phrases
this
in the
missive of the British Minister, to America, which the
all
the
then inevitable train of prepared and written
Queen (and
Prince Albert
and promptly cancell'd; and which her firm attitude did alone actually erase and leave out, against all the other official prestige and Court of St. James's. On such minor and personal incidents (so to call them) often depend the great growths and turns of civilization. This moment of a woman and a queen surely swung the grandest oscillation of modern history's pendulum. Many sayings and doings of that period, from foreign potentates and powers, might well be
latent) positively
dropt in oblivion by
America— but never
this, if
I
could have
my
way.
W. W.
[297]
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA I^IBRARY