CHAPTER XVII.

Freed from Hiram's disagreeable presence, Sarah Burns, as soon as her

visitors had left, sat down to _think_; and she experienced, as I have

already remarked, a species of relief. By degrees her spirits rose to

their old, natural level, and then the fact struck her that they had not

of late been so elastic and joyous as formerly. Presently she jumped up,

and, snatching her hat, she resolved to run into the office, as she used

to do in 'old times,' and surprise her father by a little visit. She

tripped cheerfully out, and was soon at the office door. Here she

paused. Her heart beat loudly, but it was with pleasure. Then she

quietly opened the door and stepped in.

'Good morning, sir,' she exclaimed. 'Here is your old clerk back again.'

She rushed up and gave him a kiss, and received a dozen in return.

Mr. Burns used afterward to say it was the most blissful moment of his

life.

After that, how they enjoyed themselves!--like school children let

loose. Sarah ran up, and down, and around the office, through the front

room and the little room back, then in the closets, her father

following, as much of a child as she--his heart also freed of a load,

and his soul filled with sunshine--no Hiram Meeker to cast a baleful

shadow over it.

There were not any explanations between those two. Explanations were not

in the least necessary. Each felt that all _was_ explained, and all was

right and happy again. That was enough.

After a while, some one came in to see Mr. Burns on business, and Sarah

took her departure. With a light heart she retraced her steps toward

home. She had reached the memorable corner where she once encountered

Hiram--it was on his first visit to Burnsville--when, quite abruptly, as

it seemed, a tall, handsome young man stood directly in her way.

She stopped, of course; she could not do otherwise, unless she chose to

run into the arms of the stranger. A pair of bright, dark eyes were

turned inquiringly on her.

'I have found you at last,' said the young man, in a pleasant tone. 'I

have just left your house. I did not think you would be out so early.

And now that we do meet,' he continued, 'I perceive you don't know me:

that is too bad!'

Sarah stood like one in a trance. At first she thought the man was

deranged; but he looked so handsome and so intelligent, she quickly

abandoned that hypothesis. Then she began to think she was a little out

of her wits herself. That seemed to her more probable.

Meanwhile, there he stood, directly and squarely in her path. He

appeared rather to enjoy Sarah's perplexity.

'Yes, it is unkind in you to forget an old friend--one you promised to

remember always.'

Sarah was beginning to recover herself. It was evident, from the whole

appearance of the stranger, that he would not adopt this singular mode

of addressing her, unless he had some claim to her acquaintance. So she

reasoned. Resolving she would no longer play the part of a bashful miss,

she said: 'I am very sorry to be obliged to confess it; but, really, I

have not the slightest recollection of you.'

'Ah, that is the way with the sex!' continued the other, in the same

tone. 'Who would have thought it? After bestowing on me such a precious

token (here he presented a locket, in which he exhibited a curl of

hair), you now propose to ignore me altogether.'

'I am inclined to think you are the one in error. I am quite sure you

mistake me for some other person,' retorted Sarah, quietly.

'Possibly. Therefore, permit me to inquire whether or not I have the

honor of addressing Miss Sarah Burns?'

'Yes.'

'Yet you have no recollection of presenting me with this?'

'You must have shown me the wrong locket,' said Sarah, dryly. 'The hair

is several shades lighter than mine.'

'True, I did not think of that,' said the mysterious young gentleman.' I

ought to have known it would be so; but it never occurred to me.

Good-by!'

He bowed courteously and passed on his way, leaving Sarah in complete

bewilderment. She walked slowly toward home. She roused her memory. She

went through the list of her acquaintances. She endeavored to recall

those she had encountered when taking some little trips with her

father--but the stranger was not any of these.

A faint outline was, nevertheless, before her. A shadowy image, the

same, yet not the same, with the young man who had stood in her path.

'Who? where? when?'

In vain she asked herself the questions.

Over the past hangs a dim uncertainty, like that which veils the future,

and, young as Sarah was, she could already realize it. At length she

stopped her efforts, and recurred to the more pleasing task of thinking

about the young gentleman as he now appeared, without respect to any

other circumstance. She recalled his manly form. He was nearly six feet

in height. How bright his eyes were, and how mischievously they were

turned on her, yet how kindly--she was almost ready to think

lovingly--when the locket was produced! What about that locket? She

never gave anybody a locket, never--not even Hiram Meeker. Faugh! It

sickened her to think of _him_ now, and in this connection. Only imagine

it! A lock of her hair. How ridiculous! No living being had a lock of

_her_ hair. She knew that well enough. Besides, this was so much

lighter--as light as hers was when she was a child. A sudden thought

struck her. Strange; how very, _very_ strange! Yet, it was true. Once in

her life she _had_ given a single curl! Was this it? Had she promised

anything with the curl? And was this young man he? Sarah's heart beat

tumultuously as she entered the house. She reflected on the words of the

stranger as he turned to leave her. Should she see him again? * * *

A message came from her father. He would bring a gentleman to dine with

him--that was all.

Who would it be? the one she had lately parted with? Not a doubt of it.

_That_ she felt instinctively.

On a certain occasion, as the reader may remember, Sarah had

imperceptibly prepared herself to receive Hiram Meeker. It was the first

time he took tea at the house. This day she did the very same thing to

receive somebody else. There is no use to deny it, for such is the fact.

Yet it was but a short week since she was the betrothed of Hiram, and

believed she loved him. That very morning they had separated forever!

It often happens that a young girl is deceived by or disappointed in her

admirer. They may prove to be incompatible, or, what is worse, he may

prove unworthy; and she discards him, but with reluctance, after a

struggle, leaving a pang in her heart, while she mourns over her lost

_love_--not lover. _Him_ she no longer regards with any feeling; but the

memory of the old attachment is dear to her, though it be sad, and time

is required before the heart will be attracted by new objects, or seek

to be engrossed by a fresh passion.

The bond between Hiram and Sarah was of no such nature. He exercised a

species of magnetism over her, in consequence of her lively and

sympathetic nature; but it was of a kind that, when broken, neither

pleasing nor mournful reminiscences remained--no recollection of past

joys, no thought of former happiness and bliss. The fountains of the

heart had not been reached, and when Hiram Meeker quitted her presence,

she was as though she had never known him.

Thus it was, when she received her father's message, her pulses thrilled

at the idea of meeting the one he was to bring with him.

Already she guessed who it was.

VATES.

Poets are never in the wrong,

Whate'er the present age may say:

The future only, in their song,

Will see the truth of this our day;

And what a BRYANT says and sings

May well outweigh all false-born things.

THE PHYSICAL SURVEY OF NEW YORK HARBOR AND ITS APPROACHES.

No coast offers more admirable opportunities for the study, on a large

scale, of the effects of winds, waves, and currents, tidal and others,

on the movable matters which line the ocean shores, than that from New

York southward. Besides the peculiar local actions, there are general

ones, which are changing, slowly or rapidly, the whole of the sandy

coast line. While here the pebbles of the ancient drift are being

assorted by size and shape, and rolled into ridges and heaps, by the

action of the waves, there heaps and ridges of wet sand are formed by

the waves and travel under their motion, and the dry sand is forced

along by the winds, covering up meadows and woods, and changing the

ocean shore line; and in other or the same localities, sub-currents,

setting in a nearly constant general direction, roll onward the movable

materials of the bottom of the sea, or tidal currents roll them forward

and backward, giving the general direction of the resulting motion.

The reports of the Government and State engineers and commissioners,

public and private, who have studied the improvements of different

localities, have given us glimpses of the local, and even of the general

actions; but most commonly there has been a want of means or such

preliminary experiments as were necessary fully to develop the actions,

and which, like the stitch which saves nine, would often have saved the

costly experiment on the full scale of construction. Remarkable

instances of complete modes of investigation occur in the examination of

the Mississippi River by Captain A.A. Humphreys and Lieutenant Abbot, of

the Topographical Engineers, and by the commission of which General

Totten, Prof. Bache, and Admiral Davis were members. As most familiar to

me, from having taken an official part in the experiments and

observations made, I propose to notice the Physical Surveys of New York

and Boston, indicating the chief agents which are at work in destroying

and building up, so as to produce the present condition of these

important ports.

* * * * *

In connection with the surveys made a few years since by direction of

the Commissioners on Harbor Encroachments, there was undertaken, as an

incidental inquiry, an investigation into the physical conditions under

which the shoals and beaches in and about New York harbor had submitted

to those changes of position and area which the repeated surveys

revealed. It was at the request of these Commissioners that Professor

Bache, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, gave his personal

attention to this subject. He drew up a comprehensive scheme for a

series of observations upon all the natural agencies at work, and, for

the execution of the project, selected one of his assistants, whose

experience had already been considerable in similar studies.

The investigation was commenced in the lower harbor early in the spring

of 1856. Records were kept of tides, currents, winds, and waves, and the

most careful notes were made on the immediate effects of these working

agents as observable in the movements of the sands.

A glance at a general coast chart discovers at once a marked contrast

between two different sections of our seaboard: to the eastward of us,

the principal harbors of New England are rockbound, with elevated back

countries; while to the southward, in the region of alluvial drift,

which extends all along the coast of the Middle and Southern States, the

harbors have flat and sandy shores. The harbor and neighborhood of New

York, holding an intermediate position between these diverse sections,

exhibit a singular combination of the leading physical features of both,

and present to the hydrographer a field for research that is quite

without a parallel.

We recognize in the Bar of New York simply a submerged portion of that

_sandy cordon_ which skirts the coast from Montauk Point to Florida; and

although, in the ordinary sense, the lower entrance to the harbor is not

an _inlet_, it may nevertheless be regarded as belonging to the same

class.

This _sandy cordon_, which may be said to be the principal

characteristic of our coast, is an exceedingly interesting feature; it

appears to have been formed by the action of the sea, which has

disintegrated the borders of shallow flats, bearing away the light

vegetable moulds, but suffering the coarse quartz sand to remain rolled

up into ridges. In many places the dry winds have caught up these sands,

when laid bare at low water, and elevated them into dunes or galls.

The distance of the sand ridge from the mainland is observed to vary

with the slope of the adjacent country. It is the _motion of

translation_ which a wave acquires on reaching shallow water, that gives

it such great capacity for the transportation of material.

This _translative action_, as it is technically called, commences

ordinarily in about three fathoms water, and is most violent in six or

eight feet depths, within which the sea breaks. It is just within the

breaker that the windrows of sand are observed to form on exposed flats.

This disposition of the sea to cast up well defined boundaries of sand

along its margin, is so great and persistent, that the inland waters are

dammed up and suffered only to escape into the ocean by narrow avenues,

where their rapid currents maintain a supremacy of power--albeit with

unceasing contest.

Wherever, along our coast, the waves drive _obliquely_ upon the beach, a

movement of the sand takes place, and the inlets are consequently

continually shifting.

The Long Island inlets are moving _westward_, and Sandy Hook advances to

the _northward_, because the sea rolls in along the axis of the great

bay between Long Island and New Jersey, and necessarily sweeps along the

beaches, instead of taking the direction of a _normal_ to the shore

line.

The movement of Sandy Hook to the northward is, however, a problem not

so easily disposed of as we might conceive from the above

considerations; for although, in the most general sense, its existence

must be regarded as the work of the waves, there are other agents

influencing materially its form and its rate of progress. The currents

control, to a very great extent, the final disposition of the sands worn

away or kept in motion by the waves.

Professor Bache's investigations in the neighborhood of Sandy Hook have

been published, and we should not especially refer to them here, except

that the recent physical changes reported by Colonel Delafield to the

Engineer Department, have reawakened an interest in the matter.

The measurements of the Coast Survey, made in 1856 and 1857, showed that

the Hook was being washed away on the east and west shores, but was

extending slowly to the northwest, where it already encroached on the

main ship channel. This order of things has continued up to the present

time, and is now in progress.

The able Superintendent of the fortifications at Sandy Hook has evinced

considerable alarm lest the new fort shall fall a prey to the

encroachments, or be separated from the main body of the beach by

slue-ways. The Coast Surrey has been notified of the matter, and the

assistant to whom I have already referred has visited the Hook, and made

an informal report, which agrees essentially with the statements of

Colonel Delafield. A complete and reliable report can only be made upon

_actual surveys_; and we trust these will be executed, and the

Government placed in possession of the whole truth.

We understand that Colonel Delafield has already, upon a small scale,

made some very successful experiments of curvilineal dikes, constructed

with caissons of concrete; and we have no doubt that, with adequate

means at his disposal, this ingenious engineer could avert the dangers

which threaten, not only the fort, but the noble harbor of New York.

To return to the Physical Survey, and to speak as briefly as we may upon

so extended a subject, we hold that it is possible, by a patient

collection of facts and figures, to determine the natural _scheme_ of

the harbor--we had almost said the _formula of its development_.

It is ascertained that the group of shoals which form the Bar--composed,

as they are, for the most part, of loose and shifting sands--are not

accidental accumulations, modified by violent storms and freshets, but

that they are orderly arrangements, made by the currents, to whose

unceasing activities are due the form and preservation of each bank and

channel. The peculiar contours of the shoals given by our most ancient

charts are still developed by recent surveys, although alterations in

magnitude have taken place. _The order of the physical forces is

unchanged, but their work is still progressing._

Now, since these currents have determinable laws, regulating their

periods, durations, velocities, and directions, it was only necessary to

compile observations, in order to reduce this study to a simple

consideration of the _composition of forces_.

'The process by which sand is swept along by currents upon the bottom of

the sea, is not unlike the motion of dunes upon the land; a ridge of

sand is propagated in the direction of the current by the continual

rolling of the particles from the rear to the front. This movement is

exceedingly slow when compared with that of the current which induces

it, and for this reason a shoal, though traversed by violent tidal

currents, may, as a whole, remain stationary when the alternate drifts

are equal and opposite; for in this case, though the sand upon the

surface is drifted to and fro, it undergoes no more ultimate change of

position than it would if the forces which acted upon it were

simultaneous and in equilibrium.'[9]

Of course, so simple a case as that in which the ebb and flood forces

are equal and opposite, is rarely presented; for at most of the stations

on the Bar the direction of the flow varies from hour to hour, going

quite round the circle in a half-tidal day: the velocities and

directions also vary with the depth. These circumstances complicate the

computation a little, but the problem is still simple and direct.

Everything depends upon the faithfulness of the observations.

The physical diagrams which have been plotted from the results of these

studies may be regarded as decided successes, for they show in most

cases that the shoals lie in the foci or in the equilibrium points of

the observed forces.

The current stations occupied cover a district embracing not only the

immediate vicinity of the shoals, but extending many miles from them in

different directions; for it was deemed necessary that each elementary

force should be separately studied before it reached its working point.

It has been ascertained that among the causes of the different shoal

formations there exists a mutual relation and dependence, so that they

may be regarded as a single physical system. _It will be seen from this

consideration, that any artificial disturbance of the conditions, at a

single point, may interrupt the operations of nature in other localities

more or less remote, or cause general changes in the hydrogaphy of the

harbor._

It is not simply the superficial drift of the tidal and other currents

that these observations comprehend; but, with the use of apparatus

suitably arranged, the movements at all depths have been determined,

with the exact amount of power exerted by streams coursing along the bed

of the sea. The necessity for this minuteness of examination has been

fully shown in some of the curious discoveries that have been made.

In several parts of our harbor, systems of counter-currents have been

detected, occupying strata of water at different depths, and these

present, in their motions, striking contrasts of directions, velocities,

and epochs. The most remarkable exhibition of these sub-currents was

observed in the neighborhood of the city, in the channel between

Governor's and Bedloe's Islands. In this locality, during the last

quarter of the ebb, floating objects drift southward toward the sea,

while the heavier material upon the bottom is borne northward toward the

city piers. While, upon the surface, the ebb exceeds the flood both in

velocity and duration, the motions of the lowest water-stratum are

subject to the reverse conditions: it therefore follows that _the

heavier deposits from the city drainage cannot be swept away through

this the main avenue to the sea_. This contrast of motion between the

upper and lower drifts was observed in greater or less degree throughout

the entire distance from the Bar to a point in the Hudson River off Fort

Washington. These results appear to us of the highest importance, since

they would seem to indicate that the scouring action of the currents

will not be sufficient to prevent the accumulation of certain classes of

deposits in the upper harbor--as the ashes from the steamers, and the

like.

The course of the land waters in their progress seaward was followed

nearly sixty miles beyond the Bar, where currents of considerable

velocity were still observed. At the station farthest seaward, where the

sounding is thirty fathoms, the observations at different depths

disclosed some very remarkable peculiarities. It was perceived that the

moving stratum was not always of the same depth; the whole body of the

sea moving steadily forward at one time, while at another no motion

could be detected below a superficial stream.

The land waters, to which allusion has been made, augment the ebb

current to such a degree, that a general eastwardly preponderance was

observed in the drift along the south shore of Long Island; and this

preponderance, increasing steadily from station to station at each

remove, was found, at a point twenty-five miles east of Fire Island

Light, to outlive the tidal currents and maintain itself as a constant

coastwise stream.

One very curious discovery was made with regard to this stream along

shore. It was ascertained that during easterly gales a portion of the

water, crowded up into the bight of the coast, escapes seaward by a

sub-current. Shells, carefully marked, were deposited in the sea during

fine weather, and, after an easterly gale, were picked up on the shore

of Fire Island, _four miles eastward_ of the place of deposit. There was

no evidence that these shells travelled any distance during still

weather.

We do not despair of the possibility of artificial improvements at the

Long Island inlets.

At present the great inland basins on the southern portion of Long

Island communicate with the sea only by narrow passes obstructed by bars

and shoals; yet, in spite of the dangers which are always presented,

large fleets of market vessels pass out daily through the inlets, laden

with farm produce and shell fish. It requires no thought to perceive

that if these inlets were made safe and permanent by suitable marine

constructions, and were furnished with the proper buoys and beacons,

there would spring up in their neighborhood great commercial

enterprises.

While, in the case of the lower harbor and its approaches, it was the

design of the observations to detect in the movement of the waters the

causes of alterations in the physical geography, the same kind of

studies, undertaken afterward in Hell Gate, had for their object the

reverse inquiry, viz., to ascertain to what degree and in what manner

the form of the rocky channel influenced the tides and currents, in

order that some prediction might be made of the consequences likely to

follow the removal of obstructions from the waterways. The propagations

of the tide wave meet at Hell Gate, so that here the observations, when

plotted, exhibit compound curves, in which the portion due to the wave

from Sandy Hook is easily distinguishable from that due to the wave from

Long Island Sound. The Sandy Hook tide wave differs so widely in height

and time from that of Long Island Sound, that there is over three feet

difference of level between the harbor and the Sound at certain stages

of the tides; and at these times the currents rush through the Gate,

vainly endeavoring to restore the inequalities.

The problem of referring a current to a _tidal head_ is a very difficult

one. The current, for instance, which renders Hell Gate so dangerous, is

not at any time so great as a _permanent head_, equal to the difference

of the tides observed, would engender. The currents are so very slow in

their movements, compared with the undulations of the tide wave, that it

cannot be ascertained as yet, what are the magnitudes of such elements

as _inertia_ and _friction_, and how they are to be corrected for, so as

to predict the time and velocity of the current from observations of the

vertical rise and fall.

It is due to the officers of the Coast Survey to state that their

services to the Harbor Commissioners were rendered gratuitously; the

work offered to them only an opportunity for research.

This Physical Survey must, at the outset, have held out small

inducements to patient labor--the field was so large and ill defined,

and had been so long the region of mere speculation; but the few simple

and useful generalizations it has now grasped should, hereafter, prove

the stepping stones to larger inductions, valuable alike to physical

science and commercial interests.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Report of the Observations for the Completion of the Physical Survey

of New York Bar and Harbor, in pursuance of the Act of the Legislature

of New York, April 17, 1857, and of the authority of the Commissioners

on Harbor Encroachments. By A. D. BACHE, Supt. U.S. Coast Survey.

AN ENGLISHMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

DECEMBER, 1860, AND JULY, 1862.

II.

'Mornin', sa! De Cunnel send dis with his compliments. Merry Christmas,

sa!' Such was the salutation arousing me on the anniversary of the birth

of Him who came on earth to preach the Gospel of love and fraternity to

all men--or the date which pious tradition has arbitrarily assigned to

it. And Pomp appeared by the bedside of the ponderous, old-fashioned

four-poster, in which I had slept, bearing a tumbler containing that

very favorite Southern 'eye-opener,' a mixture of peach brandy and

honey. I sipped, rose, and began dressing. The slave regarded me

wistfully, and repeated his Christmas salutation.

I knew what the poor fellow meant, well enough, and responded with a

gratuity sufficient to make his black face lustrous with pleasure. All

through the South the system of _backsheesh_ is as prevalent as in

Turkey, and with more justification. At the hotels its adoption is

compulsory, if the traveller would shun eyeservice and the most

provoking inattention or neglect. His coffee appears unaccompanied by

milk or sugar, his steak without bread, condiments are inaccessible, and

his sable attendant does the least possible toward deserving that name,

until a semi-weekly quarter or half dollar transforms him from a miracle

of stupidity and awkwardness into your enthusiastic and ever-zealous

retainer. This, however, by the way.

My present had the usual effect; Pompey became approbative and

talkative:

'You come from England, sa?' he asked, looking up from the hearth and

temporarily desisting in his vigorous puffing at the fire he had already

kindled for me to dress by.

'Yes,' I answered.

'Dat a long ways off, sa?'

'Over three thousand miles of salt water, Pompey.'

'Golly! I 'fraid o' dem! didn't tink dere was so much water in de

world!' adding a compliment on the supposed courage involved in crossing

the Atlantic. Negroes have almost no relative ideas of distance or

number beyond a very limited extent; they will say 'a tousan'd,' fifty

or a hundred 'tousand,' with equal inexactitude and fluency. Presently

Pompey began again:

'Many colored people in England, sa?'

'Very few. You might live there a year without meeting one.'

'I'se hear dey's all free--dem what is dar? dat so?' he asked,

curiously.

'Yes; just as they are at the North; only I think they're a little

better treated in England. We don't make any difference between men on

account of their skin. You might marry a white woman there, Pompey, if

you could get her to have you.'

Pompey honored this remark with as much ready negro laughter as he

seemed to think it demanded.

'I'se got a wife already, sa,' he answered. 'But 'pears to me England

must be good country to lib in.'

'Why so?'

'All free dar, sa!'

'Why you'd have to work harder than you do here, and have nobody to take

care of you. The climate wouldn't suit you, either, there's not enough

sunshine. You couldn't have a kinder or a better master than Colonel

----, I'm sure.'

'No, _sa!_' with a good deal of earnestness; 'he fust-rate man, sa, dat

a fac; and Mass' Philip and de young ladies, dey berry good to us.

But--' and the slave hesitated.

'What is it, Pompey? Speak out!'

'Well, den, some day de Cunnel he die, and den trouble come, _suah!_ De

ole plantation be sold, and de hands sold too, or we be divide 'tween

Mass' Phil, Miss Jule, and Miss Emmy. Dey get married, ob course. Some

go one way, some toder, we wid dem--nebber lib together no more. Dat's

what I keep t'inkin ob, sa!'

What answer could be made to this simple statement of one of the dire

contingencies inevitable to slave life? perhaps that most dreaded by the

limited class of well cared-for house servants, of which Pompey was a

good representative. He knew, as well as I, that his poor average of

happiness was fortuitous--that it hinged on the life of his master. At

his death he might become the chattel of any human brute with a white

epidermis and money enough to buy him; might be separated from wife,

children, companions and past associations. Suggesting the practical

wisdom involved in the biblical axiom that sufficient for the day is the

evil thereof, I turned the conversation and presently dismissed him. I

experienced some little difficulty in accomplishing the latter, for he

was both zealous and familiar in my service: indeed, this is one of the

nuisances appertaining to the institution; a pet slave seems hardly to

understand the desire for privacy, and is prone to consider himself

ill-used if you presume to dispense with his attendance. His ideal of a

master is one who needs a great deal of waiting on in trivial,

unlaborious ways, who tolerates all shortcomings and slovenliness, and

bestows liberal gratuities.

Descending to the breakfast parlor, I received and responded to the

appropriate salutations for the day from my host and his family, who had

already recognized it, English fashion, by the interchange of mutual

presents, those of the Colonel to his daughters being jewelry of a

handsome and expensive character. The trinkets were submitted to my

inspection and duly admired.

'I must tell you something about these knick-knacks, Mr. ----,' said the

evidently gratified father. 'You wouldn't suppose, now, that these

mercenary girls actually asked me to give them money instead of

trinkets?'

His tone and looks involved some latent compliment to the young ladies,

and I said as much.

'They wanted to give it to the State, to help arm and equip some of the

military companies. I couldn't let 'em suffer for their patriotism, you

know; so I had to advance the money and buy the trinkets, too; though

I'll do them the justice to say they didn't expect it. Never mind! the

Southern Confederacy and free trade will reimburse me. And now let's

have breakfast.'

The Southern Confederacy and Free Trade! During secession time in

Charleston, there was displayed in front of the closed theatre, a

foolish daub on canvas, depicting crowded wharves, cotton bales,

arriving and departing vessels, and other indications of maritime and

commercial prosperity, surmounted by seven stars, that being the

expected number of seceding States, all presented as a representation of

the good time coming. It remained there for over a month, when one of

those violent storms of wind and rain variegating the humidity of a

South-Carolinian winter tore it to pieces, leaving only the skeleton

framework on which it had been supported. May not this picture and its

end prove symbolical?

'Did you observe that our Charleston ladies dress very plainly, this

season?' continued the Colonel, as we sat at breakfast. 'There are no

silks and satins this Christmas, no balls, no concerts, no marriages. We

are generally economizing for whatever may happen.'

'Why, I thought you didn't expect war?' I answered.

'No more we do; but it's well to be prepared.'

'There's to be no race ball, I understand,' said the lazy gentleman, who

had appeared later than the rest of us, and was having a couple of eggs

'opened' for him into a tumbler, by Pompey. 'The girls will miss that.

Can you tell me how the betting stood between _Albine_ and _Planet_?'

I could not, and observed that the Colonel changed the subject with some

marks of irritation. I learned afterward that his indolent relative had

an incurable passion for betting, and, when carried away by it, was

capable of giving unauthorized notes upon his opulent relative, who paid

them in honor of the family name, but objected to the practice. He

himself affected to discourage betting, though his State pride actually

induced him to risk money on the 'little mare' _Albine_, a

South-Carolina horse, who subsequently and very unexpectedly triumphed

over her Virginian opponent. But this by the way.

Breakfast over and cigars lighted (the Colonel imported his own from

Havana, each one enwrapped in a separate leaf, and especially excellent

in quality), we strolled abroad. The negroes were not at work, of

course; and, early as it was, we found their quarters all alive with

merriment and expectation. Some of the younger men, dressed in their

best clothes--generally suits of plain, substantial homespun, white or

check shirts, and felt hats--went from house to house, wishing the

inmates the compliments of the season, blended with obstreperous,

broad-mouthed laughter; in some instances carrying nosegays, received,

in common with the givers, with immense delight and coquetry on the part

of the females. These wore neatly-made, clean cotton dresses, with

gaily-colored handkerchiefs arranged turban fashion upon their heads.

Many of the old men and not a few of the old women were smoking clay or

corncob pipes; the children laughed, cried, played with each other,

rolled upon the ground, and disported themselves as children, white,

black, or particolored, do all the world over; the occasional twang of a

banjo and a fiddle was heard, and everything looked like enjoyment and

anticipation. Of course, the huts of the future brides constituted the

centre of attraction: from the chattering of tongues within we inferred

that the wedding dresses were exposed for the admiring inspection of the

negro population.

The Colonel had just arrived at the peroration of an eloquent eulogium

of the scene, when the overseer appeared at the end of the avenue of

orange trees, and presently drew rein beside us, his countenance

exhibiting marks of dissatisfaction.

'I've had trouble with them boys over to my place, Colonel,' he said,

briefly, and looking loweringly around, as though he would be disposed

to resent any listening to his report on the part of the negroes.

'Why, what's the matter with them?' asked his employer, hastily.

'Well, it 'pears they got some rotgut--two gallon of it--from somewheres

last night, and of course, all got as drunk as h----, down to the old

shanty behind the gin--they went thar so's I shouldn't suspicion

nothin'. They played cards, and quarrelled and fit, and Hurry's John he

cut Timberlake bad--cut Wilkie, too, 'cross the hand, but ain't hurt him

much!'

'Hurry's John! I always knew that nigger had a d----d ugly temper!' I'll

sell him, by ---- ! I won't have him on the place a week longer. Is

Timberlake badly hurt?'

'He's nigh killed, I reckon. Got a bad stick in the ribs, and a cut in

the shoulder, and one in the face--bled like a hog, he did! Reckon he

may get over it. I've done what I could for him.'

The Colonel's handsome face was inflamed with passion; he strode up and

down, venting imprecations of an intensity only to be achieved by an

enraged Southerner. Presently he stopped and asked abruptly:

'Where did they get the liquor from?'

'I don't know. Most likely from old Whalley, down to the landing. He's

mean enough for anything.'

'If I can prove it on him, I'll run him out of the country!

I'll--I'll--d----n it! I'll shoot him!' And the Colonel continued his

imprecations, this time directing them toward the supposed vender of the

whiskey.

'These men are the curse of the country! the curse of the country!' he

repeated, excitedly; 'these d----d mean, low, thieving, sneaking,

pilfering, poor whites! They teach our negroes to steal, they sell them

liquor, they do everything to corrupt and demoralize them. That's how

they _live_, by ----! The slaves are respectable, compared to them. By

----, they ought to be slaves themselves--only no amount of paddling[10]

would get any work out of their d----d lazy hides! I almost wish we

might have a war with the Yankees: we should get some of 'em killed off,

then!'

How little Colonel ---- thought, as he uttered these words, 'so wicked

and uncivic' (as Gellius says of a similar wish on the part of a Roman

lady, for which she was fined the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds

brass), that in the future lay such dire fulfilment of them! Apropos of

the subject, what fitting tools for the purposes of rebellion have these

hated 'poor whites' proved themselves!--their ignorance, their vices,

their brutality rendering them all the more appropriate instruments for

the work in hand. It would seem, almost, as if a diabolic providence had

prepared them for this very result.

'I must ride over and see about this business at once,' resumed the

Colonel. 'Mr. ----, I can very well suppose you'd rather be spared

accompanying me, so make yourself at home for an hour or two. I won't be

a minute longer than I can help. Perhaps you'd better not mention this

unfortunate affair up at the house until I return; it'll shock the

girls, and I'm very careful to keep all unpleasant things out of their

way. It's the first time such an atrocity has occurred on this

plantation, believe me.'

And, ordering his horse, he rode off with the overseer. I should really

have preferred visiting the scene of the recent tragedy, but my host's

wish to the contrary was evident, and I knew enough of Southern

sensitiveness with respect to the ugly side of their 'institution' to

comply. (I had been advised by a fellow countryman not to attend a slave

sale in Charleston, lest my curiosity might be looked upon as

impertinent, and get me into trouble; but I did it, and, I am bound to

say, without any evil consequences.) So I retraced my steps toward the

house, presently encountering the lazy gentleman, and one in black, who

was introduced to me as the Reverend Mr. ----, an Episcopal clergyman of

Beaufort, also a resident on an adjacent island.

The lazy gentleman inquired after Colonel ----. Judging that my host's

caution, as to secrecy, was only intended to apply to his daughters, I

made no scruple of relating what I had heard. My auditors were at once

more than interested--anxious. Whenever a negro breaks bounds in the

South, everybody is on the alert, a self-constituted detective, judge,

inquisitor, and possible executioner. Eternal vigilance is the price

of--slavery!

'That boy born on the plantation?' asked the clergyman, when the affair

had been discussed at considerable length.

'Yes! He's a valuable hand, too; I've known him pick seven hundred and

fifty pounds of cotton in a day--of course, for a wager.'

'The Colonel will have to sell him, I suppose? he can't keep him after

this.'

'Reckon so, though he hates to part with any of his hands. This trouble

wouldn't have happened, if it hadn't been for the whiskey, I've no

doubt. The rascal who sold it ought to be responsible.'

'Are crimes originating in drunkenness common among the negroes?' I

asked.

'Well, no!' answered the clergyman, deliberately; 'I can't say that. But

most of them will drink, if they get an opportunity--the field hands

especially; and then they're apt to be quarrelsome, and if there's a

knife handy, they'll use it.'

'That's so,' assented the lazy gentleman, nodding. 'You Englishmen and

Yankees--excuse me for coupling you together!--know very little of negro

character; and, because the darkies have a habit of indulging in

unmeaning laughter on all occasions, you think them the best-tempered

people in existence. In reality their tempers are often

execrable--infernal!' And he compacently blew a ring of tobacco-smoke

into the mild, humid morning. The clergyman looked on assentingly.

'They can never be trusted with any responsibility involving the

exercise of authority without abusing it. They ill use animals on all

occasions--treat them with positive brutality, and sometimes whip their

children so unmercifully that we have to interfere. I don't know what

would become of them without us, I'm sure!'

'What do you think of their religious convictions?' I asked of the

clergyman, when the speaker had arrived at his comfortable,

characteristically Southern conclusion.

'Our best negroes are unquestionably pious,' he answered; 'and some of

them have a very earnest sense of their duties as to this life and the

next; but I regret to say that a good deal of what passes for religion

among them is mere exitement, often of a mischievous and sensual

character.'

'Heathenish! quite heathenish!' added the lazy gentleman. 'Did you ever

see a _shout_, Mr. ----?'

I responded in the negative, and inquired what it was.

'Oh, a dance of negro men and women to the accompaniment of their own

voices. It's of no particular figure, and they sing to no particular

tune, improvising both at pleasure, and keeping it up for an hour

together. I'll defy you to look at it without thinking of Ashantee or

Dahomey; it's so suggestive of aboriginal Africa.'

I had an opportunity, subsequently, of witnessing the performance in

question, and can indorse the lazy gentleman's assertion. Inheriting the

saltatory traditions of their barbarous ancestry, the slaves have also a

current fund of superstition, of a simple and curious character. But

further ethical disquisitions were here cut short by the appearance of

the Colonel's daughters, when the conversation was at once changed, as

by tacit consent of all three of us. What their father had told me,

relative to his solicitude to keep them in ignorance of all 'unpleasant

things' accruing from the fundamental institution, was in perfect

accordance with Southern instincts. I had observed similar instances of

habitual caution before, reminding me of the eulogized tendency toward

'Orientalism' alluded to in the previous chapter. And, of all people,

South-Carolinians possess the equally rare and admirable faculty of

holding their tongues, when there is occasion for it.

We joined the ladies in a walk. As the elder had much to say to the

clergyman about mutual acquaintances, while her fat relative strolled

carelessly by her side, her sister naturally fell to my companionship.

With a rather handsome and intelligent girl I should have preferred to

converse on general topics than the one with which I had been already

nauseated at Charleston--secession; but she was full of it, and would

not be evaded. Very soon she asked me what I supposed would be the

sentiment in England toward the seceding States, in the assumed event of

their forming a confederacy.

I told her, as I then believed, that it would be adverse, in consequence

of the national hostility to slavery, appealing to her own British

experience for confirmation.

'Yes,' she said, 'they were all abolitionists in England, and could

hardly credit us when we told them that _we_ owned negroes. They thought

all Southerners must be like Legree in _Uncle Tom's Cabin_! But papa,

who went to the club houses, and mixed with the aristocracy, says that

_they_ are much better informed about us; that they were opposed to

emancipation in the West Indies, and have always regarded it as a great

mistake. And England must have cotton, you know.'

'If there's a war between the North and South, won't you find it very

difficult to retain your negroes?' I asked, waiving the immediate

question.

Miss ---- responded by the usual assertion of the fidelity of the slaves

to their owners.

'What if the new Government resorts to emancipation as a weapon against

you?' I made this inquiry, thinking it possible that this might be done

_at the outset_. Like other foreigners, though familiar with the North,

I had not supposed that nearly two years of civil war, with its

inevitable expenditure of blood and treasure, would be needed to induce

this direct and obvious means of subduing a rebellion. Englishmen, it is

known, have ferocious ideas on the subject, as witness India.

'If the slaves rose, we should kill them like so many snakes!' was the

answer. And the young lady's voice and flashing eyes showed that she was

in earnest.

* * * * *

Our promenade lasted until the return of the Colonel, who presently took

a private opportunity of informing me that the wounded slave would

probably survive, and that he had sent for a surgeon from an adjoining

plantation, expressing some apprehension that delay or indifference on

his part might involve fatal consequences.

'It's Christmas time, you see, and perhaps he won't care about coming,'

said my host. I may add that his anticipation was in part verified by

the result, 'the doctor' not appearing till the following morning.

Thanks, however, to a rough knowledge of surgery on the part of the

overseer, aided by the excellence of his constitution, 'Timberlake'

recovered. I will mention here, in dismissing the subject, that 'Hurry's

John' was subsequently sold to a Louisiana sugar-planter, a fate only

less terrible to a negro than his exportation to Texas.

Within an hour of our return to the house, we partook of an excellent

and luxurious Christmas dinner, to which birds of the air, beasts of the

earth, and fish of the sea had afforded tribute, and the best of

European wines served as an appropriate accompaniment. The meal was, I

think, served earlier than usual, that we might attend the event of the

day, the negro weddings.

These were solemnized at a little private church, in the rear of which

was absolutely the most enormous live-oak I had ever seen, its branches,

fringed with pendent moss, literally covering the small churchyard,

where, perhaps, a dozen of the ---- family lie buried--a few tombstones,

half hidden by the refuse of the luxuriant vegetation, marking their

places of sepulture. The plain interior of the building had been

decorated with evergreens in honor of the time and the occasion, under

the tasteful direction of the young ladies, who had also contrived to

furnish white dresses and bouquets for the brides. These, duly escorted

by their future husbands, clad in their best, and looking alternate

happiness and sheepishness, had preceded us by a few minutes, and were

waiting our arrival, while all around beamed black faces full of

expectation and interest.

We walked through a lane of sable humanity--for the church was too small

to contain a fourth of the assembled negroes--to the little altar,

before which the six couples were presently posed by the clergyman, in

front of us and himself. That done to everybody's satisfaction, the

Colonel stationed to give away the brides--an arrangement that caused a

visible flutter of delight among them--and as many lookers-on

accommodated within the building as could crowd in, the ceremony was

proceeded with, the clergyman using an abbreviated form of the Episcopal

service, reading it but once, but demanding separate responses. I

noticed that he omitted the words 'until death do ye part,' and I

thought that omission suggestive.

The persons directly concerned behaved with as much propriety as if they

had possessed the whitest of cuticles, being quiet, serious, and

attentive; nor did I detect anything indecorous on the part of the

spectators, beyond an occasional smile or whisper by the younger

negroes, whose soft-skinned, dusky faces and white eyeballs glanced

upward at the six couples with admiring curiosity, and at us, visitors,

with that appealing glance peculiar to the negro--always, to my

thinking, irresistibly touching, and suggestive of dependence on,

humility toward, and entreaty for merciful consideration at the hands of

a superior race. Perhaps, however, the old folks enjoyed the occasion

most, particularly the negresses: one wrinkled crone, of at least

fourscore years, her head bound in, the usual gaudy handkerchief, and

her hands resting on a staff or crutch, went off into a downright

chuckle of irrepressible exultation after the closing benediction,

echoed more openly by the crowd of colored people peeping in at the

doors and windows.

The ceremony over, the concourse adjourned to a large frame building,

part shed, part cotton-house, ordinarily used for storing the staple

plant of South Carolina, before ginning and pressing. The Colonel had

sent his year's crop to Charleston, and the vacant space was now

occupied by a triple row of tables, set out with plates, knives and

forks, and drinking utensils. Here, the newly married couples being

inducted into the uppermost seats, as places of honor, and the rest of

the company accommodated as well as could be effected, a substantial

dinner was served, and partaken of with a gusto and appreciation only

conceivable in those to whom such an indulgence is exceptional, coming,

like the occasion, but once in a year. Upward of a hundred and fifty

persons sat down to it, exclusive of those temporarily detailed as

waiters, who presently found leisure to minister to their own appetites.

Their owner surveyed the scene with an air of gratification, in which I

could not detect a trace of his recent serious discomposure. I am well

persuaded, however, that he had not forgotten it, as that the cause of

it was known among the negroes; I thought I observed evidences of it in

their looks and deportment, even amid the general hilarity.

The ladies had returned to the house, and we were about following them,

when the clatter of a horse's hoofs was heard without, and the officious

voices of the negroes announced the arrival of a visitor or messenger

for the Colonel, who stepped forward to meet him. A young man, clad in a

coarse homespun gray uniform, scantily trimmed with red worsted, and a

French military cap, alighted, and addressed our friend in a faltering,

hesitating manner, as though communicating some disastrous intelligence.

I saw the Colonel turn pale, and put his hand to his head as if he had

received a stunning blow. Instinctively the three of us rushed toward

him.

'My God! what's the matter? what has happened, ----?' inquired the

clergyman.

'Philip! Philip! my boy's dead--shot himself by accident!' was the

answer.

A very few words explained all, The young volunteer had fallen a victim

to one of those common instances of carelessness in playing with loaded

firearms. While frolicking with a comrade, at his barracks, he had taken

up his revolver, jestingly threatening to shoot. The other, grasping the

barrel of the cocked pistol, in turning it round, had caused its

discharge, the bullet penetrating the breast of the unfortunate owner of

the weapon. Conveyed to the hospital, he had died within an hour after

his arrival.

* * * * *

Our holiday-making, of course, came to a sudden termination. Next day I

accompanied the Colonel to Charleston, to claim the body of his deceased

son, and not long afterward parted with him, on my return to the North.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] The paddle has superseded the cowhide in all jails, workhouses, and

places of punishment in South Carolina, as being more effective--that is

painful. In some instances it is used on the plantations. It consists of

a wooden instrument, shaped like a baker's peel, with a blade from three

to five inches wide, and from eight to ten long. There are commonly

holes in the blade, which give the application a percussive effect. In

Charleston this punishment is generally administered at the guardhouse

by the police, who are all Irishmen. Any offended master or mistress

sends a slave to the place of chastisement with a note, stating the

desired amount, which is duly honored. Like institutions breed like

results all over the world: in Sala's 'Journey Due North' we find the

same system in operation in Russia.

PEN, PALLET, AND PIANO.

With the roar of cannon and tramp of armed men resounding through the

land, and the fair young face of the Republic disfigured to our eyes by

the deep furrows of war, it is pleasant to know that in certain nooks

and corners, gentler sounds of harmony still linger, and that ateliers

exist where men's fancies grow on canvas from day to day into soothing

visions of loveliness.

The scarlet-and-gold and general paraphernalia of war are too tempting

to pallet and brush, not to be seized on with avidity and reproduced

with marvellous truth; but it is more agreeable to pass over accurate

representations of the Irish zouave, with Celtic features, not purely

classical in outline, glowing defiantly under the red cap of the Arab,

and Teutonic cavalrymen, clinging clumsily to their steeds, and turn for

solace to the grand, solemn Shores of Niagara, to wander amid the

tangled luxuriance of the Heart of the Andes, or to bask in the sweet

silence of Twilight in the Wilderness. There are Icebergs too, floating

in the Arctic Sea, frozen white and mute with horror at the dread

secrets of ages; but, responsive to the versatile talent of the hand

that creates them, they glow with prismatic light of many colors. Mr.

Church irradiates the frozen regions with the coruscations of his own

genius, bringing to these lonely, despairing masses of ice the

revivifying hope and promise of warmer climates.

In pondering over the sad mystery of these Icebergs, we float down again

to Tropical Seas and Islands; and as we linger under the shade of palm

and banana tree, the rude chant of the negro strikes the ear in the

grotesque and characteristic framework of the '_Bananier_,' the

plaintive melody of '_La Savane_' sighs past on the evening breeze,

Spanish eyes flash out temptingly from the enticing cadence of the

'_Ojos Criollos_,' and Spanish guitars tinkle in the soft moonlight of

the '_Minuit a Seville,_' and Tropical life awakes to melody under the

touch of the Creole poet of the piano, Mr. Gottschalk.

There are many beings, otherwise estimable, to whom the Tropical sense

is wanting; who are ever suspicious of malaria lurking under the rich,

glossy leaves of the orange groves; who look with disgust and loathing

at the exaggerated proportions and venomous nature of all creeping

things; who find the succulence of the fruit unpleasant to the taste,

and the flowers, though fair to the eye, deadly as the upas tree to all

other sense;--for whom it is no compensation to feel, with the first

breath of morning air, the dull, leaden weight of life lifted, or no

happiness to watch the sea heaving and palpitating with delight under

the rays of the noon-day sun, and to know that the stars at night droop

down lovingly and confidingly to the embrace of warm Tropical earth.

With an insensibility to these influences, there can be but little

sympathy or appreciation of the works of Mr. Gottschalk; for all that is

born of the Tropics partakes of its beauties and its defects, its

passionate languor, its useless profusion and its poetic tenderness. And

where else in the United States, can we look for a spontaneous gush of

melody? Plymouth Rock and its surroundings have not hitherto seemed

favorable to the growth and manifestation of musical genius; for the old

Puritan element, in its savage intent to annihilate the aesthetic part of

man's nature, under the deadening dominion of its own Blue Laws, and to

crush out whatever of noble inspiration had been vouchsafed to man by

his Creator, rarely sought relief in outbursts of song.

Psalmody appears to have been the chief source of musical indulgence,

and for many a long, weary year, hymns of praise, nasal in tone and

dismal in tendency, have ascended from our prim forefathers to the

throne of grace on high.

Such depressing musical antecedents have not prepared New England for

greater efforts of melody than are to be found in the simple ballads

supposed to originate with the plantation negro, who, in addition to his

other burdens, is thus chosen to assume the onerous one of Northern

song, as being the only creature frivolous enough to indulge in vain

carolling. If we can scarcely affirm that the Americans are yet a

musical people, that they would be is an undeniable fact, and one

constantly evinced in their lavish support of artists, from the highest

to the lowest grade. Among the musical aspirants to popular favor, none

has of late enjoyed so large a share of notice and admiration as Mr.

Gottschalk; and to return from our recent digression, we will proceed to

the consideration of his compositions. Fragmentary and suggestive as are

his ideas, there is infinite method and system in their treatment.

Avoiding thus far what is termed '_sustained effort_,' and which

frequently implies the same demands on the patience of the listener as

on the creative power of the composer, Mr. Gottschalk's compositions

contain just so much of the true poetic vein as can be successfully

digested and enjoyed in a piano piece of moderate length. With the power

to conceive, and the will and discipline of mind to execute, there is no

reason why, with perhaps a diminished tendency to fritter away positive

excellence at the shrine of effect, enduring proofs of the genius of our

American pianist should not be given to the world.

As a mere player, the popularity of Mr. Gottschalk with the uninitiated

masses is due, in a great measure, to his tact in discerning the

American craving for novelty and sensation, and to his native

originality and brilliancy, which allow him to respond so fully to these

exigencies of public taste, as to possess on all occasions the keynote

to applause. The faculty of never degenerating into dulness, the rock on

which most pianists are wrecked in early youth, is another just cause

for insuring to our compatriot the preeminence which he enjoys. Viewed

from a critical point, the mechanical endowments and acquirements of

Gottschalk are such as to enable him to subject his playing to the test

of keenest analysis without detriment to his reputation. For clearness

and limpidity of touch and unerring precision, for impetuosity of style,

combined with dreamy delicacy, he has few rivals. The evenness and

brilliancy of his trill are unequalled, the mechanical process required

to produce it being lost to sight in the wonderful birdlike nature of

the effect. In the playing of classical music, Mr. Gottschalk has to

contend against his own individuality. This individuality, naturally

intense and of a kind calculated to meet with public favor, has been

cultivated and indulged in to such an extent as to prove an occasional

obstacle to the exclusive absorption and utter identification with the

ideas of another composer that classical music demands. In the mere

matter of execution there is no difficulty which the fingers of this

skilful pianist cannot overcome, and his intellectual grasp of a subject

enables him to discern and interpret the beauties of all musical themes;

but where an earnest, passionate interest in the music of the old

masters is not felt by the performer, it is rarely communicated to his

hearers.

The world of letters, however, has not seemingly regretted the inability

of Byron to trammel his muse with the uncongenial fetters of Pope's

metre, and has certainly never quarrelled with Tom Moore for not

assuming the manners and diction of the revered Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

With due allowance for difference of latitude, and wide difference of

aim and pursuit, the contemplation of the Master of Creole Melody

recalls to us a genius which found utterance in song none the less

melodious that it was written, not sung. The 'ashen sky' and 'crisped,

sere leaves of the lonesome October,' so thrillingly pictured by Edgar

Poe in his 'Ulalume,' find echo in the foreboding sadness of the opening

bars to Gottschalk's 'Last Hope;' and as both poems grow in vague,

dreamy sound, they culminate in a cry of smothered despair at the tomb

where all hopes lie buried with the lost Ulalume. The same weird

conception and eccentricity of design, with knowledge of rhythmical

effect and extreme carefulness of finish, are prominent traits of both

artists; and the American disregard of tradition, as evinced in all

enterprises, whether literary, artistic, or commercial, and which

readily infects the simple sojourner among us as well as the happy being

born to republican privileges, marks alike the nationality of poet and

pianist.

Edgar Poe's literary reputation undoubtedly gains additional lustre as

the lapse of years permits the veil of obscurity to fall over the

personal vices and irregularities which so tarnished the living fame of

this great artist. Genius draws around itself a magical circle,

attracting and keeping by the force of its own magnetism those whom it

values, but at the same time exercising an equally repellent effect on

the envious and ignorant wandering beyond the pale of its charmed

precincts. Hence the difficulty of judging it by contemporaneous

standards. The Hyperion head of Poe was lost to the view of many by a

too persistent search for the satyr's cloven foot. In considering the

poet's eccentricities, in common with other extraordinary and anomalous

beings, it must be deeply deplored that one so endowed with wealth of

intellect beyond his fellow men, should be still so poor in moral store

that the dullest of them could dare look with disdain on this heir to

gifts regal and sacred.

He could forget his deep, earnest love of order in things intellectual,

in every excess of disorder in things material, and his passionate love

of the beautiful could be profaned by frequent grovelling amid the

hideous deformities of vice. Poe, in his reverence for Art (his only

reverence), seemed generally to set greater store on the elaborate and

artistic perfection of his works, than in the spontaneity of genius

therein displayed. So it would seem, at least, in his voluntarily

exposing the skeleton design of his greatest poem, 'The Raven,' and the

various processes by which this grand shadow attained its final

harmonious and terrible proportions. This may be a noble sacrifice to

the principles of Art, intended as a warning to rash novices against the

sin of slovenliness in composition; but the poem must be of solid fibre

to resist this disenchanting test. The unveiling of hidden mysteries,

the disclosure of trap doors, ropes, and pulleys, may assist in the

general dissemination of knowledge; but in behalf of those who prefer to

be ignorant that they may be happy, we protest against the innovation.

In this dangerous experiment of Poe's, however, we are forced to do what

he would have us do--admire the ingenuity of the poet, together with his

knowledge of effect, rhythmical and dramatic, his flexibility and

strength of versification, and marvellous faculty of word painting. This

propensity to make all things subservient to the advancement of Art is

not always productive of present good to one's fellow beings, whatever

may be the results to posterity, as the luckless women who cross the

path of such men cannot unfrequently testify--oftentimes assiduously

wooed, won, and lightly discarded, to furnish an artistic study of the

female capacity for suffering, as well as to supply renewed inspiration

for further poetic bemoanings. In the prose narrations of Edgar Poe, the

same skilful handling of mystery, and the turning to account of any

incident susceptible of dramatic effect, are always apparent as in his

poems. But the want of extended sympathy with mankind, the artist

egotism, which looks inwardly for all material, and in truth scorns the

approval of the masses, must naturally fail to secure the interest of a

large class of readers. His compositions, on the contrary, which give

full scope to his keen, subtle powers of analysis, and vigorous handling

of the subject in question, are more widely understood and appreciated.

Since the days when Poe dealt with contemporaneous literature, and

literary men, in not the most temperate mood of criticism, poetic fire

in America, with few exceptions, seems to have sunk into a dead,

smouldering condition, and to have yielded to its sister art of painting

the task of grappling with the New-World monster of utilitarianism and

practical reform. The demands for indigenous painters in America being

constantly greater, the result is necessarily a vast increase and

improvement in this branch of Art.

New England, on whose barren musical soil we have already descanted, and

who has not hitherto disputed to the Old World her privilege of pouring

out on our untutored continent the accumulated wealth of years of

musical study and training, has at last gone far to redeem her

reputation of artistic nullity, by producing the greatest landscape

painter of which the country can boast. With us, the superiority of

atmospheric effects over most countries, and the great variety and

originality of American scenery, have united in bringing the landscape

painter into existence, and the public have assured this existence by

fostering applause and pecuniary compensation. Nature, thus prodigal of

gifts to America, has, in a crowning act of munificence, conferred also

a painter, capable of interpreting her own most recondite mysteries, and

of faithfully transcribing the beauties revealed to all eyes in their

simple majesty.

Immensity of theme possesses no terrors for Mr. Church's essentially

American genius; his facile brush recoils not before the gigantic

natural elements of his own land, but deals as readily and composedly

with the unapproachable sublimity of Niagara and the terrible beauty of

icebergs as with the peace of simple woodland scenes and the glowing

sentiment of the tropics. To tread the beaten path of landscape

painting, and offer to the public a tame transcript of the glories he

has beheld, is repugnant to the creative power of this true artist; but

when form, color, and the legitimate means at his command fail to embody

all he would express, his suggestive faculty is generally of force

sufficient to reach all beholders, even those of feeblest imagination.

In standing before the _Falls of Niagara_, one can, in fancy, feel the

cool moisture of spray, rising, incense-like, through a rainbow of

promise, from the inspired canvas, together with the earth's tremor at

the roar of mad waters rushing headlong to a desperate death. This

inestimable quality of suggestiveness is preserved in Mr. Church's

pictures when deprived of the aid of color and reduced to mere black and

white in engraving, a fact bearing equally conclusive testimony to their

inherent correctness of lines and elegance of composition.

Mr. Church's prominent characteristics of hardy vigor and adventurous

treatment of a subject, seem to have monopolized his artistic nature, to

the frequent exclusion of tenderness, either in idea or in the handling

of color. The painting, in our eyes, least open to this objection, is

_Twilight in the Wilderness_--a dreamy picture of inexpressible sadness,

of a tearful silence that is felt, and of a loneliness too sacred to be

profaned by human intrusion. The gorgeous panorama of the _Heart of the

Andes_, its snowy mountain peaks, and plains glowing with tropical

verdure, is too bewildering in its complicated grandeur to excite dreams

of beauty so tender and sadness so touching.

In contemplating this last-named picture, the demands on the attention

are so numerous and weighty,--in the first place, to comprehend the

situation, and exchange at a moment's notice the stagnation of the

temperate zone for the emotional excitement of the tropics; then to

separate and classify the many points of beauty, to rise to the summits

of distant mountains, sublime in their snowy crests, and sink again to

earth at the foot of the rustic cross, by whose aid we may one day rise

to sink no more,--to follow the painter successfully through this maze

of thoughts, without the guiding light of his own matchless color, would

seem a difficult and displeasing task. But the task has been

accomplished with complete success, in an English line engraving of the

_Heart of the Andes_, recently arrived in this country; which indication

of popularity abroad conduces materially to the ever-growing fame of the

artist. The same test, we believe, is in store for the _Icebergs_--with

what result, time will show. Meanwhile, the picture itself will, on

foreign soil, plead the cause of American civilization, and tend to

assure those who look with dismay at the tumultuous upheavings of

freedom's home, that imperishable Art still maintains her placid sway in

this distracted land, and that her votaries falter not in their

allegiance.

Volcanoes pour out fiery lava under the red glare of the setting sun,

obedient to Church's magic touch--delicate fancies are weaved into

poetic life by the fingers of Gottschalk--but the voice of Poe, alas! is

mute forever. The 'Lost Lenore,' found too late, may have inspired a

song far beyond the dull range of human comprehension, but poor mortals

left below, can only echo, with the grim and ghastly raven: _Nevermore!

Nevermore!_

LITERARY NOTICES

THE SLAVE POWER; ITS CHARACTER, CAREER, AND PROBABLE DESIGNS: BEING

AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE REAL ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE AMERICAN

CONTEST. By J. E. CAIRNES, M.A., Professor of Jurisprudence and

Political Economy in Queen's College, Galway, and late Whately

Professor in the University of Dublin. Second edition. New York:

Carleton, 413 Broadway. London: Parker and Son & Co.

It is to be sincerely hoped that the American public, in its detestation

of the ungenerous, narrow-minded, and inconsistent conduct of the

majority of Englishmen toward the Federal Union since the present war

began, will not lose sight of the fact that, here and there in Great

Britain, men of superior intelligence and information have labored

strenuously to make the truth known, and to vindicate our cause. Amid a

mob of ignorant and furious foes of freedom, France has seen a Gasparin

rise calm and great in superior knowledge, declaring incontrovertible

truths; and in like manner, the English press has given the views of

Stewart Mill and Professor Cairnes to their public, at a time when it

seemed as if falsehood had completely triumphed. In 'The Slave Power,'

the latest work by this last-named writer, we have indeed such a

searching analysis of the present American crisis, and find the history

of the entire difficulty set forth so fully, yet with such remarkable

conciseness, that we cannot suppress a feeling of astonishment that a

country which has slandered us so cruelly should, at the same time, have

given to the world by far the best vindication of our cause which has as

yet appeared. For it is no undue praise to say, that in this book we

have the completest defence of the Federal cause and the most effective

onslaught on the Slave Power which any writer has thus far placed on

record; and we cordially agree with the vigorous reviewer of the

_Westminster_, in believing that a work more needed could scarcely have

been produced at the present time, 'since,' as he adds, 'it contains

more than enough to give a new turn to English feeling on the subject,

if those who guide and sway public opinion were ever likely to

reconsider a question on which they have so deeply committed

themselves.'

'The Slave Power,' it is true, contains little which has not, at one

time or another, been brought before the mind of the well-informed

American republican; yet it is precisely in this that its chief merit

consists, since it is not by idle oratory and fine writing, but by

_facts_ and the plain truth, that we can be best vindicated. Englishmen

are grossly ignorant of the true causes of this struggle, or of the

principles involved--a matter little to be marvelled at, when we find

almost a majority of professed Federal Americans, under the name of

Democrats, cheerfully admitting that their confederate foes are quite in

the right as far as the _main_ cause of the difficulty is concerned. For

all such men, a clear exposition of facts, logically set forth, cannot

be other than a real blessing; since their amiability to the South, when

not based on traitorous and selfish interests, means simply nothing more

nor less than ignorance--and that of a kind which is little less than

criminal, let the guilt rest where it may.

Professor Cairnes begins judiciously by showing that in the beginning it

was believed, not without very apparent cause, in England, that our war

'sprang from narrow and selfish views of sectional interests,' in which

the free-trading South was in the right, and that the abolition of

slavery was a mere pretence by which the North sought, without a color

of truth, to attract foreign sympathy. And when we remember for how long

a time slaves were returned by Federal officers to their owners, and how

persistently anything like abolition, or even the most moderate

emancipation, was earnestly and practically disowned by the Federal

power, it is not wonderful, as Mr. Cairnes declares, that England should

have regarded our claim to be fighting for the cause of free labor as a

shallow deceit. Even as we write, we have before us a journal containing

an allusion to an officer who attempted to return to slavery a

contraband who had brought to him information of the greatest

importance. Yet, despite the frightful appearances against us, our

writer saw, through all, the truth, and declared that, as regarded the

popular British abuse of this country, 'never was an explanation of a

political catastrophe propounded, in more daring defiance of all the

great and cardinal realities of the case with which it professed to

deal.'

Slavery is the cause and core of our national difficulty. Secession and

Southern Rights have flourished in strength in exact ratio to the number

of slaves in the States--nay, in the very counties in which slaves

abounded. Slavery early developed a sectional class of politicians

devoted to one object, who, by the sheer force of intense, unscrupulous

application, from the year 1819 down to 1860, swayed our councils, gave

an infamous character to American diplomacy, and stained our national

character. They are called the Free Trade Party: why was it, then, that

they never employed their power to accomplish that object, 'or how does

it happen that, having submitted to the tariffs of 1832, 1842, and 1846,

it should have resorted to the extreme measure of secession while under

the tariff of 1857--a comparatively Free Trade law'? 'From 1842 down to

1860, the tendency of Federal legislation was distinctly in the

direction of Free Trade.' 'If Free Trade was their main object, why did

the Southern senators withdraw from their posts precisely at the time

when their presence was most required to secure their cherished

principle?' Or why did they not apply to their supple and infamous tool,

Buchanan, to veto the bill? _Because they wished it to pass_--to make

political capital against the North in England; and they accordingly

aided its passage, Mr. Toombs being in the Senate, and actually voting

for it! Or if it was a Free Trade question, why was it that the Western

States did not take part with them?

The North, however, did not take up arms to destroy slavery, but the

Right of Secession, since that was the irritating _point d'honneur_,

and, what was more, the real first cause of injury which at first

presented itself. Mr. Lincoln had cause to know that in the beginning,

even in the South itself, secession was only the work of a turbulent

minority. 'To have yielded would have been to have written himself down

before the world as incompetent--nay, as a traitor to the cause which he

had just sworn to defend.' In short, we were misunderstood--painfully

so--and it is not a matter of indifference to learn that at last there

is a reaction of intelligence in our favor, and that light is breaking

through the bewildering mists which once veiled the truth.

In discussing 'the economic basis of slavery,' Professor Cairnes deals

out truths with a prompt vigor which is truly admirable. From Stirling,

Olmsted, Sewell, and others, he disposes of the old falsehood that only

the negro can endure the Southern climate--a fact but recently

_generally_ made known at the North--that isothermal lines do not follow

the parallels of latitude--and that it is a gross error to believe the

black incapable of improvement as a freeman. He admits that slave labor

has its advantages, in being absolutely controllable, and in returning

the whole fruit of its labor to the owner. It may, therefore, be

combined on an extensive scale, and its cost is trifling. But, on the

other hand, slave labor is given reluctantly, and is consequently a

losing means, unless much of it can be concentrated under the eye of one

overseer. It is unskillful, because the slave cannot be educated; and,

therefore, having once learned one thing, he must be kept at that for

life.

The result of this is that, as the slave, unlike the free farm-laborer,

cannot (with rare exceptions) be profitably employed at aught save

agriculture, and indeed only at one branch of that, he soon exhausts the

soil. If all the blacks in the South were capable of laboring at

rotation of crops, they would soon be free. Slavery has always of itself

died out in the wheat and corn regions--because, in raising cereals,

labor is more widely dispersed than in cotton or tobacco planting, and

the workers are more difficult to oversee. Hence the constant

immigration from the wornout to the new plantation, and the cry for new

land; and hence the admission, by the most intelligent men of the South,

that to prevent the extension of slavery would be to destroy it. Free

labor flourishes even on barren soils--ingenuity is stimulated and

science developed. But slave labor requires abundance of fertile soil

and a branch of culture demanding combination and organization of large

masses of labor and its _concentration_.

Yet, in spite of these facts, a writer in the London _Saturday Review_

informs the English public that the rapid deterioration of the soil

under slave labor is a popular fallacy! Could the gentleman who gives

this information so glibly, examine, we do not say Virginia, but simply

that lower county of Delaware which has adhered somewhat to the old

Southern slave system, in contradistinction to its two sisters, he might

have distinctly ascertained if the exhaustion of soil by slave labor be

a fallacy. Again, if the profits of slavery be only for the master, it

may be true that the same process which enriches him impoverishes the

country at large; and this is really the case through all the South.

Free labor shuns slave society: a few Northern men may here and there

live in the South, but as a rule the negro makes the poor white meaner

than himself. It is true that free white labor in new lands is very

exhaustive--but in time it takes them up again and restores them: this

the negro never does, and never can do.

The tendencies of slavery to render the white man insolent, arrogant,

and oligarchical, are well pointed out by Professor Cairnes, and with

them the evil tendencies of slave societies. It makes bad white men, and

intolerable political neighbors. In the ancient world, slaves were

constantly being educated, freed, and made equal to their masters; but

in the confederacy, everything is done to crush them lower and lower;

and in these facts lie _perdu_ the future further degradation of every

poor white in the South, the constant increase of power and capital in

the hands of a few, and the diminution in number even of these few.

The fact that Virginians breed slaves expressly for sale is well exposed

in this book. Our author is kind enough to believe that they never raise

a single negro for the _express purpose_ of selling him or her; but we,

who live nearer the 'sacred soil,' know better. It is not many days

since a farmer in our present immediate vicinity, on the Southern

Pennsylvania line, found himself obliged to dismiss a fine six-foot

negro runaway from Virginia, whom he had hired, on account of the entire

inability of the contraband to do the simplest farm tasks. 'What _is_

the reason you can't stand work?' inquired the amazed farmer. 'Why,

mass', to tell de trufe, I wasn't brought up to wuck (work), but to

_sell_. If I'd been wucked too hard, it ud a spiled my looks fo' de

markit.' Professor Cairnes may accept the sorrowful assurances of more

than one person, who has been taken frequently enough into the councils

of 'the enemy' in bygone times (_crede experto Ruperto_), that slaves

_are_ begotten, born, bred, and raised for the Southern market--as much

so as any pigs--and that, too, by eminently aristocratic and highly

refined scions of first families. Now that we can and dare speak the

truth, it is not amiss to do so. We recall the day when to have taken

part in the charge of the Six Hundred would have been a trifle of

bravery compared to making the above truthful statement--for any one who

valued social standing, or indeed a whole skin--on the border. Whether

their own children were sold may be imagined from an anecdote long

current in Virginia, relative to ex-Governor Wise, who, in a certain law

case where he was opposed by a Northern trader, decided of a certain

slave, that the chattel, being a mulatto, was of more value than 'a

molangeon.' 'And what, in the name of God, _is_ a molungeon?' inquired

the astonished 'Northern man.' 'A _mulatto_,' replied Wise, is the child

of a female house-servant by young master'--a molungeon is the offspring

of a field hand by a Yankee peddler.'

Mr. Cairnes has, we doubt not, often heard of mulattoes--they constitute

the great majority of Virginia slaves. But did he ever hear of

'molungeons'?

Mr. Cairnes justly denies the common theory that the South has

maintained paramount political sway in the Union by a superior capacity

for politics. He declares that men whose interests and ideas are

concentrated in a very narrow range, on one object, have vast advantage

over their intellectual superiors, when the latter pursue no such single

course. He might have added that the young Southern gentleman, when not

intended for a physician, almost invariably devotes to mere provincial

politics and the arts of declamation and debate, all of those

intellectual energies which the Northerner applies to business, art,

commerce, literature, and other solidly useful occupations. If the

Southerner has an inborn superior _talent_ for politics, why is it that,

as in the case of British or French statesmen, he never develops the

slightest talent for _literature_? So notoriously is this the case, that

even the first writers of the South, especially for the press, are

generally broken-down Northern literary hacks, or miserable Irish and

English refugees. Mr. Cairnes quotes De Bow's _Review_. He might be

amazed, could he examine a number of that remarkable periodical, at the

quality of the English written by some of the most eminent philosophers,

patriots, and politicians of the confederacy!

The history of the Slave Power, as set forth in Louisiana, Missouri and

its Compromise, the Mexican war, Kansas, the rise of the Republican

Party, the Dred Scott decision, the attempt of John Brown, and

secession, are given in a masterly manner in this work, and with a

miraculous appreciation of truths. Not less vigorous and shrewd is the

chapter devoted to the designs of the Slave Power, in which the future

capacity of that power to do illimitable mischief is set forth in a

manner which will be new even to the great mass of American Republican

readers. If we differ with him in his 'Conclusion,' it is that we may be

consistent to his earlier position. We do not agree with him when he

advocates the giving permission to the South to secede with the

Mississippi as their western boundary. Penned up by North and West, and

with their ports occupied by us, the South would soon decay. But we

rather believe the North, brought to the tremendous trial of a test

between aristocracy and republicanism, will yet conquer by destroying

slavery and giving the poor whites of the South their rights. But we

cannot conclude without expressing the earnest hope that this book will

be read, and that thoroughly, by every intelligent American. There is at

present a reaction rapidly forming in England in favor of the Federal

cause, and we foresee that this extraordinary work--the best summary in

existence of our principles, and the most overwhelming stylus-stroke

which slavery has ever received--is destined to be of incalculable

service to the great cause. Let it circulate by the hundred

thousand!--and do you, dear reader, do your part by perusing it, and

making its merits known to all. In connection with it, we commend the

review in the _Westminster_ already referred to. It is pleasant to

realize that we have friends among enemies. Let us hope that when

brighter days come, our Government and our people will not be unmindful

of those who defended us in the days of darkness and dole. We owe a

great debt of gratitude to such men as Professor Cairnes, and must not

be slack in paying it.

LES MISERABLES. No. IV. _St. Denis._ By VICTOR HUGO. New York:

Carleton.

A great improvement on the preceding miserable trio, yet still far from

fulfilling the extravagant assertions as to its merit with which the

press has been deluged. We see in this novel, historic pictures, not

without accuracy, details of life which are true enough, and, we might

add, familiar enough, from a thousand _feuilletons_, but we find no

PURPOSE, corresponding to the expectations excited. We have every

variety of miserable wretch imaginable paraded before us, without a hint

of any means of curing their social disease. 'There is a hammer for

tearing down, but no trowel for building up,' beyond a little empty talk

on the benefits to be derived from education. The truth is that Victor

Hugo writes, like too many of his nation, simply for sensation and

effect. The fault to be found with this series is, that, like Jack

Sheppard, it degrades the taste and blunts the feelings--in a word, it

vulgarizes, and is as improper reading for the young, so far as _effect_

is concerned, as the most immoral production extant. Vulgarity is the

open doorway to vice, and, philosophize as we may, sketches of thieves

and vagabonds, _gamins_, prostitutes and liars are vulgar and unfit

reading for youthful minds, if not for any minds whatever.

ABEL DRAKE'S WIFE. By JOHN SAUNDERS. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The reader is well aware that this work has attained a great

popularity--we may add that it has deserved it, being a work of marked

originality; one of characters and feelings which will even bear at

sundry times reperusal: as good a character as can be given to a novel,

and a far better one than we are disposed to award to the majority of

those which we meet. It is, we should say, in justice to the progressive

powers of the author, far superior to his earlier productions.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

In the noble Message of President LINCOLN, there are two paragraphs

which should be committed to memory and constantly recalled by every

man:

'Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and

this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No

personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of

us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down into

honor or dishonor to the highest generation.

'We say 'we are for the Union!' The world will not forget that we

say this. We know how to save this Union. _The world knows we know

how to save it._ We--even we here--hold the power and bear the

responsibility!'

'We cannot escape history.' And this is true, not only of the Congress

and of the Administration, but of all men who at the present day are

raised one fraction above the veriest obscurity and completest

nothing-ism. You, reader, and series of those whom you daily meet, may

fancy that your deeds, speeches, writings, overshadowed as they are by

the greater men and events of the day, will be forgotten. It is not so.

The last age was more antiquarian, more given to collecting, searching,

and recording, than its predecessor. This present one is, however, a

hundredfold more seeking and more chronicling than the last, and this

tendency increases every year. As it is, scarce a hero or a traitor,

even of the Revolution, is escaping glory or infamy. Will it be less the

case with the good and bad men of the Emancipation? There is not one

among them who shall escape history.

There is no thieving contractor, no 'helping' official, no shoddy

scoundrel, no unrighteously 'commission' gathering leech, who is not

quietly noted down here and there, to be duly exposed, some soon--some

in after years. We know that extensive researches have been undertaken,

to prepare and keep in black and white a record of the rascality of this

war, in high places as well as low. _They shall not escape history._

There is no cowardly, dishonest, selfish politician--be he who he

may--no trimmer and truckler to the times--who will be forgotten. The

most important war of all history--the greatest and most clearly

outlined struggle between Aristocracy and Republicanism--will not pass

away into oblivion. Men will toil away their lives that they may revive

some of the salient points of this great fight for freedom. To

commemorate the good, they must set forth the opposition of the bad--of

those who aided the foe either by approving of endless slavery, by

clogging the action of the Administration, or by turning the hardly

earned income of Government, wrung from a suffering people, to their own

profit. They shall not escape history.

Those who had the ability to aid the great cause of truth in any way, by

brain or hand, and yet who did nothing--verily they shall not escape

history.

The cautious, shrewd fellows, who hurrah loudly for the truth--after it

has become safe and profitable to do so--they who run with the hound and

hold with the hare--they may chuckle to themselves in their day, and

rejoice at their shrewdness-but Time and GOD sift all things, however

small--even such men as these. They shall not escape history.

And let them cry, 'After us the Deluge,' who will. You will live again

in your children; the heritage of sin is repaid with compound interest

to your name. How do you know but there is a GOD and a future knowledge

of all this, that you act so boldly? What evil have your children or

your name done you, that you should lay a curse on them? For if you do

not put forth your hand to the great cause of truth and in the great

battle of the LORD on behalf of Freedom, be certain that you are now

shaping a malediction, and awaking the anathema maranatha, which shall

go down into the deepest ages, and even in many lands, to cover you and

yours with the dark shadow of shame forever. You shall not escape

history.

But neither shall they escape who have fought the good fight for truth,

for man and liberty. Truly, as the German proverb hath it, _Zeit bricht

Rosen und Zeit bringt Rosen_--'Time breaks roses--but Time brings them

also.' There is an age coming which will distinguish between the battles

for conquest and idle glory and the honor of kings, and those which were

fought for holy freedom. In that age, the great and good and wise, yes!

even the smallest and weakest who chose the cause of Truth, will be

prized above the men of all battles which ever were beforetime. Stand

fast, O soldier! be firm, O friend of the good cause! let us see this

thing bravely through to the end, come what may. GOD bless you!--and he

_will_ bless you! Die on the battle field, or labor humbly at home--if

your heart and your hand have been given to the good work, you shall not

escape history.

'Fate for you shall sheathe her shears,

You shall live some thousand years.'

* * * * *

It has been nobly proposed, and we doubt not that the proposition will

be as nobly realized, that a shipload of food be sent to the relief of

the starving operatives of England. If the wealthy classes of Great

Britain were generous in proportion to the same order of men in this

country, and in proportion to their own riches, it would be simply

absurd for us to offer to relieve their paupers. But they are not so;

and it is a matter to be deeply deplored, that the manufacturers who

have made fortunes from their operatives, are, in Great Britain, the

ones who are least inclined to relieve the sufferings of their poor

dependants. And this we state entirely on the authority of the British

press, and from the comments made by it on a recent and wretchedly

abortive effort to collect from manufacturing capitalists somewhat to

feed the poor who had enriched them. To an American, accustomed to hear

of deeds of generosity and public spirit, the list of moneys subscribed

for such an object, against the names of millionaires, would seem

incredibly beggarly and pitiful.

However this may be, some one must feed the poor; and if John Bull

cannot afford it, Jonathan must. There is a degree of suffering in which

Englishman or confederate rebel becomes simply a suffering brother, and

when he who would not act the good Samaritan becomes most truly an

outlaw to all humanity. Therefore, let there be, not one, but many

shiploads sent to the sufferers--let us cast our bread upon the waters,

literally as well as figuratively, and give no heed or thought to its

return. The London _Times_ will, we presume, impugn the motives of the

charity--call it Pecksniffian and Heep-ish--or possibly try to prove

that the Federals had no hand in the good deed. Let it rave--the

business in hand is to feed starving men, women, and children, and not

to make political capital, or gain glory, or please a party--for that we

most assuredly shall not--but to do good and act in the large-hearted

manner which gives a good conscience, and which as a national trait is

the noblest characteristic of a republican.

* * * * *

The South has been quicker than the North in perceiving that public

opinion in England is rapidly changing in certain quarters in favor of

the Federal cause, and it is for this reason that the press in Secessia

has of late been so unamiable toward Great Britain, while SEMMES has

shown in his pirating so little kindness to English goods. Possibly

Secessia may after all discover that she might do a more unprofitable

thing than be in alliance offensive and defensive with us, and that she

might go further and fare worse, either alone, or with foreign friends

who are, after all, only foes in disguise.

But it is a mad and a foolish thing for England to hope to be benefited

by our dissension. Have we grown weaker or less dangerous by the

discovery that we are capable of raising the greatest armies and the

most invincible fleets in the world? While we flourish in prosperity, we

afford her an outlet for all her paupers, thieves, vagabond Bohemians,

and refuse of all sorts, to say nothing of the vast mass of the really

industrious poor who do well here, but who would have starved to death

at home. With one person in eight in Great Britain dying as a pauper and

buried at the public expense, it is hardly expedient for its people to

wish to see us ruined. Were we to exclude her vagabonds and paupers by

an alien act from entering this country, and at the same time close our

markets to her goods, of what avail would all the cotton in the world be

to her? The American public understand this thing perfectly--so

perfectly that the first movement toward intervention would be to

effectually shut out the offending party, to bear by itself the worst

results of prostrated manufactures and a turbulent starving population.

But we trust that nothing of the kind may happen, and that England will

perceive that a great, prosperous, and united America, though it covers

the whole Western hemisphere, will be of more advantage to her than a

divided, impoverished land, full of fighting factions. It is a bad, an

inhuman, and a most un-Christian policy to set wealthy and powerful

neighbors at dissensions, to rejoice at their losses, and finally hope

to see them from prosperous citizens, turned into starved brigands. Envy

is of the devil. And it is the more wicked, because _we_ know, and every

one of our readers knows with us, that there never existed in this

country, within our recollection, any desire whatever to see England

impoverished, injured, or in any way 'set back' as a country. That

deep-seated desire, openly avowed by her orators and press, to see our

growing greatness checked, was never seriously cherished by any true

American--and it could be proved that the insulting expressions of such

a desire have in almost every instance originated with British _emigres_

in this country, who are notoriously the most bitter foes to their

fatherland.

It is finally worth noting that the sympathy expressed by Americans for

Russia during the Crimean war, has been of late frequently urged in

England as a reason for withholding sympathy from the Federals. Now it

is most _undeniably true_ that, with certain rare exceptions, the

friendship for Russia _at that time_ came in a great measure from the

Democratic party, and especially from the South. It was an Irish

antipathy to England in the North, and a serf-sympathy in the South

which caused it all--naturally enough, in all conscience. If any one

doubts this, let him recall Roger Pryor's book, indorsing Russia as the

great power destined to swallow up all Europe--written at a time when

Pryor was beyond question the first and loudest exponent living of

Southern feelings and principles. This is the simplest and plainest of

facts, most easily susceptible of proof--and yet how many Englishmen are

there who would believe it?

The truth is that the whole criticism of America by England has

presented the melancholy spectacle of prejudice and envy, made maudlin

by gross ignorance--and the worst of it all has been the making the

North responsible for the bygone evil deeds of the South. Repudiation,

protection, Russian sympathy, filibustering, and other objections--are

all heaped on the Federal head alone to bear? Will the _truth_ ever come

to light in England?

* * * * *

May we venture to mention to our readers that 'Among the

Pines'--originally published in these pages--is now selling its

_thirtieth_ thousand, with constantly increasing orders. And in

connection we would add that 'Americans in Rome'--originally published

in THE CONTINENTAL under the title of _Maccaroni and Canvas_ has

appeared in book form, and may be obtained from George P. Putnam. This

work is, we believe, one of the most remarkable collections of sketches

and observation ever written on Italy; combining a very great amount of

accurate personal observations of the Roman people, both in the city and

country, with that of American artists' life there. The observations are

throughout racily humorous, and those who have within a few years

visited 'the Cradle of Art' cannot fail to recognize, as hit off with no

sparing hand, more than one American notoriety. Art quackery as it

exists, is well shown up in 'Americans in Rome;' the author having

little in common with those amiable romancers who glorify every

illiterate picture-maker, though he never fails to do justice to true

genius. We believe, in short, that these sketches form a very peculiar,

piquant, and _earnest_ work, as truthful as it is amusing, and as such

commend it to our readers.

The

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

EDITORS:

HON. ROBERT J. WALKER,

CHARLES G. LELAND,

HON. FRED. P. STANTON,

EDMUND KIRKE.

The readers of the CONTINENTAL are aware of the important position it

has assumed, of the influence which it exerts, and of the brilliant

array of political and literary talent of the highest order which

supports it. No publication of the kind has, in this country, so

successfully combined the energy and freedom of the daily newspaper with

the higher literary tone of the first-class monthly; and it is very

certain that no magazine has given wider range to its contributors, or

preserved itself so completely from the narrow influences of party or of

faction. In times like the present, such a journal is either a power in

the land or it is nothing. That the CONTINENTAL is not the latter is

abundantly evidenced _by what it has done_--by the reflection of its

counsels in many important public events, and in the character and power

of those who are its staunchest supporters.

By the accession of HON. ROBERT J. WALKER and HON. F. P. STANTON to its

editorial corps, the CONTINENTAL acquires a strength and a political

significance which, to those who are aware of the ability and experience

of these gentlemen, must elevate it to a position far above any

previously occupied by any publication of the kind in America.

Preserving all "the boldness, vigor, and ability" which a thousand

journals have attributed to it, it will at once greatly enlarge its

circle of action, and discuss, fearlessly and frankly, every principle

involved in the great questions of the day. The first minds of the

country, embracing men most familiar with its diplomacy and most

distinguished for ability, are to become its contributors; and it is no

mere "flattering promise of a prospectus" to say, that this "magazine

for the times" will employ the first intellect in America, under

auspices which no publication ever enjoyed before in this country.

CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, the accomplished scholar and author, who has

till now been the sole Editor of the Magazine, will, beside his

editorial labors, continue his brilliant contributions to its pages; and

EDMUND KIRKE, author of "AMONG THE PINES," will contribute to each

issue, having already begun a work on Southern Life and Society, which,

will be found far more widely descriptive, and, in all respects,

superior to the first.

While the CONTINENTAL will express decided opinions on the great

questions of the day, it will not be a mere political journal: much the

larger portion of its columns will be enlivened, as heretofore, by

tales, poetry, and humor. In a word, the CONTINENTAL will be found,

under its new staff of Editors, occupying a position and presenting

attractions never before found in a magazine.

TERMS TO CLUBS.

Two copies for one year, Five dollars.

Three copies for one year, Seven dollars.

Six copies for one year, Thirteen dollars.

Eleven copies for one year, Twenty-four dollars.

Twenty copies for one year, Forty-four dollars.

PAID IN ADVANCE.

_Postage, Thirty-six cents a year_, TO BE PAID BY THE SUBSCRIBER.

SINGLE COPIES.

Three Dollars a year, IN ADVANCE.--_Postage paid by the Publisher._

JOHN F. TROW, 50 Greene St., N. Y.

PUBLISHER FOR THE PROPRIETORS.

As an Inducement to new subscribers, the Publisher offers the following

very liberal premiums:

Any person remitting $3, in advance, will receive the Magazine from

July, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing the whole of Mr. KIMBALL'S

and Mr. KIRKE'S new serials, which are alone worth the price of

subscription. Or, if preferred, a subscriber can take the Magazine for

1863 and a copy of "AMONG THE PINES," bound in cloth (the book to be

sent postage paid).

Any person remitting $4.50, will receive the Magazine from its

commencement, January, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing Mr.

KIMBALL'S "WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?" and Mr. KIRKE'S "AMONG THE PINES" and

"MERCHANT'S STORY," and nearly 3,000 octavo pages of the best literature

in the world. Premium subscribers to pay their own postage.

[Illustration: THE FINEST FARMING LANDS

WHEAT CORN COTTON FRUITS & VEGETABLES]

EQUAL TO ANY IN THE WORLD!!!

MAY BE PROCURED

At FROM $8 to $12 PER ACRE,

Near Markets, Schools, Railroads, Churches, and all the blessings of

Civilization.

1,200,000 Acres, in Farms of 40, 80, 120, 160 Acres and upwards, in

ILLINOIS, the garden State of America.

* * * * *

The Illinois Central Railroad Company offer, ON LONG CREDIT, the

beautiful and fertile PRAIRIE LANDS lying along the whole line of their

Railroad, 700 MILES IN LENGTH, upon the most Favorable Terms for

enabling Farmers, Manufacturers, Mechanics and Workingmen to make for

themselves and their families a competency, and a HOME they can call

THEIR OWN, as will appear from the following statements:

ILLINOIS.

Is about equal in extent to England, with a population of 1,722,666, and

a soil capable of supporting 20,000,000. No State in the Valley of the

Mississippi offers so great an inducement to the settler as the State of

Illinois. There is no part of the world where all the conditions of

climate and soil so admirably combine to produce those two great

staples, CORN and WHEAT.

CLIMATE.

Nowhere can the industrious farmer secure such immediate results from

his labor as on these deep, rich, loamy soils, cultivated with so much

ease. The climate from the extreme southern part of the State to the

Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, a distance of nearly 200

miles, is well adapted to Winter.

WHEAT, CORN, COTTON, TOBACCO.

Peaches, Pears, Tomatoes, and every variety of fruit and vegetables is

grown in great abundance, from which Chicago and other Northern markets

are furnished from four to six weeks earlier than their immediate

vicinity. Between the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railway and the

Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, (a distance of 115 miles on the Branch,

and 136 miles on the Main Trunk,) lies the great Corn and Stock raising

portion of the State.

THE ORDINARY YIELD

of Corn is from 50 to 80 bushels per acre. Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep

and Hogs are raised here at a small cost, and yield large profits. It is

believed that no section of country presents greater inducements for

Dairy Farming than the Prairies of Illinois, a branch of farming to

which but little attention has been paid, and which must yield sure

profitable results. Between the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and

Chicago and Dunleith, (a distance of 56 miles on the Branch and 147

miles by the Main Trunk,) Timothy Hay, Spring Wheat, Corn, &c., are

produced in great abundance.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.

The Agricultural products of Illinois are greater than those of of any

other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 85,000,000 bushels,

while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the

crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes,

Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco,

Sorgheim, Grapes, Peaches, Apples, &c., which go to swell the vast

aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons

of produce were sent out the State of Illinois during the past year.

STOCK RAISING.

In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for

the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules,

Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large

fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to

enter with the fairest prospects of like results. DAIRY FARMING also

presents its inducements to many.

CULTIVATION OF COTTON.

_The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing

in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption

on the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to

the perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young

children, can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in

the growth and perfection of this plant._

THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD

Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the

Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio. As its name imports, the

Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the

road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.

CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS, DEPOTS,

There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one

every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient

distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity

may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union and where

buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.

EDUCATION.

Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by

the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the

schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the

church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the

Great Western Empire.

* * * * *

PRICES AND TERMS OF PAYMENT--ON LONG CREDIT.

80 acres at $10 per acre. with interest at 6 per ct. annually

on the following terms:

Cash payment $48.00

Payments in one year 48.00

" in two years 48.00

" in three years 48.00

" in four years 236.00

" in five years 224.00

" in six years 212.00

" in seven years 300.00

40 acres at $10 per acre;

Cash payment $24.00

Payments in one year 24.00

" in two years 24.00

" in three years 24.00

" in four years 118.00

" in five years 112.00

" in six years 106.00

" in seven years 100.00

Address Land Commissioner, Illinois Central Railroad, Chicago, Ill.

* * * * *

Number 14

25 Cents

The CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.

DEVOTED TO Literature and National Policy.

FEBRUARY, 1863.

NEW YORK:

JOHN F. TROW 50 GREENE STREET (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).

HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY. WASHINGTON, D.C.: FRANCK TAYLOR

* * * * *

CONTENTS.--No. XIV.

Our National Finances. Robert J. Walker, 129

A Trip to Antietam. Charles W. Loring, 145

American Destiny. John Stahl Patterson, 160

The Birth of the Lily, 169

Was He Successful? Richard B. Kimball, 171

Nullification and Secession. Hon. Robert J. Walker, 179

The Sioux War. John G. Nicolay, Private Secretary

to President Lincoln, 195

"Dead!" 204

A Merchant's Story. Edmund Kirke, 206

The Consequences of the Rebellion. Hon. Frederic

P. Stanton, 223

Sunshine in Thought, 233

How they Jested in the Good Old Time. Charles G. Leland, 237

Literary Notices, 248

Editor's Table, 250

The article in this number of THE CONTINENTAL, on "Our National

Finances," by Hon. ROBERT J. WALKER, will be found worthy of especial

attention at the present time.

* * * * *

Our next issue will contain a valuable article on "GOLD."

* * * * *

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by JAMES R.

GILMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United

States for the Southern District of New York.

* * * * *

INDEX TO VOLUME III.

A Chapter on Wonders. Perth Granton, 461

A Fancy Sketch, 482

A Heroine of To-Day, 543

A Merchant's Story. Edmund Kirke, 206, 289, 451, 528, 642

American Destiny. John Stahl Patterson, 79, 160

An Englishman in South Carolina, 110

A Trip to Antietam. Charles W. Loring, 145

A Winter in Camp. E. G. Hammond, 519

Cloud and Sunshine, 687

Consequences of the Rebellion. Hon. F. P. Stanton, 26, 223

Cost of a Trip to Europe, 730

"Dead," 204

Down in Tennessee, 469

Editor's Table, 126, 250, 379, 503, 747

Ethel. Mrs. Martha Walker Cook, 435

False Estimations, 274

Flag of our Union. Hon. R. J. Walker, 480

For and Against, 334

Gold. Hon. Robert A. Walker, 279

Great Heart, 629

Henrietta and Vulcan. Delia M. Colton, 421

How they Jested in the Good Old Time. Charles Godfrey Leland, 237

How the War affects Americans. Hon. F. P. Stanton, 411

How Mr. Lincoln became an Abolitionist. S. B. Gookins, 727

Huguenots of New Rochelle. Hon. G. P. Disosway, 1

Huguenots of Virginia, 348

'I;' or, Summer in the City, 40

In Memoriam. Richard Wolcott, 527

'Is there Anything in It?' 688

Last Words. Ingoldsby North, 282

Literary Notices, 122, 248, 374, 500, 630, 744

Maccaroni and Canvas. Henry P. Leland, 7

May Morning, 657

Mill on Liberty. Hon. F. P. Stanton, 674

Miriam's Testimony. M. A. Edwards, 589

Montgomery in Secession Time, 354

National Ode, 554

Nullification and Secession. Hon. Robert J. Walker, 179

Our National Finances. Hon. R. J. Walker, 129

Our Present Position, its Dangers and Duties, 488

Parting, 288

Pen, Pallet, and Piano, 117

Pictures from the North, 398

Poetry and Poetical Selections, 474

Promise. Edward S. Rend, jr., 78

Promoted, 420

Reason, Rhyme, and Rhythm. Mrs. Martha Walker Cook, 662, 698

Shylock vs. Antonio. Carlton Edwards, 539

Sunshine in Thought, 233

The Birth of the Lily, 169

The Blue Handkerchief, 279

The Buccaneers of America. Wm. L. Stone, 703

The Captain of '63 to his Men, 315

The Causes and Results of the War. Lieut. E. Phelps, U. S. A., 617

The Century of Inventions. C. G. Leland, 318

The Chained River. Charles G. Leland, 410

The Chech, 395

The Complaining Bore, 496

The Confederation and the Nation. E. Carey, 694

The Destiny of the African Race in the United States.

Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D. D., 600

The Great Prairie State. Mrs. C. M. Kirkland, 513

The Ivy. Charles Godfrey Leland, 47

The Lady and her Slave. Mrs. Martha W. Cook, 330

The Mishaps of Miss Hobbs. Wm. L. Williams, 54

The Navy of the United States, 659

The New Rasselas, 404

The Physical Survey of New York Harbor

and its Approaches. Henry Mitchell, 105

The Return. E. S. Rand, jr., 464

The Sioux War. John G. Nicolay, 195

The Skeptics of the Waverley Novels. Chas. G. Leland, 439

The Soldier's Burial, 373

The Surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Philip. F. H. Gerdes, 557

The Union. Hon. R. J. Walker, 68, 366, 465, 615

The Value of the Union. W. H. Muller, 571, 633

The Vision of the Monk Gabriel. Eleanor C. Donnelly, 316

The Wonders of Words, 385

Thought, 23

Three Modern Romances, 667

Touching the Soul. Lieut. Egbert Phelps, 734

Turkey. A. Comte, jr., 257

Virginia, 714

Visit to the National Academy of Design, 718

War Song--Earth's Last Battle. Mrs. M. W. Cook, 562

Was He Successful? Richard B. Kimball, 98, 171, 611, 719

JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER.