CHAPTER VIII.

What with the day's excitement, and a sweet secluded convent in her

soul, and a bullet in her bosom, and a ringing in her ear, that sounded

mighty like "Lady Neville! Lady Neville! Lady Neville!" Kate spent a

restless night, and woke with a bad headache.

She sent her maid to excuse her, on this score, from going to Bolton

Hall. But she was informed, in reply, that the carriage had been got

ready expressly for her; so she must be good enough to shake off disease

and go; the air would do her a deal more good than lying abed.

Thereupon she dressed herself in her black silk gown, and came down,

looking pale and languid, but still quite lovely enough to discharge

what in this age of cant I suppose we should call "her mission":

_videlicet_, to set honest men by the ears.

At half past eight o'clock the carriage came round to the front door.

Its body, all glorious with the Peyton armorials and with patches of

rusty gilding, swung exceedingly loose on long leathern straps instead

of springs; and the fore-wheels were a mile from the hind-wheels, more

or less. A pretentious and horrible engine; drawn by four horses; only

two of them being ponies impaired the symmetry and majestic beauty of

the pageant. Old Joe drove the wheelers; his boy rode the leaders, and

every now and then got off and kicked them in the pits of their

stomachs, or pierced them with hedge-stakes, to rouse their mettle. Thus

encouraged and stimulated, they effected an average of four miles and a

half per hour, notwithstanding the snow, and reached Bolton just in

time. At the lodge, Francis got out, and lay in ambush,--but only for a

time. He did not think it orthodox to be present at a religious ceremony

of his Protestant friends,--nor common-sense-o-dox to turn his back upon

their dinner.

The carriage drew up at the hall-door. It was wide open, and the hall

lined with servants, male and female, in black. In the midst, between

these two rows, stood Griffith Gaunt, bareheaded, to welcome the guests.

His arm was in a sling. He had received all the others in the middle of

the hall; but he came to the threshold to meet Kate and her father. He

bowed low and respectfully, then gave his left hand to Kate to conduct

her, after the formal fashion of the day. The sight of his arm in a

sling startled and affected her; and with him giving her his hand almost

at the same moment, she pressed it, or indeed squeezed it nervously, and

it was in her heart to say something kind and womanly: but her father

was close behind, and she was afraid of saying something too kind, if

she said anything at all; so Griffith only got a little gentle nervous

pinch. But that was more than he expected, and sent a thrill of delight

through him; his brown eyes replied with a volume, and holding her hand

up in the air as high as her ear, and keeping at an incredible distance,

he led her solemnly to a room where the other ladies were, and left her

there with a profound bow.

The Peytons were nearly the last persons expected; and soon after their

arrival the funeral procession formed. This part was entirely arranged

by the undertaker. The monstrous custom of forbidding ladies to follow

their dead had not yet occurred even to the idiots of the nation, and

Mr. Peyton and his daughter were placed in the second carriage. The

first contained Griffith Gaunt alone, as head mourner. But the Peytons

were not alone: no other relation of the deceased being present, the

undertaker put Mr. Neville with the Peytons, because he was heir to a

baronetcy.

Kate was much startled, and astonished to see him come out into the

hall. But when he entered the carriage, she welcomed him warmly.

"Oh, I am so glad to see you here!" said she.

"Guess by that what my delight at meeting you must be," said he.

She blushed and turned it off.

"I mean, that your coming here gives me good hopes there will be no more

mischief."

She then lowered her voice, and begged him on no account to tell her

papa of her ride to Scutchemsee Nob.

"Not a word," said George.

He knew the advantage of sharing a secret with a fair lady. He proceeded

to whisper something very warm in her ear: she listened to some of it;

but then remonstrated, and said,--

"Are you not ashamed to go on so at a funeral? Oh, do, pray, leave

compliments a moment, and think of your latter end."

He took this suggestion, as indeed he did everything from her, in good

part; and composed his visage into a decent gravity.

Soon after this they reached the church, and buried the deceased in his

family vault.

People who are not bereaved by the death are always inclined to chatter,

coming home from a funeral. Kate now talked to Neville of her own

accord, and asked him if he had spoken to his host. He said yes, and,

more than that, had come to a clear understanding with him.

"We agreed that it was no use fighting for you. I said, if either of us

two was to kill the other, it did not follow you would wed the

survivor."

"Me wed the wretch!" said Kate, "I should abhor him, and go into a

convent in spite of you all, and end my days praying for the murdered

man's soul."

"Neither of us is worth all that," suggested Neville, with an accent of

conviction.

"That is certain," replied the lady, dryly; "so please not to do it."

He bade her set her mind at ease: they had both agreed to try and win

her by peaceful arts.

"Then a pretty life mine will be!"

"Well, I think it will, till you decide."

"I could easily decide, if it were not for giving pain to--somebody."

"Oh, you can't help that. My sweet mistress, you are not the first that

has had to choose between two worthy men. For, in sooth, I have nothing

to say against my rival, neither. I know him better than I did: he is a

very worthy gentleman, though he is damnably in my way."

"And you are a very noble one to say so."

"And you are one of those that make a man noble: I feel that petty arts

are not the way to win you, and I scorn them. Sweet Mistress Kate, I

adore you! You are the best and noblest, as well as the loveliest of

women!"

"Oh, hush, Mr. Neville! I am a creature of clay,--and you are

another,--and both of us coming home from a funeral. Do think of

_that_."

Here they were interrupted by Mr. Peyton asking Kate to lend him a

shilling for the groom. Kate replied aloud that she had left her purse

at home, then whispered in his ear that she had not a shilling in the

world: and this was strictly true; for her little all was Tom

Leicester's now. With this they reached the Hall, and the coy Kate gave

both Neville and Gaunt the slip, and got amongst her mates. There her

tongue went as fast as her neighbors', though she had just come back

from a funeral.

But soon the ladies and gentlemen were all invited to the reading of the

will.

And now chance, which had hitherto befriended Neville by throwing him

into one carriage with Kate, gave Gaunt a turn. He found her a moment

alone and near the embrasure of a window. He seized the opportunity, and

asked her, might he say a word in her ear?

"What a question!" said she, gayly; and the next moment they had the

embrasure to themselves.

"Kate," said he, hurriedly, "in a few minutes, I suppose, I shall be

master of this place. Now you told me once you would rather be an abbess

or a nun than marry me."

"Did I?" said Kate. "What a sensible speech! But the worst of it is, I'm

never in the same mind long."

"Well," replied Griffith, "I think of all that falls from your lips, and

your will is mine; only for pity's sake do not wed any man but me. You

have known me so long; why, you know the worst of me by this time; and

you have only seen the outside of _him_."

"Detraction! is that what you wanted to say to me?" asked Kate, freezing

suddenly.

"Nay, nay; it was about the abbey. I find you can be an abbess without

going and shutting yourself up and breaking one's heart. The way is, you

build a convent in Ireland, and endow it; and then you send a nun over

to govern it under you. Bless your heart, you can do anything with

money; and I shall have money enough before the day is over. To be sure,

I _did_ intend to build a kennel and keep harriers, and you know that

costs a good penny: but we couldn't manage a kennel and an abbey too; so

now down goes the English kennel, and up goes the Irish abbey."

"But you are a Protestant gentleman. You could not found a nunnery."

"But my wife could. Whose business is it what she does with her money?"

"With your money, you mean."

"Nay, with hers, when I give it her with all my heart."

"Well, you astonish me," said Kate, thoughtfully. "Tell me, now, who put

it into your head to bribe a poor girl in this abominable way?"

"Who put it in my head?" said Griffith, looking rather puzzled; "why, I

suppose my heart put it in my head."

Kate smiled very sweetly at this answer, and a wild hope thrilled

through Griffith that perhaps she might be brought to terms.

But at this crisis the lawyer from London was announced, and Griffith,

as master of the house, was obliged to seat the company. He looked

bitterly disappointed at the interruption, but put a good face on it,

and had more chairs in, and saw them all seated, beginning with Kate and

the other ladies.

The room was spacious, and the entire company sat in the form of a

horse-shoe.

The London solicitor was introduced by Griffith, and bowed in a short,

business-like way, seated himself in the horse-shoe aforesaid, and began

to read the will aloud.

It was a lengthy document, and there is nothing to be gained by

repeating every line of it. I pick out a clause here and there.

"I, Septimus Charlton, of Hernshaw Castle and Bolton Grange, in the

County of Cumberland, Esquire, being of sound mind, memory, and

understanding,--thanks be to God,--do make this my last will and

testament, as follows:--

"First, I commit my soul to God who gave it, and my body to the earth

from which it came. I desire my executors to discharge my funeral and

testamentary expenses, my just debts, and the legacies hereinafter

bequeathed, out of my personal estate."

Then followed several legacies of fifty and one hundred guineas; then

several small legacies, such as the following:--

"To my friend Edward Peyton, of Peyton Hall, Esquire, ten guineas to buy

a mourning ring.

"To the worshipful gentlemen and ladies who shall follow my body to the

grave, ten guineas each, to buy a mourning ring."

"To my wife's cousin, Griffith Gaunt, I give and bequeath the sum of two

thousand pounds, the same to be paid to him within one calendar month

from the date of my decease.

"And as to all my messuages, or tenements, farms, lands, hereditaments,

and real estate, of what nature or what kind soever, and wheresoever

situate, together with all my moneys, mortgages, chattels, furniture,

plate, pictures, wine, liquors, horses, carriages, stock, and all the

rest, residue, and remainder of my personal estate and effects

whatsoever, (after the payment of the debts and legacies hereinbefore

mentioned,) I give, devise, and bequeath the same to my cousin,

Catharine Peyton, daughter of Edward Peyton, Esquire, of Peyton Hall, in

the County of Cumberland, her heirs, executors, administrators, and

assigns, forever."

* * * * *

When the lawyer read out this unexpected blow, the whole company turned

in their seats and looked amazed at her who in a second and a sentence

was turned before their eyes from the poorest girl in Cumberland to an

heiress in her own right, and proprietor of the house they sat in, the

chairs they sat on, and the lawn they looked out at.

Ay, we turn to the rising sun. Very few looked at Griffith Gaunt to see

how he took his mistress's good fortune, that was his calamity; yet his

face was a book full of strange matter. At first a flash of loving joy

crossed his countenance; but this gave way immediately to a haggard

look, and that to a glare of despair.

As for the lady, she cast one deprecating glance, swifter than

lightning, at him she had disinherited, and then she turned her face to

marble. In vain did curious looks explore her to detect the delight such

a stroke of fortune would have given to themselves. Faulty, but great of

soul, and on her guard against the piercing eyes of her own sex, she sat

sedate, and received her change of fortune with every appearance of cool

composure and exalted indifference; and as for her dreamy eyes, they

seemed thinking of heaven, or something almost as many miles away from

money and land.

But the lawyer had not stopped a moment to see how people took it; he

had gone steadily on through the usual formal clauses; and now he

brought his monotonous voice to an end, and added, in the same breath,

but in a natural and cheerful tone,--

"Madam, I wish you joy."

This operated like a signal. The company exploded in a body; and then

they all came about the heiress, and congratulated her in turn. She

curtsied politely, though somewhat coldly, but said not a word in reply,

till the disappointed one spoke to her.

He hung back at first. To understand his feelings, it must be

remembered, that, in his view of things, Kate gained nothing by this

bequest, compared with what he lost. As his wife, she would have been

mistress of Bolton Hall, etc. But now she was placed too far above him.

Sick at heart, he stood aloof while they all paid their court to her.

But by-and-by he felt it would look base and hostile, if he alone said

nothing; so he came forward, struggling visibly for composure and manly

fortitude.

The situation was piquant; and the ladies' tongues stopped in a moment,

and they were all eyes and ears.

THREE MONTHS AMONG THE RECONSTRUCTIONISTS.

I spent the months of September, October, and November, 1865, in the

States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. I travelled over

more than half the stage and railway routes therein, visited a

considerable number of towns and cities in each State, attended the

so-called reconstruction conventions at Raleigh, Columbia, and

Milledgeville, and had much conversation with many individuals of nearly

all classes.

I.

I was generally treated with civility, and occasionally with courteous

cordiality. I judge, from the stories told me by various persons, that

my reception was, on the whole, something better than that accorded to

the majority of Northern men travelling in that section. Yet at one town

in South Carolina, when I sought accommodations for two or three days at

a boarding-house, I was asked by the woman in charge, "Are you a Yankee

or a Southerner?" and when I answered, "Oh, a Yankee, of course," she

responded, "No Yankee stops in this house!" and turned her back upon me

and walked off. In another town in the same State I learned that I was

the first Yankee who had been allowed to stop at the hotel since the

close of the war. In one of the principal towns of Western North

Carolina, the landlord of the hotel said to a customer, while he was

settling his bill, that he would be glad to have him say a good word for

the house to any of his friends; "but," added he, "you may tell all

d----d Yankees I can git 'long jest as well, if they keep clar o' me";

and when I asked if the Yankees were poor pay, or made him extra

trouble, he answered, "I don't want 'em 'round. I ha'n't got no use for

'em nohow." In another town in the same State, a landlord said to me,

when I paid my two-days' bill, that "no d--n Yankee" could have a bed in

his house. In Georgia, I several times heard the people of my hotel

expressing the hope that the passenger-train wouldn't bring any Yankees;

and I have good reason for believing that I was quite often compelled to

pay an extra price for accommodations because I was known to be from the

North. In one town, several of us, passengers by an evening train, were

solicited to go to a certain hotel; but the clerk declined to give me a

room, when he learned that I was from Massachusetts, though I secured

one after a time through the favor of a travelling acquaintance, who

sharply rebuked the landlord.

It cannot be said that freedom of speech has been fully secured in

either of these three States. Personally, I have very little cause of

complaint, for my _rôle_ was rather that of a listener than of a talker;

but I met many persons who kindly cautioned me, that at such and such

places, and in such and such company, it would be advisable to refrain

from conversation on certain topics. Among the better class of people,

resident in the cities and large towns, I found a fair degree of

liberality of sentiment and courtesy of speech; but in travelling off

the main railway-lines, and among the average of the population, any man

of Northern opinions must use much circumspection of language; while, in

many counties of South Carolina and Georgia, the life of an avowed

Northern radical would hardly be worth a straw but for the presence of

the military. In Barnwell and Anderson districts, South Carolina,

official records show the murder of over a dozen Union men in the months

of August and September; and at Atlanta, a man told me, with a quiet

chuckle, that in Carroll County, Georgia, there were "four d--n Yankees

shot in the month of October." Any Union man, travelling in either of

these two States, must expect to hear many very insulting words; and any

Northern man is sure to find his principles despised, his people

contemned, and himself subjected to much disagreeable contumely. There

is everywhere extreme sensitiveness concerning the negro and his

relations; and I neither found nor learned of any village, town, or city

in which it would be safe for a man to express freely what are here, in

the North, called very moderate views on that subject. Of course the war

has not taught its full lesson, till even Mr. Wendell Phillips can go

into Georgia and proclaim "The South Victorious."

II.

I often had occasion to notice, both in Georgia and the Carolinas, the

wide and pitiful difference between the residents of the cities and

large towns and the residents of the country. There is no homogeneity,

but everywhere a rigid spirit of caste. The longings of South Carolina

are essentially monarchical rather than republican; even the common

people have become so debauched in loyalty, that very many of them would

readily accept the creation of orders of nobility. In Georgia there is

something less of this spirit; but the upper classes continually assert

their right to rule, and the middle and lower classes have no ability to

free themselves. The whole structure of society is full of separating

walls; and it will sadden the heart of any Northern man, who travels in

either of these three States, to see how poor, and meagre, and narrow a

thing life is to all the country people. Even with the best class of

townsfolk it lacks very much of the depth and breadth and fruitfulness

of our Northern life, while with these others it is hardly less

materialistic than that of their own mules and horses. Thus, Charleston

has much intelligence, and considerable genuine culture; but go twenty

miles away, and you are in the land of the barbarians. So, Raleigh is a

city in which there is love of beauty, and interest in education; but

the common people of the county are at least forty years behind the same

class of people in Vermont. Moreover, in Macon are many very fine

residences, and the city may boast of its gentility and its respect for

the nourishing elegancies of life; but a dozen miles out are large

neighborhoods not yet half-civilized. The contrast between the

inhabitants of the cities and those of the country is hardly less

striking than that between the various classes constituting the body of

the common people. Going from one county into another is frequently

going into a foreign country. Travel continually brings novelty, but

with that always came pain. Till all these hateful walls of caste are

thrown down, we can have neither intelligent love of liberty, decent

respect for justice, nor enlightened devotion to the idea of national

unity. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?"

It has been the purpose of the ruling class, apparently, to build new

barriers between themselves and the common people, rather than tear away

any of those already existing. I think no one can understand the actual

condition of the mass of whites in Georgia and the Carolinas, except by

some daily contact with them. The injustice done to three fourths of

them was hardly less than that done to all the blacks. There were two

kinds of slavery, and negro slavery was only more wicked and debasing

than white slavery. Nine of every ten white men in South Carolina had

almost as little to do with even State affairs as the negroes had. Men

talk of plans of reconstruction;--that is the best plan which proposes

to do most for the common people. Till civilization has been carried

down into the homes and hearts of all classes, we shall have neither

regard for humanity nor respect for the rights of the citizen. In many

sections of all these States human life is quite as cheap as animal

life. What a mental and moral condition does this indicate! Any plan of

reconstruction is wrong that does not assure toleration of opinion, and

the elevation of the common people to the consciousness that ours is a

republican form of government. Whether they are technically in the Union

or out of the Union, it is the national duty to deal with these States

in such manner as will most surely exalt the lower and middle classes of

their inhabitants. The nation must teach them a knowledge of their own

rights, while it also teaches them respect for its rights and the rights

of man as man.

Stopping for two or three days in some back county, I was always seeming

to have drifted away from the world which held Illinois and Ohio and

Massachusetts. The difficulty in keeping connection with our

civilization did not so much lie in the fact that the whole structure of

daily life is unlike ours, nor in the other fact that I was forced to

hear the Union and all loyal men reviled, as in the greater fact that

the people are utterly without knowledge. There is everywhere a lack of

intellectual activity. Schools, books, newspapers,--why, one may almost

say there are none outside the cities and towns. The situation is

horrible enough, when the full force of this fact is comprehended; yet

there is a still lower deep,--there is small desire, even feeble

longing, for schools and books and newspapers. The chief end of man

seems to have been "to own a nigger." In the important town of

Charlotte, North Carolina, I found a white man who owned the comfortable

house in which he lived, who had a wife and three half-grown children,

and yet had never taken a newspaper in his life. He thought they were

handy for wrapping purposes, but he couldn't see why anybody wanted to

bother with the reading of them. He knew some folks spent money for

them, but he also knew a-many houses where none had ever been seen. In

that State I found several persons--whites, and not of the "clay-eater"

class, either--who never had been inside a school-house, and who didn't

mean to 'low their children to go inside one. In the upper part of South

Carolina, I stopped one night at the house of a moderately well-to-do

farmer who never had owned any book but a Testament, and that was given

to him. When I expressed some surprise at this fact, he assured me that

he was as well off as some other people thereabouts. Between Augusta and

Milledgeville I rode in a stage-coach in which were two delegates of the

Georgia Convention. When I said that I hoped the day would soon come in

which school-houses would be as numerous in Georgia as in Massachusetts,

one of them answered: "Well, I hope it'll never come,--popular education

is all a d--n humbug in my judgment"; whereunto the other responded,

"That's my opinion, too." These are exceptional cases, I am aware, but

they truly index the situation of thousands of persons. It is this

general ignorance, and this general indifference to knowledge, that make

a Southern trip such wearisome work. You can touch the masses with few

of the appeals by which we move our own people. There is very little

aspiration for larger life; and, more than that, there is almost no

opportunity for its attainment. That education is the stairway to a

nobler existence is a fact which they either fail to comprehend or to

which they are wholly indifferent.

Where there is such a spirit of caste, where the ruling class has a

personal interest in fostering prejudice, where the masses are in such

an inert condition, where ignorance so generally prevails, where there

is so little ambition for improvement, where life is so hard and

material in its tone, it is not strange to find much hatred and

contempt. Ignorance is generally cruel, and frequently brutal. The

political leaders of this people have apparently indoctrinated them with

the notion that they are superior to any other class in the country.

Hence there is usually very little effort to conceal the prevalent scorn

of the Yankee,--this term being applied to the citizen of any Northern

State. Any plan of reconstruction is wrong that tends to leave these old

leaders in power. A few of them give fruitful evidence of a change of

heart,--by some means save these for the sore and troubled future; but

for the others, the men who not only brought on the war, but ruined the

mental and moral force of their people before unfurling the banner of

rebellion,--for these there should never any more be place or

countenance among honest and humane and patriotic people. When the

nation gives them life, and a chance for its continuance, it shows all

the magnanimity that humanity in such case can afford.

III.

In North Carolina there is a great deal of something that calls itself

Unionism; but I know nothing more like the apples of Sodom than most of

this North Carolina Unionism. It is a cheat, a Will-o'-the-wisp; and any

man who trusts it will meet with overthrow. Its quality is shown in a

hundred ways. An old farmer came into Raleigh to sell a little corn. I

had some talk with him. He claimed that he had been a Union man from the

beginning of the war, but he refused to take "greenback money" for his

corn. In a town in the western part of the State I found a merchant who

prided himself on the fact that he had always prophesied the downfall of

the so-called Confederacy and had always desired the success of the

Union arms; yet when I asked him why he did not vote in the election for

delegates to the Convention, he answered, sneeringly--"I shall not vote

till you take away the military." The State Convention declared by a

vote of ninety-four to nineteen that the Secession ordinance had always

been null and void; and then faced squarely about, and, before the

Presidential instructions were received, impliedly declared, by a vote

of fifty-seven to fifty-three, in favor of paying the war debt incurred

in supporting that ordinance! This action on these two points exactly

exemplifies the quality of North Carolina Unionism. There may be in it

the seed of loyalty, but woe to him who mistakes the germ for the

ripened fruit! In all sections of the State I found abundant hatred of

some leading or local Secessionist; but how full of promise for the new

era of national life is the Unionism which rests only on this

foundation?

In South Carolina there is very little pretence of loyalty. I believe I

found less than fifty men who admitted any love for the Union. There is

everywhere a passionate devotion to the State, and the common sentiment

holds that man guilty of treason who prefers the United States to South

Carolina. There is no occasion to wonder at the admiration of the people

for Wade Hampton, for he is the very exemplar of their spirit,--of their

proud and narrow and domineering spirit. "It is our duty," he says, in

his letter of last November, "_it is our duty to support the President

of the United States so long as he manifests a disposition to restore

all our rights as a sovereign State._" That sentence will forever stand

as a model of cool arrogance, and yet it is in full accord with the

spirit of the South-Carolinians. He continues:--"Above all, let us stand

by our State,--all the sacred ties that bind us to her are intensified

by her suffering and desolation.... It only remains for me, in bidding

you farewell, to say, that, whenever the State needs my services, she

has only to command, and I shall obey." The war has taught this people

only that the physical force of the nation cannot be resisted. They will

be obedient to the letter of the law, perhaps, but the whole current of

their lives flows in direct antagonism to its spirit.

In Georgia there is something worse than sham Unionism or cold

acquiescence in the issue of battle: it is the universally prevalent

doctrine of the supremacy of the State. Even in South Carolina a few men

stood up against the storm, and now claim credit for faith in dark days.

In Georgia that man is hopelessly dead who doubted or faltered. The

common sense of all classes pushes the necessity of allegiance to the

State into the domain of morals as well as into that of politics; and he

who did not "go with the State" in the Rebellion is held to have

committed the unpardonable sin. At Macon I met a man who was one of the

leading Unionists in the winter of 1860-61. He told me how he suffered

then for his hostility to Secession, and yet he added,--"I should have

considered myself forever disgraced, if I hadn't heartily gone with the

State, when she decided to fight." And Ben Hill, than whom there are but

few more influential men in the State, advises the people after this

fashion,--"I would vote for no man who could take the Congressional

test-oath, because it is the highest evidence of infidelity to the

people of the State." I believe it is the concurrent testimony of all

careful travellers in Georgia, that there is everywhere only cold

toleration for the idea of national sovereignty, very little hope for

the future of the State as a member of the Federal Union, and scarcely

any pride in the strength and glory and renown of the United States of

America.

Much is said of the hypocrisy of the South. I found but little of it

anywhere. The North-Carolinian calls himself a Unionist, but he makes no

special pretence of love for the Union. He desires many favors, but he

asks them generally on the ground that he hated the Secessionists. He

expects the nation to recognize rare virtue in that hatred, and hopes it

may win for his State the restoration of her political rights; but he

wears his mask of nationality so lightly that there is no difficulty in

removing it. The South-Carolinian demands only something less than he

did in the days before the war, but he offers no plea of Unionism as a

guaranty for the future. He rests his case on the assumption that he has

fully acquiesced in the results of the war, and he honestly believes

that he has so acquiesced. His confidence in South Carolina is so

supreme that he fails to see how much the conflict meant. He walks by

such light as he has, and cannot yet believe that Destiny has decreed

his State a secondary place in the Union. The Georgian began by

believing that rebellion in the interest of Slavery was honorable, and

the result of the war has not changed his opinion. He is anxious for

readmission to fellowship with New York and Pennsylvania and

Connecticut, but he supports his application by no claim of community of

interest with other States. His spirit is hard and uncompromising; he

demands rights, but does not ask favors; and he is confident that

Georgia is fully as important to the United States as they are to

Georgia.

Complaint is made that the Southern people have recently elected

military men to most of their local State offices. We do ourselves a

wrong in making this complaint. I found it almost everywhere true in

Georgia and the Carolinas that the best citizens of to-day are the

Confederate soldiers of yesterday. Of course, in many individual cases

they are bitter and malignant; but in general the good of the Union, no

less than the hope of the South, lies in the bearing of the men who were

privates and minor officers in the armies of Lee and Johnston. It may

not be pleasant to us to recognize this fact; but I am confident that we

shall make sure progress toward securing domestic tranquillity and the

general welfare, just in proportion as we act upon it. It should be kept

in mind that comparatively few of those who won renown on the field were

promoters of rebellion or secession. The original malcontents,--ah!

where are they? Some of them at least are beyond interference in earthly

affairs; others are in hopeless poverty and chilling neglect; others are

struggling to mount once more the wave of popular favor. A few of these

last have been successful,--to see that no more of them are so is a

national duty. I count it an omen of good, when I find that one who bore

himself gallantly as a soldier has received preferment. We cannot afford

to quarrel on this ground; for, though their courage was for our

wounding, their valor was the valor of Americans.

The really bad feature of the situation with respect to the relations of

these States to the General Government is, that there is not only very

little loyalty in their people, but a great deal of stubborn antagonism,

and some deliberate defiance. Further war in the field I do not deem

among the possibilities. Be the leaders never so bloodthirsty, the

common people have had enough of fighting. The bastard Unionism of North

Carolina, the haughty and self-complacent State pride of South Carolina,

the arrogant dogmatism and insolent assumption of Georgia,--how shall we

build nationality on such foundations? That is the true plan of

reconstruction which makes haste very slowly. It does not comport with

the character of our Government to exact pledges of any State which are

not exacted of all. The one sole needful condition is, that each State

establish a republican form of government, whereby all civil rights at

least shall be assured in their fullest extent to every citizen. The

Union is no Union, unless there is equality of privileges among the

States. When Georgia and the Carolinas establish this republican form of

government, they will have brought themselves into harmony with the

national will, and may justly demand readmission to their former

political relations in the Union. Each State has some citizens, who,

wiser than the great majority, comprehend the meaning of Southern defeat

with praiseworthy insight. Seeing only individuals of this small class,

a traveller might honestly conclude that the States were ready for

self-government. Let not the nation commit the terrible mistake of

acting on this conclusion. These men are the little leaven in the gross

body politic of Southern communities. It is no time for passion or

bitterness, and it does not become our manhood to do anything for

revenge. Let us have peace and kindly feeling; yet, that our peace may

be no sham or shallow affair, it is painfully essential that we keep

these States awhile within national control, in order to aid the few

wise and just men therein who are fighting the great fight with stubborn

prejudice and hidebound custom. Any plan of reconstruction is wrong

which accepts forced submission as genuine loyalty, or even as cheerful

acquiescence in the national desire and purpose.

IV

Before the war, we heard continually of the love of the master for his

slave, and the love of the slave for his master. There was also much

talk to the effect that the negro lived in the midst of pleasant

surroundings, and had no desire to change his situation. It was asserted

that he delighted in a state of dependence, and throve on the universal

favor of the whites. Some of this language we conjectured might be

extravagant; but to the single fact that there was universal good-will

between the two classes every Southern white person bore evidence. So,

too, in my late visit to Georgia and the Carolinas, they generally

seemed anxious to convince me that the blacks had behaved well during

the war,--had kept at their old tasks, had labored cheerfully and

faithfully, had shown no disposition to lawlessness, and had rarely been

guilty of acts of violence, even in sections where there were many women

and children, and but few white men.

Yet I found everywhere now the most direct antagonism between the two

classes. The whites charge generally that the negro is idle, and at the

bottom of all local disturbances, and credit him with most of the vices

and very few of the virtues of humanity. The negroes charge that the

whites are revengeful, and intend to cheat the laboring class at every

opportunity, and credit them with neither good purposes nor kindly

hearts. This present and positive hostility of each class to the other

is a fact that will sorely perplex any Northern man travelling in either

of these States. One would say, that, if there had formerly been such

pleasant relations between them, there ought now to be mutual sympathy

and forbearance, instead of mutual distrust and antagonism. One would

say, too, that self-interest, the common interest of capital and labor,

ought to keep them in harmony; while the fact is, that this very

interest appears to put them in an attitude of partial defiance toward

each other. I believe the most charitable traveller must come to the

conclusion, that the professed love of the whites for the blacks was

mostly a monstrous sham or a downright false pretence. For myself, I

judge that it was nothing less than an arrant humbug.

The negro is no model of virtue or manliness. He loves idleness, he has

little conception of right and wrong, and he is improvident to the last

degree of childishness. He is a creature,--as some of our own people

will do well to keep carefully in mind,--he is a creature just forcibly

released from slavery. The havoc of war has filled his heart with

confused longings, and his ears with confused sounds of rights and

privileges: it must be the nation's duty, for it cannot be left wholly

to his late master, to help him to a clear understanding of these rights

and privileges, and also to lay upon him a knowledge of his

responsibilities. He is anxious to learn, and is very tractable in

respect to minor matters; but we shall need almost infinite patience

with him, for he comes very slowly to moral comprehensions.

Going into the States where I went,--and perhaps the fact is true also

of the other Southern States,--going into Georgia and the Carolinas, and

not keeping in mind the facts of yesterday, any man would almost be

justified in concluding that the end and purpose in respect to this poor

negro was his extermination. It is proclaimed everywhere that he will

not work, that he cannot take care of himself, that he is a nuisance to

society, that he lives by stealing, and that he is sure to die in a few

months; and, truth to tell, the great body of the people, though one

must not say intentionally, are doing all they well can to make these

assertions true. If it is not said that any considerable number wantonly

abuse and outrage him, it must be said that they manifest a barbarous

indifference to his fate, which just as surely drives him on to

destruction as open cruelty would.

There are some men and a few women--and perhaps the number of these is

greater than we of the North generally suppose--who really desire that

the negro should now have his full rights as a human being. With the

same proportion of this class of persons in a community of Northern

constitution, it might be justly concluded that the whole community

would soon join or acquiesce in the effort to secure for him at least a

fair share of those rights. Unfortunately, however, in these Southern

communities the opinion of such persons cannot have such weight as it

would in ours. The spirit of caste, of which I have already spoken, is

an element figuring largely against them in any contest involving

principle,--an element of whose practical workings we here know very

little. The walls between individuals and classes are so high and broad,

that the men and women who recognize the negro's rights and privileges

as a freeman are almost as far from the masses as we of the North are.

Moreover, that any opinion savors of the "Yankee"--in other words, is

new to the South--is a fact that even prevents its consideration by the

great body of the people. Their inherent antagonism to everything from

the North--an antagonism fostered and cunningly cultivated for half a

century by the politicians in the interest of Slavery--is something that

no traveller can photograph, that no Northern man can understand, till

he sees it with his own eyes, hears it with his own ears, and feels it

by his own consciousness. That the full freedom of the negroes would be

acknowledged at once is something we had no warrant for expecting. The

old masters grant them nothing, except at the requirement of the

nation,--as a military and political necessity; and any plan of

reconstruction is wrong which proposes at once or in the immediate

future to substitute free-will for this necessity.

Three fourths of the people assume that the negro will not labor, except

on compulsion; and the whole struggle between the whites on the one hand

and the blacks on the other hand is a struggle for and against

compulsion. The negro insists, very blindly perhaps, that he shall be

free to come and go as he pleases; the white insists that he shall come

and go only at the pleasure of his employer. The whites seem wholly

unable to comprehend that freedom for the negro means the same thing as

freedom for them. They readily enough admit that the Government has made

him free, but appear to believe that they still have the right to

exercise over him the old control. It is partly their misfortune, and

not wholly their fault, that they cannot understand the national intent,

as expressed in the Emancipation Proclamation and the Constitutional

Amendment. I did not anywhere find a man who could see that laws should

be applicable to all persons alike; and hence even the best men hold

that each State must have a negro code. They acknowledge the overthrow

of the special servitude of man to man, but seek through these codes to

establish the general servitude of man to the commonwealth. I had much

talk with intelligent gentlemen in various sections, and particularly

with such as I met during the conventions at Columbia and Milledgeville,

upon this subject, and found such a state of feeling as warrants little

hope that the present generation of negroes will see the day in which

their race shall be amenable only to such laws as apply to the whites.

I think the freedmen divide themselves into four classes: one fourth

recognizing; very clearly, the necessity of work, and going about it

with cheerful diligence and wise forethought; one fourth comprehending

that there must be labor, but needing considerable encouragement to

follow it steadily; one fourth preferring idleness, but not specially

averse to doing some job-work about the towns and cities; and one fourth

avoiding labor as much as possible, and living by voluntary charity,

persistent begging, or systematic pilfering. It is true, that thousands

of the aggregate body of this people appear to have hoped, and perhaps

believed, that freedom meant idleness; true, too, that thousands are

drifting about the country or loafing about the centres of population in

a state of vagabondage. Yet of the hundreds with whom I talked, I found

less than a score who seemed beyond hope of reformation. It is a cruel

slander to say that the race will not work, except on compulsion. I made

much inquiry, wherever I went, of great numbers of planters and other

employers, and found but very few cases in which it appeared that they

had refused to labor reasonably well, when fairly treated and justly

paid. Grudgingly admitted to any of the natural rights of man, despised

alike by Unionists and Secessionists, wantonly outraged by many and

meanly cheated by more of the old planters, receiving a hundred cuffs

for one helping hand and a thousand curses for one kindly word,--they

bear themselves toward their former masters very much as white men and

women would under the same circumstances. True, by such deportment they

unquestionably harm themselves; but consider of how little value life is

from their stand-point. They grope in the darkness of this transition

period, and rarely find any sure stay for the weary arm and the fainting

heart. Their souls are filled with a great, but vague longing for

freedom; they battle blindly with fate and circumstance for the unseen

and uncomprehended, and seem to find every man's hand raised against

them. What wonder that they fill the land with restlessness!

However unfavorable this exhibit of the negroes in respect to labor may

appear, it is quite as good as can be made for the whites. I everywhere

found a condition of affairs in this regard that astounded me. Idleness,

not occupation, seemed the normal state. It is the boast of men and

women alike, that they have never done an hour's work. The public mind

is thoroughly debauched, and the general conscience is lifeless as the

grave. I met hundreds of hale and vigorous young men who unblushingly

owned to me that they had not earned a penny since the war closed. Nine

tenths of the people must be taught that labor is even not debasing. It

was pitiful enough to find so much idleness, but it was more pitiful to

observe that it was likely to continue indefinitely. The war will not

have borne proper fruit, if our peace does not speedily bring respect

for labor, as well as respect for man. When we have secured one of these

things, we shall have gone far toward securing the other; and when we

have secured both, then indeed shall we have noble cause for glorying in

our country,--true warrant for exulting that our flag floats over no

slave.

Meantime, while we patiently and helpfully wait for the day in which

"All men's good shall

Be each man's rule, and Universal Peace

Lie like a shaft of light across the land,"

there are at least five things for the nation to do; make haste slowly

in the work of reconstruction; temper justice with mercy, but see to it

that justice is not overborne; keep military control of these lately

rebellious States, till they guaranty a republican form of government;

scrutinize carefully the personal fitness of the men chosen therefrom as

representatives in the Congress of the United States; and sustain

therein some agency that shall stand between the whites and the blacks,

and aid each class in coming to a proper understanding of its privileges

and responsibilities.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Herman; or, Young Knighthood._ By E. FOXTON. Boston: Lee & Shepard.

We are entirely uncertain whether this work will be recognized for what

it is by our young country-folk; but we are very certain, if it is not,

it will be our young country-folk's loss. It is, we suppose, a novel.

Its author admits that it is a story; but it is not at all the kind of

banquet to which novel-readers are usually invited. We can fancy the

consternation which awaits the devourers of story-books,--those persons,

we mean, whose reading is confined to novels, who lie in wait for Mrs.

Wood and Miss Braddon, and stretch their sales into the double-figured

thousands, through whose passive brains plot after plot travels in quick

succession and leaves no sign, and whose name, we fear, is Legion. They

will eagerly seize this new story with the romantic title, be launched

auspiciously into gay ball-rooms, glide graciously among the familiar

flounces, dances, and small talk, only to find themselves suddenly and

without warning in some gulf of grave discussion opening out deceptively

from the sparkling stream of the story, or stranded on some lofty

sentiment never dreamt of in their philosophy. For the author's mind is,

in the best sense of the word, a discursive one. It is full of positive

thought, and strikes out right and left like a school-boy who must needs

relieve his superabundant spirits by pinching his sister's ear,

thrusting his fists in his brother's face, kicking aside the

foot-cushion, and making a plunge at the cat, while he is performing the

simple operation of walking across the room. This book is written out of

a mind so full of wit and wisdom that it overflows at the gentlest

touch. It has more sense and learning and power than go to the making up

of a dozen ordinary novels. The very prodigality of its resources is a

stumbling-block. Its great fault is its _muchness_, if we may borrow a

term from Hawthorne's mint. It is like a young minister's first sermon,

into which he frantically attempts to cram the whole body of divinity.

Especially in the early part of the book, we are constantly drawn away

front the story by delightful little essays, sometimes read to us by the

author himself,--sometimes wrought into the conversations by playful

anecdotes, by effective character-sketches, and vivid scene and

scenery-paintings. They do not always materially help forward the story,

nor do they always hinder it. They often give it an air of reality, and

they always help to utilize the author's idea. If they do not avail his

art, they avail his didactics. Where they are not good for the story,

they are good for something. By many thoughtless, and by all mere

novel-readers, they will probably be _skipped_; but for ourselves, we

confess, that, though high art may regard them as blemishes, we should

not know how to give the order for their removal. Considered in

themselves, in their style and sentiment, the little digressions, the

long conversations, the carefully wrought side-scenes are so rich in a

certain tender religious wisdom, yet crisp and piquant withal, and so

full of living thought on the great questions of the day, that we dwell

in them with enjoyment, though with a compunctious half-consciousness

that they ought not to be there.

But though we are tolerant of discursiveness where it affects only the

flow of the story, we like it less where it disturbs the flow of the

style. A paragraph ought never, by the mere form into which it is cast,

to require to be read over and over in order to get at the meaning. Yet

we are confident that nine readers out of ten would need to read the

following sentence more than once in order to get at its true

construction:--

"Oh, that I were able to conform myself to that further fictitious, not

to say factitious, standard of taste, according to which, just

as,--though a hemorrhage from the nose, howsoever ill-timed,

distressing, or even dangerous to the patient, is comic,--one from the

lungs is poetical and tragic; and an extravasation of blood about the

heart is not inappropriate to the demise of the most romantic civil

hero, (who would seem, indeed, capable of escaping an earthly

immortality only by means of pulmonary disease or some accident, unless

pounced upon by some convenient and imposing epidemic,) while a similar

affection of the brain of an imaginary personage can be rendered

affecting or excusable only by a weight of years and virtues in the

patient; so certain moral diseases, alias sins, in actual life making

the sinner by no means peculiarly engaging, have in fiction acquired a

prescriptive right to our regard!"

But the true power and pathos of the book rise ever high and higher, and

all minor defects are flooded out of sight. It is no small happiness

that we have to do from the beginning with a family hitherto wellnigh

unknown in American noveldom,--a family rich and not vulgar, beautiful

and not frivolous, highly educated and fastidious, yet neither bitter

nor disdainful,--refined, honorable, serene, affectionate. We are not

merely told that they are so. We mingle with them, we see it for

ourselves, and are refreshed and revived thereby. It is pleasant to miss

for once the worldly mother, the empty daughter, the glare and glitter

of shoddy, the low rivalry, the degrading strife, which can hardly be

held up even to our reprobation without debasing us. Whether or not the

best mode of inculcating virtue is that which gives us an example to

imitate rather than a vice to shun, we are sure it is the most

agreeable. It is infinitely sweeter to be attracted by the fragrance of

Paradise than to be repelled by the sulphurous fumes of Pandemonium. The

contemplation of such a home as this book opens to us is pleasant to the

eyes and good for the heart's food, and to be desired to make one wise.

A pure domestic love shines through it, tender, tranquil, and intense.

Its inmates are daintily, delicately, yet distinctly drawn. They are

courteous without being cold, playful without rudeness, serious, yet

sensible, reticent or demonstrative as the case may be, yet in all

things natural. It is not book, it is life. Each is a type of character

matchless in its way, but each is also a living soul, whose outward

elegance and grace are but the fit adjuncts of its inward purity and

peace. Even if such a home never existed, we should still defend its

portrayal, as the Vicar of Wakefield wrote his wife's epitaph during her

life that she might have a chance to become worthy of its praise.

It is a happiness also to make the acquaintance of women who are

brilliant and not bad, whose innocence does not run into insipidity, who

are no less queens than vassals, worthily the one, royally the other. We

meet in books many single-women, but they are usually embittered by

disappointment or by hope deferred,--angular, envious, busybodies in

other women's matters; or they are comically odd, self-ridiculing, and

unrestful; or, worst of all, they have become morally attenuated by a

thwarted love or a long course of dismal and absurd self-sacrifice and

are so resigned, colorless, and impassive, that, like Naaman, we are

tempted to go away in a rage. But where shall we find another

Clara,--beautiful, attractive, radiant, serenely living her happy life,

"aimless," but not "anxious," doing every day the duty that lies next

her hand, scarcely knowing that it is duty, never fancying that she is

out of her sphere or thinking whether she is in it, tranced in tranquil

reveries that spiritualize instead of spoiling her, and, shining ever

along her untroubled way,

"With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace"?

All the chief actors in the book are clever, rising often into the high

latitudes of genius, yet without that perverse _kink_ which is wont to

mar all satisfaction. There is no taint of poison in the air they

breathe. There is no passion hovering on the border-land of crime, or

defiling its garments with the dust of earthliness. Love is what it ever

should be, all noble and elevating,--worship as well as

devotion,--annihilating only selfishness, sanctifying, not sacrificing,

duty. There is no yielding to a depraved popular taste, no abdication of

an inherited throne to stand on a level with the unthinking crowd and

receive its worthless applauses. Rather the crowd is bidden higher, to

enter upon its own rightful, royal possessions. This is the true

missionary work. Manhood and womanhood in their best development are the

theme of the book; and they are touched with so fine a grace, outlined

with so true a pencil, tinted with so imperial a splendor, that the most

discontented may be satisfied. Does this seem slight praise? In truth it

can most rarely be bestowed. Why, it is matter for thanksgiving when we

are not outraged!

On this Field of the Cloth of Gold rises a knight without fear and

without reproach. Purely human and most heroic, as unpretending as

spotless, womanly, gentle, yet of positive and aggressive strength,

strength to do silently, to endure steadfastly, to die conquered, yet

victorious, to live in the front, yet alone,--is it an ideal character?

So much the more let it be studied, that our souls may absorb it and

produce the reality: for it is ideal after no impossible sort. In his

simple purity, in his fidelity to right, in his chivalry and his

religion, he is only what all can be. It is an American boy, called to

no loftier living, to no more "extraordinary seeking," than his country

has a right to claim from all her sons,--called to no sterner sacrifice,

to no severer suffering, than many a brave lad has faced and may yet

face again. If we could read the silent history of these last years,

should we not find in thousands of young hearts the story of a resolve

no less firm, of a pain scarcely less deadly? The pent-up agony in the

prison-house of Slavery before Northern cannon thundered at its doors is

a tale that will never be told. God grant its horrors may never be

surpassed,--never renewed! But we cannot say that Herman's woe is too

highly wrought. We cannot console ourselves with thinking, that, however

vividly delineated, it is mere fictitious suffering. We know that such

things have happened,--yes, and things immeasurably worse. We know that

Herman did only what any high and clear-souled man ten years ago might

have owed to do, and that he suffered only the natural consequences of

such doing. Ten years ago this country of ours was so that a man might

legally and without redress be tortured to death for doing that which

was not merely a plain obedience to the plainest precepts of the Bible,

but what in any other Christian country than our own would have been

instantly recognized as a deed of the highest heroism. And if we are not

careful to do justly, all the new ropes wherewith we have bound this

accursed Samson of Slavery will be broken like a thread, and our last

state be worse than our first.

We know no work of fiction so full as this of beauty and wisdom, so free

from folly, so resplendent with intellectual life, with moral purity,

and Christian holiness, so apt to teach, so graceful in the teaching. We

follow it with admiration and sympathy, from its gay beginning, through

all the pain, the passion, and the peace, to the heartache of its

closing pages,--that close, supremely sad, yet strangely beautiful. "She

sang to him, and he slept; she spoke, and he did not awaken." It is the

record of heavy struggle, of defeat that was triumph, and triumph that

was Heaven.

We offer no congratulations to the new author; nor do we deprecate for

him any harsh censure;--not only because praise and censure seem alike

rugged and halting by the sweet strains we seek to celebrate, but

because he who in his "saintly solitude" can create a world so fair is

independent of these light afflictions. For him there is always

sympathy, great companionship, and godlike work. From this Earth can

nothing take away; than this she has nothing more to give.

_History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in

Europe._ By W. E. H. LECKY, M. A. Two Vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Mr. Lecky has given us a book replete with interesting matter; and yet,

owing to some lack of intellectual mastery in him over his materials, it

leaves a singularly vague and dispiriting impression on the mind in

reading it. The author has a plethora of knowledge in regard to the

surface changes in history, but no insight whatever apparently into the

meaning of history itself, into the philosophic causes which these

changes attest and obey. He is a man of uncommon bulk, but deficient

muscle. His mental furniture enfeebles his intellectual faculty. His

body obstructs his soul. _Sumptus fructum superat._ His book costs the

author more than it comes to. He is so absorbed in the contemplation of

the accidents of history as to forget that history itself is but a

narrow river, conducting to the broad, illimitable ocean of human

brotherhood or equality,--and that to stand upon the bank, therefore,

and watch its successive waves, instead of manfully leaping in and

committing one's life and fortunes to it, is scarcely the part of a wise

man. Mr. Lecky's essay would seem to have originated more in a desire to

try his hand at theorizing than in any necessity to ventilate some

previous _drifts_ from the beginning to the end of his book. You never

feel yourself in a compact, water-tight boat, obedient to rudder and

sail, but at most on a raft, drifting at the absolute _gré_ of the

tides, in a certain _general_ direction, no doubt, but with no foresight

of the specific intellectual port at which you are to bring up.

Occasionally the mist condenses, the rain patters down, you catch a

glimpse of far-off mountaintops, and suppose the entire landscape will

soon be bathed in sunshine. But no, a new inrush of illustrative facts

takes place, and all is fog again. There is a great deal of good writing

in the book, and it leaves nothing to be desired in the way of advanced

_sentiment_. But we fail to perceive its bearing upon the progress of

ideas. It may flatter a superficial scientific optimism, but it will

obstruct rather than promote the interests of philosophic thought, for

this reason, that it inclines the reader to suspend his convictions upon

some fated _progress of events_ which will of itself do the world's

thinking for it, and turn both heart and mind at last into cheerful,

complacent pensioners of science.

The object of Mr. Lecky is to trace the history of _the spirit_ of

Rationalism,--the spirit which disposes men to reject all belief founded

upon authority, and to make the causes of phenomena intrinsic and not

extrinsic to the phenomena themselves. Rationalism, if we rightly

apprehend Mr. Lecky, is not any precise doctrine or system of doctrine,

but only a diffused bias or tendency of the mind to regard the power

which is operative in Nature and history as a rigidly creative or

constitutive power, rather than a redemptive or formative one. Doubtless

Mr. Lecky, if he should ever consider the subject, would be free to

admit that the creative action implies a necessary reaction on the part

of the creature. But he has manifestly no sympathy with the early or

imaginative faiths of the world, which represent creation as a physical

rather than a rational exhibition of the Divine power. His entire book

is written in the service of the opposite conception. To be sure, he

does not discuss the new faith as a theologian, but only as an

historian. It is not an affair of the heart with him, but only of the

head. He takes no pains to commend it as an advance in point of truth

upon the old faith, and does not once even avow his own intellectual

identification with it. In short, he is not the retained attorney of the

new faith, but its disinterested annalist, treating it simply as an

historic change wrought in the texture of men's thought, promoted by

such and such causes, attested by such and such effects, but independent

of all partisan judgment and clamor either favorable or adverse. Still

there is no doubt of the historian's own private bias. He applauds _ex

animo_ the change he records; and his book would have gained greatly in

interest, if he could only have written it a little more from the heart

and a little less from the head. For then, apart from the incidental

advantage which would accrue to it, to the reader's imagination, as

being a revelation of the author's living personality, we think the

author himself could hardly fail to have seen, before he had finished

his task, that there is no essential contradiction between the world's

earlier and later faiths; that these faiths differ not as good and evil

or true and false differ, but only and at most as root and stem and

flower differ in the plant, or birth, growth, and maturity in the

animal.

The lesson which Mr. Lecky inculcates upon his reader is this: that

civilization and miracle are fatally opposed; that the former waxes or

wanes precisely as the latter is discredited or accredited. History

shows civilization to have thriven precisely as men have outgrown their

belief in miracle, or the possibility of any outward Divine intervention

in Nature, and have learned to insist upon strictly natural causes for

all natural effects. The fruits of Mr. Lecky's research on this subject

are varied and interesting, and we cordially commend his volumes to the

reader as an inviting storehouse of materials for reflection; but we

very much doubt whether the school of thought he represents has, on the

whole, mastered the problem of civilization any more thoroughly than its

rival. The difference between the two schools is, indeed, one of

principle more than of words; but we cannot help thinking, nevertheless,

that the controversy is needlessly protracted on both sides, for want of

a sufficiently definite and comprehensive statement of the point in

dispute. Let us see whether we cannot make at least an approximation to

such a statement.

What is agitated, then, between the two rival schools of thought is the

Divine power: not the existence of such power, for there is no

noticeable difference on that point, but only its quality or mode of

operation. The Orthodox attribute to God a strictly moral, which is a

specific method of action, addressed to purely personal or subjective

issues; their opponents, a strictly physical, which is a universal

method, addressed to purely impersonal and objective issues. The one

party assigns to God a finite personality, or one limited by Nature; the

other, an indefinite personality, as identified with natural law. The

Orthodox, of course, maintain that God's _creative_ action was

universal, inasmuch as it contemplated only cosmical issues; but as that

mode of action was exhausted by its own universality, His subsequent

relation to His creatures must be purely administrative, as expressing

His personal pleasure or displeasure in their various functioning. The

other side do not dogmatize about the Divine power, or its method of

action, in the abstract. They only insist, as against their antagonists,

that the Divine administration of Nature is _not_, within the limits of

our science, personal; that it is not a power exerted _upon_ Nature, or

from without, and in contravention of her ordinary processes; that, so

far as our _knowledge_ goes, on the contrary, whatever may be our faith,

it is a power invariably exerted _through_ Nature, or from within, and

therefore in habitual consistency with her ordinary effects. In other

words, they insist, that, so far as the Divine power is cognizable to

us, it falls exclusively within and never without the routine of Nature;

and as universality is the characteristic of that routine, they do not

hesitate, on behalf of science, to affirm that the Divine action is

never addressed to specific or differential results, but always to

universal or identical ones. In short, they logically refuse to the

Divine power as exhibited in Nature all personal or moral quality, as

inferring on the part of Deity any possible unequal or inequitable

relations to the creatures He has made; and assign to all such reputed

partial exhibitions of it a purely educative, and therefore universal,

bearing upon the mind of the race.

Such, in brief, is the question agitated between the old and new faiths;

whether God acts outwardly _upon_ Nature, or inwardly _through_

Nature,--that is to say, whether His action is specific as addressed to

private ends, or strictly universal as addressed only to public ends. If

the former hypothesis be true, then sense rightfully controls reason,

and everything _is_ exactly what it _appears_. If the latter hypothesis

be true, then sense rightfully serves reason, and nothing is as it

appears to be, namely, absolute and independent of everything else, but

simply phenomenal and relative to everything else. It is evident to a

glance that a controversy so eminently scientific could never have gone

to the unwholesome lengths which it has reached in our day, unless there

were something in it more than meets the eye: unless, for example, the

interests of morality, which is the only recognized bond of our existing

societies, were at stake. For if one and the same law binds all Nature,

then plant and animal and man have one and the same destiny, so far as

their nature goes. If, for example, the plant as one form of natural

existence, and the animal as another form, are what they severally are,

by no means absolutely, or in themselves, but only by relation to all

other plants and animals, then man, who is only a higher, that is, a

moral, or evil absolutely or in himself, but only relatively to all

other men. And if we allow morality only this relative force,--if the

good man is not good absolutely or in himself, nor the evil man evil

absolutely or in himself,--why, then our existing civilization, which is

built upon such absoluteness, has a fictitious basis, and must fall to

the ground.

_Hinc ilia lachrymæ._ This is why a question apparently of pure science

turns out practically so full of inward heartburning and mutual

reviling. Neither theology nor science is competent to the philosophic

recognition of man's associated destiny, and hence have neither of them

the secret of those perturbations which ever and anon gloom our

political atmosphere and shut out to the eye of sensuous thought the

entire future of the race. Philosophy alone possesses this secret,

because it alone perceives that all our political, civil, and even

domestic broils grow out of this identical warfare between men's

religions and scientific convictions,--have no other source than that

persistent insubmission which the interests of force, as represented by

priesthoods and governments, are under to the interests of freedom,

represented by society. Philosophy mediates between the religious and

secular thought of mankind, by making the sphere of God's universal

action identical with that of man's organic necessities, and the sphere

of His specific action identical with that of man's moral freedom: so

harmonizing the two in one subject. Philosophy alone, in short, is

competent to the future of human destiny, because it alone adjusts the

relation of morals to physics, alone adjusts the specific interests

avouched by religion with the universal interests avouched by science.

And its competence is owing to this fact exclusively, that it alone

apprehends or appreciates the distinctively social destiny of man, a

destiny in which the interests of the most intense and exquisite freedom

or individuality are bound up with the interests of the most imperious

necessity or community,--or, what is the same thing, which presents

every man no longer in subjective or moral, but only in objective or

æsthetic, contrast with his kind, that so the general harmony may be

inflamed by the widest partial diversity. Thus philosophy bids society

recognise itself at once as God's perfect work on earth,--bids it rise

to instant self-consciousness as the real Divine substance which Church

and State have only feebly typified, and put on all Divine strength and

peace as its rightful breastplate and ornament. For if all these

fleeting phenomenal discords among men, upon which our existing

civilization proceeds, claim no longer an absolute, but only a relative

Divine sanction, a sanction in relation to the interests of human

society exclusively, what remains for society to do but to organize

itself afresh upon an eternal basis, that is, upon the acknowledgment of

a force in man infinitely transcending his moral force, because it

forever unites instead of disjoining him with God, being the force of

spontaneous or productive action?

_An Address on the Limits of Education, read before the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology_, November 16th, 1865. By JACOB BIGELOW, M. D.

Boston: E. P. Dutton & Co.

Dr. Bigelow has had the honor of naturalizing, if not of inventing, the

name of the Institute before which he delivered this address. His work

on the Elements of Technology was the first in which this name appeared,

at least in recent times. It designates that class of sciences which

bear on art,--sciences of practical application. Dr. Bigelow, in this

address, places himself emphatically with those who believe that mental

discipline can be obtained as well by useful as by useless studies, and

who think it a waste of time "to spend five years of the most

susceptible part of life in acquiring a minute familiarity with tongues

which are daily becoming more obsolete." We welcome this address as an

important ally for those who desire that our schools and colleges shall

not insist that every young man wishing for their advantages shall

devote one half of his time to the details of Greek and Latin Grammar

and Prosody. Dr. Bigelow is no rash reformer, no youthful enthusiast, no

reckless radical. He has the confidence of the whole community for his

science, scholarship, and ripe judgment. When, therefore, a man of his

character and position, without passion or prejudice, publishes the

conclusions which this address contains, we may hope that a change is at

hand in the course of study now pursued in our colleges and

universities, and in the schools which prepare for them. Dr. Bigelow

does not desire Latin or Greek to be excluded from the college course;

but he thinks that "under the name of classical literature they premise

and afterward carry on a cumbrous burden of dead languages, kept alive

through the dark ages, and now stereotyped in England, by the persistent

conservatism of a privileged order." He thinks that the mind might be

disciplined and trained quite as well and more cheaply by other studies

than that of the Greek language. He is of opinion, that, if Greek should

once cease to be made a requisite in our universities, though it would

be studied still by a certain class, it would never be adopted again as

an indispensable academic study.

In all this we quite agree with him. Thus far, almost everything else

has been subordinated in our college course to the study of Greek and

Latin. At least one half of the time of a young man desiring a liberal

education, from twelve to twenty years of age, is given up to Greek and

Latin. The other half is left for Mathematics, Geography, History,

Geology, Chemistry, Natural History, Metaphysics, Ethics, Astronomy, and

General Reading. Before entering college, his time must be almost wholly

occupied with the study of Latin, Greek, and Mathematics. For he is

required, in order to enter our principal university, to know Virgil,

Cæsar, Cicero, Xenophon, three books of the Iliad, Arithmetic, Algebra,

and Geometry, and to have the whole Latin and Greek Grammar at his

tongue's end. He must also be able to _write_ Latin, and to write Greek

_with the accents_. But he need not know a word of American or Modern

History (he must know the History of Greece and Rome),--not a word of

any modern language or modern science,--nothing of Chemistry, Astronomy,

Geology,--nothing of modern literature. Though he must be able to write

Greek, he need not be able to write English. And so, after being obliged

to spend the largest part of his time _before_ entering college in

learning Greek and Latin philology, is he then allowed to drop these

studies and begin others? Not so. He is not even permitted to leave off

Greek and Latin philology, in order to become acquainted with Greek and

Latin literature, much less to become acquainted with any other. Nearly

all the way through college he keeps on _writing Creek and Latin

exercises_; and the result of it all is, that he not unfrequently

becomes so disgusted with these languages that he forgets them as soon

as he can, and on leaving college can hardly read with ease the simplest

Greek or Latin book.

Such being, as is well known to all graduates of college, the present

state of affairs, we welcome with profound gratitude the present

address of Dr. Bigelow. Coming from such a source, containing such

unanswerable arguments, expressed in so lucid and striking a form, the

effect must be excellent. We have dwelt upon a single point of the

address, because it seemed to us the most important and valuable part of

it. But there is in it much besides, that is both instructive and

interesting; and we recommend the pamphlet as one to be carefully read,

and by no means to be confounded with the commoner style of public

addresses.

_Vida de Abran Lincoln, décimosesto Presidente de los Estados Unidos,

precedida de una Introduccion._ Por D. F. SARMIENTO. Nueva York: D.

Appleton y Ca.

This life of our lamented President, by the distinguished Argentine, now

Minister to Washington, is a very interesting circumstance, aside from

the merit of the work, which is very great. It is an amazing fact that

so few Eastern Americans read and speak Spanish, when one portion of our

country borders upon a Republic that speaks that language only, and when

we are so nearly allied in feeling and free principles of government to

South America, _twenty-three_ of whose Republics are now represented in

the diplomatic body at Washington. The most remarkable of these

gentlemen is Colonel D. F. Sarmiento, who has done more to elevate the

Republic he represents than any other individual; for he has devoted

many years of his active and patriotic life to introducing North

American, and indeed we may say Massachusetts, systems of education into

South America,--first into Chili, where he was an exile for twenty

years, during the reign of the tyrants who brought such suffering upon

the Argentine Republic, and since that time into the Argentine Republic

itself, where he was at one time Governor of the province of San Juan,

at another, Minister of Instruction in the province and city of Buenos

Ayres, also Senator in their Congress. He took up the cause of his

country when quite a boy, and has devoted himself to it, either in the

field or as an educator, ever since. His eye has always been open to

behold the workings of the free institutions that he desired to see

established in it, and he has been probably the most powerful instrument

in inducing his government to adopt the Constitution and laws of the

United States, so that it is truly a sister Republic, and as such

appeals irresistibly to our sympathy.

The Life of Mr. Lincoln, which he has now written for his own

countrymen, has of course been gathered chiefly from biographies already

written; but the interest of the work consists in the adaptation of it

to the South American needs. To set forth the dignity of labor, the

supremacy of the moral sentiments, the duty of education for the whole

people, has been his aim; and he has enjoyed, and made others enjoy, the

fact that two men of the people, _par excellence_, who had no

adventitious aids of wealthy friends, or even of educated friends, did,

by force of character and native powers of mind, come to be the free

choice of this great people for President and Vice-President at a time

when a new epoch opened in its history: for even before the war broke

out, the "irrepressible conflict" was felt to be upon us, and we needed

the best of helmsmen, and the wisest,--in that sense of the word

_wisdom_ which includes goodness as well as intelligence. We hope to see

the Introduction to this work translated in full. The book closes with a

translation of Mr. Lincoln's favorite poem, "Oh, why should the spirit

of mortal be proud?" by young Bartholomew Mitre, one of Señor

Sarmiento's legation, a son of the President of the Argentine Republic.

A few months since, Señor Sarmiento issued a pamphlet, giving an account

of the splendid resources of the Republic, in answer to inquiries made

by those who wished to emigrate thither. He also wrote, many years ago,

a very interesting work, called "Civilization and Barbarism," giving an

account of the reigns of some of those tyrants who so long arrested the

great career of the Republic. That work is to be translated and

published, and will give a new feeling of interest in the history of

South America's struggles for freedom. If it had been one united

country, like the United States, instead of being cut up into so many

governments, it would have been easier for foreigners (if, indeed, North

Americans should be called foreigners in South America) to follow it in

its various changes; but, except where some great man, like Bolivar,

made himself conspicuous, it was difficult, without much investigation

of details, to keep the track of their proceedings, or to tell which

side was specifically right,--for a revolution, to be very interesting,

must have its foundation in great principles. The answer to this may

be, that to throw off the yoke of foreign dominion implies a great

principle, and this is true; yet, until it is done intelligently rather

than instinctively, it does not challenge the attention of the world.

Señor Sarmiento understands our institutions theoretically, as only

those foreigners can who have suffered the ills of tyranny and

oppression. Such men look at us from their various stand-points, and

reason ethically upon the effect which freedom from all undue authority

should have upon the human mind, and they judge of us by our theory

rather than by our practice; and when they come amongst us, they are

often disappointed and disheartened to find that we, too, are selfish

and hesitate to stretch the helping hand to our fellow-sufferers. When

they have patience to look deeper than the surface, however, they see

that there is a hidden might in the possibilities created by political

freedom; and since the outbreak of the war which has cost the nation

such blood and treasure, they have seen that they were not

mistaken,--that prosperity had not wholly spoiled us,--that the latent

force only needed a stimulus to resolve itself into noble action; and

such lives as Lincoln's and Johnson's are to them the most glorious

expositions of the principles for which they have borne everything,

suffered everything, and hoped everything. Our suffering neighbors, the

Mexicans, may be helped in their struggles by the diffusion of this

Spanish Life of Mr. Lincoln; for Sarmiento has dwelt with great

minuteness upon all those features of our institutions which younger

republics need to know in detail. It is, indeed, a manual of instruction

for any young republic. He describes minutely the proceedings of the

trial of Mr. Lincoln's assassins, evidently with the intention of

showing to his countrymen the mode of conducting such proceedings to

secure the ends of justice; and he often dwells upon the habitual regard

of the majesty of Law evinced by our people in great emergencies, such

as at the first election and at the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, when the

whole nation stood breathless, as it were, and reverentially waited for

that _vox populi_, which is theoretically _vox Dei_ in a republic, but

which, alas! does not always prove so. If all parts of the Republic were

intelligently educated, it would doubtless be so without fail; but

demagogues will always flourish and rule where there is ignorance and

superstition, and the schoolmaster has not been abroad yet in the whole

length and breadth of our land. Sarmiento never loses an opportunity of

dwelling with power and eloquence, when addressing his countrymen, as he

has often done upon this subject, on the advantages of a diffused

knowledge among the people. Indeed, if all that he has written and

said--even that portion of it which is recorded in the Buenos Ayres

Common School Annals--could be collected, it would make a noble volume

for all Spanish lands,--except, indeed, Old Spain, where there is not

light enough to read it by.

_Richard Cobden, the Apostle of Free Trade: his Political Career and

Public Services._ A Biography. By JOHN MCGILCHRIST, Author of "The Life

of Lord Dundonald." etc. New York: Harper & Brothers.

This unassuming volume, of small size and plain covers, is strictly what

it pretends to be, a simple biography, and therefore, apart from its

subject, it is a book to be commended. We do not see the author on every

page, we are not forced to stop and listen to his reflections, nor to

long digressions into history, too commonly the fault in contemporaneous

biography of political men. The writer kindly remembers that the

reader's ignorance or knowledge does not rest upon his conscience.

Therefore we find in the little book what we wish, the story of Richard

Cobden, "the international man"; and it is a noble life-history, of

which no American should be ignorant.

His success in business, remarkable as it was, is a greater source of

wonder and admiration in England than in America, where the rapid

accumulation of a fortune and the creation of a large mercantile house

have hitherto been matters of less rare occurrence than in older

countries; but the result and use of Richard Cobden's financial success

are as unprecedented and surprising at one end of the money-making and

money-spending world as the other.

Soon after the establishment of his business house in Manchester, Mr.

Cobden interested himself in the public welfare of that city. His labors

in behalf of the people attracted John Bright to his side, and at the

early age of thirty years he had made a "decided local mark."

The saying, true and old as the fact men call character, that it is

what an individual _is_, and not what he _does_, which marks him good or

ill among his kind, holds eminently true with regard to Richard Cobden.

Not only was the range of his sympathies wide, the aim was sure; "he

never lost sight," said Mr. Disraeli, "of the sympathies of those whom

he addressed; and so, generally avoiding to drive his arguments to an

extremity, he became, as a speaker, both practical and persuasive"; and

the same power, brought to bear upon the actions and communications of

every day, made him a puissant servant of the Right.

There are three or four benefactions, however, which he was instrumental

in conferring upon his own country, and indirectly upon all countries,

for which he has become justly celebrated. These are tangible and

enduring proofs of character for those who knew him not, and show his

sympathy to have transcended the bounds of mere sentiment, and passed

into the region of energetic self-sacrifice.

His efforts for the Anti-Corn-Law and Free Trade in England cannot be

over-estimated. His life and strength and fortune were as nothing in

comparison with his desire to benefit the people. When he first

comprehended the necessity of labor in the Anti-Corn-Law struggle, he

determined to press Mr. Bright, whose abilities had already produced a

deep impression upon Mr. Cobden, into the service; but Mr. Bright had

lately lost his wife and had retired to Leamington, where Mr. Cobden

found him bowed down by grief. "'Come with me,' said Cobden, 'and we

will never rest until we abolish the Corn-Laws.' Bright arose and went

with him; and thus was his great sorrow turned to the nation's and the

world's advantage."

Years afterward, a short time before their final triumph in behalf of

Free Trade, Mr. Cobden saw his fortune becoming materially injured,

besides his actual losses, estimated at twenty thousand pounds. His

courage failed at length, and he went so far as to write to Mr. Bright

that it was his intention to withdraw from the agitation and endeavor to

retrieve his business. Then in turn Mr. Bright went to his friend, in

Manchester, and was successful in urging him to reconsider his

determination. It was agreed among the Free-Traders to bestow eighty

thousand pounds upon Mr. Cobden when the struggle was ended, and he soon

after received this manifest mark of their esteem and gratitude.

His labors to preserve peace, to strengthen the bonds of amity and

weaken the causes for distrust between England and France, were earnest,

unwearying, and fruitful in their results. His endeavors also to stem

the dreadful tide drifting into the Crimean War, and his appeal in the

House of Commons, when war became imminent with China, "that a select

committee be appointed to examine into the state of our commercial

relations with that country," prove his unswerving principles, and his

energetic desire to preserve peace, until war should be declared a

national necessity.

A man of the iron integrity of Cobden found himself necessarily in

opposition to a man of popularity and self-aggrandizement, like

Palmerston. Therefore, when the prime-minister announced his

determination to reserve certain seats in his cabinet and ministry "for

the leaders of advanced Liberalism," Richard Cobden declined the

position appointed to himself, saying to Lord Palmerston, "that he had

always regarded him as a most dangerous minister for England, and his

views still remained the same."

One of Mr. Cobden's last efforts in the House of Commons was for the

repeal of the Paper Duty. He said,--"If I were a young man just fresh

from college, with nothing in the world but a good education, there is

nothing I should work for with so much interest as making perfectly free

the press of this country, by removing all the taxes which tend to

render scarce and dear literary productions." The last time Mr. Cobden

addressed a public audience, he said,--"If I were a rich man, I would

endow a professor's chair at Oxford and Cambridge to instruct the

undergraduates of those universities in American history. I would

undertake to say, and I speak advisedly, that I will take any

undergraduate now at Oxford or Cambridge and ask him to put his finger

on Chicago, and I will undertake to say that he does not go within a

thousand miles of it.... To bring up young men from college with no

knowledge of the country in which the great drama of modern politics and

national life is now being worked out,--who are ignorant of a country

like America, but who, whether it be for good or for evil, must exercise

more influence in this country than any other class,--to bring up the

young destitute of such knowledge, and to place them in responsible

positions in the government is, I say, imperilling its best interests;

and earnest remonstrances ought to be made against such a state of

education by every public man who values in the slightest degree the

future welfare of his country." He concluded his speech by saying,--"Do

you suppose it possible, when the knowledge of the principles of

political economy has elevated the working classes, and when that

elevation is continually progressing, that you can permanently exclude

the whole mass of them from the franchise? It is their interest to set

about solving the problem, and, to prevent any danger, they ought to do

so without further delay."

The speech of Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons, after the death

of Mr. Cobden, must be familiar to all readers. It came to round the

measure of his eulogy, which had been sung in the East and in the West,

in the North and in the South, and at length was heard even from the

heart of Nazareth. We will not quote here the words of England's late

minister; we would only urge those who love the study of nobility to

read the Life of Richard Cobden, remembering such men "are set here for

examples."

_The Human Hair, and the Cutaneous Diseases which affect it: together

with Essays on Acne, Sycosis, and Cloasma._ By B. C. PERRY,

Dermatologist. New York: James Miller.

This is the first book of its kind which has been published, and it is

well calculated to do good service in many ways. The author proposed to

himself in its preparation so to present all topics which relate to the

hair and scalp in health and disease, that his treatise should not only

possess value as being founded upon a just discrimination of

physiological principles, and interest for the general reader by reason

of its familiarity of manner and the _ana_ by which the subject should

be illustrated, but also be of service to all who care to understand the

nature of an important part of the physical system.

Upon the whole, this purpose has been well carried into effect; and

every chapter of the comely volume bears witness to the research and

reflection of the author. With no similar work for a guide or model, it

was necessary to derive from the volumes of general and comparative

physiology such facts and deductions as related to the theme; and that

such have been drawn from recognized authorities, the frequent

references to the writings of Carpenter, Wilson, Plumbe, Neligan, Rayer,

and others of like eminence, will show.

Taking these collations of scientific statement as a basis, Dr. Perry

proceeds--after giving some space to anecdotes and historical notes

concerning the _chevelure_ of former times--to speak at length of the

formation and composition of the hair, of the unreasonable and

injudicious treatment to which it is commonly subjected, and of its

proper management. He then passes on to discuss the cutaneous diseases

to which the scalp is liable, and by which of course the hair is

affected to its detriment, devotes some chapters to the discussion of

some diseases peculiar to the face, and concludes his volume with an

Appendix containing an exposition of the constituents of many favorite

and famous cosmetics, pointing out at the same time their true

character, the danger and unpleasantness of which, he says, are

disguised with much empirical skill.

The fundamental principle of Dr. Perry's treatise is, that the hair is

ever in danger of being killed by much cherishing. He regards it as a

delicate vegetable, growing in a tender soil, and amply supplied by

Nature with the elements needed for its support and development. The

skin of the head should not, he tells us, be subjected to any rough

treatment, neither should it be exposed to sudden alternations of

temperature. Cleanliness, gentle usage, and mild, innocuous

specifics--vegetable, whenever possible--are his reliance to keep the

hair in good order, and restore the proper tone when lost by negligence

or disease. The harsh friction of the stiff, "penetrating hair-brush,"

the scraping of the fine comb, "the 'shampooing' operation of the

hairdresser, with his exacerbating compound, a hundred degrees too

violent, and his cataract of cold water at the end," are all condemned

as injurious, together with the myriad nostrums in the form of oils,

pomades, and the like. In dealing with these last, the author is indeed

severe, remarking that "generally they are most mischievous, as well as

common and filthy, mixtures, with nothing refined or elegant about them

but their titles." For greasy compounds he has no tolerance, charging

upon them, that, although they may for the moment lubricate and soften

the hair, they burden the scalp, clog its pores, deaden the roots of the

hair, and cause or increase many abnormal conditions of the cuticle.

And certainly the formulæ; which are quoted in the Appendix go far to

arouse in the reader the disgust for the popular preparations of the day

which the writer does not attempt to conceal.

In those chapters which discuss the scalp and hair in disease, Dr. Perry

takes the ground, that the trouble is primarily in the skin, and that

remedial treatment should therefore be directed to it. He mentions the

different eruptive and other affections in turn, and quotes the method

of procedure advised by medical men, in connection with a statement of

the manner of practice which he has successfully adopted, illustrating

his views with very good wood-cuts derived from the atlases of Wilson,

Neligan, and Dendy. In many cases he believes constitutional debility to

be the primary difficulty, and recommends a tonic regimen as the best

preliminary to a course of local treatment.

Without, of course, attempting to give minute directions for the

management of all diseased conditions of the head and hair,--which would

be alike impracticable in a volume of this popular character and

unprofitable to himself as a practitioner in such cases,--Dr. Perry

gives a large number of recipes which his own experience or that of his

favorite authors has proved to be trustworthy and serviceable, the

ingredients of which are cleanly, simple, and agreeable, adding plain

rules for the rational culture and preservation of the hair.

The book has its faults of style, to be sure,--principal among which is

a tendency to make too much of the scientific investigation and the

acquirement of the writer, extending sometimes almost to pedantry in the

use of long words and large phrases; but it contains much information

that is important and can be found nowhere else except by troublesome

comparison of extended treatises, and a deal of plain common-sense that

should commend it to attention and respect.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

Vida de Abran Lincoln, Décimosesto Presidente de los Estados Unidos,

precedida de una Introduccion. Por D. F. Sarmiento. Nueva York. D.

Appleton y Ca. 12mo. pp. xlviii., 306. $1.75.

Life and Times of Joseph Warren. By Richard Frothingham. Boston. Little,

Brown, & Co. 8vo. pp. xx., 558. $3.50.

Elements of Political Economy. By Arthur Latham Perry, Professor of

History and Political Economy in Williams College. New York. C. Scribner

& Co. 8vo. pp. xx., 449. $2.50.

The Vicarious Sacrifice, grounded on Principles of Universal Obligation.

By Horace Bushnell. New York C. Scribner & Co. 8vo. pp. 552. $3.00.

History of Rationalism; embracing a Survey of the Present State of

Protestant Theology. By the Rev. John F. Hurst, A. M. With an Appendix

of Literature, New York. C. Scribner & Co. 8vo. pp. xvi., 623. $3.00.

Allworth Abbey. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Philadelphia. T. B.

Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 421. $2.00.

Miss Carew. A Novel. By Amelia B. Edwards. New York. Harper & Brothers.

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Notes from Plymouth Pulpit: a Collection of Memorable Passages from the

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Poems. By Robert Buchanan. Boston. Roberts Brothers. 16mo. pp. vi., 311.

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Winning his Way. By Charles Carleton Coffin. Boston. Ticknor & Fields.

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The American Republic: its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny. By O.

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