and when left to herself, she would often hum these with great delight,

nodding her head.

On one occasion, I remember her sitting at a window singing and

fervently keeping time with her bead, the little black Puck of a

grandson meanwhile, amusing himself with ornamenting her red-and-yellow

turban with green dandelion-curls, which shook and trembled with her

emotions, causing him perfect convulsions of delight.

"Sojourner," said the Professor to her, one day, when he heard her

singing, "you seem to be very sure about heaven."

"Well, I be," she answered, triumphantly.

"What makes you so sure there is any heaven?"

"Well, 'cause I got such a hankerin' arter it in here," she

said,--giving a thump on her breast with her usual energy.

There was at the time an invalid in the house, and Sojourner, on

learning it, felt a mission to go and comfort her. It was curious to see

the tall, gaunt, dusky figure stalk up to the bed with such an air of

conscious authority, and take on herself the office of consoler

with such a mixture of authority and tenderness. She talked as from

above,--and at the same time, if a pillow needed changing or any office

to be rendered, she did it with a strength and handiness that inspired

trust. One felt as if the dark, strange woman were quite able to take up

the invalid in her bosom, and bear her as a lamb, both physically and

spiritually. There was both power and sweetness in that great warm soul

and that vigorous frame.

At length, Sojourner, true to her name, departed. She had her mission

elsewhere. Where now she is I know not; but she left deep memories

behind her.

To these recollections of my own I will add one more anecdote, related

by Wendell Phillips.

Speaking of the power of Rachel to move and bear down a whole audience

by a few simple words, he said he never knew but one other human being

that had that power, and that other was Sojourner Truth. He related a

scene of which he was witness. It was at a crowded public meeting in

Faneuil Hall, where Frederick Douglas was one of the chief speakers.

Douglas had been describing the wrongs of the black race, and as he

proceeded, he grew more and more excited, and finally ended by saying

that they had no hope of justice from the whites, no possible hope

except in their own right arms. It must come to blood; they must fight

for themselves, and redeem themselves, or it would never be done.

Sojourner was sitting, tall and dark, on the very front seat, facing the

platform; and in the hush of deep feeling, after Douglas sat down, she

spoke out in her deep, peculiar voice, heard all over the house,--

"Frederick, is _God dead_?"

The effect was perfectly electrical, and thrilled through the whole

house, changing as by a flash the whole feeling of the audience. Not

another word she said or needed to say; it was enough.

It is with a sad feeling that one contemplates noble minds and bodies,

nobly and grandly formed human beings, that have come to us cramped,

scarred, maimed, out of the prison-house of bondage. One longs to know

what such beings might have become, if suffered to unfold and expand

under the kindly developing influences of education.

It is the theory of some writers, that to the African is reserved,

in the later and palmier days of the earth, the full and harmonious

development of the religious element in man. The African seems to seize

on the tropical fervor and luxuriance of Scripture imagery as something

native; he appears to feel himself to be of the same blood with those

old burning, simple souls, the patriarchs, prophets, and seers, whose

impassioned words seem only grafted as foreign plants on the cooler

stock of the Occidental mind.

I cannot but think that Sojourner with the same culture might have

spoken words as eloquent and undying as those of the African Saint

Augustine or Tertullian. How grand and queenly a woman she might have

been, with her wonderful physical vigor, her great heaving sea of

emotion, her power of spiritual conception, her quick penetration, and

her boundless energy! We might conceive an African type of woman so

largely made and moulded, so much fuller in all the elements of life,

physical and spiritual, that the dark hue of the skin should seem only

to add an appropriate charm,--as Milton says of his Penseroso, whom he

imagines

"Black, but such as in esteem

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,

Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove

To set her beauty's praise above

The sea-nymph's."

But though Sojourner Truth has passed away from among us as a wave of

the sea, her memory still lives in one of the loftiest and most original

works of modern art, the Libyan Sibyl, by Mr. Story, which attracted

so much attention in the late World's Exhibition. Some years ago, when

visiting Rome, I related Sojourner's history to Mr. Story at a breakfast

at his house. Already had his mind begun to turn to Egypt in search of

a type of art which should represent a larger and more vigorous

development of nature than the cold elegance of Greek lines. His

glorious Cleopatra was then in process of evolution, and his mind was

working out the problem of her broadly developed nature, of all that

slumbering weight and fulness of passion with which this statue seems

charged, as a heavy thunder-cloud is charged with electricity.

The history of Sojourner Truth worked in his mind and led him into the

deeper recesses of the African nature,--those unexplored depths of being

and feeling, mighty and dark as the gigantic depths of tropical forests,

mysterious as the hidden rivers and mines of that burning continent

whose life-history is yet to be. A few days after, he told me that he

had conceived the idea of a statue which he should call the Libyan

Sibyl. Two years subsequently, I revisited Rome, and found the gorgeous

Cleopatra finished, a thing to marvel at, as the creation of a new style

of beauty, a new manner of art. Mr. Story requested me to come and

repeat to him the history of Sojourner Truth, saying that the conception

had never left him. I did so; and a day or two after, he showed me the

clay model of the Libyan Sibyl. I have never seen the marble statue; but

am told by those who have, that it was by far the most impressive work

of art at the Exhibition.

A notice of the two statues from the London "Athenaeum" must supply a

description which I cannot give.

"The Cleopatra and the Sibyl are seated, partly draped, with the

characteristic Egyptian gown, that gathers about the _torso_ and falls

freely around the limbs; the first is covered to the bosom, the second

bare to the hips. Queenly Cleopatra rests back against her chair in

meditative ease, leaning her cheek against one hand, whose elbow the

rail of the seat sustains; the other is outstretched upon her knee,

nipping its forefinger upon the thumb thoughtfully, as though some firm,

wilful purpose filled her brain, as it seems to set those luxurious

features to a smile as if the whole woman 'would.' Upon her head is

the coif, bearing in front the mystic _uraeus_, or twining basilisk of

sovereignty, while from its sides depend the wide Egyptian lappels, or

wings, that fall upon her shoulders. The _Sibilla Libica_ has crossed

her knees,--an action universally held amongst the ancients as

indicative of reticence or secrecy, and of power to bind. A

secret-keeping looking dame she is, in the full-bloom proportions of

ripe womanhood, wherein choosing to place his figure the sculptor has

deftly gone between the disputed point whether these women were blooming

and wise in youth, or deeply furrowed with age and burdened with the

knowledge of centuries, as Virgil, Livy, and Gellius say. Good artistic

example might be quoted on both sides. Her forward elbow is propped upon

one knee; and to keep her secrets closer, for this Libyan woman is the

closest of all the Sibyls, she rests her shut mouth upon one closed

palm, as if holding the African mystery deep in the brooding brain that

looks out through mournful, warning eyes, seen under the wide shade

of the strange horned (ammonite) crest, that bears the mystery of the

Tetragrammaton upon its upturned front. Over her full bosom, mother of

myriads as she was, hangs the same symbol. Her face has a Nubian cast,

her hair wavy and plaited, as is meet."

We hope to see the day when copies both of the Cleopatra and the Libyan

Sibyl shall adorn the Capitol at Washington.

AMERICAN HORTICULTURE.

Horticulture in the United States has, except in a commercial sense,

been subordinate to the pursuit of wealth. Before man can indulge in

objects of elegance and refinement, he must have secured the comforts of

life: the _utile_ must lead the _dulce_, a well-stocked kitchen-garden

precede the parterre. We have now, however, in the older sections of the

Union, at least, passed through the ordeal of a young nation: elegance

is following the plain and practical; the spacious mansion, with its

luxurious appurtenances, is succeeding the cottage, as this in turn

was the successor of the cabin. The perception of the picturesque is a

natural result of earlier steps in the path of refinement: man may build

from a vulgar ambition for distinction, but he seldom plants unless

prompted by love of Nature and elevated impulses. Lord Bacon, in his

essay "Of Gardens," says, "When ages grow to civility and elegancy, men

come to build stately sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening were

the greater perfection." A case which seems to confirm this position

occurs to us. The site of a noble building, erected for our Government,

was adorned by wide-spreading trees, the growth of generations, which,

after the building was completed, the architect cut down before his axe

could be arrested. On being reproached for his Vandalism, he retorted,--

"Trees may be seen everywhere, but such a Grecian portico as

that--where?"

Among a young people like ourselves, the nursery and the market-garden

hold prominent places in horticultural pursuits; the latter yields a

prompt return for the investment of capital and labor, and just in

proportion as demand increases, so will be the exertion to meet it. Thus

we find the markets of the cities amply supplied with every luxury of

fruit and vegetable: the seasons are anticipated by artificial means,

glass is brought into requisition, and the tables of the wealthy are

furnished with a profusion unknown to royalty in an earlier age.

The capacity of Americans to mould circumstances to themselves rather

than adapt themselves to circumstances, to remove obstacles, to

accomplish by the aid of machinery much that other peoples reach through

toil alone, has passed into a proverb: hence it need hardly cause

surprise, if unexampled success attend efforts at market-gardening,

bringing to the very doors of the comparatively poor vegetables and

fruits which in Europe are enjoyed only by the higher classes. As an

illustration,--where but in America are peaches planted by a single

individual by tens of thousands, and carried to market on steamboats

chartered for the special purpose, in quantities of one or two thousand

bushels at a trip?

The earlier American nurseries were few in number, and, compared with

some now existing, of quite limited extent,--though equal, perhaps, in

proportion to population. The first of which there is any record, and

probably the earliest established, was that of John Bartram, near

Philadelphia, about the year 1730. Here were congregated many of the

prominent native plants and trees, preparatory to exportation to

Europe,--also the fruits and plants of the other hemisphere, obtained

in exchange for American productions. The specimen trees planted by the

elder Bartram and his descendants still adorn the grounds, classic

to the botanist and the lover of Nature: long may they stand, living

memorials of generations passed away, our earliest evidence of a taste

for horticulture!

The next nursery in the order of date is that of Prince, in Flushing,

New York, established, we believe, prior to the Revolution, and

continued by the family to the present day. Flushing has become a centre

in the nursery-trade, and many acres thereabout are covered with young

trees intended for transplantation. A stroll round the village would

lead one to suppose the chief interest of the inhabitants was bound up

in the nursery-business, as is that of Lynn in shoes, and of Lowell

in cotton goods. Prominent among the Flushing nurseries are those of

Parsons, which, though of comparatively recent origin, abound in rich

treasures.

The nurseries of the brothers David and Cuthbert Landreth appear to have

been the third in the order of succession. They were established at

Philadelphia shortly after the Revolution, and within the limits of the

city. The increase of population and their expanding trade caused a

removal to another and more ample field of culture, which, for nearly

half a century, was the resort of most people of taste who visited

Philadelphia.

Nurseries are now found everywhere. The Far West has some which count

the young trees by millions, and fruit-trees of single kinds by the

hundred thousand. The Hoveys, of Boston, have long been prominent, not

only as nurserymen, but as writers on horticulture. Elwanger and Barry,

of Rochester, New York, have a large breadth of land, we forbear to

state our impression of the number of acres, covered by nursery-stock.

Professional florists also have multiplied to an unlimited

extent, exhibiting the growth of refining taste. Plants suited

to window-culture, and bouquets of choice flowers, are sold on

street-corners, and carried from door to door. Cameilias, of which

we recollect single flowers having been sold at a dollar, can now be

purchased at fifty cents the plant.

It might be curious, in reference to this subject of horticulture, to

institute an inquiry as to cause and effect. Have the increased means of

gratifying taste expanded it, or has taste rapidly developed created the

means of supply? Doubtless there has been reaction from both directions,

each operating on the other. One striking exhibition of pure taste

among us is the formation of picturesque arboretums, especially of

terebinthinate trees, and others allied to the Coniferae. This taste, so

diligently cultivated in England, has found zealous worshippers among

us, and some admirable collections have been formed. The cemetery of

Laurel Hill, at Philadelphia, under the critical eye and taste of the

proprietor, Mr. John Jay Smith, that of Mount Auburn, in Cambridge, of

Greenwood, New York, and the cemetery in Cincinnati, have afforded fine

specimens of rare trees, though, from the nature of their purposes,

picturesque effect could not be reached, except so far as aided by

irregularity of surface. And here we would remark, in connection with

this subject, that one regulation of the Cincinnati cemetery is worthy

of imitation. No arbitrary railings or ill-kept hedges bound the

individual lots; all is open, and the visitor, as he drives through the

grounds, is charmed by the effect,--a park studded with monuments: the

social distinctions, which, perhaps, necessarily separated in life, have

disappeared in death.

In connection with landscape-gardening, one American name stands

conspicuous,--the name of one who, if not, in point of time, the first

teacher of the art in this country, has at least done more than

any other to direct attention to it,--to exhibit defects, suggest

improvements, create beauties, and invest his subject with such a charm

and interest as to captivate many minds which might otherwise have been

long insensible to the dormant beauty within their reach, or that which

they themselves had the power to produce: we refer, of course, to the

late Andrew J. Downing. With naturally fine artistic perceptions, his

original occupation of a nurseryman gave direction to his subsequent

pursuits. Under different circumstances, his taste might, perhaps, have

been turned to painting, sculpture, or architecture: indeed, to the last

he paid no inconsiderable attention; and as the result, many a rural

homestead, which might otherwise have been a bleak house, is conspicuous

as the abode of taste and elegance.

Among the prominent private arboretums in our country may be mentioned

that of Mr. Sargent at Wodeneshe. Mr. Sargent, as may be seen by his

supplement to Downing's "Landscape-Gardening," is an enthusiast in the

culture of conifers; he is reputed to have made liberal importations,

and the results of his attempts at acclimation, given to the public,

have aided others in like endeavors. Judge Field, of Princeton, New

Jersey, has a pinetum of much value; some of his specimens are of rare

excellence. He, also, has been a diligent importer.

* * * * *

Though our sketch of the present state of horticulture among us is quite

imperfect, affording but an indistinct glimpse of the ample field which

invites our view, it would scarcely be pardonable, were we to overlook a

branch of rural industry in which horticultural success is interested,

and without which the practical pleasures and family-comfort of rural

homes would be greatly abridged. We refer to garden-seed culture. It may

be that the purchaser of a paper of seed for the kitchen-garden seldom

stops to consider the minute care which has been required to secure its

purity; most probably, in many cases, he makes the purchase as though it

were the mere product of mechanical skill, which, after the machinery is

perfected, and the steam-engine has been set in motion, turns out the

finished article, of use or ornament, with scarcely an effort of mind to

direct its movements. Not so in the production of seeds: many are the

hours of watchful care to be bestowed upon it, and stern and unyielding

are its demands on the skilled eye and the untiring hand. It is because

in some cases the eye is not skilled, and the hand often tires, that

so many seeds of more than doubtful worth are imposed upon the

market, filling the village and cross-road shops with the germs of

disappointment. The history of the seed-culture in the United States is

not without interest to those who, like many readers of the "Atlantic,"

reside in the quiet country; to every family thus situated the certainty

of obtaining seeds of trustworthy quality--certain to vegetate, and sure

to prove true to name--is of more importance than can be appreciated by

those who rely upon the city-market, and have at all times and seasons

ample supplies of vegetables within easy reach. On looking round for

some individual establishment which we may use as the representative of

this branch of industry, we naturally turn to Bloomsdale, as the most

prominent and widest-known of seed-farms; and if the reader will join us

in a trip thither, we shall be pleased with his company, and perchance

he may not wholly regret the time occupied in the excursion. The period

we shall choose for the visit is the close of the month of June.

On a bright day we take our seats in the cars at Jersey City, provided

with the talisman to insure an attentive reception. Onward we whirl

through fertile fields and smiling villages; Newark, Brunswick,

Princeton, are successively passed; shortly we reach the Delaware at

Trenton; a run of a few miles through Penn's Manor, the garden-spot of

the Proprietary Governor, brings us to Bristol, the station from which

we most readily reach our destination. As we approach the grounds from

the front, a prominent object meets the eye, a noble white pine of

gigantic proportions, somewhat the worse for many a winter's storm, but

which still stands in all its majestic grandeur, as it has stood whilst

generations have come and passed away. On entering the premises, we find

ourselves in the midst of a lawn of ten acres in the English style. To

enumerate the various trees, in groups or single specimens, which most

invite our notice, would interfere with the main object of our visit. We

have come for a special purpose, and we can only allude to a very few

of the species to which our attention may be supposed to be directed. A

white spruce, in rich luxuriance, measuring, as the branches trail upon

the sward, upwards of sixty feet in circumference; the Himalayan white

pine, with its deep fringe-like foliage, twenty-five feet in height; the

Cephalonian fir, with leaves as pungent as an Auricaria, twenty feet

high, and many specimens of the same kind of nearly equal magnitude;

yews, of more than half a century's growth; a purple beech, of thirty

feet in height, its branches as many in circumference, contrasting with

the green around; numerous specimens of balm of Gilead, silver firs, and

Norway spruces, unsurpassed in beauty of form, the last presenting every

variety of habit in which it delights to sport: these are some of the

gems of the lawn. But we must hurry onward to the practical business in

view.

The harvest, which, in seed-culture, lasts for many consecutive weeks,

has just commenced. The first important crop that ripens is the

turnip,--which is now being cut. The work is performed by the use of

grass-hooks or toothless sickles; stem after stem is cut, until the hand

is full, when they are deposited in canvas sheets; as these are filled,

boys stand ready to spread others; men follow to tie up those which have

been filled; others succeed, driving teams, and loading wagons, with

ample shelvings, with sheet-full piled on sheet-full, until the sturdy

oxen are required to test their strength in drawing them to the

drying-houses; arrived there, each sheet-full is separately removed by

rope and tackle, and the contents deposited on the skeleton scaffolding

within the building, there to remain until the seed is sufficiently

cured and dry enough to thresh. These drying-houses are buildings

of uniform character, two stories in height and fifty feet square,

constructed so as to expose their contents to sun and air, and each

provided with a carefully laid threshing-floor, extending through the

building, with pent-house for movable engine. When the houses are full

and the hulm in a fit state for threshing, the engine is started and

the work begun. One man, relieved by others from time to time, (for the

labor requires activity, and consequently is exhausting,) feeds the

thresher, which, with its armed teeth, moves with such velocity as to

appear like a solid cylinder. Here there is no stopping for horses

to take breath and rest their weary limbs,--puff, puff, onward the

work,--steam as great a triumph in threshing as in printing or spinning.

Men and boys are stationed at the rear of the thresher to remove the

straw, and roughly separate the seed from the shattered hulm,--others

again being engaged in thrusting the dried crop from the scaffolds, and

placing it in suitable position for the feeders. When one drying-house

has thus been emptied, the engine is removed to another; the same

process is pursued until the circuit of the buildings has been made, and

thus the ceaseless round (ceaseless at least for a season) is continued.

As soon as the crop in the first house has been threshed, the work of

winnowing is commenced, and skilled hands thus engaged follow on in the

track of the engine. As each crop is cleaned and put in merchantable

order, it is placed in bags of two bushels each and carried to the

storehouses and granaries, there to await a requisition from the

city-warehouse.

We have just witnessed the process of saving the crop of turnip-seed.

And how much may that reach? is a natural inquiry. Of all the varieties,

including the ruta-baga, about one thousand bushels, is the response. We

should have thought a thousand pounds would supply the entire Union; but

we are reminded it is in part exported to far distant lands. And what is

the crop so much like turnip, but still green, and apparently of more

vigorous growth? That is one of the varieties of cabbage, of which

several standard kinds are under cultivation. Another adjoining is

radish; still another, beet; and thus we pass from kind to kind, until

we have exhausted a long catalogue of sorts.

Let us stop our walk over the grounds for a few moments, taking seats

under the shadow of a tree, and make some inquiries as to the place

itself, its extent, the course of culture, the description of manures

used, etc. Our cicerone assents to the proposal, and proceeds to answer

our general inquiries. Bloomsdale contains in round numbers four hundred

acres; it has a frontage on the Delaware of upwards of a mile, is

bounded on the west by the Delaware Canal, and is divided into two

nearly equal parts by the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad. The soil is

a light loam, easily worked, suited to rapid percolation, admitting of

labor immediately after heavy rain, and not liable to suffer by drought.

The manures used are principally crude, obtained from the city, and

landed on the premises from shallops continually plying, laden with the

"sinews of farming." Street-scrapings are more used than stable-manure;

bone-dust and guano enter largely into the account; and the aggregate

annual expenditure foots up a sum almost equivalent to the fee-simple of

an ordinary farm. The culture is that denominated drill; but of course

much of it is simply straight lines drawn by the plough, in which the

roots for seeding are planted by hand. The ground, with the exception of

the lawn and a portion occupied from time to time by grass for home use,

is divided by wagon-roads into squares and parallelograms; cross fences

are not used; and each crop forms a distinct feature, accessible at any

stage of growth. The several varieties of each kind, as, for instance,

those of turnip, cabbage, beet, lettuce, are planted widely apart, to

guard against possible admixture; but the chances of that result must

be much less than is popularly supposed, efforts having been used

experimentally to test its practicability, and that between kindred

closely allied, without success. Although the extent of the grounds

would appear to be formidable, even for a farm conducted in the usual

mode, it is insufficient for the demands on the proprietors, without

diligent exertion and prompt recropping,--two crops in each year being

exacted, only a small part of the land escaping double duty, the extent

annually ploughed thus amounting to nearly twice the area of the farm.

The heavy hauling is performed by oxen, the culture principally by

mules, which are preferred to horses, as being less liable to injury,

and better adapted to the narrow drill culture practised.

The seeds of Bloomsdale have attained a world-wide reputation, and, to

quote an expression used in reference to them, "are almost as well

known on the Ganges as on the Mississippi or Ohio." They are regularly

exported to the British possessions in India, to the shores of the

Pacific, throughout the West Indies, and occasionally to Australia.

The drier atmosphere of this country ripens them better than the humid

climate of England, adapting them to exportation; and it is no slight

triumph to see them preferred by Englishmen on English soil. At home,

thousands of hamlets, south and west of Philadelphia, until interrupted

by the war, were supplied with Landreth's seeds. The business, founded

nearly three-quarters of a century ago, is now conducted by the second

and third generations of the family with which it originated. Thus

has success been achieved through long and patient industry steadily

directed to the same pursuit, and a reputation built up for American

seeds, despite the want of national protection.

THE EAST AND THE WEST.

[This poem was written by THEODORE WINTHROP seven years ago, and after

his death was found among his unpublished papers.]

We of the East spread our sails to the sea,

You of the West stride over the land;

Both are to scatter the hopes of the Free,

As the sower sheds golden grain from his hand.

'Tis ours to circle the stormy bends

Of a continent, yours its ridge to cross;

We must double the capes where a long world ends,

Lone cliffs where two limitless oceans toss.

They meet and are baffled 'mid tempest and wrath,

Breezes are skirmishing, angry winds roar,

While poised on some desperate plunge of our path

We count up the blackening wrecks on the shore.

And you through dreary and thirsty ways,

Where rivers are sand and winds are dust,

Through sultry nights and feverish days,

Move westward still as the sunsets must:

Where the scorched air quivers along the slopes,

Where the slow-footed cattle lie down and die,

Where horizons draw backward till baffled hopes

Are weary of measureless waste and sky.

Yes, ours to battle relentless gales,

And yours the brave and the patient way;

But we hold the storms in our trusty sails,

And for you the life-giving fountains play.

There are stars above us, and stars for you,--

Rest on the path, and calm on the main:

Storms are but zephyrs, when hearts are true;

We are no weaklings, quick to complain,

When lightnings flash bivouac-fires into gloom,

And with crashing of forests the rains sheet down,--

Or when ships plunge onward where night-clouds loom,

Defiant of darkness and meeting its frown.

These are the days of motion and march;

Now we are ardent, and young, and brave:

Let them that come after us build the arch

Of our triumph, and plant with the laurel our grave.

Time enough to rear temples when heroes are dead,

Time enough to sing paeans after the fight:

Prophets urge onward the future's tread;

We,--_we_ are to kindle its beacon-light.

Our sires lit torches of quenchless flame

To illumine our darkness, if night should be;

But day is a friend to our standards, and shame

Be ours, if we win not a victory!

Man is nobler than men have been,

Souls are vaster than souls have dreamed;

There are broader oceans than eyes have seen,

Noons more glowing than yet have beamed.

Creeping shadows cower low on our land;

These shall not dim our grander day:

Stainless knights must be those who stand

Full in the van of a world's array!

When shall we cease our meagre distrust?

When to each other our true hearts yield?

To make this world an Eden, we must

Fling away each weapon and shield,

And meet each man as a friend and mate,

Trample and spurn and forget our pride,

Glad to accept an equal fate,

Laboring, conquering side by side.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE.

_Cairo, Egypt, February 6th, 1862._ I am afraid I repeat myself in

talking about the beauty of the climate here, but to-day is so lovely

that I cannot refrain from recurring to the subject. While you are

shivering under the blasts of winter, we have a genuine June morning:

the air soft and pure, the atmosphere clear, innumerable birds chirping

in the trees opposite the windows, (for the Arabs never interfere with

birds,) and the aspect of things from our balcony overlooking the

Esbekieh, or public square, as pleasant as one could wish. The beautiful

weather, too, is constant.

But I must tell you of my dining yesterday with Mrs. R., to meet Mr.

Buckle, the author of the History of Civilization, who has just returned

from his two or three months' voyage upon the Nile, in which he pushed

as far as Nubia. He is now staying for a little while in Cairo, or

rather in his _dahabieh_, or boat, (which he says is more comfortable

than any hotel,) moored in the river at Boolak, the port of the town.

Mrs. R., the daughter of Lady Duff Gordon, and granddaughter of Mrs.

Austin, is a most attractive and accomplished young lady; her husband is

the manager in Egypt of the great banking-house of Briggs and Company,

in which he is a partner. Their usual residence is at Alexandria; but

at this season "all the world" of Egypt comes to Cairo, to enjoy the

beautiful weather here, while it is raining incessantly in Alexandria,

only a hundred and thirty miles distant. Mrs. R. in asking Mr. Thayer,

our Consul-General, to meet Mr. Buckle, with very great kindness

included me in the invitation. The only other lady present was Miss

P., a niece of the late Countess of Blessington, herself the author

of several pleasant stories, and of a poem which gained a prize in

competition with one by Mrs. Browning and another by Owen Meredith: she

is spending the winter with Mrs. R. There were also present C., who

conducts the house of Briggs and Company in Cairo; O., another banker;

and Hekekyan Bey, an Armenian, a well-read and intelligent man, formerly

Minister of Public Instruction under Mehemet Ali, and still, I believe,

in receipt of a pension from the Viceroy's government, in consideration

of his public services, which have been valuable.

The dinner was at an hotel called the Restaurant d'Auric. We assembled

in Mrs. R.'s drawing-room, an apartment in the banking-house at a little

distance, and walked to the hotel. The company fell into two groups,

each lighted by a swarthy _boab_ or lackey carrying a _mushal_ or

lantern; and I happened to walk with Mr. Buckle, so that I had a brief

talk with him in the street, before the general conversation began at

the table. He remarked upon the extraordinary devotion exhibited by

Delane of the London Times to the interests and politics of Lord

Palmerston. Becoming interested in our conversation, we strayed away

from the rest, and were walking about a quarter of a mile down the

_bazaar_, when (are you surprised to hear?) Mr. Buckle was missed,

the two _boabs_ came running after us, and we were cited to the

dinner-table.

Buckle, of course, was the card. He talked with a velocity and fulness

of facts that was wonderful. The rest of us could do little but listen

and ask questions. And yet he did not seem to be lecturing us; the

stream of his conversation flowed along easily and naturally. Nor was it

didactic; Buckle's range of reading has covered everything in elegant

literature, as well as the ponderous works whose titles make so

formidable a list at the beginning of his History, and, as he remembers

everything he has read, he can produce his stores upon the moment for

the illustration of whatever subject happens to come up.

In the first place, let me say how delightful it was to discover his

cordial interest in our own country. He expresses a strong hope that

England will take no part against us, and do nothing to break the

blockade. He is going to write about America; indeed, his next volume,

besides containing a complete view of the German philosophy, will treat

of the United States. But he will visit us before he writes. Although

appreciating the great work of De Tocqueville, he complains of the

general inadequacy of European criticism upon America. Gasparin's books,

by the way, he has not seen. For his own part, he considers the subject

too vast, he says, and the testimony too conflicting, to permit him

to write upon it before he has seen the country; and meanwhile he

scrupulously refrains from forming any conclusive opinions.

Subject to this reservation of judgment, however, he remarked that

he was inclined to think that George III forced us prematurely into

democracy, although the natural tendency of things both in America and

England was towards it; and he thought that perhaps we had established

a political democracy without having yet achieved an intellectual

democracy: the two ought to go hand in hand together. The common people

in England, he said, are by far the most useful class of society. He had

been especially pleased by the numerous letters he had received from

working-men who had read his book. These letters often surprised him

by the acuteness and capacity displayed by their writers. The nobility

would perish utterly, if it were not constantly recruited from

commoners. Lord Brougham was the first member of the secular peerage who

continued after his elevation to sign his name in full, "H. Brougham,"

which he did to show his continued sympathy with the class from which he

sprang. Buckle remarked that the history of the peasantry of no European

country has ever been written, or ever can be written, and without it

the record of the doings of kings and nobles is mere chaff. Surnames

were not introduced until the eleventh century, and it is only since

that period that genealogy has become possible.

Another very pleasant thing is Mr. Buckle's cordial appreciation of

young men. He repeated the story, which I believe is in his book,

that, when Harvey announced to the world his great discovery of the

circulation of the blood, among the physicians who received it was none

above the age of forty. Mr. Thayer described to Buckle some of our

friends who have read his book with especial satisfaction. He evidently

took pleasure in this proof of appreciation, and said that this was the

class of readers he sought. "In fact, the young men," he said, "are the

only readers of much value; it is they who shape the future." He said

that Thackeray and Delane had told him he would find Boston very like

England. He knows but few Bostonians. He had corresponded with Theodore

Parker, whom he considered a remarkable man; he had preserved but one of

his letters, which he returned to Mrs. Parker, in answer to her request

for materials to aid her in preparing the memoir of her late

husband. Buckle says that he does not generally preserve other than

business-letters.

Mr. Buckle gave an amusing account of the origin of the wigs which the

lawyers wear in England, and which, by the way, struck me as infinitely

ludicrous when I saw them on the heads of the judges and counsel in

Westminster Hall. Originally the clergy were forbidden to practise law,

and, as they were the best lawyers, the wig was worn to conceal the

tonsure. He had anecdotes to tell of Johnson, Lamb, Macaulay, Voltaire,

Talleyrand, etc., and quoted passages from Burke and from Junius at

length in the exact words. Junius he considers proved to be Sir Philip

Francis. He told a good story against Wordsworth, contained in a letter

from Lamb to Talfourd, which the latter showed to Buckle, but had

considered among the things too personal to be published. Wordsworth

was decrying Shakspeare. "Pooh!" he said, "it is all very easy: I could

write like Shakspeare myself, if I had a mind to!" "Precisely so,"

rejoined Lamb,--"_if you had a mind to_."

Mr. Buckle does not think much of the ancient Egyptian civilization,

differing in this respect _toto caelo_ from Hekekyan Bey, who finds

in the monuments proofs of the existence of an expansive popular

government. Buckle declares that the machines, as figured in the

hieroglyphics, are of the most primitive kind,--and that the learning,

by all accounts, was confined to the priests, and covered a very narrow

range, exhibiting no traces of acquaintance with the higher useful arts.

He says it is a fallacy to suppose that savages are bodily superior to

civilized men. Captain Cook found that his sailors could outwork the

islanders. I remarked, in confirmation, that our Harvard boat-clubs

won the prizes in rowing-matches against all comers. Buckle seemed

interested, and asked for a more particular account, which, of course, I

took great pleasure in giving. C., like a true Englishman, doubted

the general fact, and said the Thames watermen out-rowed their

university-clubs.

For Turkish civilization Mr. Buckle has not the slightest respect,--said

he could write the whole of it on the back of his hand; and here

Hekekyan Bey cordially agreed with him. Buckle is very fond of chess,

and can play two games at once blindfold. He inquired very particularly

about a native here who it is said can play four or six in this manner,

and said he should like to try a game with him. He had seen Paulsen, but

not Morphy.

Mr. Thayer asked him if in England he had been subjected to personal

hostility for his opinions, or to anything like social ostracism. He

said, generally not. A letter from a clergyman to an acquaintance in

England, expressing intense antipathy to him, although he had never seen

the writer, was the only evidence of this kind of opposition. "In fact,"

said he, naively, "the people of England have such an admiration of any

kind of _intellectual splendor_ that they will forgive for its sake the

most objectionable doctrines." He told us that the portion of his book

which relates to Spain, although by no means complimentary to that

country, has been translated and published separately there. T. remarked

that to this circumstance, no doubt, we may ascribe some part of the

modern regeneration of Spain, the leading statesmen being persuaded to a

more liberal policy; but this view Buckle disclaimed with an eagerness

seeming to be something more than the offspring of modesty.

After dinner we returned to Mrs. R.'s apartments, where we had tea.

Buckle and Hekekyan now got into an animated discussion upon the ancient

Egyptian civilization, which scarcely gave the rest of us a chance to

put in a single word. It was, however, exceedingly interesting to sit

and listen. Indeed, although there was nothing awful about Buckle, one

felt a little abashed to intrude his own remarks in such a presence. You

will be amused to hear that Mrs. R., who had seen me but once before,

told T. that she did not think I seemed to have much to say for myself.

Pray tell this in circles where they accuse me of monopolizing the

conversation. We stayed until nearly midnight, and then, taking our

leave, Buckle accompanied T. and myself as far as the door of our hotel.

Buckle received most kindly all suggestions made to him of books to be

read upon American affairs, and people to be seen in the United States.

_February 7th_. To-day we made a party to drive to see the Howling

Dervishes, who howl on Fridays. Friday is sometimes called "the

Mahometan Sunday," which is a correct phrase, if the especial

celebration of religious services is meant; but it is not at all a day

of rest: we found the people continuing their various avocations as

usual. At the mosque we met Mr. Buckle, a little careless in his

dress,--in this respect affording a not disagreeable contrast to

the studied jauntiness which Englishmen are apt to affect in their

travelling-gear. Nobody is allowed to press the floor of the mosque with

shoes upon the feet. T. and I, warned by our former experience, had

brought pieces of cotton cloth to tie over our shoes; and some cloth

slippers of a bright orange color, such as the Arabs are fond of

using, had been provided, which Miss P. slipped directly over her

walking-boots. Buckle, with careless indifference, pulled off his shoes

and walked in in his stockinged feet. His figure is tall and slender,

although he is a large man; he stoops a little in standing; his head,

well-shaped, is partly bald; and although his features are not striking

in themselves, they are rendered so by his animated expression. The

photograph which I have seen is a wretched caricature.

The performances of the Dervishes were precisely the same as those which

I witnessed in the same place a fortnight ago, and may be found most

exactly described by Mr. Trollope (who saw them two or three years

since) in his admirable novel of "The Bertrams," Chapter 38. If I

desired to tell you what we saw, I could not do better than to adopt

Mr. Trollope's language without alteration. This will prove to you the

sameness of this singular religious rite. Driving back, Miss P. helped

us to recall some of the incidents of the dinner of the preceding day.

She used to see almost all the distinguished literary characters at the

house of her aunt; but she told us that she never met anybody whose

conversation could bear comparison with that of Buckle, excepting Lord

Brougham and Alexander Dumas. The latter disgusts by his insufferable

egotism. Miss P. also gave us a very entertaining account of an Arab

wedding which she attended a day or two ago in company with Mrs. R.

As soon as they were inside the house they were separated from their

escort, and were admitted to the apartment where the bride was obliged

to sit in state for three days, covered with jewelry, clusters of

diamonds literally plastered upon her cheeks and forehead.

_February 10th_. Yesterday Mr. Thayer entertained Mr. Buckle at dinner.

The party included Mrs. R. and some of the guests whom we had met at her

table. We had hoped also for the presence of Mr. R., who was expected to

come up from Alexandria; but the train failed to bring him. Mr. Thayer

also invited Sir James Outram, but he is too unwell to come, although

expressing himself pleased with the invitation. The landlord of the

hotel where the consul-general is staying (Hotel des Ambassadeurs) was

very proud of the occasion, and the entertainment, although simple,

was elegant. An oval table was found of exactly the right size to seat

eight. Buckle was in excellent spirits, and, as before, was the life of

the party. We had been terribly afraid lest he and Hekekyan should get

into another long disputation, for the excellent Bey has fortified

himself with new materials; but the ladies were taken into our

confidence to aid in turning the conversation, if it should be

necessary, all of which made a great deal of entertainment; but there

proved to be no occasion for anything of the sort.

Buckle told some capital stories: among them, one against Alison, almost

too good to be true, namely, that in the first edition of his History he

mentioned among the causes of the French Devolution "the timber-duty,"

because he had read in a French pamphlet that there were popular

discontents about the _droits de timbre_.[A] Alison's History, he said,

is the very worst that ever was written. He cited a good definition,

(Addison's, I believe,) that "fine writing is that which is true without

being obvious." In the course of the conversation, in which, as before,

Buckle touched points in the whole circle of literature and science,

giving us quotations even in Hebrew from the Talmud and the Bible, he

made a very pretty compliment to our host, introduced as adroitly as

from the lips of a professed courtier, but evidently spoken on the

moment. It was something in this way. Hekekyan and Buckle were in an

argument, and Buckle said, "Ah, you mistake a necessary condition for

the cause." "What is cause but necessary condition?" asked Hekekyan.

"Very different: two men can't fight a duel without meeting, but every

two men who meet don't fight a duel." "But they couldn't fight a duel

without meeting," persisted Hekekyan. "Yes," rejoined Buckle; "but

the meeting isn't the cause of the duel. Why, there could not be a

dinner-party, unless the company met; but our meeting here to-day isn't

the cause of the dinner: the cause of the dinner is the kindness of our

host." "Or rather, of the landlord," said N. "Oh, no! of the American

government," said C. "Ah," said Buckle, "those things are not the

cause: the cause of our good dinner, I maintain, is only the charming

hospitality of the consul-general." Is not this metaphysics made easy,

and prettily employed?

[Footnote A: It is fair to say that an examination of the chapter on

the causes of the French Revolution, in several editions of Alison's

History, including the first, gives this story no support.]

After dinner we had tea and coffee; the ladies, in Egypt, could scarcely

do less than allow tobacco, and Mr. Buckle particularly enjoyed some

choice cigars which T. was able to offer him. The party did not break up

until nearly midnight, when all the guests retired together.

_February 11th_. To my pleasure, the train from Alexandria yesterday

afternoon brought Mr. B., of New York, and his very agreeable family,

with whom I crossed the Atlantic in the Persia last October. They went

at first to another hotel, but to-day they have determined to come to

that at which we are staying. I called upon them on their arrival, and

asked the gentlemen to join us at dinner, and afterwards in going, in

company with Mr. Buckle, whom Mr. Thayer had previously invited, to

attend a _fantasia_, or exhibition of singing and dancing, by Arab

professionals, at the house of Mr. Savallan, a wealthy French banker,

who has lived a long time in the Levant and has in some degree adopted

Oriental customs. He has lately sold to the Viceroy a tooth-brush, comb,

and hair-brush, for the handsome price of fourteen thousand dollars.

They were doubtless richly set with jewels; but the profit on these

transactions is immense. Mr. B. accepted the invitation for dinner, and

Mr. W. joined us afterwards.

At dinner I was seated next to Mr. Buckle, and thus had an opportunity

for private conversation. He asked about American books, and told me his

opinion of those he had read. He said that Quincy's History of Harvard

University was the latest book on America he received before leaving

England. He preferred Kent's exposition of the United States

Constitution to Story's, although this also he had consulted and used.

He had not seen Mr. Charles Francis Adams's complete edition of the

works of his grandfather, nor Parton's Life of Jackson, both of which I

begged him to read, particularly the chapters in the former in which are

traced the steps in the progress of making the American Constitutions.

He told me about his library in London, which is surpassed (among

private libraries) only by that belonging to Mr. Van de Weyer, the

Belgian Minister, whose wife is the daughter of our Bostonian Mr. Bates,

of Barings. Buckle has twenty-two thousand volumes, all selected by

himself; and he takes great pleasure in them. He spends eight or nine

hundred pounds a year upon his library. He owns copies of all the books

referred to in his History; some of them are very old and rare. He

also possesses a considerable collection, made likewise by himself, of

curiosities in natural history; he has added largely to it in Egypt,

where, in fact, he has been buying with open hands. He said he could not

be perfectly happy in leaving the country, if obliged to go away without

a crocodile's egg, a trophy which as yet he has been unable to obtain.

He told me his plan of travel in America. He will not set out until our

domestic troubles are composed, for he desires to see the practical

working of our institutions in their normal state, not confused and

disturbed by the excitements of war. He would go first to Boston and

New York, the intellectual and commercial heads (as he said) of the

republic,--and to Washington, the political capital. He would then like

to pass from the Northern into the Southern States, but asked if he

could travel safely in the latter, in view of his extreme opinions in

detestation of slavery. I assured him that nobody would dare to molest

one so well known, even if our war did not abate forever the nuisance

of lynching, to say nothing of its probable effect in promoting the

extinction of slavery. From the Southern States he said he would wish to

pass into Mexico, thence to Peru and to Chili; then to cross the Pacific

Ocean to Japan, to China, to India, and so back by the overland route

to England. This magnificent scheme he has seriously resolved upon, and

proposes to devote to it two or three years. He undertakes it partly for

information and partly for relaxation of his mental faculties, which he

has injured by overwork, and which imperatively demand repose. He asked

many questions with regard to matters of detail,--whether he would find

conveyance by steamers in the Pacific, and of what sort would be the

accommodations in them and in sailing-vessels. He asked at what season

he had best arrive in the United States, and whether he had better

land at New York or at Boston. Boston he said he regarded as "the

intellectual head of the country, and New York, you know, for trade." I

answered his questions as well as I could, and told him he must not omit

seeing our Western country, and some of the new cities, like Chicago. He

asked me if I knew "a Mrs. Child," who had written him a letter and sent

him her book about the history of religion. I knew of course that he

meant "The Progress of Religious Ideas," by Mrs. L. Maria Child. He had

been pleased with the letter, and with the book.

The conversation becoming general, Mr. B., of New York, told a story of

an old Congressional debate in which John Randolph derisively compared

Edward Everett to Richelieu: Buckle at once said he should regard it as

a compliment of the very highest kind to be compared to Richelieu. You

will smile, perhaps, if I tell you that I could not resist asking Buckle

if he had read Dumas's historical novels, and he said he had not,

although he had felt an inclination to do so. He asked one or two

questions about them, and gave a rapid generalization of the history of

France at that time.

This conversation at the dinner-table of course was by far the

pleasantest part of the evening, for the _fantasia_ did not amount to

much, although the house was a fine one, the host most cordial, and the

novelty of the entertainment was enjoyable.

_February 12th_. Mr. Buckle called upon T. and myself in the

afternoon, and sat talking between two and three hours. I wish I could

give you a full report of all that he said. He told us of the only

lecture he ever delivered; it was before the Royal Institution, March

19, 1858, and was printed in "Fraser's Magazine" for April, just

afterwards. It may be found reprinted in America in "Littell's Living

Age," No. 734. The subject was "The Influence of Women on the Progress

of Knowledge." Murchison, Owen, and Faraday told him afterwards,

separately, that they were perfectly satisfied with it, which is

certainly a strong combination of authority. He told us all about his

education, which is interesting, for he has been most truly self-taught.

When he was a boy, he was so delicate that it was thought he could not

live; the celebrated Dr. Abernethy, who was a particular friend of his

father, saw how important it was to keep him from mental excitement, and

begged that he might not be troubled by lessons. Accordingly, he was

never sent to school at any time, except for a brief period to a

clergyman who had directions not to make him study; and he was never

regularly taught anything. Until eight years of age he hardly knew his

letters. At the age of fifteen he found out Shakespeare and read it with

great zest. At seventeen he conceived the plan of his book, and resolved

to do two things to make himself fit to write it: first, he resolved to

devote four hours a day to the study of physical science, in order that

he might be able fully to understand and to unfold its relations with

history; secondly, he resolved to devote an equal portion of each day to

the study of English composition and practice in writing, in order that

he might be able to set forth his opinions with force and perspicuity.

To these resolutions he adhered for twelve years. Every day, after

breakfast, he shut himself up for four hours with his experiments and

his investigations; and afterwards devoted four hours to analyzing the

style of the best English authors, inquiring (as he said) "where it was

that I wrote worse than they." He studied not only in England, but in

Germany and other European countries. He learned all the languages which

he knows (and he knows nearly all I ever heard of) without the aid of a

master in any, excepting German, in which he began with a master, but

soon dismissed him, because he hindered more than he helped. He read

Hebrew with a Jewish rabbi, but that was after he had learned the

language. He considers the knowledge of languages valuable only as the

stepping-stone to other learning, and spoke with contempt of a person in

Egypt who was mentioned to him as speaking eight languages familiarly.

"Has he done anything?"

"No."

"Then he is only fit to be a courier."

Buckle is not a university-man, although both his father and grandfather

were educated at Cambridge.

He has long since abandoned the practice of writing at night, and now

does not put pen to paper after three o'clock in the afternoon. When at

home, in London, he walks every day, for about an hour and a half, at

noon; frequently dines out and reads perhaps an hour after coming home.

He goes exclusively to dinner-parties, because they take less time than

others. When he is engaged in composition, he walks about the room,

sometimes excitedly, his mind engrossed with his subject, until he has

composed an entire paragraph, when he sits down and writes it, never

retouching, nor composing sentence by sentence, which he thinks has a

tendency to give an abrupt and jerky effect to what is written. Traces

of this, he thinks, may be found in Macaulay's style.

Mr. Thayer showed him the little stock of books he happened to have with

him at Cairo. Mr. Buckle looked them over with interest, expressing his

opinions upon them. One of them, Mr. Bayle St. John's little book on the

Turkish question, he borrowed, although he said that he denied himself

all reading on this journey, undertaken for mental rest, and had brought

no books with him. We got upon the inevitable subject of international

copyright, which he discussed in a spirit of remarkable candor. His

own experience was this: that the Messrs. Appleton reprinted his first

volume without compensation, asking him to furnish materials for a

prefatory memoir, of which request he took no notice; afterwards, when

the second volume was published, they sent him something, I believe

fifty pounds. In due course of time, receiving a request from Theodore

Parker to that effect, he wrote a letter to aid him in the preparation

of a memoir for the Messrs. Appleton's Cyclopaedia.[B]

[Footnote B: In this memoir it is stated that Mr. Buckle was born at

Lee, November 24,1822. If this date be correct, his age, at the time of

his death at Damascus, May 29, 1862, fell short of forty years by five

days less than six months. In conversation, however, at this time,

February, 1862, he spoke of his age as thirty-eight, notwithstanding the

surprise that was expressed, for he appeared several years older. Mr.

Glennie, in his letter describing the circumstances of Mr. Buckle's

death, mentions his age as thirty-nine.]

I pointed out to Mr. Buckle the very important distinction between

_copyright for the British author_ and _monopoly for the British

publisher_. I told him that the American people and their

representatives in Congress would not have the least objection to paying

a trifling addition to the cost of books, which would make, upon the

immense editions sold of the popular books, a handsome compensation to

the foreign authors,--but that they have very decided objections to the

English system of enormously high prices for books. I instanced to him

several books which can be bought in the United States for a quarter or

half a dollar, while in England they cannot be purchased for less than

a guinea and a half, that is, for seven or eight dollars,--although the

author gains very little by these high prices, which, indeed, would be

absolutely prohibitory of the circulation of the books in the United

States. And since the great literary market of the United States has

been created at the public expense, by the maintenance of the system of

universal education, it is perhaps not unreasonable that our legislators

should insist upon preserving, by the competition among publishers, the

advantages of low prices of books, in pursuance of a policy which

looks to a wide circulation. In Great Britain the publishers follow

a different policy and insist on selling books at high prices to a

comparatively small circle of readers.

Mr. Buckle was kind enough to listen attentively to this sort of

reasoning and had the candor to admit that it is entitled to some degree

of weight. Indeed, he said at once that he had earnestly wished to bring

out a cheap edition of his own book in England, omitting the notes and

references, for the use of the working-classes, of whose appreciation,

as I have previously mentioned, he had received many gratifying proofs;

he had made his arrangements for this purpose, but was prevented from

carrying them out by the opposition of his publishers, who objected

that such an edition would injure _their_ interest in the more

costly edition. But Mr. Buckle freely declared that he would, in his

circumstances, rather forego the profit on the sale of his book than

restrict its circulation.

I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention that another English author

related to me his home experience, precisely to the same effect, in

which the vested interests of his publishers thwarted him in his wish

to publish an edition of his writings at a low price for general

circulation. It is quite certain that the British public must themselves

be disenthralled from the tyranny of high prices with which they are now

burdened, before they can ask to bring another land under the dominion

of their exclusive system in literature.

This conversation led to a description of the reading public

in America,--of the intelligence and independence of our

working-people,--of their habits of life and of thought,--about which

Buckle manifested great interest, asking many intelligent questions.

Mr. Buckle is in easy circumstances, and attends personally to the

management of his money. He finds no difficulty in letting it upon

first-class mortgages, at five per cent., and does not expect a higher

rate of interest.

_February 13th._ To-night there was a religious celebration, including

an illumination, in the mosque at the Citadel. We had expected to go

and see it; and Mr. T. had invited Mr. B. and his party, as well as Mr.

Buckle, and the two lads by whom he is accompanied in his journeyings,

to go with us. These young gentlemen are sons of a dear friend of Mr.

Buckle's, no longer living.

But at the last moment before dinner the advice was strongly given on

all sides that we should not go, lest some bigoted Mussulmans should

take offence, and there might be a disturbance. Not long ago, a party of

Englishmen behaved very badly in the mosque on a similar occasion, from

which has resulted a disturbed state of feeling. It of course cannot be

pleasant to people of any religious belief to have their ceremonies made

a spectacle for curiosity; and although the _moudier_ (mayor of the

city) promised ample protection, the plan was given up, and the company

being gathered, we had a pleasant evening together. The presence of the

ladies of Mr. B.'s party gave the opportunity to see Mr. Buckle again

under the inspiration of ladies' society, which he especially enjoys,

and in the lighter conversation suited to which he shines with not less

distinction than when conversing upon abstruse topics.

In the course of the evening, in the midst of conversation in which he

was taking an animated part, Mr. Buckle exhibited symptoms of faintness.

Fresh air was at once admitted to the room, which was full of

cigar-smoke; water and more powerful restoratives were brought, but

these he declined. After a few minutes' repose upon the divan, he

declared that he was perfectly recovered, and half an hour afterwards

took his leave with the boys. We were quite anxious until we heard that

he had safely reached his boat, in which he is still living.

_February 14th._ Returning from the Turkish bath, I found a valentine

in the shape of a telegraphic despatch only thirteen days from

Boston,--thirty-six hours from Liverpool. It was dated at Boston the

1st, forwarded from Liverpool at 10 A.M. of the 13th, and reached

Alexandria at 11.55 A.M. of the 14th, whence it was transmitted to Cairo

without delay. This is almost equal to the Arabian Nights. The distance

travelled by the despatch is about six thousand miles.

_February 15th_. This day we had an excursion to the Petrified Forest.

It was got up partly to give us all a taste of camel-riding, and it

was originally expected that everybody would go on camels; then it was

agreed that half should go on camels, and "ride-and-tie." In this view,

one camel and one donkey were ordered for T. and myself. But Mr. B. was

subsequently persuaded that with four horses he could have a carriage

dragged through the desert to the forest, which would be more

comfortable for the ladies; and he made that arrangement in his own and

their behalf. Freddy B. is a first-rate horseman, and an Arab steed was

ordered for him. Mr. Buckle was determined to go in a thing called a

_mazetta_, a sort of huge bedstead with curtains, borne on the back of a

camel, big enough to carry a small family, in which he expected to find

room for himself and the two boys travelling with him. Besides these,

the party included the Reverend Mr. Lansing, the excellent head of the

American mission here, the Honorable W.S., a young Englishman, and his

tutor, the Reverend Mr. S., whose agreeable company had been bespoken

when the camel-project was in full strength.

On looking down from the balcony at the transportation-train marshalled

for the occasion, amid the admiring gaze of all the idlers of Cairo,

I was at first a little chagrined to find, as the final result of the

various arrangements, that, besides the camels, the _mazetta_, the

carriage-and-four, and the proud-stepping horse, there appeared but one

donkey, that selected for me. But I was, in truth, very well off. To

begin with, it was not thought prudent that Mr. Buckle should use the

_mazetta_ until the procession had got beyond the narrow streets of

Cairo, lest the camel bearing it should take fright and knock the whole

thing to pieces against the wall of a house. Accordingly, he and his

charges took donkeys, and I rode off with them, at the head of the

column. By-and-by Mr. Buckle changed to the conveyance originally

proposed, but a very short experiment (literally, I suspect) sickened

him of the _mazetta_, whose motion is precisely that of a ship in a

storm, and he sent back to the town for donkeys. At the next halt the

ladies took him into the carriage, where he found himself, as he said,

"in clover," and that was the end of his greatness in camel-riding. This

remark, by the way, suggested a name ("Clover") for our boat in our

voyage up the Nile just afterwards; but patriotism prevailed, and we

named her "Union." It pretty soon appeared that the camel which T. was

riding was young and frisky; the animal was accordingly pronounced

unsafe, and T. changed to a donkey which had fortunately been brought

along for a reserve. The Honorable W.S.'s camel, from the saddle

becoming unfastened, pitched rider and saddle to the ground, a fall of

five or six feet: fortunately no harm was done, and he bravely mounted

again. The saddle upon the camel which the Reverend Mr. S. rode split

in two, and the seat must have been a torture; but he bore it like a

martyr, never flinching. But camel-stock had so far depreciated,

and donkeys gone up, that I was able to try as much as I liked of

camel-riding now and then, at the same time obliging a friend by the use

of my donkey meanwhile. Riding a camel at a walk is the same sort of

thing as riding a very hard-trotting horse without stirrups, and with

no chance to grasp the animal fairly to hold your seat. When the camel

trots, you may imagine yourself on a treadmill.

The journey to the forest, about ten miles, was safely accomplished. We

found the petrifactions duly wonderful. An excellent luncheon was

laid out, after which we had an hour and a half of very entertaining

conversation, in which Mr. Buckle and Rev. Mr. S. held the leading

parts,--all around us as desolate and silent as one could imagine. It

was interesting to observe the manner in which Buckle estimated eminent

names, grouping them in some instances by threes, a favorite conceit

with him. John Stuart Mill, of all living men, he considers as

possessing the greatest mind in the world. Aristotle, Newton, and

Shakspeare are the greatest the world has produced in past times. Homer,

Dante, and Shakspeare are the only three great poets. Johnson, Gibbon,

and Parr are the three writers who have done the greatest harm to the

English language. Of Hallam he has a strong admiration. He spoke of

Sydney Smith as the greatest English wit, and of Selwyn as next to him,

and described Macaulay's memory as unequalled in conversation.

For the return-trip, the donkeys generally were preferred. Miss B., with

spirit, tried camel-riding for a while, and so did Master F. We stopped

to look at the tombs of the Caliphs, and reached the hotel at nightfall,

somewhat fatigued, but satisfied with the day's expedition.

_February 16th._ The morning was gratefully devoted to rest. In the

afternoon, attended service at the Mission, where Rev. Mr. S. preached

an interesting discourse from John xv. 1-4. On the way home met Mr.

Buckle, who came in, and was persuaded to stay to dinner. In speaking

of religion, he said that there is no doctrine or truth in Christianity

that had not been announced before, but that Christianity is by far the

noblest religion in existence. The chief point of its superiority is

the prominence it gives to the humane and philanthropic element; and

in giving this prominence lies its originality. He believes in a Great

First Cause, but does not arrive at his belief by any process of

reasoning satisfactory to himself. Paley's argument, from the evidence

of design, he regards as futile: if the beauty of this world indicates

a creating cause, the beauty of that great cause would suggest another,

and so on. He believes in a future state, and declared most impressively

that life would be insupportable to him, if he thought he were forever

to be separated from one person,--alluding, it is probable, to his

mother, to whose memory he dedicates the second volume of his book.[C]

He has no doubt that in the future state we shall recognize one another;

whether we shall have the same bodies he has no opinion, although he

regards matter as indestructible. He declares himself unable to form any

judgment as to the mode of future existence. Religion, he says, is on

the increase in the world, but theology is declining.

[Footnote C: The words he uses are,--"To the memory of my mother I

_consecrate_ this volume."]

Mr. Buckle characterized as the sublimest passage in Shakspeare the

lines in the "Merchant of Venice,"--

"Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherabims:

Such harmony is in immortal souls!

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

Mr. Thayer suggested the similarity between the closing part of this

passage, about our deafness to the music of the stars, owing to the

"muddy vesture," and the sonnet of Blanco White which speaks of the

starry splendors to which our eyes are blinded by the light of day:--

"Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew

Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,

Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,

This glorious canopy of light and blue?

Yet 'neath the curtain of translucent dew,

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,

Hesperus with the host of heaven came,

And lo! creation widened in man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed

Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find,

Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,

That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?

Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife?

If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?"

Mr. Buckle seemed to be struck by the comparison. He proceeded to speak

of Blanco White's memoirs as painfully interesting, and said that he

had always liked Archbishop Whately for adhering to White after the

desertion of the latter by old friends on account of his change of

belief.

* * * * *

The next few days were occupied in preparations for the voyage up the

Nile in company with my New York friends. Mr. Buckle had very kindly

taken great interest in our plans, and had earnestly advised me to go.

"You will do very wrong indeed," he said, "if you do not go." On the

19th of February we embarked; and as we saluted his boat, lying just

below us in the Nile, while our own shoved off, I little thought that I

should never see him again,--that his brilliant career was so shortly to

come to an untimely end. The serious conversation just recorded was the

last in which I took part with him.

Mr. Buckle remained in Cairo until the beginning of March, when he set

out with the two boys, and Mr. J.S. Stuart Glennie, across the Desert,

for Sinai and Petra. Greatly improved in health by the six weeks in

the Desert, (according to Mr. Glennie's letter,) he undertook the more

fatiguing travelling on horseback through Palestine. He fell ill on the

27th of April, but recovered his health, as it seemed, to such an extent

that Mr. Glennie parted from him on the 21st of May. On the 29th of May,

at Damascus, Mr. Buckle died. Among the incoherent utterances of his

illness, it was possible to distinguish the exclamation, "Oh, my book,

my book, I shall never finish my book!"

And beyond the grief felt in the loss of the kind friend and agreeable

companion, our plaint, in common with the whole world, ever must be,

that he did not live to finish his book.

CAVALRY SONG.

The squadron is forming, the war-bugles play.

To saddle, brave comrades, stout hearts for a fray!

Our captain is mounted,--strike spurs, and away!

No breeze shakes the blossoms or tosses the grain;

But the wind of our speed floats the galloper's mane,

As he feels the bold rider's firm hand on the rein.

Lo, dim in the starlight their white tents appear!

Ride softly! ride slowly! the onset is near!

More slowly! more softly! the sentry may hear!

Now fall on the Rebel--a tempest of flame!

Strike down the false banner whose triumph were shame!

Strike, strike for the true flag, for freedom and fame!

Hurrah! sheathe your swords! the carnage is done.

All red with our valor, we welcome the sun.

Up, up with the stars! we have won! we have won!

NO FAILURE FOR THE NORTH.

We have reached a point in the history of our national troubles where it

seems desirable to examine our present position, and to consider whether

we ought to surrender ourselves to despair, or congratulate ourselves on

decided success,--whether we should abandon all attempts to restore the

Union, assert the dignity of the Constitution, and punish treason, or

nerve ourselves to new effort, and determine to persevere in a righteous

cause so long as a single able-bodied man remains or a dollar of

available property is unexpended.

It may be, it must be, conceded that we commenced the contest with very

crude and inadequate notions of what war really is. We proposed to

decide the issue by appealing to the census and the tax-list,--tribunals

naturally enough occurring to a mercantile and manufacturing

community,--but how if the enemy prefer cannon and cold steel? Our first

campaign was in the field of statistics, and we found the results highly

satisfactory. Our great numerical superiority, aided by our immense

material resources, gave us an early and an easy victory. We outnumbered

the enemy everywhere, defeated them in every pitched battle, starved

them by a vigilant blockade, secured meanwhile the sympathy and support

of the whole civilized world by the holiness of our cause, and commanded

its respect by the display of our material power and our military

capacity,--and in a few short months crushed the Rebellion, restored

the Union, vindicated the Constitution, hung the arch-traitors, and saw

peace in all our borders. This was our campaign--on paper. But war is

something more than a sum in arithmetic. A campaign cannot be decided by

the rule of three. No finite power can control every contingency, and

have all the chances in its favor.

A Moorish legend, given to us in the graceful narrative of Washington

Irving, relates, that an Arabian astrologer constructed for the pacific

Aben Hafuz, King of Granada, a magical mode of repulsing all invaders

without risking the lives of his subjects or diminishing the contents of

the royal treasury. He caused a tower to be built, in the upper part of

which was a circular hall with windows looking towards every point of

the compass, and before each window a table supporting a mimic army of

horse and foot. On the top of the tower was a bronze figure of a Moorish

horseman, fixed on a pivot, with elevated lance. Whenever a foe was at

hand, the figure would turn in that direction, and level his lance as if

for action. No sooner was it reported to the vigilant monarch that the

magic horseman indicated the approach of an enemy, than His Majesty

hastened to the circular hall, selected the table at the point of the

compass indicated by the horseman's spear, touched with the point of a

magic lance some of the pigmy effigies before him, and belabored others

with the butt-end. A scene of confusion at once ensued in the mimic

army. Part fell dead, and the rest, turning their weapons upon each

other, fought with the utmost fury. The same scene was repeated in the

ranks of the advancing enemy. Each renewed attempt at invasion was

foiled by this easy and economical expedient, until the King enjoyed

rest even from rumors of wars.

Now this is a pleasing fiction, and highly creditable to the light and

airy fancy of the Moors. It almost makes one sigh that an astrologer so

fertile in resources is not still extant. It is difficult to conceive,

indeed, of a more felicitous arrangement for a monarch devoted to his

ease, and proof against all temptations to military glory, or for a

people wedded to peaceful pursuits, and ambitious only of material

prosperity. But no such fascinating substitute for fields of carnage is

available in our degenerate days,--"_C'est charmant, mais ce n'est pas

la guerre_."

Nor yet is any useful example furnished by the warlike qualities of the

army raised by Peter Stuyvesant for the reduction of Fort Casimir: not

even when we remember that it included "the Van Higginbottoms, a race of

schoolmasters, armed with ferules and birchen rods,--the Van Bummels,

renowned for feats of the trenches,--the Van Bunschotens, who were the

first that did kick with the left foot,"--with many other warriors

equally fierce and formidable. We must, however reluctantly, leave such

romantic legends and facetious chronicles, and learn more practical

lessons from the sober and instructive page of history. We shall there

find that war means alternate success and defeat, alternate hope and

disappointment, great suffering in the field, many vacant chairs at

many firesides, immense expenditures with little apparent result, "the

best-laid schemes" foiled by a thousand unexpected contingencies,

lamentable indecision in the cabinet, glaring blunders in the field,

stagnation of industry, and heavy taxation.

"War is a game, which, were the nations wise,

Kings would not play at."

But nations are not always wise, and war often becomes a necessity.

When, then, the necessity arises, it should be met manfully. The

question once deliberately decided that peace is no longer consistent

with national honor or national safety, the dread alternative must be

accepted with all its hazards and all its horrors. To organize only in

anticipation of certain and speedy success, to despise and underrate the

enemy, to inquire with how small an army and how limited an expenditure

the war can be carried on, is as unstatesmanlike as it is in flat

defiance of all historical teaching. But if we carry our folly still

farther in the same direction,--if we fail to take into grave account

the most obvious and inevitable incidents of actual warfare,--if in

our overweening confidence we neglect discipline, underrate the prime

importance of promptness and decision in action, certainty and celerity

in movement, and energy and activity in pursuit,--if, in a word, we

expect that the defences of the enemy are to fall into our hands by

means as unwarlike as those that decided the fate of Jericho, or dream

that because our cause is just every precedent in history and every

principle in human nature will be overruled in our favor,--then we

deserve to be outgeneralled, and are fortunate, if we escape final and

disastrous defeat.

Now has not this been precisely our cardinal and capital error, and

are we not to-day suffering its natural consequences? To the blind and

unreasoning confidence with which we began this war has succeeded a

reaction running into the very opposite extreme. We are given over to

a despondency quite as unwarrantable as the extravagance of our early

hopes. We demanded and expected impossibilities. Forgetting that the age

of miracles has passed, many are now bitterly complaining that nothing

has been accomplished, and predicting that all future efforts will

terminate in similar failure. Two years have not elapsed since the first

gun was fired at Fort Sumter; and yet we are amazed and mortified that

our forces have not overrun the whole South, that victory has not

crowned our arms in every battle, and that our flag does not float

triumphant over every acre of every State once called Confederate.

Whether this most desirable result could have been accomplished, if this

or that policy had been adopted at the outset, is one of those problems

that will never be solved; nor is the inquiry at present pertinent or

profitable. Let us rather ask whether, in view of the means actually

employed, our discontent with the existing condition of affairs is not

unmanly and unreasonable. We are to measure results, not by the efforts

that we ought to have put forth, nor by those which we should put forth,

if, with our dear-bought experience, we were called upon once more to

undertake such a gigantic enterprise. We must recall the aspect of

affairs when we first embarked on this perilous sea. We must remember

how ignorant we were of all the danger before us, how imperfect was the

chart by which our course was to be determined, how many shoals and

sunken rocks and crosscurrents we were to encounter, as yet unknown

to any pilot on board our noble ship of state, how little we knew of

navigation in such angry waters, under so stormy a sky.

Turn back the pages of history for two short years, and dwell a moment

on the picture presented to our eyes. A nation, enjoying to the utmost

the substantial benefits belonging to fifty years of profound peace and

unexampled prosperity, enervated by those habits of luxury which wealth

easily accumulated always fosters, with a standing army hardly large

enough to protect our Western frontier from the incursions of hostile

Indians, and a navy ludicrously small in proportion to the extent of our

sea-coast and the value of our commerce, is suddenly plunged into a war

covering such an extent of territory and calling for such an array of

power by sea and land as to dwarf into insignificance all modern wars,

hardly excepting the military operations of Napoleon I.

And it must be remembered that education and habit had trained us to an

implicit reliance on the sufficiency of our laws and the competency of

our Constitution to meet and decide every issue that could possibly be

presented. We could conceive of no public wrongs which could not be

redressed by an appeal to the ballot-box, and of no private injuries for

which our statutes did not provide a suitable remedy.

We were not only a law-abiding, but a peace-loving people. The report of

the revolver was not heard in our streets, nor was the glitter of the

bowie-knife seen in our bar-rooms. We deprecated mob-violence, and

disliked the summary proceedings of Judge Lynch. We took no pains to

conceal our horror of unnecessary bloodshed, and shared the views of

civilized Christendom about duelling. Now and then, to be sure, a

Southerner in one of his sportive moods would stab an inattentive waiter

in some Northern hotel, or a chivalrous son of South Carolina, elegantly

idling away a few years in a New-England university, would shoot some

base-born tutor, or, as an episode in Congressional proceedings, the

member from Arkansas would threaten to pull the nose, spit in the

face, and gouge out the eyes of the (profane participled) sneaking

Yankee,--meaning thereby a quiet, inoffensive member from Massachusetts.

But these incidents of Southern civilization were not frequent enough to

become fashionable. We still clung to our plebeian prejudices against

lawless violence, and persisted in believing that a swaggering bully

could not be an ornament to cultivated and refined society. In fact,

some excellent individuals at the North went so far as to seek to

disseminate these old-fashioned notions among their Southern brethren,

and made annual subscriptions to what was known (alas, that we must

use the historic tense!) as the "Southern Aid Society," having for its

praiseworthy object the support of ministers who should preach the

gospel to our ardent and impulsive neighbors. What a sad and significant

commentary is it upon the ingratitude of depraved human nature, that the

condescending clergyman who whilom consented to collect the offerings

of these discriminating philanthropists is now a chaplain in the

Confederate army, and is invoking the most signal judgments of Heaven

upon his former friends and fellow-laborers!

This, then, was our condition, and these were our habits, when we were

rudely awakened from our dreams of peace by the roar of cannon and the

clash of arms. What wonder that the startling summons found us all

unready for such a crisis? What wonder that our early preparations to

confront the issue thus forced upon us without note of warning were

hasty, incomplete, and quite inadequate to the emergency? Is it

discreditable to us that we were slow to appreciate the bitterness and

intensity of that hatred, which, long smouldering under the surface of

Southern society, burst forth at once into a wide-spread conflagration,

severing like flax all the ties of kindred, and all the bonds of

individual friendship and national intercourse which had united us for

half a century? Here was a section of our Union which had always

enjoyed equal rights with us under the Constitution, and had known the

Government only by its blessings,--nay, more, had actually, by the

confession of its own statesmen, controlled the internal administration

and dictated the foreign policy of the country since the adoption of the

Constitution; which had no substantial grievance to complain of, and

no fanciful injury which could not be readily redressed by legal and

constitutional methods. Are we to be blamed because we could not easily

bring ourselves to believe that an integral part of our nation, with

such a history, could, under a pretence so bald as to insult the common

sense of Christendom, rush headlong into a war which must close all its

avenues of commerce, paralyze all its industry, threaten the existence

of its cherished and peculiar institution,--in a word, whether

successful or unsuccessful, inevitably result in its political suicide?

At this very moment, accustomed as we have been for many sad and weary

months to the daily development of Southern folly and madness, it is

difficult, when we withdraw our minds from the present, to realize that

the whole war is not a hideous nightmare.

In view of all this, I ask, is it strange that we did not at once

comprehend all our danger, and did not enter the field with all our

forces,--determined to fight with desperate energy until every trace of

rebellion was crushed out? If, disturbed at midnight by footsteps in

your chamber, you start up from sound slumber to see a truculent-looking

vagabond prowling about your room with a lighted candle, do you not at

once spring to your feet, collar the intruder, and shout lustily for

help, if he prove too strong for you? Prompt and vigorous action in such

a case is simply the impulse of instinct. But how if you recognize in

the untimely visitor a member of your own household? Will you seize and

overpower him without asking a single question, or waiting for a word of

explanation? Will you not pause for some overt act of hostility, some

convincing proof of a fell purpose? Suppose it transpire that he really

means mischief, and you lose an important advantage by your delay to

strike. You may regret the result; but does it in the least tend to show

that you were cowardly or careless? Now was not this our exact dilemma?

Although the origin of the war and the circumstances attendant upon its

commencement are a thrice-told tale, are we not in danger of overlooking

their bearing upon all our subsequent action? And shall we not act

wisely, if we recur to them again and again, during this momentous

contest?

But, asks a timid Conservative,--from whose patient button the fingers

of an ardent apostle of peace have recently and most reluctantly

parted,--has not this war been shamefully mismanaged by the

Administration? have not contractors grown rich while soldiers have

suffered? have not incompetent generals been unjustly advanced, and

skilful commanders been summarily shelved? have we gained any advantages

at all commensurate with our loss of blood and our expenditure of money?

would not a cessation of hostilities on any terms be better than such

a war as we are now waging? If we might venture to suggest a word of

caution to our desponding friend, before attempting a reply to his

broadside of questions, we would say: Beware how you indulge in too much

conversation with a certain class of our citizens, whose hearty loyalty

has been more than doubted, and whose conversion to the beauties of

peace and the horrors of war is so sudden as to be very suspicious.

Examine their antecedents, and you will find, that, when "border

ruffians" in Kansas threatened with fire and sword the inoffensive

emigrants from New England, these gentlemen saw nothing unusual in such

proceedings, and answered all remonstrances with ridicule. Put them to

the question to-day, and it will appear, that, from the very beginning

of the struggle, all their sympathies have been with the South. They

will tell you that Northern Abolitionists are alone responsible for the

war; that the secession of the Southern States may have been unwise,

but was not unreasonable; that they have always condemned coercion and

advocated compromise; and that there is no safe and satisfactory way out

of our existing difficulties but--_peace_. What do they mean by peace?

Such peace as the highwayman, armed to the teeth, offers to the belated

traveller! Such peace as Benedict Arnold sought to negotiate with the

English general! They know that the South will accept no terms but the

acknowledgment of her independence, or the abject and unconditional

submission of the Free States. They reject the first alternative,

because they dare not go before the North on such an issue. Disguise it

as they may, they are willing to adopt the second. The party to which,

without an exception, these men belong, is powerless without the

cooperation of the South, and would consider no sacrifice of principle

too great, and no humiliation of the North too degrading, if it promised

the restoration of their political supremacy. Avoid all such men.

Distrust their advice. That way dishonor lies, and national disgrace.

If you are not "armed so strong in honesty" as to be proof against

such treasonable talk, you will soon be aware of a softening of your

backbone, and a lamentable loss of earnest, active patriotism. Take

counsel rather of your own common sense. Looking at the question in its

narrowest and most selfish bearings, you _know_ that we can neither

recede nor stand still. Submission Is slavery. Disunion paves the way

for endless secession, and eternal warfare between rising and rival

republics.

But there are other symptoms of disloyalty besides this persistent

demand for peace. There are indications of a desire to array sections of

the North against each other, and--Heaven save the mark!--by the

very politicians who have been most bitter in their denunciation of

"geographical parties." Here comes a little Western lawyer, with

unlimited resources of slang and slender capital of ideas, barely

redeemed from being an absolute blackguard by the humanizing influences

of a New England college, but showing fewer and fewer symptoms of

civilization as he forgets the lessons of his collegiate life; and _he_

delights an audience of New York "roughs," adopted citizens of Celtic

extraction, and lager-loving Germans, (do not cocks always crow longest

and loudest on a dung-hill?) by the novel information, that "Puritanism

is a reptile" and the cause of all our troubles, and that we shall never

fulfil our national destiny until Puritanism has been crushed. Let us

not elevate this nauseating nonsense into importance by attempting a

reply. Such men must be left to follow out their inevitable instincts.

They are not worth the trouble necessary to civilize them. Mr. Rarey

succeeded in taming a zebra from the London Zoölogical Gardens; but

a single lesson could not permanently reclaim the beast, and it soon

relapsed into its native and normal ferocity. One experiment sufficed

to show the power of the artist; no possible increase of value in the

educated animal would have justified a prolonged and perfect training.

You ask if we have gained any advantages commensurate with our efforts,

or with the high-sounding phrase of our declared purpose. Let us look at

this a moment. Suppose we begin with a glance at the other side of

the picture. Has all the boasting, have all the promises, been on the

Federal side? Did we hear nothing of the Confederate flag floating over

Faneuil Hall?--nothing of Washington falling into the hands of the

enemy?--nothing of a festive winter in Philadelphia and a

general distribution of spoils in New York?--nothing of foreign

intervention?--nothing of the cowardice of Northern Mudsills and

the omnipotence of King Cotton? Decidedly, the Rebels began with a

sufficiently startling programme. Let us see how far they have carried

it out. As they were clearly the assailants, we have an undoubted right

to ask what they have accomplished _aggressively_. We say, then, that,

excepting in the case of one brief raid, the soil of a single Free State

has never been polluted by the hostile tread of an invading force; that

every battle-field has been within the limits of States claimed as

Confederate; that, while the war has desolated whole States represented

in the Confederate Congress, not an acre north of Mason and Dixon's line

has suffered from the ravages of the Rebel armies. Was ever another

scorpion more completely surrounded and shut in by a cordon of fire?

This is surely something, but it is by no means all. Have _we_

accomplished nothing aggressively? We will call into court a witness

from the enemy's camp. Hear the recent testimony of a leading journal,

published in the Confederate capital:[A]--

[Footnote A: _Richmond Examiner_, January 20th, 1863.]