Chapter IX.

In the cool of the evening, Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields.

Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half way; and as they now turned

back to the Parsonage, they looked behind, to catch a glimpse of the tall,

outlandish figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the waves of the

green corn.

“Poor man!” said Mrs. Dale, feelingly; “and the button was off his

wristband! What a pity he has nobody to take care of him! He seems very

domestic. Don’t you think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we

could get him a good wife?”

“Um,” said the Parson; “I doubt if he values the married state as he

ought.”

“What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man more polite to ladies in my

life.”

“Yes, but—”

“But what? You are always so mysterious, Charles dear.”

“Mysterious! No, Carry; but if you could hear what the Doctor says of the

ladies sometimes.”

“Ay, when you men get together, my dear. I know what that means—pretty

things you say of us. But you are all alike; you know you are, love!”

“I am sure,” said the Parson, simply, “that I have good cause to speak

well of the sex—when I think of you, and my poor mother.”

Mrs. Dale, who, with all her “tempers,” was an excellent woman, and loved

her husband with the whole of her quick little heart, was touched. She

pressed his hand, and did not call him _dear_ all the way home.

Meanwhile the Italian passed the fields, and came upon the high-road about

two miles from Hazeldean. On one side stood an old-fashioned solitary inn,

such as English inns used to be before they became railway hotels—square,

solid, old-fashioned, looking so hospitable and comfortable, with their

great signs swinging from some elm tree in front, and the long row of

stables standing a little back, with a chaise or two in the yard, and the

jolly landlord talking of the crops to some stout farmer, who has stopped

his rough pony at the well-known door. Opposite this inn, on the other

side the road, stood the habitation of Dr. Riccabocca.

A few years before the date of these annals, the stage-coach, on its way

to London, from a seaport town, stopped at the inn, as was its wont, for a

good hour, that its passengers might dine like Christian Englishmen—not

gulp down a basin of scalding soup, like everlasting heathen Yankees, with

that cursed railway whistle shrieking like a fiend in their ears! It was

the best dining-place on the whole road, for the trout in the neighboring

rill were famous, and so was the mutton which came from Hazeldean Park.

From the outside of the coach had descended two passengers who, alone,

insensible to the attractions of mutton and trout, refused to dine—two

melancholy-looking foreigners, of whom one was Signor Riccabocca, much the

same as we see him now, only that the black suit, was less threadbare, the

tall form less meagre, and he did not then wear spectacles; and the other

was his servant. They would walk about while the coach stopped. Now the

Italian’s eye had been caught by a mouldering dismantled house on the

other side the road, which nevertheless was well situated; half-way up a

green hill, with its aspect due south, a little cascade falling down

artificial rock-work, and a terrace with a balustrade, and a few broken

urns and statues before its Ionic portico; while on the roadside stood a

board, with characters already half effaced, implying that the house was

to be “Let unfurnished, with or without land.”

The abode that looked so cheerless, and which had so evidently hung long

on hand, was the property of Squire Hazeldean. It had been built by his

grandfather on the female side—a country gentleman who had actually been

in Italy (a journey rare enough to boast of in those days), and who, on

his return home, had attempted a miniature imitation of an Italian villa.

He left an only daughter and sole heiress, who married Squire Hazeldean’s

father; and since that time, the house, abandoned by its proprietors for

the larger residence of the Hazeldeans, had been uninhabited and

neglected. Several tenants, indeed, had offered themselves: but your

Squire is slow in admitting upon his own property a rival neighbor. Some

wanted shooting. “That,” said the Hazeldeans, who were great sportsmen and

strict preservers, “was quite out of the question.” Others were fine folks

from London. “London servants,” said the Hazeldeans, who were moral and

prudent people, “would corrupt their own, and bring London prices.”

Others, again, were retired manufacturers, at whom the Hazeldeans turned

up their agricultural noses. In short, some were too grand, and others too

vulgar. Some were refused because they were known so well: “Friends are

best at a distance,” said the Hazeldeans. Others because they were not

known at all: “No good comes of strangers,” said the Hazeldeans. And

finally, as the house fell more and more into decay, no one would take it

unless it was put into thorough repair: “As if one was made of money!”

said the Hazeldeans. In short, there stood the house unoccupied and

ruinous; and there, on its terrace, stood the two forlorn Italians,

surveying it with a smile at each other, as, for the first time since they

set foot in England, they recognized, in dilapidated pilasters and broken

statues, in a weed-grown terrace and the remains of an orangery, something

that reminded them of the land they had left behind.

On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion of learning from

the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant of the Squire’s) such particulars

as he could collect; and a few days afterward Mr. Hazeldean received a

letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very

respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for Clump

Lodge, otherwise called the “Casino;” that the said gentleman did not

shoot—lived in great seclusion—and, having no family, did not care about

the repairs of the place, provided only it were made weather-proof—if the

omission of more expensive reparations could render the rent suitable to

his finances, which were very limited. The offer came at a fortunate

moment—when the steward had just been representing to the Squire the

necessity of doing something to keep the Casino from falling into positive

ruin, and the Squire was cursing the fates which had put the Casino into

an entail—so that he could not pull it down for the building materials.

Mr. Hazeldean therefore caught at the proposal even as a fair lady, who

has refused the best offers in the kingdom, catches at last at some

battered old captain on half-pay, and replied that, as for rent, if the

solicitor’s client was a quiet respectable man, he did not care for that.

But that the gentleman might have it for the first year rent free, on

condition of paying the taxes and putting the place a little in order. If

they suited each other, they could then come to terms. Ten days

subsequently to this gracious reply, Signor Riccabocca and his servant

arrived; and, before the year’s end, the Squire was so contented with his

tenant that he gave him a running lease of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one

years, at a rent nearly nominal, on condition that Signor Riccabocca would

put and maintain the place in repair, barring the roof and fences, which

the Squire generously renewed at his own expense. It was astonishing, by

little and little, what a pretty place the Italian had made of it, and

what is more astonishing, how little it had cost him. He had indeed

painted the walls of the hall, staircase, and the rooms appropriated to

himself, with his own hands. His servant had done the greater part of the

upholstery. The two between them had got the garden into order. The

Italians seemed to have taken a joint love to the place, and to deck it as

they would have done some favorite chapel to their Madonna.

It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to the odd ways of

the foreign settlers—the first thing that offended them was the exceeding

smallness of the household bills. Three days out of the seven, indeed,

both man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in the

garden, and the fishes in the neighboring rill; when no trout could be

caught they fried the minnows (and certainly, even in the best streams,

minnows are more frequently caught than trouts). The next thing which

angered the natives quite as much, especially the female part of the

neighborhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures gave to

the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters. At first

indeed, they had no woman servant at all. But this created such horror

that Parson Dale ventured a hint upon the matter, which Riccabocca took in

very good part, and an old woman was forthwith engaged, after some

bargaining—at three shillings a week—to wash and scrub as much as she

liked during the daytime. She always returned to her own cottage to sleep.

The man-servant, who was styled in the neighborhood “Jackeymo,” did all

else for his master—smoothed his room, dusted his papers, prepared his

coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed his clothes, and cleaned his pipes, of

which Riccabocca had a large collection. But, however close a man’s

character, it generally creeps out in driblets; and on many little

occasions the Italian had shown acts of kindness, and, on some more rare

occasions, even of generosity, which had served to silence his

calumniators, and by degrees he had established a very fair

reputation—suspected, it is true, of being a little inclined to the Black

Art, and of a strange inclination to starve Jackeymo and himself—in other

respects harmless enough.

Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the

Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the Squire was inclined to

be very friendly to all his neighbors—he was, like most country gentlemen,

rather easily _huffed_. Riccabocca had, if with great politeness, still

with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean’s earlier invitations to

dinner, and when the Squire found, that the Italian rarely declined to

dine at the Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak points, viz.,

his regard for the honor of the hospitality of Hazeldean Hall—and he

ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected. Nevertheless, as it

was impossible for the Squire, however huffed, to bear malice, he now and

then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by presents of game, and would

have called on him more often than he did, but that Riccabocca received

him with such excessive politeness that the blunt country gentleman felt

shy and put out, and used to say that “to call on Riccabocca was as bad as

going to court.”

But I left Dr. Riccabocca on the high-road. By this time he has ascended a

narrow path that winds by the side of the cascade, he has passed a

trellis-work covered with vines, from the which Jackeymo has positively

succeeded in making what he calls _wine_—a liquid, indeed, that, if the

cholera had been popularly known in those days, would have soured the

mildest member of the Board of Health; for Squire Hazeldean, though a

robust man who daily carried off his bottle of port with impunity, having

once rashly tasted it, did not recover the effect till he had had a bill

from the apothecary as long as his own arm. Passing this trellis, Dr.

Riccabocca entered upon the terrace, with its stone pavement smoothed and

trim as hands could make it. Here, on neat stands, all his favorite

flowers were arranged. Here four orange trees were in full blossom; here a

kind of summer-house or Belvidere, built by Jackeymo and himself, made his

chosen morning room from May till October; and from this Belvidere there

was as beautiful an expanse of prospect as if our English Nature had

hospitably spread on her green board all that she had to offer as a

banquet to the exile.

A man without his coat, which was thrown over the balustrade, was employed

in watering the flowers; a man with movements so mechanical—with a face so

rigidly grave in its tawny hues—that he seemed like an automaton made out

of mahogany.

“Giacomo,” said Dr. Riccabocca, softly.

The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head.

“Put by the watering-pot, and come here,” continued Riccabocca in Italian;

and, moving toward the balustrade, he leaned over it. Mr. Mitford, the

historian, calls Jean Jacques “_John James_.” Following that illustrious

example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo. Jackeymo came to the

balustrade also, and stood a little behind his master.

“Friend,” said Riccabocca, “enterprises have not always succeeded with us.

Don’t you think, after all, it is tempting our evil star to rent those

fields from the landlord?” Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some strange

movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a ring on his

finger.

“If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad cheap?” said

Jackeymo, doubtfully.

“_Piu vale un presente che due futuri_,” said Riccabocca. “A bird in the

hand is worth two in the bush.”

“_Chi non fa quondo può, non può fare quondo vuole_”—(“He who will not

when he may, when he will it shall have nay”)—answered Jackeymo, as

sententiously as his master. “And the Padrone should think in time that he

must lay by for the dower of the poor signorina”—(young lady).

Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply.

“She must be _that_ high now!” said Jackeymo, putting his hand on some

imaginary line a little above the balustrade. Riccabocca’s eyes, raised

over the spectacles, followed the hand.

“If the Padrone could but see her here—”

“I thought I did!” muttered the Italian.

“He would never let her go from his side till she went to a husband’s,”

continued Jackeymo.

“But this climate—she could never stand it,” said Riccabocca, drawing his

cloak round him, as a north wind took him in the rear.

“The orange trees blossom even here with care,” said Jackeymo, turning

back to draw down an awning where the orange trees faced the north. “See!”

he added, as he returned with a sprig in full bud.

Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed it in his bosom.

“The _other_ one should be there, too,” said Jackeymo.

“To die—as this does already!” answered Riccabocca. “Say no more.”

Jackeymo shrugged his shoulders; and then, glancing at his master, drew

his hand over his eyes.

There was a pause. Jackeymo was the first to break it.

“But, whether here or there, beauty without money is the orange tree

without shelter. If a lad could be got cheap, I would hire the land, and

trust for the crop to the Madonna.”

“I think I know of such a lad,” said Riccabocca, recovering himself, and

with his sardonic smile once more lurking about the corner of his mouth—“a

lad made for us!”

“Diavolo!”

“No, not the Diavolo! Friend, I have this day seen a boy who—refused

sixpence!”

“_Cosa stupenda!_”—(Stupendous thing!) exclaimed Jackeymo, opening his

eyes, and letting fall the water-pot.

“It is true, my friend.”

“Take him, Padrone, in Heaven’s name, and the fields will grow gold.”

“I will think of it, for it must require management to catch such a boy,”

said Riccabocca. “Meanwhile, light a candle in the parlor, and bring from

my bedroom—that great folio of Machiavelli.”

THE TWO GUIDES OF THE CHILD. (FROM DICKENS’S HOUSEHOLD WORDS.)

A spirit near me said, “Look forth upon the Land of Life. What do you

see?”

“Steep mountains, covered by a mighty plain, a table-land of many-colored

beauty. Beauty, nay, it seems all beautiful at first, but now I see that

there are some parts barren.”

“Are they quite barren?—look more closely still!”

“No, in the wildest deserts, now, I see some gum-dropping acacias, and the

crimson blossom of the cactus. But there are regions that rejoice

abundantly in flower and fruit; and now, O Spirit, I see men and women

moving to and fro.”

“Observe them, mortal.”

“I behold a world of love; the men have women’s arms entwined about them;

some upon the verge of precipices—friends are running to the rescue. There

are many wandering like strangers, who know not their road, and they look

upward. Spirit, how many, many eyes are looking up as if to God! Ah, now I

see some strike their neighbors down into the dust; I see some wallowing

like swine; I see that there are men and women brutal.”

“Are they quite brutal—look more closely still.”

“No, I see prickly sorrow growing out of crime, and penitence awakened by

a look of love. I see good gifts bestowed out of the hand of murder, and

see truth issue out of lying lips. But in this plain, O Spirit, I see

regions—wide, bright regions—yielding fruit and flower, while others seem

perpetually vailed with fogs, and in them no fruit ripens. I see pleasant

regions where the rock is full of clefts, and people fall into them. The

men who dwell beneath the fog deal lovingly, and yet they have small

enjoyment in the world around them, which they scarcely see. But whither

are these women going?”

“Follow them.”

“I have followed down the mountains to a haven in the vale below. All that

is lovely in the world of flowers makes a fragrant bed for the dear

children; birds singing, they breathe upon the pleasant air; the

butterflies play with them. Their limbs shine white among the blossoms,

and their mothers come down full of joy to share their innocent delight.

They pelt each other with the lilies of the valley. They call up at will

fantastic masks, grim giants play to make them merry, a thousand grotesque

loving phantoms kiss them; to each the mother is the one thing real, the

highest bliss—the next bliss is the dream of all the world beside. Some

that are motherless, all mother’s love. Every gesture, every look, every

odor, every song, adds to the charm of love which fills the valley. Some

little figures fall and die, and on the valley’s soil they crumble into

violets and lilies, with love-tears to hang in them like dew.

“Who dares to come down with a frown into this happy valley? A severe man

seizes an unhappy, shrieking child, and leads it to the roughest ascent of

the mountain. He will lead it over steep rocks to the plain of the mature.

On ugly needle-points he makes the child sit down, and teaches it its duty

in the world above.”

“Its duty, mortal! Do you listen to the teacher?”

“Spirit, I hear now. The child is informed about two languages spoken by

nations extinct centuries ago, and something also, O Spirit, about the

base of an hypothenuse.”

“Does the child attend?”

“Not much; but it is beaten silly, and its knees are bruised against the

rocks, till it is hauled up, woe-begone and weary, to the upper plain. It

looks about bewildered; all is strange—it knows not how to act. Fogs crown

the barren mountain paths. Spirit, I am unhappy; there are many children

thus hauled up, and as young men upon the plain; they walk in fog, or

among brambles; some fall into pits; and many, getting into flower-paths,

lie down and learn. Some become active, seeking right, but ignorant of

what right is; they wander among men out of their fog-land, preaching

folly. Let me go back among the children.”

“Have they no better guide?”

“Yes, now there comes one with a smiling face, and rolls upon the flowers

with the little ones, and they are drawn to him. And he has magic spells

to conjure up glorious spectacles of fairy land. He frolics with them, and

might be first cousin to the butterflies. He wreathes their little heads

with flower garlands, and with his fairy land upon his lips he walks

toward the mountains; eagerly they follow. He seeks the smoothest upward

path, and that is but a rough one, yet they run up merrily, guide and

children, butterflies pursuing still the flowers as they nod over a host

of laughing faces. They talk of the delightful fairy world, and resting in

the shady places learn of the yet more delightful world of God. They learn

to love the Maker of the Flowers, to know how great the Father of the

Stars must be, how good must be the Father of the Beetle. They listen to

the story of the race they go to labor with upon the plain, and love it

for the labor it has done. They learn old languages of men, to understand

the past—more eagerly they learn the voices of the men of their own day,

that they may take part with the present. And in their study when they

flag, they fall back upon thoughts of the Child Valley they are leaving.

Sports and fancies are the rod and spur that bring them with new vigor to

the lessons. When they reach the plain they cry, ‘We know you, men and

women; we know to what you have aspired for centuries; we know the love

there is in you; we know the love there is in God; we come prepared to

labor with you, dear, good friends. We will not call you clumsy when we

see you tumble, we will try to pick you up; when we fall, you shall pick

us up. We have been trained to love, and therefore we can aid you

heartily, for love is labor!’ ”

The Spirit whispered, “You have seen and you have heard. Go now, and speak

unto your fellow-men: ask justice for the child.”

To-day should love To-morrow, for it is a thing of hope; let the young

Future not be nursed by Care. God gave not fancy to the child that men

should stamp its blossoms down into the loose soil of intellect. The

child’s heart was not made full to the brim of love, that men should pour

its love away, and bruise instead of kiss the trusting innocent. Love and

fancy are the stems on which we may graft knowledge readily. What is

called by some dry folks a solid foundation may be a thing not desirable.

To cut down all the trees, and root up all the flowers in a garden, to

cover walks and flower-beds alike with a hard crust of well-rolled gravel,

that would be to lay down your solid foundation after a plan which some

think good in a child’s mind, though not quite worth adopting in a garden.

O, teacher, love the child and learn of it; so let it love and learn of

you.

THE LABORATORY IN THE CHEST. (FROM DICKENS’S HOUSEHOLD WORDS.)

The mind of Mr. Bagges was decidedly affected—beneficially—by the lecture

on the Chemistry of a Candle, which, as set forth in a previous number of

this journal, had been delivered to him by his youthful nephew. That

learned discourse inspired him with a new feeling; an interest in matters

of science. He began to frequent the Polytechnic Institution, nearly as

much as his club. He also took to lounging at the British Museum; where he

was often to be seen, with his left arm under his coat-tails, examining

the wonderful works of nature and antiquity, through his eye-glass.

Moreover, he procured himself to be elected a member of the Royal

Institution, which became a regular house of call to him, so that in a

short time he grew to be one of the ordinary phenomena of the place.

Mr. Bagges likewise adopted a custom of giving _conversaziones,_ which,

however, were always very private and select—generally confined to his

sister’s family. Three courses were first discussed; then dessert; after

which, surrounded by an apparatus of glasses and decanters, Master Harry

Wilkinson was called upon, as a sort of juvenile Davy, to amuse his uncle

by the elucidation of some chemical or other physical mystery. Master

Wilkinson had now attained to the ability of making experiments; most of

which, involving combustion, were strongly deprecated by the young

gentleman’s mamma; but her opposition was overruled by Mr. Bagges, who

argued that it was much better that a young dog should burn phosphorus

before your face than let off gunpowder behind your back, to say nothing

of occasionally pinning a cracker to your skirts. He maintained that

playing with fire and water, throwing stones, and such like boys’ tricks,

as they are commonly called, are the first expressions of a scientific

tendency—endeavors and efforts of the infant mind to acquaint itself with

the powers of Nature.

His own favorite toys, he remembered, were squibs, suckers, squirts, and

slings; and he was persuaded that, by his having been denied them at

school, a natural philosopher had been nipped in the bud.

Blowing bubbles was an example—by-the-by, a rather notable one—by which

Mr. Bagges, on one of his scientific evenings, was instancing the affinity

of child’s play to philosophical experiments, when he bethought him Harry

had said on a former occasion that the human breath consists chiefly of

carbonic acid, which is heavier than common air. How then, it occurred to

his inquiring, though elderly mind, was it that soap-bladders, blown from

a tobacco-pipe, rose instead of sinking? He asked his nephew this.

“Oh, uncle!” answered Harry, “in the first place, the air you blow bubbles

with mostly comes in at the nose and goes out at the mouth, without having

been breathed at all. Then it is warmed by the mouth, and warmth, you

know, makes a measure of air get larger, and so lighter in proportion. A

soap-bubble rises for the same reason that a fire-balloon rises—that is,

because the air inside of it has been heated, and weighs less than the

same sized bubbleful of cold air.”

“What, hot breath does!” said Mr. Bagges. “Well, now, it’s a curious

thing, when you come to think of it, that the breath should be hot—indeed,

the warmth of the body generally seems a puzzle. It is wonderful, too, how

the bodily heat can be kept up so long as it is. Here, now, is this

tumbler of hot grog—a mixture of boiling water, and what d’ye call it, you

scientific geniuses?”

“Alcohol, uncle.”

“Alcohol—well—or, as we used to say, brandy. Now, if I leave this tumbler

of brandy-and-water alone—”

“_If_ you do, uncle,” interposed his nephew, archly.

“Get along, you idle rogue! If I let that tumbler stand there, in a few

minutes the brandy-and-water—eh?—I beg pardon—the alcohol-and-water—gets

cold. Now, why—why the deuce—if the brand—the alcohol-and-water cools;

why—how—how is it we don’t cool in the same way, I want to know? eh?”

demanded Mr. Bagges, with the air of a man who feels satisfied that he has

propounded a “regular poser.”

“Why,” replied Harry, “for the same reason that the room keeps warm so

long as there is a fire in the grate.”

“You don’t mean to say that I have a fire in my body?”

“I do, though.”

“Eh, now? That’s good,” said Mr. Bagges. “That reminds me of the man in

love crying, ‘Fire! fire!’ and the lady said, ‘Where, where?’ And he

called out, ‘Here! here!’ with his hand upon his heart. Eh?—but now I

think of it—you said, the other day, that breathing was a sort of burning.

Do you mean to tell me that I—eh?—have fire, fire, as the lover said,

here, here—in short, that my chest is a grate or an Arnott’s stove?”

“Not exactly so, uncle. But I do mean to tell you that you have a sort of

fire burning partly in your chest; but also, more or less, throughout your

whole body.”

“Oh, Henry!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkinson, “How can you say such horrid

things!”

“Because they’re quite true, mamma—but you needn’t be frightened. The fire

of one’s body is not hotter than from ninety degrees to one hundred and

four degrees or so. Still it is fire, and will burn some things, as you

would find, uncle, if, in using phosphorus, you were to let a little bit

of it get under your nail.”

“I’ll take your word for the fact, my boy,” said Mr. Bagges. “But, if I

have a fire burning throughout my person—which I was not aware of, the

only inflammation I am ever troubled with being in the great toe—I say, if

my body is burning continually—how is it I don’t smoke—eh? Come, now?”

“Perhaps you consume your own smoke,” suggested Mr. Wilkinson, senior,

“like every well-regulated furnace.”

“You smoke nothing but your pipe, uncle, because you burn all your

carbon,” said Harry. “But, if your body doesn’t smoke, it steams. Breathe

against a looking-glass, or look at your breath on a cold morning. Observe

how a horse reeks when it perspires. Besides—as you just now said you

recollected my telling you the other day—you breathe out carbonic acid,

and that, and the steam of the breath together, are exactly the same

things, you know, that a candle turns into in burning.”

“But if I burn like a candle—why don’t I burn _out_ like a candle?”

demanded Mr. Bagges. “How do you get over that?”

“Because,” replied Harry, “your fuel is renewed as fast as burnt. So

perhaps you resemble a lamp rather than a candle. A lamp requires to be

fed; so does the body—as, possibly, uncle, you may be aware.”

“Eh?—well—I have always entertained an idea of that sort,” answered Mr.

Bagges, helping himself to some biscuits. “But the lamp feeds on

train-oil.”

“So does the Laplander. And you couldn’t feed the lamp on turtle or

mulligatawny, of course, uncle. But mulligatawny or turtle can be changed

into fat—they are so, sometimes, I think—when they are eaten in large

quantities, and fat will burn fast enough. And most of what you eat turns

into something which burns at last, and is consumed in the fire that warms

you all over.”

“Wonderful, to be sure,” exclaimed Mr. Bagges. “Well, now, and how does

this extraordinary process take place?”

“First, you know, uncle, your food is digested—”

“Not always, I am sorry to say, my boy,” Mr. Bagges observed, “but go on.”

“Well; when it _is_ digested, it becomes a sort of fluid, and mixes

gradually with the blood, and turns into blood, and so goes over the whole

body, to nourish it. Now, if the body is always being nourished, why

doesn’t it keep getting bigger and bigger, like the ghost in the Castle of

Otranto?”

“Eh? Why, because it loses as well as gains, I suppose. By

perspiration—eh—for instance?”

“Yes, and by breathing; in short, by the burning I mentioned just now.

Respiration, or breathing, uncle, is a perpetual combustion.”

“But if my system,” said Mr. Bagges, “is burning throughout, what keeps up

the fire in my little finger—putting gout out of the question?”

“You burn all over, because you breathe all over, to the very tips of your

fingers’ ends,” replied Harry.

“Oh, don’t talk nonsense to your uncle!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkinson.

“It isn’t nonsense,” said Harry. “The air that you draw into the lungs

goes more or less over all the body, and penetrates into every fibre of

it, which is breathing. Perhaps you would like to hear a little more about

the chemistry of breathing, or respiration, uncle?”

“I should, certainly.”

“Well, then; first you ought to have some idea of the breathing apparatus.

The laboratory that contains this is the chest, you know. The chest, you

also know, has in it the heart and lungs, which, with other things in it,

fill it quite out, so as to leave no hollow space between themselves and

it. The lungs are a sort of air-sponges, and when you enlarge your chest

to draw breath, they swell out with it, and suck the air in. On the other

hand, you narrow your chest, and squeeze the lungs, and press the air from

them;—that is breathing out. The lungs are made up of a lot of little

cells. A small pipe—a little branch of the windpipe—opens into each cell.

Two blood-vessels, a little tiny artery, and a vein to match, run into it

also. The arteries bring into the little cells dark-colored blood, which

_has been_ all over the body. The veins carry out of the little cells

bright scarlet-colored blood, which _is to go_ all over the body. So all

the blood passes through the lungs, and in so doing, is changed from dark

to bright scarlet.”

“Black blood, didn’t you say, in the arteries, and scarlet in the veins? I

thought it was just the reverse,” interrupted Mr. Bagges.

“So it is,” replied Harry, “with all the other arteries and veins, except

those that circulate the blood through the lung-cells. The heart has two

sides, with a partition between them that keeps the blood on the right

side separate from the blood on the left; both sides being hollow, mind.

The blood on the right side of the heart comes there from all over the

body, by a couple of large veins, dark, before it goes to the lungs. From

the right side of the heart, it goes on to the lungs, dark still, through

an artery. It comes back to the left side of the heart from the lungs,

bright scarlet, through four veins. Then it goes all over the rest of the

body from the left side of the heart, through an artery that branches into

smaller arteries, all carrying bright scarlet blood. So the arteries and

veins of the lungs on one hand, and of the rest of the body on the other,

do exactly opposite work, you understand.”

“I hope so.”

“Now,” continued Harry, “it requires a strong magnifying glass to see the

lung-cells plainly, they are so small. But you can fancy them as big as

you please. Picture any one of them to yourself of the size of an orange,

say, for convenience in thinking about it; that one cell, with whatever

takes place in it, will be a specimen of the rest. Then you have to

imagine an artery carrying blood of one color into it, and a vein taking

away blood of another color from it, and the blood changing its color in

the cell.”

“Ay, but what makes the blood change its color?”

“Recollect, uncle, you have a little branch from the windpipe opening into

the cell which lets in the air. Then the blood and the air are brought

together, and the blood alters in color. The reason, I suppose you would

guess, is that it is somehow altered by the air.”

“No very unreasonable conjecture, I should think,” said Mr. Bagges.

“Well; if the air alters the blood, most likely, we should think, it gives

something to the blood. So first let us see what is the difference between

the air we breathe _in_, and the air we breathe _out_. You know that

neither we nor animals can keep breathing the same air over and over

again. You don’t want me to remind you of the Black Hole of Calcutta, to

convince you of that; and I dare say you will believe what I tell you,

without waiting till I can catch a mouse and shut it up in an air-tight

jar, and show you how soon the unlucky creature will get uncomfortable,

and began to gasp, and that it will by-and-by die. But if we were to try

this experiment—not having the fear of the Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Animals, nor the fear of doing wrong, before our eyes—we should

find that the poor mouse, before he died, had changed the air of his

prison considerably. But it would be just as satisfactory, and much more

humane, if you or I were to breathe in and out of a silk bag or a bladder

till we could stand it no longer, and then collect the air which we had

been breathing in and out. We should find that a jar of such air would put

out a candle. If we shook some lime-water up with it, the lime-water would

turn milky. In short, uncle, we should find that a great part of the air

was carbonic acid, and the rest mostly nitrogen. The air we inhale is

nitrogen and oxygen; the air we exhale has lost most of its oxygen, and

consists of little more than nitrogen and carbonic acid. Together with

this, we breathe out the vapor of water, as I said before. Therefore in

breathing, we give off exactly what a candle does in burning, only not so

fast, after the rate. The carbonic acid we breathe out, shows that carbon

is consumed within our bodies. The watery vapor of the breath is a proof

that hydrogen is so, too. We take in oxygen with the air, and the oxygen

unites with carbon, and makes carbonic acid, and with hydrogen, forms

water.”

“Then don’t the hydrogen and carbon combine with the oxygen—that is,

burn—in the lungs, and isn’t the chest the fire-place, after all?” asked

Mr. Bagges.

“Not altogether, according to those who are supposed to know better. They

are of opinion, that some of the oxygen unites with the carbon and

hydrogen of the blood in the lungs: but that most of it is merely absorbed

by the blood, and dissolved in it in the first instance.”

“Oxygen, absorbed by the blood? That seems odd,” remarked Mr. Bagges. “How

can that be?”

“We only know the fact that there are some things that will absorb

gases—suck them in—make them disappear. Charcoal will, for instance. It is

thought that the iron which the blood contains gives it the curious

property of absorbing oxygen. Well; the oxygen going into the blood makes

it change from dark to bright scarlet; and then this blood containing

oxygen is conveyed all over the system by the arteries, and yields up the

oxygen to combine with hydrogen and carbon as it goes along. The carbon

and hydrogen are part of the substance of the body. The bright scarlet

blood mixes oxygen with them, which burns them, in fact; that is, makes

them into carbonic acid and water. Of course, the body would soon be

consumed if this were all that the blood does. But while it mixes oxygen

with the old substance of the body, to burn it up, it lays down fresh

material to replace the loss. So our bodies are continually changing

throughout, though they seem to us always the same; but then, you know, a

river appears the same from year’s end to year’s end, although the water

in it is different every day.”

“Eh, then,” said Mr. Bagges, “if the body is always on the change in this

way, we must have had several bodies in the course of our lives, by the

time we are old.”

“Yes, uncle; therefore, how foolish it is to spend money upon funerals.

What becomes of all the bodies we use up during our life-times? If we are

none the worse for their flying away in carbonic acid and other things

without ceremony, what good can we expect from having a fuss made about

the body we leave behind us, which is put into the earth? However, you are

wanting to know what becomes of the water and carbonic acid which have

been made by the oxygen of the blood burning up the old materials of our

frame. The dark blood of the veins absorbs this carbonic acid and water,

as the blood of the arteries does oxygen—only, they say, it does so by

means of a salt in it, called phosphate of soda. Then the dark blood goes

back to the lungs, and in them it parts with its carbonic acid and water,

which escapes as breath. As fast as we breathe out, carbonic acid and

water leave the blood; as fast as we breathe in, oxygen enters it. The

oxygen is sent out in the arteries to make the rubbish of the body into

gas and vapor, so that the veins may bring it back and get rid of it. The

burning of rubbish by oxygen throughout our frames is the fire by which

our animal heat, is kept up. At least this is what most philosophers

think; though doctors differ a little on this point, as on most others, I

hear. Professor Liebig says, that our carbon is mostly prepared for

burning by being first extracted from the blood sent to it—(which contains

much of the rubbish of the system dissolved)—in the form of bile, and is

then re-absorbed into the blood, and burnt. He reckons that a grown-up man

consumes about fourteen ounces of carbon a day. Fourteen ounces of

charcoal a day, or eight pounds two ounces a week, would keep up a

tolerable fire.”

“I had no idea we were such extensive charcoal-burners,” said Mr. Bagges.

“They say we each eat our peck of dirt before we die—but we must burn

bushels of charcoal.”

“And so,” continued Harry, “the professor calculates that we burn quite

enough fuel to account for our heat. I should rather think, myself, it had

something to do with it—shouldn’t you?”

“Eh?” said Mr. Bagges; “it makes one rather nervous to think that one is

burning all over—throughout one’s very blood—in this kind of way.”

“It is very awful!” said Mrs. Wilkinson.

“If true. But in that case, shouldn’t we be liable to inflame

occasionally?” objected her husband.

“It is said,” answered Harry, “that spontaneous combustion does happen

sometimes; particularly in great spirit drinkers. I don’t see why it

should not, if the system were to become too inflammable. Drinking alcohol

would be likely to load the constitution with carbon, which would be fuel

for the fire, at any rate.”

“The deuce!” exclaimed Mr. Bagges, pushing his brandy-and-water from him.

“We had better take care how we indulge in combustibles.”

“At all events,” said Harry, “it must be bad to have too much fuel in us.

It must choke the fire, I should think, if it did not cause inflammation;

which Dr. Truepenny says it does, meaning, by inflammation, gout, and so

on, you know, uncle.”

“Ahem!” coughed Mr. Bagges.

“Taking in too much fuel, I dare say, you know, uncle, means eating and

drinking to excess,” continued Harry. “The best remedy, the doctor says,

for overstuffing is exercise. A person who uses great bodily exertion, can

eat and drink more without suffering from it than one who leads an

inactive life; a fox-hunter, for instance, in comparison with an alderman.

Want of exercise and too much nourishment must make a man either fat or

ill. If the extra hydrogen and carbon are not burnt out, or otherwise got

rid of, they turn to blubber, or cause some disturbance in the system,

intended by Nature to throw them off, which is called a disease. Walking,

riding, running, increase the breathing—as well as the perspiration—and

make us burn away our carbon and hydrogen in proportion. Dr. Truepenny

declares that if people would only take in as much fuel as is requisite to

keep up a good fire, his profession would be ruined.”

“The good old advice—Baillie’s, eh?—or Abernethy’s—live upon sixpence a

day, and earn it,” Mr. Bagges observed.

“Well, and then, uncle, in hot weather the appetite is naturally weaker

than it is in cold—less heat is required, and therefore less food. So in

hot climates; and the chief reason, says the doctor, why people ruin their

health in India is their spurring and goading their stomachs to crave what

is not good for them, by spices and the like. Fruits and vegetables are

the proper things to eat in such countries, because they contain little

carbon compared to flesh, and they are the diet of the natives of those

parts of the world. Whereas food with much carbon in it, meat, or even

mere fat or oil, which is hardly any thing else than carbon and hydrogen,

are proper in very cold regions, where heat from within is required to

supply the want of it without. That is why the Laplander is able, as I

said he does, to devour train-oil. And Dr. Truepenny says that it may be

all very well for Mr. M’Gregor to drink raw whisky at deer-stalking in the

Highlands, but if Major Campbell combines that beverage with the diversion

of tiger-hunting in the East Indies, habitually, the chances are that the

major will come home with a diseased liver.”

“Upon my word, sir, the whole art of preserving health appears to consist

in keeping up a moderate fire within us,” observed Mr. Bagges.

“Just so, uncle, according to my friend the doctor. ‘Adjust the fuel,’ he

says, ‘to the draught’—he means the oxygen; ‘keep the bellows properly at

work, by exercise, and your fire will seldom want poking.’ The doctor’s

pokers, you know, are pills, mixtures, leeches, blisters, lancets, and

things of that sort.”

“Indeed? Well, then, my heart-burn, I suppose, depends upon bad management

of my fire?” surmised Mr. Bagges.

“I should say that was more than probable, uncle. Well, now, I think you

see that animal heat can be accounted for, in very great part at least, by

the combustion of the body. And then there are several facts that—as I

remember Shakspeare says—

“ ‘Help to thicken other proofs,

That do demonstrate thinly.”

“Birds that breathe a great deal are very hot creatures; snakes and

lizards, and frogs and fishes, that breathe but little, are so cold that

they are called cold-blooded animals. Bears and dormice, that sleep all

the winter, are cold during their sleep, while their breathing and

circulation almost entirely stop. We increase our heat by walking fast,

running, jumping, or working hard; which sets us breathing faster, and

then we get warmer. By these means, we blow up our own fire, if we have no

other, to warm ourselves on a cold day. And how is it that we don’t go on

continually getting hotter and hotter?”

“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Bagges, “I suppose that is one of Nature’s mysteries.”

“Why, what happens, uncle, when we take violent exercise? We break out

into a perspiration; as you complain you always do, if you only run a few

yards. Perspiration is mostly water, and the extra heat of the body goes

into the water, and flies away with it in steam. Just for the same reason,

you can’t boil water so as to make it hotter than two hundred and twelve

degrees; because all the heat that passes into it beyond that, unites with

some of it and becomes steam, and so escapes. Hot weather causes you to

perspire even when you sit still; and so your heat is cooled in summer. If

you were to heat a man in an oven, the heat of his body generally wouldn’t

increase very much till he became exhausted and died. Stories are told of

mountebanks sitting in ovens, and meat being cooked by the side of them.

Philosophers have done much the same thing—Dr. Fordyce and others, who

found they could bear a heat of two hundred and sixty degrees.

Perspiration is our animal fire-escape. Heat goes out from the lungs, as

well as the skin, in water; so the lungs are concerned in cooling us as

well as heating us, like a sort of regulating furnace. Ah, uncle, the body

is a wonderful factory, and I wish I were man enough to take you over it.

I have only tried to show you something of the contrivances for warming

it, and I hope you understand a little about that!”

“Well,” said Mr. Bagges, “breathing, I understand you to say, is the chief

source of animal heat, by occasioning the combination of carbon and

hydrogen with oxygen, in a sort of gentle combustion, throughout our

frame. The lungs and heart are an apparatus for generating heat, and

distributing it over the body by means of a kind of warming pipes, called

blood-vessels. Eh?—and the carbon and hydrogen we have in our systems we

get from our food. Now, you see, here is a slice of cake, and there is a

glass of wine—Eh?—now see whether you can get any carbon and oxygen out of

that.”

The young philosopher, having finished his lecture, applied himself

immediately to the performance of the proposed experiment, which he

performed with cleverness and dispatch.

THE STEEL PEN. AN ILLUSTRATION OF CHEAPNESS. (FROM DICKENS’S HOUSEHOLD

WORDS.)

We remember (early remembrances are more durable than recent) an epithet

employed by Mary Wolstonecroft, which then seemed as happy as it was

original—“The _iron_ pen of Time.” Had the vindicatress of the “Rights of

Women” lived in these days (fifty years later), when the iron pen is the

almost universal instrument of writing, she would have bestowed upon Time

a less common material for recording his doings.

While we are remembering, let us look back for a moment upon our earliest

school-days—the days of large text and round hand. Twenty urchins sit at a

long desk, each intent upon making his _copy_. A nicely mended pen has

been given to each. Our own labor goes on successfully, till, in

school-boy phrase, the pen begins to splutter. A bold effort must be made.

We leave the form, and timidly address the writing-master with—“Please,

sir, mend my pen.” A slight frown subsides as he sees that the quill is

very bad—too soft or too hard—used to the stump. He dashes it away, and

snatching a feather from a bundle—a poor thin feather, such as green geese

drop on a common—shapes it into a pen. This mending and making process

occupies all his leisure—occupies, indeed, many of the minutes that ought

to be devoted to instruction. He has a perpetual battle to wage with his

bad quills. They are the meanest produce of the plucked goose.

And is this process still going on in the many thousand schools of our

land, where with all drawbacks of imperfect education, both as to numbers

educated and gifts imparted, there are about two millions and a half of

children under daily instruction? In remote rural districts probably; in

the towns certainly not. The steam-engine is now the pen-maker. Hecatombs

of geese are consumed at Michaelmas and Christmas; but not all the geese

in the world would meet the demand of England for pens. The supply of

_patés de foie gras_ will be kept up—that of quills, whether known as

_primes_, _seconds_, or _pinions,_ must be wholly inadequate to the wants

of a _writing_ people. Wherever geese are bred in these islands, so

assuredly, in each succeeding March, will every full-fledged victim be

robbed of his quills; and then turned forth on the common, a very waddling

and impotent goose, quite unworthy of the name of bird. The country

schoolmaster, at the same spring-time, will continue to buy the smallest

quills, at a low price, clarify them after his own rude fashion, make them

into pens, and sorely spite the boy who splits them up too rapidly. The

better quills will still be collected, and find their way to the quill

dealer, who will exercise his empirical arts before they pass to the

stationer. He will plunge them into heated sand, to make the external skin

peel off, and the external membrane shrivel up; or he will saturate them

with water, and alternately contract and swell them before a charcoal

fire; or he will dip them in nitric acid, and make them of a gaudy

brilliancy but a treacherous endurance. They will be sorted according to

the quality of the barrels, with the utmost nicety. The experienced buyer

will know their value by looking at their feathery ends, tapering to a

point; the uninitiated will regard only the quill portion. There is no

article of commerce in which the market value is so difficult to be

determined with exactness. For the finest and largest quills no price

seems unreasonable; for those of the second quality too exorbitant a

charge is often made. The foreign supply is large, and probably exceeds

the home supply of the superior article. What the exact amount is we know

not. There is no duty now on quills. The tariff of 1845—one of the most

lasting monuments of the wisdom of our great commercial minister—abolished

the duty of half-a-crown a thousand. In 1832 the duty amounted to four

thousand two hundred pounds, which would show an annual importation of

thirty-three millions one hundred thousand quills; enough, perhaps, for

the commercial clerks of England, together with the quills of home

growth—but how to serve a letter-writing population?

The ancient reign of the quill-pen was first seriously disturbed about

twenty-five years ago. An abortive imitation of the _form_ of a pen was

produced before that time; a clumsy, inelastic, metal tube fastened in a

bone or ivory handle, and sold for half-a-crown. A man might make his mark

with one—but as to writing, it was a mere delusion. In due course came

more carefully finished inventions for the luxurious, under the tempting

names of ruby pen, or diamond pen—with the plain gold pen, and the rhodium

pen, for those who were skeptical as to the jewelry of the inkstand. The

economical use of the quill received also the attention of science. A

machine was invented to divide the barrel lengthwise into two halves; and,

by the same mechanical means, these halves were subdivided into small

pieces, cut pen-shape, slit, and nibbed. But the pressure upon the quill

supply grew more and more intense. A new power had risen up in our world—a

new seed sown—the source of all good, or the dragon’s teeth of Cadmus. In

1818 there were only one hundred and sixty-five thousand scholars in the

monitorial schools—the new schools, which were being established under the

auspices of the National Society, and the British and Foreign School

Society. Fifteen years afterward, in 1833, there were three hundred and

ninety thousand. Ten years later, the numbers exceeded a million. Even a

quarter of a century ago two-thirds of the male population of England, and

one-half of the female, were learning to write; for in the Report of the

Registrar-General for 1846, we find this passage—“Persons when they are

married are required to sign the marriage register; if they can not write

their names, they sign with a mark: the result has hitherto been, that

nearly one man in three, and one woman in two, married, sign with marks.”

This remark applies to the period between 1839 and 1845. Taking the

average age of men at marriage as twenty-seven years, and the average age

of boys during their education as ten years, the marriage-register is an

educational test of male instruction for the years 1824-28. But the gross

number of the population of England and Wales was rapidly advancing. In

1821 it was twelve millions; in 1831, fourteen millions; in 1841, sixteen

millions; in 1851, taking the rate of increase at fourteen per cent., it

will be eighteen millions and a half. The extension of education was

proceeding in a much quicker ratio; and we may therefore fairly assume

that the proportion of those who make their marks in the marriage-register

has greatly diminished since 1844.

But, during the last ten years, the natural desire to learn to write, of

that part of the youthful population which education can reach, has

received a great moral impulse by a wondrous development of the most

useful and pleasurable exercise of that power. The uniform penny postage

has been established. In the year 1838, the whole number of letters

delivered in the United Kingdom was seventy-six millions; in this year

that annual delivery has reached the prodigious number of three hundred

and thirty-seven millions. In 1838, a Committee of the House of Commons

thus denounced, among the great commercial evils of the high rates of

postage, their injurious effects upon the great bulk of the people. They

either act as a grievous tax on the poor, causing them to sacrifice their

little earnings to the pleasure and advantage of corresponding with their

distant friends, or compel them to forego such intercourse altogether;

thus subtracting from the small amount of their enjoyments, and

obstructing the growth and maintenance of their best affections. Honored

be the man who broke down these barriers! Praised be the Government that,

_for once_, stepping out of its fiscal tram-way, dared boldly to legislate

for the domestic happiness, the educational progress, and the moral

elevation of the masses! The steel pen, sold at the rate of a penny a

dozen, is the creation, in a considerable degree, of the Penny Postage

stamp; as the Penny Postage stamp was a representative, if not a creation,

of the new educational power. Without the steel pen, it may reasonably be

doubted whether there were mechanical means within the reach of the great

bulk of the population for writing the three hundred and thirty-seven

millions of letters that now annually pass through the Post Office.

Othello’s sword had “the ice-brook’s temper;” but not all the real or

imaginary virtues of the stream that gave its value to the true Spanish

blade could create the elasticity of a steel pen. Flexible, indeed, is the

Toledo. If thrust against a wall, it will bend into an arc that describes

three-fourths of a circle. The problem to be solved in the steel-pen, is

to convert the iron of Dannemora into a substance as thin as the quill of

a dove’s pinion, but as strong as the proudest feather of an eagle’s wing.

The furnaces and hammers of the old armorers could never have solved this

problem. The steel pen belongs to our age of mighty machinery. It could

not have existed in any other age. The demand for the instrument, and the

means of supplying it, came together.

The commercial importance of the steel pen was first manifested to our

senses a year or two ago at Sheffield. We had witnessed all the curious

processes of _converting_ iron into steel, by saturating it with carbon in

the converting furnace; of _tilting_ the bars so converted into a harder

substance, under the thousand hammers that shake the waters of the Sheaf

and the Don: of _casting_ the steel thus converted and tilted into ingots

of higher purity; and, finally, of _milling_, by which the most perfect

development of the material is acquired, under enormous rollers. About two

miles from the metropolis of steel, over whose head hangs a canopy of

smoke through which the broad moors of the distance sometimes reveal

themselves, there is a solitary mill where the tilting and rolling

processes are carried to great perfection. The din of the large tilts is

heard half a mile off. Our ears tingle, our legs tremble, when we stand

close to their operation of beating bars of steel into the greatest

possible density; for the whole building vibrates as the workmen swing

before them in suspended baskets, and shift the bar at every movement of

these hammers of the Titans. We pass onward to the more quiet _rolling_

department. The bar that has been tilted into the most perfect

compactness, has now to acquire the utmost possible tenuity. A large area

is occupied by furnaces and rollers. The bar of steel is dragged out of

the furnace at almost a white heat. There are two men at each roller. It

is passed through the first pair, and its squareness is instantly

elongated and widened into flatness; rapidly through a second pair, and a

third, and a fourth, and a fifth. The bar is becoming a sheet of steel.

Thinner and thinner it becomes, until it would seem that the workmen can

scarcely manage the fragile substance. It has spread out like a morsel of

gold under the beater’s hammer, into an enormous leaf. The least

attenuated sheet is only the hundredth part of an inch in thickness; some

sheets are made as thin as the two-hundredth part of an inch. And for what

purpose is this result of the labors of so many workmen, of such vast and

complicated machinery, destined?—what the final application of a material

employing so much capital in every step, from the Swedish mine to its

transport by railroad to some other seat of British industry? _The whole

is prepared for one steel-pen manufactory at Birmingham._

There is nothing very remarkable in a steel-pen manufactory, as regards

ingenuity of contrivance or factory organization. Upon a large scale of

production, the extent of labor engaged in producing so minute an article,

is necessarily striking. But the process is just as curious and

interesting, if conducted in a small shop as in a large. The pure steel,

as it comes from the rolling-mill, is cut up into strips about two inches

and a half in width. These are further cut into the proper size for the

pen. The pieces are then annealed and cleansed. The maker’s name is neatly

impressed on the metal; and a cutting-tool forms the slit, although

imperfectly in this stage. The pen shape is given by a convex punch

pressing the plate into a concave die. The pen is formed when the slit is

perfected. It has now to be hardened, and, finally, cleansed and polished,

by the simple agency of friction in a cylinder. All the varieties of form

of the steel pen are produced by the punch; all the contrivances of slits

and apertures above the nib, by the cutting-tool. Every improvement has

had for its object to overcome the rigidity of the steel—to imitate the

elasticity of the quill, while bestowing upon the pen a superior

durability.

The perfection that may reasonably be demanded in a steel pen has yet to

be reached. But the improvement in the manufacture is most decided. Twenty

years ago, to one who might choose, regardless of expense, between the

quill pen and the steel, the best Birmingham and London production was an

abomination. But we can trace the gradual acquiescence of most men in the

writing implement of the multitude. Few of us, in an age when the small

economies are carefully observed, and even paraded, desire to use quill

pens at ten or twelve shillings a hundred, as Treasury Clerks once

luxuriated in their use—an hour’s work, and then a new one. To mend a pen,

is troublesome to the old, and even the middle-aged man who once acquired

the art; the young, for the most part, have not learned it. The most

painstaking and penurious author would never dream of imitating the

wondrous man who translated Pliny with “one gray goose quill.” Steel pens

are so cheap, that if one scratches or splutters, it may be thrown away,

and another may be tried. But when a really good one is found, we cling to

it, as worldly men cling to their friends: we use it till it breaks down,

or grows rusty. We can do no more; we handle it as Izaak Walton handled

the frog upon his hook, “as if we loved him.” We could almost fancy some

analogy between the gradual and decided improvement of the steel pen—one

of the new instruments of education—and the effects of education itself

upon the mass of the people. An instructed nation ought to present the

same gradually perfecting combination of strength with elasticity. The

favorites of fortune are like the quill, ready made for social purposes,

with a little scraping and polishing. The bulk of the community have to be

formed out of ruder and tougher materials—to be converted, welded, and

tempered into pliancy. The _manners_ of the great British family have

decidedly improved under culture—“_emollit mores_:” may the sturdy

self-respect of the race never be impaired!

SNAKES AND SERPENT CHARMERS. (FROM BENTLEY’S MISCELLANY.)

At the present time there are at the London Zoological Gardens two Arabs,

who are eminently skilled in what is termed “Snake-Charming.” In this

country, happily for ourselves, we have but little practical acquaintance

with venomous serpents, and there is no scope for the development of

native skill in the art referred to; the visit, therefore, of these

strangers is interesting, as affording an opportunity of beholding feats

which have hitherto been known to us only by description. We propose,

therefore, to give some account of their proceedings.

Visitors to the Zoological Gardens will remark, on the right hand side,

after they have passed through the tunnel, and ascended the slope beyond,

a neat wooden building in the Swiss style. This is the reptile-house, and

while our readers are bending their steps toward it, we will describe the

performance of the Serpent Charmers.

The names of these are Jubar-Abou-Haijab, and Mohammed-Abou-Merwan. The

former is an old man, much distinguished in his native country for his

skill. When the French occupied Egypt, he collected serpents for their

naturalists, and was sent for to Cairo to perform before General

Bonaparte. He described to us the general, as a middle-sized man, very

pale, with handsome features, and a most keen eye. Napoleon watched his

proceedings with great interest, made many inquiries, and dismissed him

with a handsome “backsheesh.” Jubar is usually dressed in a coarse loose

bernoose of brown serge, with a red cap on his head.

The gift, or craft, of serpent-charming, descends in certain families from

generation to generation; and Mohammed, a smart active lad, is the old

man’s son-in-law, although not numbering sixteen years. He is quite an

Adonis as to dress, wearing a smart, richly embroidered dark-green jacket,

carried—hussar fashion—over his right shoulder, a white loose vest, full

white trowsers, tied at the knee, scarlet stockings and slippers, and a

fez or red cap, with a blue tassel of extra proportions on his head. In

his right ear is a ring, so large that it might pass for a curtain ring.

Precisely as the clock strikes four, one of the keepers places on a

platform a wooden box containing the serpents, and the lad Mohammed

proceeds to tuck his ample sleeves as far up as possible, to leave the

arms bare. He then takes off his cloth jacket, and, opening the box, draws

out a large Cobra de Capello, of a dark copper color: this he holds at

arm’s length by the tail, and after allowing it to writhe about in the air

for some time, he places the serpent on the floor, still holding it as

described. By this time the cobra had raised his hood, very indignant at

the treatment he is receiving. Mohammed then pinches and teases him in

every way; at each pinch the cobra strikes at him, but, with great

activity, the blow is avoided. Having thus teased the snake for some time,

Mohammed rises, and placing his foot upon the tail, irritates him with a

stick. The cobra writhes, and strikes sometimes at the stick, sometimes at

his tormentor’s legs, and again at his hands, all which is avoided with

the utmost nonchalance. After the lapse of about ten minutes, Mohammed

coils the cobra on the floor, and leaves him while he goes to the box, and

draws out another far fiercer cobra. While holding this by the tail,

Mohammed buffets him on the head with his open hand, and the serpent,

quite furious, frequently seizes him by the forearm. The lad merely wipes

the spot, and proceeds to tie the serpent like a necklace around his neck.

Then the tail is tied into a knot around the reptile’s head, and again

head and tail into a double knot. After amusing himself in this way for

some time, the serpent is told to lie quiet, and stretched on his back,

the neck and chin being gently stroked. Whether any sort of mesmeric

influence is produced we know not, but the snake remains on its back,

perfectly still, as if dead. During this time the first cobra has remained

coiled up, with head erect, apparently watching the proceedings of the

Arab. After a pause, the lad takes up the second cobra, and carrying it to

the first, pinches and irritates both, to make them fight; the fiercer

snake seizes the other by the throat, and coiling round him, they roll

struggling across the stage. Mohammed then leaves these serpents in charge

of Jubar and draws a third snake out of the box. This he first ties in a

variety of apparently impossible knots, and then holding him at a little

distance from his face, allows the snake to strike at it, just dodging

back each time sufficiently far to avoid the blow. The serpent is then

placed in his bosom next his skin, and left there, but it is not so easy

after a time to draw it out of its warm resting-place. The tail is pulled;

but, no! the serpent is round the lad’s body, and will not come. After

several unsuccessful efforts, Mohammed rubs the tail briskly between his

two hands, a process which—judging from the writhings of the serpent,

which are plainly visible—is the reverse of agreeable. At last Mohammed

pulls him hand-over-hand—as the sailors say—and, just, as the head flies

out, the cobra makes a parting snap at his tormentor’s face, for which he

receives a smart cuff on the head, and is then with the others replaced in

the box.

Dr. John Davy, in his valuable work on Ceylon, denies that the fangs are

extracted from the serpents which are thus exhibited; and says that the

only charm employed is that of courage and confidence—the natives avoiding

the stroke of the serpent with wonderful agility; adding, that they will

play their tricks with any hooded snake, but with no other poisonous

serpent.

In order that we might get at the truth, we sought it from the

fountain-head, and our questions were thus most freely answered by

Jubar-Abou-Haijab, Hamet acting as interpreter:

_Q._ How are the serpents caught in the first instance?

_A._ I take this adze (holding up a sort of geological hammer mounted on a

long handle) and as soon as I have found a hole containing a cobra, I

knock away the earth till he comes out or can be got at; I then take a

stick in my right hand, and seizing the snake by the tail with the left,

hold it at arm’s length. He keeps trying to bite, but I push his head away

with the stick. After doing this some time I throw him straight on the

ground, still holding him by the tail; I allow him to raise his head and

try to bite, for some time, in order that he may learn how to attack,

still keeping him off with the stick. When this has been done long enough,

I slide the stick up to his head and fix it firmly on the ground; then

taking the adze, and forcing open the mouth, I break off the fangs with

it, carefully removing every portion, and especially squeezing out all the

poison and blood, which I wipe away as long as it continues to flow; when

this is done the snake is harmless and ready for use.

_Q._ Do the ordinary jugglers, or only the hereditary snake charmers catch

the cobras?

_A._ We are the only persons who dare to catch them, and when the jugglers

want snakes they come to us for them; with that adze (pointing to the

hammer) I have caught and taken out the fangs of many thousands.

_Q._ Do you use any other snakes besides the cobras for your exhibitions?

_A._ No; because the cobra is the only one that will fight well. The cobra

is always ready to give battle, but the other snakes are sluggish, only

bite, and can’t be taught for our exhibitions.

_Q._ What do the Arabs do if they happen to be bitten by a poisonous

snake?

_A._ They immediately tie a cord tight round the arm above the wound, and

cut out the bitten part as soon as possible—some burn it; they then

squeeze the arm downward, so as to press out the poison, but they don’t

suck it, because it is bad for the mouth; however, in spite of all this,

they sometimes die.

_Q._ Do you think it possible that cobras could be exhibited without the

fangs being removed?

_A._ Certainly not, for the least scratch of their deadly teeth would

cause death, and there is not a day that we exhibit that we are not bitten

and no skill in the world would prevent it.

Such were the particulars given us by a most distinguished professor in

the art of snake-charming, and, therefore, they may be relied on as

correct; the matter-of-fact way in which he _acted_, as well as related

the snake-catching, bore the impress of truth, and there certainly would

appear to be far less mystery about the craft than has generally been

supposed. The way in which vipers are caught in this country is much less

artistic than the Arab mode. The viper-catcher provides himself with a

cleftstick, and stealing up to the reptile when basking, pins his head to

the ground with the cleft, and seizing the tail, throws the reptile into a

bag. As they do not destroy the fangs, these men are frequently bitten in

the pursuit of their business, but their remedy is either the fat of

vipers, or salad oil, which they take inwardly, and apply externally,

after squeezing the wound. We are not aware of any well-authenticated

fatal case in man from a viper bite, but it fell to our lot some years ago

to see a valuable pointer killed by one. We were beating for game in a

dry, stony district, when suddenly the dog, who was running beneath a

hedgerow, gave a yelp and bound, and immediately came limping up to us

with a countenance most expressive of pain; a large adder was seen to

glide into the hedgerow. Two small spots of blood on the inner side of the

left foreleg, close to the body of the dog marked the seat of the wound;

and we did our best to squeeze out the poison. The limb speedily began to

swell, and the dog laid down, moaning and unable to walk. With some

difficulty we managed to carry the poor animal to the nearest cottage, but

it was too late. In spite of oil and other remedies the body swelled more

and more, and he died in convulsions some two hours after the receipt of

the injury.

The Reptile-house is fitted up with much attention to security and

elegance of design; arranged along the left side are roomy cages painted

to imitate mahogany and fronted with plate-glass. They are ventilated by

perforated plates of zinc above, and warmed by hot water pipes below. The

bottoms of the cages are strewed with sand and gravel, and in those which

contain the larger serpents strong branches of trees are fixed. The

advantage of the plate-glass fronts is obvious, for every movement of the

reptiles is distinctly seen, while its great strength confines them in

perfect safety. Each cage is, moreover, provided with a pan of water.

Except when roused by hunger, the Serpents are generally in a state of

torpor during the day, but as night draws on, they, in common with other

wild denizens of the forest, are roused into activity. In their native

state the Boas then lie in wait, coiled round the branches of trees, ready

to spring upon the antelopes and other prey as they pass through the leafy

glades; and the smaller serpents silently glide from branch to branch in

quest of birds on which to feed. As we have had the opportunity of seeing

the Reptile-house by night, we will describe the strange scene.

About ten o’clock one evening during the last spring, in company with two

naturalists of eminence, we entered that apartment. A small lantern was

our only light, and the faint illumination of this, imparted a ghastly

character to the scene before us. The clear plate-glass which faces the

cages was invisible, and it was difficult to believe that the monsters

were in confinement and the spectators secure. Those who have only seen

the Boas and Pythons, the Rattlesnakes and Cobras, lazily hanging in

festoons from the forks of the trees in the dens, or sluggishly coiled up,

can form no conception of the appearance and actions of the same creatures

at night. The huge Boas and Pythons were chasing each other in every

direction, whisking about the dens with the rapidity of lightning,

sometimes clinging in huge coils round the branches, anon entwining each

other in massive folds, then separating they would rush over and under the

branches, hissing and lashing their tails in hideous sport. Ever and anon,

thirsty with their exertions, they would approach the pans containing

water and drink eagerly, lapping it with their forked tongues. As our eyes

became accustomed to the darkness, we perceived objects better, and on the

uppermost branch of the tree in the den of the biggest serpent, we

perceived a pigeon quietly roosting, apparently indifferent alike to the

turmoil which was going on around, and the vicinity of the monster whose

meal it was soon to form. In the den of one of the smaller serpents was a

little mouse, whose panting sides and fast-beating heart showed that it,

at least, disliked its company. Misery is said to make us acquainted with

strange bed-fellows, but evil must be the star of that mouse or pigeon

whose lot it is to be the comrade and prey of a serpent!

A singular circumstance occurred not long since at the Gardens, showing

that the mouse at times has the best of it. A litter of rattlesnakes was

born in the Gardens—curious little active things without rattles—hiding

under stones, or coiling together in complicated knots, with their

clustering heads resembling Medusa’s locks. It came to pass that a mouse

was put into the cage for the breakfast of the mamma, but she not being

hungry, took no notice. The poor mouse gradually became accustomed to its

strange companions, and would appear to have been pressed by hunger, for

it actually nibbled away great part of the jaw of one of the little

rattlesnakes, so that it died! perhaps the first instance of such a

turning of the tables. An interesting fact was proved by this, namely,

that these reptiles when young are quite defenseless, and do not acquire

either the power of injuring others, or of using their rattles until their

adolescence.

During the time we were looking at these creatures, all sorts of odd

noises were heard; a strange scratching against the glass would be

audible; ’twas the Carnivorous Lizard endeavoring to inform us that it was

a fast-day with him, entirely contrary to his inclination. A sharp hiss

would startle us from another quarter, and we stepped back involuntarily

as the lantern revealed the inflated hood and threatening action of an

angry cobra. Then a rattlesnake would take umbrage, and, sounding an

alarm, would make a stroke against the glass, intended for our person. The

fixed gaze, too, from the brilliant eyes of the huge Pythons, was more

fascinating than pleasant, and the scene, taking it all together, more

exciting than agreeable. Each of the spectators involuntarily stooped to

make sure that his trowsers were well strapped down; and, as if our nerves

were jesting, a strange sensation would every now and then be felt,

resembling the twining of a small snake about the legs. Just before

leaving the house, a great dor beetle which had flown in, attracted by the

light, struck with some force against our right ear; startled indeed we

were, for at the moment our impression was that it was some member of the

Happy Family around us who had favored us with a mark of his attention.

In feeding the larger serpents, the Boas and Pythons, some care is

necessary lest such an accident should occur as that which befell Mr.

Cops, of the Lion Office in the Tower, some years ago. Mr. Cops was

holding a fowl to the head of the largest of the five snakes which were

then there kept; the snake was changing its skin, consequently, being

nearly blind (for the skin of the eye is changed with the rest), it darted

at the fowl but missed it, and seized the keeper by the left thumb,

coiling round his arm and neck in a moment, and fixing itself by its tail

to one of the posts of its cage, thus giving itself greater power. Mr.

Cops, who was alone, did not lose his presence of mind, and immediately

attempted to relieve himself from the powerful constriction by getting at

the serpent’s head; but the serpent had so knotted itself upon its own

head, that Mr. Cops could not reach it, and had thrown himself upon the

floor in order to grapple, with greater success, with his formidable

opponent, when fortunately, two other keepers came in and rushed to the

rescue. The struggle even then was severe, but at length they succeeded in

breaking the teeth of the serpent, and relieving Mr. Cops from his

perilous situation; two broken teeth were extracted from the thumb; the

wounds soon healed, and no further inconvenience followed. Still more

severe was the contest which took place between a negro herdsman,

belonging to Mr. Abson, for many years Governor at Fort William, on the

coast of Africa. This man was seized by a huge Python while passing

through a wood. The serpent fixed his fangs in his thigh, but in

attempting to throw himself round his body, fortunately became entangled

with a tree, and the man being thus preserved from a state of compression

which would have instantly rendered him powerless, had presence of mind

enough to cut with a large knife which he carried about with him, deep

gashes in the neck and throat of his antagonist, thereby killing him, and

disengaging himself from his frightful situation. He never afterward,

however, recovered the use of the limb, which had sustained considerable

injury from the fangs and mere force of the jaws, and for many years

limped about the fort, a living example of the prowess of these fearful

serpents.

The true _Boas_, it is to be observed, are restricted to America, the name

_Python_ being given to the large serpents of Africa and India. It is

related by Pliny that the army of Regulus was alarmed by a huge serpent

one hundred and twenty-three feet in length. This account is doubtful; but

there is a well-authenticated instance of the destruction of a snake above

sixty-two feet long, while in the act of coiling itself round the body of

a man. The snakes at the gardens will generally be found coiled and twined

together in large clusters, probably for the sake of warmth. Dr. Carpenter

knew an instance in which no less than _thirteen hundred_ of our English

harmless snakes were found in an old lime kiln! The _battûe_ which ensued

can better be imagined than described.

The cobras, the puff-adders, and some of the other highly-venomous

serpents are principally found in rocky and sandy places, and very

dangerous they are. Mr. Gould, the eminent ornithologist, had a most

narrow escape of his life when in the interior of Australia: there is a

serpent found in those arid wastes, whose bite is fatal in an incredibly

short time, and it springs at an object with great force. Mr. Gould was a

little in advance of his party, when suddenly a native who was with him

screamed out, “Oh, massa! dere big snake!” Mr. Gould started, and putting

his foot in a hole, nearly fell to the ground. At that instant the snake

made its spring, and had it not been for his stumble, would have struck

him in the face; as it was, it passed over his head, and was shot before

it could do any further mischief. It was a large snake, of the most

venomous sort, and the natives gathered round the sportsman anxiously

inquiring if it had bitten him? Finding it had not, all said they thought

he was “good for dead,” when they saw the reptile spring.

The expression “sting,” used repeatedly by Shakspeare, as applied to

snakes, is altogether incorrect; the tongue has nothing to do with the

infliction of injury. Serpents bite, and the difference between the

harmless and venomous serpents generally is simply this: the mouths of the

harmless snakes and the whole tribe of boas are provided with sharp teeth,

but no fangs; their bite, therefore, is innocuous; the poisonous serpents

on the other hand, have two poison-fangs attached to the upper jaw which

lie flat upon the roof of the mouth when not in use, and are concealed by

a fold of the skin. In each fang is a tube which opens near the point of

the tooth by a fissure; when the creature is irritated the fangs are at

once erected. The poison bag is placed beneath the muscles which act on

the lower jaw, so that when the fangs are struck into the victim the

poison is injected with much force to the very bottom of the wound.

But how do Boa Constrictors swallow goats and antelopes, and other large

animals whole? The process is very simple; the lower jaw is not united to

the upper, but is hung to a long stalk-shaped bone, on which it is

movable, and this bone is only attached to the skull by ligaments,

susceptible of extraordinary extension. The process by which these

serpents take and swallow their prey has been so graphically described in

the second volume of the “Zoological Journal,” by that very able

naturalist and graceful writer, W. J. Broderip, Esq., F.R.S., that we

shall transcribe it, being able, from frequent ocular demonstrations, to

vouch for its correctness. A large buck rabbit was introduced into the

cage of a Boa Constrictor of great size: “The snake was down and

motionless in a moment. There he lay like a log without one symptom of

life, save that which glared in the small bright eye twinkling in his

depressed head. The rabbit appeared to take no notice of him, but

presently began to walk about the cage. The snake suddenly, but almost

imperceptibly, turned his head according to the rabbit’s movements, as if

to keep the object within the range of his eye. At length the rabbit,

totally unconscious of his situation, approached the ambushed head. The

snake dashed at him like lightning. There was a blow—a scream—and

instantly the victim was locked in the coils of the serpent. This was done

almost too rapidly for the eye to follow; at one instant the snake was

motionless—the next he was one congeries of coils round his prey. He had

seized the rabbit by the neck just under the ear, and was evidently

exerting the strongest pressure round the thorax of the quadruped; thereby

preventing the expansion of the chest, and at the same time depriving the

anterior extremities of motion. The rabbit never cried after the first

seizure; he lay with his hind legs stretched out, still breathing with

difficulty, as could be seen by the motion of his flanks. Presently he

made one desperate struggle with his hind legs; but the snake cautiously

applied another coil with such dexterity as completely to manacle the

lower extremities, and in about eight minutes the rabbit was quite dead.

The snake then gradually and carefully uncoiled himself, and finding that

his victim moved not, opened his mouth, let go his hold, and placed his

head opposite the fore-part of the rabbit. The boa, generally, I have

observed, begins with the head; but in this instance, the serpent having

begun with the fore-legs was longer in gorging his prey than usual, and in

consequence of the difficulty presented by the awkward position of the

rabbit, the dilatation and secretion of lubricating mucus were excessive.

The serpent first got the fore-legs into his mouth; he then coiled himself

round the rabbit, and appeared to draw out the dead body through his

folds; he then began to dilate his jaws, and holding the rabbit firmly in

a coil, as a point of resistance, appeared to exercise at intervals the

whole of his anterior muscles in protruding his stretched jaws and

lubricated mouth and throat, at first against, and soon after gradually

upon and over his prey. When the prey was completely engulfed the serpent

lay for a few moments with his dislocated jaws still dropping with the

mucus which had lubricated the parts, and at this time he looked quite

sufficiently disgusting. He then stretched out his neck, and at the same

moment the muscles seemed to push the prey further downward. After a few

efforts to replace the parts, the jaws appeared much the same as they did

previous to the monstrous repast.”

THE MAGIC MAZE. (FROM COLBURN’S MONTHLY MAGAZINE.)

The Germans are said to be a philosophical and sagacious people, with a

strong _penchant_ for metaphysics and mysticism. They are certainly a

_leichtgläubiges Volk_, but, notwithstanding, painstaking and persevering

in their search after truth. I know not whence it arises—whether from

temperament, climate, or association—but it is very evident that a large

portion of their studies is recondite and unsatisfactory, and incapable of

being turned to any practical or beneficial account. They meditate on

things which do not concern them; they attempt to penetrate into mysteries

which lie without the pale of human knowledge. It has been ordained, by an

inscrutable decree of Providence, that there are things which man shall

not know; but they have endeavored to draw aside the vail which He has

interposed as a safeguard to those secrets, and have perplexed mankind

with a relation of their discoveries and speculations. They have pretended

to a knowledge of the invisible world, and have assumed a position

scarcely tenable by the weight of argument adduced in its defense. What

has puzzled the minds of the most erudite and persevering men, I do not

presume to decide. Instances of the re-appearance of persons after their

decease, may or may not have occurred; there may, for aught I know, be

good grounds for the belief in omens, warnings, wraiths, second-sight,

with many other descriptions of supernatural phenomena. I attempt not to

dispute the point. The human mind is strongly tinctured with superstition;

it is a feeling common to all nations and ages. We find it existing among

savages, as well as among people of refinement; we read of it in times of

antiquity, as well as in modern and more enlightened periods. This

universality betokens the feeling to be instinctive, and is an argument in

favor of the phenomena which many accredit, and vouch to have witnessed.

I inherit many of the peculiarities of my countrymen. I, too, have felt

that deep and absorbing interest in every thing appertaining to the

supernatural. This passion was implanted in my breast at a very early age,

by an old woman, who lived with us as nurse. I shall remember her as long

as I live, for to her may be attributed a very great portion of my

sufferings. She was an excellent story-teller. I do not know whether she

invented them herself, but she had always a plentiful supply. My family

resided at that time in Berlin, where, indeed, I was born. This old woman,

when she took me and my sister to bed of an evening, kept us awake for

hours and hours, by relating to us tales which were always interesting,

and sometimes very frightful. Our parents were not aware of this, or they

never would have suffered her to relate them to us. In the long winter

nights, when it grew quite dark at four o’clock, she would draw her chair

to the stove, and we would cluster round her, and listen to her marvelous

stories. Many a time did my limbs shake, many a time did I turn as pale as

death, and cling closely to her from fear, as I sat listening with greedy

ear to her narratives. So powerful an effect did they produce, that I

dared not remain alone. Even in the broad day-light, and when the sun was

brightly shining into every chamber, I was afraid to go upstairs by

myself; and so timid did I become, that the least noise instantly alarmed

me. That old woman brought misery and desolation into our house; she

blasted the fondest hopes, and threw a dark and dismal shadow over the

brightest and most cheerful places. Often and often have I wished that she

had been sooner removed; but, alas! it was ordered otherwise. She

pretended to be very fond of us, and our parents never dreamed of any

danger in permitting her to remain under their roof. We were so delighted

and captivated with her narratives, that we implicitly obeyed her in every

respect; but she laid strong injunctions upon us, that we were not to

inform either our father or mother of the nature of them. If we were

alarmed at any time, we always attributed it to some other than the true

cause; hence the injury she was inflicting upon the family was

unperceived. I have sometimes thought that she was actuated by a spirit of

revenge, for some supposed injury inflicted upon her, and that she had

long contemplated the misfortune into which she eventually plunged my

unhappy parents, and which hurried them both to a premature grave.

I will briefly state the cause of the grievous change in our domestic

happiness. My sister was a year or two younger than myself, and, at the

time of which I speak, about seven years of age. She had always been a

gay, romping child, till this old woman was introduced into the family,

and then she became grave, timid, and reserved; she lost all that buoyancy

of disposition, that joyousness of heart, which were common to her before.

Methinks I now see her as she was then—a rosy-cheeked, fair-haired little

creature, with soft, blue eyes, that sparkled with animation, a mouth

pursed into the pleasantest smile, and a nose and chin exquisitely formed.

My sister, as I have already stated, altered much after the old woman had

become an inmate of the family. She lost the freshness of her complexion,

the bright lustre of her eye, and was often dejected and thoughtful. One

night (I shudder even now when I think of it), the wicked old beldame told

us, as usual, one of her frightful stories, which had alarmed us

exceedingly. It related to our own house, which she declared had at one

time been haunted, and that the apparition had been seen by several

persons still living. It appeared as a lady, habited in a green silk

dress, black velvet bonnet, with black feathers. After she had concluded

her narrative, under some pretense or other, she left the room, though we

both strenuously implored her to remain; for we were greatly afraid, and

trembling in every limb. She, however, did not heed our solicitation, but

said she would return in a few minutes. There was a candle upon the table,

but it was already in the socket, and fast expiring. Some ten or fifteen

minutes elapsed, and the chamber-door was quietly thrown open. My hand

shakes, and my flesh seems to creep upon my bones, as I recall that horrid

moment of my past existence. The door was opened, and a figure glided into

the room. It seemed to move upon the air, for we heard not its footsteps.

By the feeble and sickly light of the expiring taper, we closely examined

the appearance of our extraordinary visitor. She had on a green dress,

black bonnet and feathers, and, in a word, precisely corresponded with the

appearance of the apparition described by the wicked old nurse. My sister

screamed hysterically, and I fell into a swoon. The household was

disturbed, and in a few minutes the servants and our parents were by the

bed-side. The old woman was among them. I described, as well as I was

able, what had occurred; and my parents, without a moment’s hesitation,

laid the mysterious visitation to the charge of the old woman; but she

stoutly denied it. My belief, however, to this day, is, that she was

concerned in it. My beloved sister became a confirmed idiot, and died

about two years after that dreadful night.

My subsequent wretchedness may be traced to this female, for she had

already instilled into my mind a love for the marvelous and supernatural.

I was not satisfied unless I was reading books that treated of these

subjects; and I desired, like the astrologers of old, to read the stars,

and to be endowed with the power of casting the horoscopes of my

fellow-creatures.

When directed by my guardians to select a profession, I chose that of

medicine, as being most congenial to my taste. I was accordingly placed

with a respectable practitioner, and in due time sent to college, to

perfect myself in my profession. I found my studies dry and wearisome, and

was glad to relieve myself with books more capable of interesting me than

those relating to medical subjects.

I had always attached great importance to dreams, and to the various

coincidences which so frequently occur to us in life. I shall mention a

circumstance or two which occurred about this time, and which made a very

forcible impression upon me. I dreamed one night that an intimate friend

of mine, then residing in India, had been killed by being thrown from his

horse. Not many weeks elapsed, before I received intelligence of his

death, which occurred in the very way I have described. I was so struck

with the coincidence, that I instituted further inquiry, and ascertained

that he had died on the same night, and about the same hour on which I had

dreamed that the unfortunate event took place. I reflected a good deal

upon this occurrence. Was it possible, I asked myself, that his

disinthralled spirit had the power of communicating with other spirits,

though thousands of miles intervened? An event so strange I could not

attribute to mere chance. I felt convinced that the information had been

conveyed by design, although the manner of its accomplishment I could not

comprehend.