SCENE II.

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. VI--SEPTEMBER, 1860.--NO. XXXV.

AMONG THE TREES.

In our studies of Trees, we cannot fail to be impressed with their

importance not only to the beauty of landscape, but also in the economy

of life; and we are convinced that in no other part of the vegetable

creation has Nature done so much to provide at once for the comfort, the

sustenance, and the protection of her creatures. They afford the wild

animals their shelter and their abode, and yield them the greater part

of their subsistence. They are, indeed, so evidently indispensable to

the wants of man and brute, that it would be idle to enlarge upon the

subject, except in those details which are apt to be overlooked. In a

state of Nature man makes direct use of their branches for weaving his

tent, and he thatches it with their leaves. In their recesses he hunts

the animals whose flesh and furs supply him with food and clothing, and

from their wood he obtains the implements for capturing and subduing

them. Man's earliest farinaceous food was likewise the product of trees;

for in his nomadic condition he makes his bread from the acorn and the

chestnut: he must become a tiller of the soil, before he can obtain the

products of the cereal herbs. The groves were likewise the earliest

temples for his worship, and their fruits his first offerings upon the

divine altar.

As man advances nearer to civilization, trees afford him the additional

advantage which is derived from their timber. The first houses were

constructed of wood, which enables him by its superior plastic

nature, compared with stone, to progress more rapidly in his ideas of

architecture. Wood facilitates his endeavors to instruct himself in

art, by its adaptedness to a greater variety of purposes than any

other substance. It is, therefore, one of the principal instruments of

civilization which man has derived from the material world. Though the

most remarkable works of the architect are constructed of stone, it

was wood that afforded man that early practice and experience which

initiated him into the laws of mechanics and the principles of art, and

carried him along gradually to perfection.

But as man is nomadic before he is agricultural, and a maker of tents

and wigwams before he builds houses and temples,--in like manner he is

an architect and an idolater before he becomes a student of wisdom; he

is a sacrificer in temples and a priest at their altars, before he is a

teacher of philosophy or an interpreter of Nature. After the attainment

of science, a higher state of mental culture succeeds, causing the mind

to see all Nature invested with beauty and fraught with imaginative

charms, which add new wonders to our views of creation and new dignity

to life. Man now learns to regard trees in other relations beside their

capacity to supply his physical and mechanical wants. He looks upon them

as the principal ornaments of the face of creation, and as forming the

conservatories of Nature, in which she rears those minute wonders of

her skill, the flowers and smaller plants that will flourish only under

their protection, and those insect hosts that charm the student with

their beauty and excite his wonder by their mysterious instincts.

Science, too, has built an altar under the trees, and delivers thence

new oracles of wisdom, teaching man how they are mysteriously wedded

to the clouds, and are thus made the blessed instruments of their

beneficence to the earth.

Not without reason did the ancients place the Naiad and her fountain in

the shady arbor of trees, whose foliage gathers the waters of heaven

into her fount and preserves them from dissipation. From their dripping

shades she distributes the waters, which she has garnered from the

skies, over the plain and the valley: and the husbandman, before he has

learned the marvels of science, worships the beneficent Naiad, who draws

the waters of her fountain from heaven, and from her sanctuary in the

groves showers them upon the arid glebe and adds new verdure to the

plain. After science has explained to us the law by which these supplies

of moisture are furnished by the trees, we still worship the beneficent

Naiad: we would not remove the drapery of foliage that protects her

fountain, nor drive her into exile by the destruction of the trees,

through whose leaves she holds mysterious commerce with the skies and

saves our fields from drought.

It is in these relations, leaving their uses in economy and the arts

untouched, that I would now speak of trees. I would consider them as

they appear to the poet and the painter, as they are connected with

scenery, and with the romance and mythology of Nature, and as serving

the purposes of religion and virtue, of freedom and happiness, of poetry

and science, as well as those of mere taste and economy. I am persuaded

that trees are closely connected with the fate of nations, that they are

the props of industry and civilization, and that in all countries from

which the forests have disappeared the people have sunk into indolence

and servitude.

Though we may not be close observers of Nature, we cannot fail to have

remarked that there is an infinite variety in the forms of trees, as

well as in their habits. By those who have observed them as landscape

ornaments, trees have been classified according to their shape and

manner of growth. They are round-headed or hemispherical, like the Oak

and the Plane; pyramidal, like the Pine and the Fir; obeliscal, like the

Arbor-Vitæ and Lombardy Poplar; drooping, like the White Elm and the

Weeping Willow; and umbrella-shaped, like the Palm. These are the

natural or normal varieties in the forms of trees. There are others

which may be considered accidental: such are the tall and irregularly

shaped trees which have been cramped by growing in a dense forest that

does not permit the extension of their lateral branches; such also are

the pollards which have been repeatedly cut down or dwarfed by the axe

of the woodman.

Of the round-headed trees, that extend their branches more or less at

wide angles from their trunk, the Oak is the most conspicuous and the

most celebrated. To the mind of an American, however, the Oak is far

less familiar than the Elm, as a way-side tree; but in England, where

many

"a cottage-chimney smokes

From betwixt two aged Oaks,"

this tree, which formerly received divine honors in that country, is now

hardly less sacred in the eyes of the inhabitants, on account of their

familiarity with its shelter and its shade, and their ideas of its

usefulness to the human family. The history of the British Isles is

closely interwoven with circumstances connected with the Oak, and the

poetry of Great Britain has derived from it many a theme of inspiration.

The Oak is remarkable for the wide spread of its lower branches and its

broad extent of shade,--for its suggestiveness of power, and consequent

expression of grandeur. It is allied with the romance of early history;

it is celebrated by its connection with the religion and religious rites

of the Druids,--with the customs of the Romans, who formed of its

green leaves the civic crown for their heroes, and who planted it to

overshadow the temple of Jupiter; and many ancient superstitions give

its name a peculiar significance to the poet and the antiquary. From its

timber marine architecture has derived the most important aid, and it

has thereby become associated with the grandeur of commerce and the

exploits of a gallant navy, and is regarded as the emblem of naval

prowess. The Oak, therefore, to the majority of the human race, is,

beyond all other trees, fraught with romantic interest, and invested

with classic and historical dignity.

The American continent contains a great many species of Oak in its

indigenous forest. Of these the White Oak bears the most resemblance to

the classical tree, in its general appearance, in the contorted growth

of its branches, and in the edible quality of its fruit. But the Red

Oak, the most northerly species, exceeds all others in size. No other

attains so great a height, or spreads its branches so widely, or

surpasses it in regularity of form. As we advance south, the White Oak

is conspicuous until we arrive at North Carolina, where the forests and

way-sides exhibit the beautiful Evergreen Oak, which, with its slender

undivided leaves, the minute subdivisions of its branches, and its

general comeliness of form, would be mistaken by a stranger for a

Willow. A close inspection, however, would soon convince him that it has

none of the fragility of the Willow. On the contrary, it is the most

noted of all the genus for its hardness and durability, being the

identical Live Oak which has supplied our navy with the most valuable

of timber. At the South the Evergreen Oak is a common way-side tree,

mingling its hues with the lighter green of the Cypress and the sombre

verdure of the Magnolia.

The Oak exceeds all other trees, not only in actual strength, but also

in that outward appearance by which this quality is manifested. This

expression is due to the general horizontal spread of its principal

boughs, the peculiar angularity of the unions of its small branches, the

want of flexibility in its spray, and its great size when compared with

its height, all manifesting its power to resist the wind and the storm.

Hence it is regarded as the monarch of trees, surpassing all in those

qualities that indicate nobleness and capacity. It is the emblem of

strength, dignity, and grandeur: the severest hurricane cannot overthrow

it, and, by destroying some of its branches, leaves it only with

more wonderful proofs of its resistance. Like the rock that rises in

mid-ocean, it becomes in its old age a just symbol of fortitude, parting

with its limbs one by one, as they are broken by the gale or withered by

decay; but still retaining its many-centuried existence, when, like an

old patriarch, it has seen all its early companions removed.

Standard Oaks are comparatively rare in the New England States, and not

many adorn our way-sides and inclosures, which are mostly shaded by

Elms, Limes, Maples, and Ash-trees. The scarcity of Oaks in these places

is attributable in some degree to the peculiar structure of their roots,

which extend downwards to a great depth in the soil, causing them to be

difficult of transplantation. It is owing in still greater measure to

the value of Oak-wood for ship-timber,--especially as those full-grown

trees which have sprung up by the road-sides, and the noble pasture

Oaks, contain the greatest number of those joints which are in special

demand for ship-building. Year after year, therefore, has witnessed the

gradual disappearance of these venerable trees, which the public should

have protected from the profane hands of the "timberer," by forcing him

to procure his materials from the forest. The community needs to be

taught that a standard tree of good size and well-developed proportions

is of more value for its shade, and as an object in the landscape, than

a whole acre of trees in the middle of a wood.

One of the most majestic trees in the American forest is the Chestnut,

remarkable, like the Oak, for its broad extent of shade. In some parts

of the country it is one of the most common standards in the field and

pasture, having been left unmolested on account of the value of its

fruit and the comparative inferiority of its timber. The foliage of this

tree is dense and flowing, and peculiar in its arrangement. The leaves

are clustered in stars of from five to seven, on short branches that

grow from one of greater length. Hence, at a little distance, the whole

mass of foliage seems to consist of tufts, each containing a tassel of

long pointed leaves, drooping divergently from a common centre. The

flowers come out from the centre of these leaves in the same manner,

and by their silvery green lustre give a pleasing variety to the darker

verdure of the whole mass. "This is the tree," says Gilpin, "which

graces the landscapes of Salvator Rosa. In the mountains of Calabria,

where Salvator painted, the Chestnut flourished. There he studied it

in all its forms, breaking and disposing of it in a thousand beautiful

shapes, as the exigencies of his composition required."

The Beech is one of the same class of trees, but does not equal the

Chestnut in magnitude. It is distinguished by the beauty of its clean,

smooth shaft, which is commonly ribbed or fluted in a perceptible

degree; and in a wood, where there is an assemblage of these columns,

rising without a branch to the height of thirty feet or more, they are

singularly beautiful. A peculiarity often observed in the Beech is a

sort of double head of foliage. This is produced by the habit of the

tree of throwing out a whorl of imperfect branches just below the union

of the main branches with the trunk. The latter, taking more of an

upward direction, cause an observable space a little below the middle

of the height of the tree. This double tier of branches and foliage has

been noticed by painters in the European Beech. I have observed it in

several instances in the American tree.

Standard Beech-trees are not numerous in this part of the country;

indeed, they are seldom seen except in a wood, or in clumps which have

originated from the root of some tree that has perished. I think they

appear to better advantage in groups and small assemblages than when

single, as there is nothing greatly attractive in the form of a standard

Beech; but there is a peculiar sweep of the lateral branches, when they

are standing in a group, which the student of trees cannot fail to

admire. They send out their branches more in right lines than most other

trees, and, as their leaves and the extremities of their spray all have

an upright tendency, they give a beautiful airy appearance to the edge

of a wood. The foliage of other deciduous trees, even when the branches

tend upward, is mostly of a drooping character. The Beech forms a

pleasing exception to this habit, having leaves that point upward and

outwardly, instead of hanging loosely. In most other trees the foliage

is so heavy and flowing, that the courses of their branches are

concealed under their drapery of leaves; but in the Beech all the

lines produced by the branches and foliage are harmonious, and may be

distinctly traced.

By taking note of these peculiarities in their arborescent growth, one

greatly magnifies his capacity for enjoying the beauties of trees.

Without this observation, their general appearance forms the chief

object of his attention: he observes them only as a person of taste who

cannot distinguish tunes would listen to music. He feels the agreeable

sensation which their forms and aspects produce; but, like one who

thinks without adequate language for his thoughts, his ideas are vague

and indefinite. The Beech is particularly worthy of study, as in many

points it differs characteristically from most other trees. I am

acquainted with no tree in the forest that equals it, when disrobed of

its foliage, in the gracefulness of its spray. There is an airiness

about its whole appearance, at all seasons, that gives an expression of

cheerfulness to the scene it graces, whether it skirt the banks of a

stream or spread out its courteous arms over a sunny knoll or little

sequestered nook.

There are some trees which are peculiarly American, being confined to

the Western continent, and unknown in other parts of the world. Among

these is the Hickory, a well-known and very common tree, celebrated

rather for its usefulness than its beauty. The different trees of this

family make an important feature in our landscape: they are not abundant

in the forest, but they are conspicuous objects in the open plain, hill,

and pasture. Great numbers of them have become standards; we see them

following the lines of old stone walls that skirt the bounds and avenues

of the farm, in company with the Ash and the Maple. In these situations,

where they would not "cumber the ground," they have been allowed to

grow, without exciting the jealousy of the proprietor of the land.

Accident, under these circumstances, has reared many a beautiful tree,

which would in any other place have been cut down as a trespasser. Thus

Nature is always striving to clothe with beauty those scenes which man

has despoiled; and while the farmer is hoeing and grubbing, and thinking

only of his physical wants, unseen hands are draping all his fences with

luxuriant vinery, and bordering his fields with trees that shall gladden

the eyes of those who can understand their beauties.

The Hickory is not a round-headed tree; it approaches a cylindrical

form, somewhat flattened at the top, but seldom attaining any strict

regularity of shape. It does not expand into a full and flowing head,

but is often divided into distinct masses of foliage, separated by

vacant spaces of considerable size, and presenting an appearance as if

a portion of the tree had been artificially removed. These gaps do not

extend all round the tree; they are irregularly disposed, some trees

having several of them, others none or only one; and they seem to have

been caused, when the tree was young, by the dwindling of some principal

branch. The Hickory throws out its branches at first very obliquely from

the shaft; afterwards the lower ones bend down as the tree increases in

size, and acquire an irregular and contorted shape; for, notwithstanding

their toughness, they bend easily to the weight of their fruit and

foliage.

This tree is celebrated in the United States for the toughness of its

wood; and the term Hickory is used as emblematical of a sturdy and

vigorous character. It possesses some of the ruggedness, without the

breadth and majesty of the Oak, though it exceeds even this tree

in braving the force of a tempest. It is one of our most common

pasture-trees, and its deep-green foliage makes amends for the general

want of comeliness in its outline.

As we are journeying through the older settlements of New England,

the melancholy forms of the ill-fated Plane-trees tower above the

surrounding objects, and attract our attention not only by their

magnitude, but also by the marks of decay which are stamped upon all.

This appearance is chiefly remarkable in the early part of summer: for

the trees are not dead; but their vitality is so far gone that they are

tardy in putting out their leaves, and seldom before July are they fully

clad in verdure. When they are not in leaf, we may observe an unnatural

growth of slender twigs in tufts at the ends of their branches. This

is caused by the failure of the tree in perfecting its wood before the

growth of the branches is arrested by the autumnal frosts; and this

accident has been repeated annually ever since the trees began to

be affected with their malady. The Plane was formerly a very common

way-side tree in New England, until the fatality occurred which has

caused the greater number of them to perish. It is a fact worthy of

notice, that all the trees of this species below the latitude of Long

Island have escaped the malady.

The Chenar-tree, or Oriental Plane, is celebrated in history, having had

a place in all the public and private grounds of the Greeks and Romans,

as well as of the Eastern nations. The American, or Western Plane,

called in New England the Buttonwood, is not less remarkable for its

size and grandeur. It is one of the loftiest trees, and its lateral

branches, being of great length, give it extraordinary breadth. It also

runs up to an unusual height, compared with other trees, before it forms

a head, so that its lower branches are sometimes elevated above the

roofs of the houses of common height Hence it would be a valuable tree

for road-sides, if it were healthy, as it would allow the largest

vehicles to pass freely under its boughs.

A far more beautiful tree, gracing equally the forest and the way-side,

is the Ash, charming our sight with the gracefulness of its proportions

in winter, with its flowing drapery of verdure in summer, and its

variety of glowing tints in autumn. The Ash has been styled in Europe

"the painter's tree,"--a fact which is worthy of notice, inasmuch as

those writers who have theorized concerning the nature of beauty have

generally regarded trees of broken and irregular shapes, like the

Hickory, as more picturesque than those of prim and symmetrical habit,

like the Ash. The practice of the great masters in painting seems

adverse to this idea, since they have introduced the Ash more frequently

than other trees into their pictures; and it shows the futility of the

attempt to draw a distinction between picturesque and beautiful

trees. All trees, indeed, of every natural shape, may be considered

picturesque, as, in one situation or another, every species may be

introduced to heighten the character of a picture or a landscape.

The Ash never fails to attract attention by the peculiar beauty of its

outlines, the regular subdivision of its branches, its fair proportions

and equal balance without any disagreeable formality. Nothing can exceed

the gracefulness of its pinnate foliage, hanging loosely from its

equally divergent spray, easy of motion, but not fluttering, and always

harmonizing in its tints with the season of the year. Notwithstanding

the different character, in regard to symmetry, of the Ash and the

Hickory, the two trees are often mistaken for each other, and, when the

latter is evenly formed, it is sometimes difficult at first sight to

distinguish it. They differ, however, in all cases, in the opposite

arrangement of the leaves and small branches of the Ash, and their

alternate arrangement in the Hickory. One of these branches invariably

becomes abortive, as the tree increases in size, so that their opposite

character is apparent only in the spray.

In wet places which have never been subjected to the plough, in grounds

partly inundated a great portion of the year, luxuriating in company

with the Northern Cypress, over an undergrowth of Dutch Myrtles and

Button-bushes, we find the singular Tupelo-tree. This tree is the

opposite of the Ash in all its characteristics. There is no regularity

in any part of its growth, and no tree in the forest sports in such a

variety of grotesque and fantastic shapes. Sometimes it spreads out its

branches horizontally, forming a perfectly flat top, as if it had grown

under a platform; again it forms an irregular pyramid, most commonly

leaning from an upright position. It has usually no definable shape,

often sending out one or two branches greatly beyond the rest, some

directed obliquely downwards, others twisted and horizontal. This tree,

if it had no other merit, would be prized for its eccentricities; but it

is not without beauty. It possesses a fine glossy foliage, unrivalled in

its verdure, and every branch is fully clothed with it; and, whatever

may be the age of the tree, it never shows the marks of decrepitude.

The pyramidal trees are included chiefly among the coniferous

evergreens, embracing the Pine, the Fir, the Spruce, and the Cypress.

Though many of the deciduous trees assume more or less of this outline,

it is the normal and characteristic form of the Pines and their kindred

species. It is a peculiarity of the pyramidal trees, with a few

exceptions, to remain always disfigured, after the loss of an important

branch, having no power to fill the vacant space by a new growth. Other

trees readily fill up a vacancy occasioned by the loss of a branch, and

may suffer considerable mutilation without losing their beauty, because

an invariable proportion is not necessary to render them pleasing

objects of sight. On account of the symmetry of their forms, the

pyramidal trees are made ugly by the loss of a limb, as the porch of a

temple would be ruined by the removal of one of its pillars. Hence we

may understand the charm of that irregularity that prevails in the forms

of vegetation. If we remove a branch from an Elm or an Oak, or even from

an Ash, we destroy no positive symmetry; it is like removing a stone

from a loose stone wall; we do but slightly modify its disproportions.

The White Pine may be selected as the American representative of the

pyramidal trees, being the most important as well as the most striking

in its appearance. It is a Northern tree, not extending so far south as

the region of the Cypress and Magnolia, and attaining perfection only on

the northeastern part of the continent. In the New England States, it

contributes more than any other species to the beauty of our landscapes,

where it is commonly seen in scattered groups, but not often as a

solitary standard. We see it in our journeys, projecting over eminences

that are skirted by old roads, shading the traveller from the sun and

protecting him from the wind. We have sat under its fragrant shade, in

our pedestrian tours, when, weary with heat and exercise, we sought its

gift of coolness, and blessed it as one of the benign deities of the

forest. We are familiar with it in all pleasant and solitary places; and

in our afternoon rambles we have listened, underneath its boughs, to the

plaintive note of the Green Warbler, who selects it for his abode, and

who has caught a melancholy tone from the winds that from immemorial

time have tuned to soft music its long sibilant leaves.

The White Pine is a tree that harmonizes with all situations, rude

and cultivated, level and abrupt. On the side of the mountain it adds

grandeur to the declivity, and gives a look of sweeter tranquillity to

the green pastoral meadow. It yields a darker frown to the projecting

cliff, and a more awful uncertainty to the mountain-pass or the hollow

ravine. Amid desolate scenery it spreads a cheerfulness that detracts

nothing from its power over the imagination, while it relieves it of its

terrors by presenting a green bulwark to defend us from the elements.

Nothing can be more cheerful in scenery than the occasional groups of

Pines which have come up spontaneously on the bald hills near our coast,

elsewhere a dreary waste of gray rocks, stunted shrubbery, and prostrate

Juniper. In the forest the White Pine constitutes the very sanctuary of

Nature, its tall pillars extending into the clouds, and its broad canopy

of foliage mixing with the vapors that descend in the storm.

Such are its picturesque aspects: but in a figurative light it may be

regarded as a true symbol of benevolence. Under its outspread roof,

thousands of otherwise unprotected animals, nestling in the bed of dry

leaves which it has spread upon the ground, find shelter and repose. The

squirrel subsists upon the kernels obtained from its cones; the rabbit

browses upon the Trefoil and the spicy foliage of the Hypericum which

are protected in its conservatory of shade; and the fawn reposes on its

brown couch of leaves, unmolested by the outer tempest. From its green

arbors the quails may be roused in midwinter, when they resort thither

to find the still sound berries of the Mitchella and the Wintergreen.

Nature, indeed, seems to have designed this tree to protect the animal

creation, both in summer and winter, and I am persuaded that she has not

conferred upon them a more beneficent gift.

As an object of sight, the White Pine is free from some of the defects

of the Fir and Spruce, having none of their stiffness of foliage and

inflexibility of spray, that cause them to resemble artificial objects.

It has the symmetry of the Fir, joined with a certain flowing grace that

assimilates it to the deciduous trees. With sufficient amplitude to

conceal a look of primness that often arises from symmetry, we observe a

certain negligent flowing of its leafy robes that adds to its dignity a

grace which is apparent to all. It seems to wear its honors like one who

feels no constraint under their burden; and when smitten by a tempest,

it bids no defiance to the gale, bending to its wrath, but securely

resisting its power.

Of the American coniferous trees, the Hemlock is of the next importance,

being, perhaps, in its perfection, a more beautiful tree than the White

Pine, or than any other known evergreen. It is far less formal in its

shape than other trees of the same family. Its branches, being slender

and flexible, do not project stiffly from the shaft; they bend slightly

at their terminations, and are easily moved by the wind; and as they are

very numerous, and covered with foliage, we behold in the tree a dense

mass of glittering verdure, not to be seen in any other tree of the

forest.

The Hemlock is unknown as a shade-tree; it is seldom seen by the

road-side, except on the edge of a wood, and not often in cultivated

grounds. The want of success usually attending the transplantation of it

from the woods has prevented the general adoption of it as an ornamental

tree. The Hemlock, when transplanted from the wood, is almost sure to

perish; for Nature will not allow it to be desecrated by any association

with Art. She reserves it for her own demesnes; and if you would possess

one, you must go to its native spot and plant your garden around it,

and take heed, lest, by disturbing its roots, you offend the deity

who protects it. Some noble Hemlocks are occasionally seen in rude

situations, where the cultivator's art has not interrupted their

spontaneous growth; and the poet and the naturalist are inspired with a

more pleasing admiration of their beauty, because they have seen them

only where the solitary birds sing their wild notes, and where the heart

is unmolested by the crowding tumult of human settlements.

The Pitch Pine has neither grace nor elegance, and though it is allied

botanically to the pyramidal trees, it approaches the shape of the

round-headed trees. There is a singular ruggedness about it; and when

bristling all over with the stiff foliage that sometimes covers it from

the extremities of the branches down almost to the roots, it cannot fail

to attract observation. Trees of this species, for the most part too

rough and homely to please the eye, are not generally valued as objects

in the landscape; but there is a variety in their shape that makes

amends for their want of comeliness, and gives them a marked importance.

We do not in general sufficiently appreciate the value of homely objects

among the scenes of Nature,--which are, indeed, the ground-work of all

charming scenery, and set off to advantage the beauty of more comely

things. They prepare us, by increasing our susceptibility, to feel more

keenly the force of beauty in other objects. They give rest and relief

to the eye, after it has experienced the stimulating effects of

beautiful forms and colors, which would soon pall upon the sense; and

they are interesting to the imagination, by leaving it free to dress the

scene with the wreaths of fancy.

It is from these reflections that I have been led to prize many a homely

tree as possessing a high value, by exalting the impressions of beauty

which we derive from other trees, and by relieving Nature of that

monotony which would attend a scene of unexceptional beauty. This

monotony is apparent in almost all dressed grounds of considerable

extent. We soon become entirely weary of the ever-flowing lines of

grace and elegance, and the harmonious blending of forms and colors

introduced by art. On the same principle we may explain the difficulty

of reading with attention a whole volume on one subject, written in

verse. We are soon weary of luxuries; and when we have been strolling in

grounds laid out with gaudy flower-beds, the tired eye, when we go out

into the fields, rests with serene delight upon rough pastures bounded

by stone walls, and hills clothed with lichens and covered with

boulders.

The homely Pitch Pine serves this important purpose of relief in the

landscapes of Nature. Trees of this species are abundant in sandy

levels, in company with the slender and graceful White Birch, "The Lady

of the Woods," as the poet Coleridge called it. From these Pines proceed

those delightful odors which are wafted to our windows by a mild south

wind, not less perceptible in winter than in summer, and which are in a

different manner as charming as a beautiful prospect.

The Juniper, or Red Cedar, known in some places as the Savin, is another

homely tree that gives character to New England scenery. It is one of

the most frequent accompaniments of the bald hills near certain parts

of our coast, giving them a peculiar aspect of desolation. This tree

acquires larger dimensions and a fuller and fairer shape in the Middle

and Southern States. There the Junipers are beautiful trees, having a

finer verdure than they ever acquire at the North. But the Juniper, with

all its imperfections, its rugged form, and its inferior verdure, is not

to be contemned; and it possesses certain qualities and features which

ought to be prized hardly less than beauty. Its sombre ferruginous green

adds variety to our wood-scenery at all times, and by contrast serves to

make the foliage of other trees the more brilliant and conspicuous.

In the latter part of summer, when the woods have acquired a general

uniformity of verdure, the Junipers enliven the face of Nature by

blending their duller tints with the fading hues of the fully ripened

foliage. Thus will an assemblage of brown and gray clouds soften and at

the same time enliven the deep azure of the heavens.

In this sketch, I have omitted to describe many important trees,

especially those which have but little individuality of character,

leaving them to be the subject of another essay concerning Trees in

Assemblages. I have likewise said nothing here of those species which

are commonly distinguished as flowering trees. But I must not omit,

while speaking of the pyramidal trees, to say a word concerning the

Larch, which has some striking points of form and habit. Like the

Southern Cypress, it differs in its deciduous character from other

coniferous trees: hence both are distinguished by the brilliancy of

their verdure in the early part of summer, when the other evergreens are

particularly sombre; but they are leafless in the winter. The Larch is

beautifully pyramidal in its shape when young. In the vigor of its years

it tends to uniformity, and to variety when it is old. Indeed, an aged

Larch is often as rugged and fantastic as an old Oak. The American and

European Larches differ only in the longer flowing foliage and the

larger cones of the latter. Among the minor beauties of both species may

be mentioned the bright crimson cones that appear in June and resemble

clusters of fruit. The Larch is a Northern tree, being in its perfection

in the latitude of Maine. It seems to delight in the coldest situations,

and, like the Southern Cypress, is found chiefly in low swamps.

There are not many trees that assume the shape of an obelisk, or a long

spire; but Nature, who presents to our eyes an ever-charming variety of

forms as well as hues, in the objects of her creation, has given us the

figure of the obelisk in the Chinese Juniper, in the Balsam Fir, in the

Arbor-Vitæ, and lastly in the Lombardy Poplar, which may be offered to

exemplify this class of forms. The Lombardy Poplar is interesting to

thousands who were familiar with it in their youth, as an ornament

to road-sides and village inclosures. It was formerly a favorite

shade-tree, and still retains its privileges in many old-fashioned

places. A century ago great numbers of Poplars were planted on the

village way-sides, in front of dwelling-houses, on the borders of public

grounds, and particularly on the sides of lanes and avenues leading to

houses situated at a short distance from the high-road. Hence a row

of these trees becomes suggestive at once of the approach to some old

mansion or country-seat, which has now, perhaps, been converted into a

farm-house, having exchanged its proud honors of wealth for the more

simple and delightful appurtenances of rustic independence.

Some of these ancient rows of Poplars are occasionally seen in old

fields, where almost all traces of the habitation which they were

intended to grace are obliterated. There is a melancholy pleasure

in surveying these humble ruins, whose history would illustrate the

domestic habits of our ancestors. The cellar of the old house is now

a part of the pasture-land, and its form can be traced by the simple

swelling of the turf. Sumachs and Cornel-bushes have usurped the

place of the exotic shrubbery in the old garden; and the only ancient

companions of the Poplars, now remaining, are here and there a

straggling Lilac or Currant-bush, a tuft of Houseleek, and perhaps,

under the shelter of some dilapidated wall, the White Star of Bethlehem

is seen meekly glowing in the rude society of the wild-flowers.

The Lombardy Poplar, which was formerly a favorite way-side ornament,

a sort of idol of the public, and, like many another idol, exalted to

honors that exceeded its merits, fell suddenly into unpopularity and

disgrace. After having been admired and valued as if its leaves were all

emeralds and its buds apples of gold, it was spurned and ridiculed and

everywhere cut down as a cumberer of the ground. The faults attributed

to it did not belong to the tree, but were the effects of the climate

into which it had been removed. It was brought from the sunny vales of

Italy, where it had been delicately reared by the side of the Orange and

the Myrtle, and transplanted into the cold climate of New England. The

tender constitution of this tree could not endure our rude winters;

and every spring witnessed the decay of a large portion of its small

branches. Hence it became prematurely aged, and in its decline carried

with it the marks of its infirmities.

But, with all these imperfections, the Lombardy Poplar was more worthy

of the honors it received from our predecessors than of its present

disrepute. It is one of the fairest of trees, in the vigor of its health

and the greenness of its youth. But nearly all the old Poplars are

extirpated, and but few young trees are coming up to supply their

places. While I am now writing, I see from my window the graceful spire

of one solitary tree, towering above the surrounding objects in the

landscape, and yielding to the view something of an indescribable charm.

There it stands, the symbol of decayed reputation, in its old age still

retaining the primness of its youth; neither drooping in its infirmities

under the weight of their burden, nor losing in its desertedness the

fine lustre of its foliage; and in its disgrace still bearing itself

proudly, as if conscious that its former honors were deserved, and

not forgetting that dignity which becomes one who has fallen without

dishonor.

There is no other tree that so pleasantly adorns the sides of narrow

lanes and avenues, or so neatly accommodates itself to limited

inclosures. Its foliage is dense and of the liveliest green, tremulous,

and making delicate music to the light fingers of every breeze; its

terebinthine odors scent the soft vernal wind that enters your open

windows with the morning sunshine; its branches, always tending upward,

closely gathered together, and slenderly formed, afford a harbor to the

singing-birds, who revel among them as a favorite resort; and its long

tapering spire, that points to heaven, gives an air of cheerfulness and

religious tranquillity to village scenery.

Of the drooping trees, the Weeping Willow is the most conspicuous

example, unless we except the American Elm; but a remarkable difference

may be observed in the drooping character of these two trees. In the Elm

we perceive a general arching or curvature of all its branches, from

their points of junction with the tree to their extremities; so that two

rows of Elms, meeting over an avenue, would represent, more nearly than

any other trees disposed in the same manner, the vault of a Gothic arch.

A double row of Weeping Willows would make no such figure by the meeting

of their branches. The Weeping Willow extends its long arms in lines

more nearly straight, not originating, as in the Elm, for the most part,

from one common centre of junction, but joining the shaft of the tree at

different points;--hence the drooping character of this tree is observed

only in its long, slender, and terminal spray.

The Weeping Willow is one of the most poetical of trees, being

consecrated to the Muse by the part which has been assigned it in many

a scene of romance, and by its connection with events recorded in

Holy Writ. It is invested with a poetical interest by its symbolical

representation of sorrow in the pendulous character of its spray, by

its fanciful uses as a garland for disappointed lovers, and by the

employment of it in burying-grounds, and in pictures as drooping over

graves. We remember it in sacred history by its association with the

rivers of Babylon, with the tears of the Children of Israel, and with

the forsaken harps of their sorrowing minstrels, who hung them upon its

branches. It is distinguished by the graceful beauty of its outlines,

its light-green delicate foliage, its sorrowing attitude, and its gently

waving spray, all in sweet accordance with its picturesque, poetic, and

Scriptural associations.

Hence the Weeping Willow never fails to give pleasure to the sight even

of the most insensible observer. There are not many whose minds are so

obtuse as to be blind to its peculiarly graceful attitude and motions,

and every one is familiar with its history, as recorded in poetry and

romance, all the incidents of which have served to elevate it above any

association with fashion or vulgarity. When we see it waving its long

branches neatly over some private inclosure, overshadowing the gravelled

walk and the flower-garden,--or watching pensively over the graves of

the dead, where the light hues of its foliage help to soften the glowing

fancies which are apt to arise from our meditations among the tombs,--or

on some wide common, giving solace to the passing traveller, and

inviting the playful children to its shade,--or trailing its sweeping

spray, like the tresses of a Naiad, over some silvery pond or gently

flowing stream,--it is in all cases a delightful object, always

picturesque, always soothing, inspiring, and sacred to memory, and

serving, by its alliance with what is hallowed in literature, to bind us

more closely to Nature.

Above all the trees of the New World, the Elm deserves to be considered

the sovereign tree of New England. It is abundant both in field and

forest, and forms the most remarkable feature in our cleared and

cultivated grounds. Though the Elm is found in almost all parts of the

country, in no other is it so conspicuous as in the Northeastern States,

where, from the earliest settlement of the country, it has been planted

as a shade-tree, and has been valued as an ornament above the proudest

importations from a foreign clime. It is the most remarkable of the

drooping trees except the Willow, which it surpasses in stateliness and

in the variety of its growth.

When I look upon a noble Elm,--though I feel no disposition to contemn

the studies of those who examine its flowers and fruit with the

scrutinizing eye of science, or the calculations of those who consider

only its practical use--it is to me an object of pleasing veneration. I

look upon it as the embodiment of some benign intention of Providence,

who has adapted it in numerous ways to the wants of his creatures. While

admiring its grace and its majesty, I think of the great amount of human

happiness and of comfort to the inferior animals of which it has been

the blessed instrument. How many a happy assemblage of children and

young persons has been, during the past century, repeatedly gathered

under its shade, in the sultry noons of summer! How many a young

May-queen has been crowned under its roof, when the greensward was just

daisied with the early flowers of spring! And how many a weary traveller

has rested from his journey in its benevolent shade, and from a state of

weariness and vexation, when o'erspent by heat and length of way, has

subsided into one of quiet thankfulness and content!

Though the Elm has never been consecrated by the Muse, or dignified

by making a figure in the paintings of the old masters, the native

inhabitant of New England associates its varied forms with all that is

delightful in the scenery of his own land or memorable in its history.

He has beheld many a noble avenue formed of Elms, when standing in rows

in the village, or by the rustic road-side. He has seen them extending

their broad and benevolent arms as a protection over many a spacious old

farm-house and many an humble cottage, and equally harmonizing with all.

They meet his sight in the public grounds of the city, with their ample

shade and flowing spray, inviting him to linger under their pleasant

umbrage in summer; and in winter he has beheld them among the rude hills

and mountains, like spectral figures keeping sentry among their passes,

and, on the waking of the year, suddenly transformed into towers of

luxuriant verdure and beauty. Every year of his life has he seen the

beautiful Hang-Bird weave his pensile habitation upon the long and

flexible branches of the Elm, secure from the reach of every living

creature. From its vast dome of interwoven branches and foliage he has

listened to the songs of the earliest and the latest birds; and under

its shelter he has witnessed many a merry-making assemblage of children,

employed in the sportive games of summer.

To a native of New England, therefore, the Elm has a value more nearly

approaching that of sacredness than any other tree. Setting aside the

pleasure derived from it as an object of visual beauty, it is intimately

associated with the familiar scenes of home and the events of his

early life. In my own mind it is pleasingly allied with those old

dwelling-houses which were built in the early part of the last century,

and form one of the marked features of New England home architecture

during that period. They are known by their broad and ample, but

low-studded rooms, their numerous windows with small panes, their single

chimney in the centre of the roof that sloped down to the lower story in

the back part, and in their general unpretending appearance, reminding

one vividly of that simplicity of life which characterized our people

before the Revolution. Their very homeliness is delightful, by leaving

the imagination free to dwell upon their pleasing suggestions. Not many

of these charming old houses are now extant: but whenever we see one,

we are almost sure to find it accompanied by its Elm, standing upon the

green open space that slopes up to it in front, and waving its long

branches in melancholy grandeur over the venerable habitation which it

seems to have taken under its protection, while it droops with sorrow

over the infirmities of its old companion of a century.

The Elm is remarkable for the variety of forms which it assumes in

different situations. Often it has a drooping spray only when it has

attained a large size; but it almost invariably becomes subdivided

into several equal branches, diverging from a common centre, at a

considerable elevation from the ground. One of these forms is that of a

vase: the base being represented by the roots of the tree that project

above the soil and join the trunk,--the middle by the lower part of

the principal branches, as they swell out with a graceful curve, then

gradually diverge, until they bend downward and form the lip of the

vase, by their circle of terminal branches. Another of its forms is that

of a vast dome, as represented by those trees that send up a single

shaft to the height of twenty feet or more, and then extend their

branches at a wide divergency and to a great length. The Elms which are

remarkable for their drooping character are usually of this shape.

At other times the Elm assumes the shape of a plume, presenting a

singularly fantastical appearance. It rises upwards, with an undivided

shaft, to the height of fifty feet or more, without a limb, and bending

over with a gradual curve from about the middle of its height to its

summit, which is sometimes divided into two or three terminal branches.

The whole is covered from its roots to its summit with a fringe

of vine-like twigs, extremely slender, twisted and irregular, and

resembling a parasitic growth. Sometimes it is subdivided at the usual

height into three or four long branches, which are wreathed In the same

manner, and form a compound plume.

These fantastic forms are very beautiful, and do not impress one with

the idea of monstrosity, as we are affected by the sight of a Weeping

Ash. Though the Elm has many defects of foliage, and is destitute of

those fine autumnal tints which are so remarkable in some other trees,

it is still almost without a rival in the American forest. It presents a

variety in its forms not to be seen in any other tree,--possessing the

dignity of the Oak without its ruggedness, and uniting the grace of the

slender Birch with the lofty grandeur of the Palm and the majesty of the

Cedar of Lebanon.

Of the parasol-trees the North furnishes no true examples, which are

witnessed only in the Palms of the tropics. Not many of our inhabitants

have seen these trees in their living beauty; but all have become so

familiar with them, as they are represented in paintings and engravings,

that they can easily appreciate their effect in the sunny landscapes of

the South. There they may be seen bending over fields tapestried with

Passion-Flowers and verdurous with Myrtles and Orange-trees, and

presenting their long shafts to the tendrils of the Trumpet Honeysuckle

and the palmate foliage of the Climbing Fern. But the slender Palms,

when solitary, afford but little shade. It is when they are standing in

groups, their lofty tops meeting and forming a uniform umbrage, that

they afford any important protection from the heat of the sun.

In pictures of tropical scenery we see these trees standing on the

banks of a stream, or in the vicinity of the sea, near some rude hut

constructed of Bamboo and thatched with the broad leaves of the Fan

Palm. In some warm countries Nature affords the inhabitants an almost

gratuitous subsistence from the fruit of the different Palms,--a

plantation of Dates and Cocoa-nuts supplying the principal wants of the

owner and his family, during the life of the trees. But the Palm is not

suggestive of the arts, for the South is not the region of the highest

civilization. Man's intelligence is greatest in those countries in which

he is obliged to struggle with difficulties sufficient to require the

constant exercise of the mind and body to overcome them. Science and Art

have built their altars in the region of the Oak, and in valleys which

are annually whitened with snow, where labor invigorates the frame, and

where man's contention with the difficulties presented by the elements

sharpens his ingenuity and strengthens all his facilities. Hence, while

the Oak is the symbol of hospitality and of the arts to which it has

given its aid, the Palm symbolizes the voluptuousness of a tropical

clime and the indolence of its inhabitants.

I have said that the North produces no parasol-trees; but it should be

remarked that all kinds of trees occasionally approximate to this shape,

when they have grown compactly in a forest. The general shape which they

assume under these conditions is what I have termed accidental, because

that shape cannot be natural which a growing body is forced to take

when cramped in an unnatural or constrained position. Trees when thus

situated become greatly elongated; their shafts are despoiled of the

greater part of their lateral branches, and the tree has no expansion

until it has made its way above the level of the wood. The trees that

cannot reach this level will in a few years perish; and this is the

fate of the greater number in the primitive forest. But after they have

attained this level, they spread out suddenly into a head. Many such

trees are seen in recent clearings; and when their termination is a

regular hemisphere of branches and foliage, the tree exhibits a shape

nearly approaching that of a parasol.

The Elm, under these circumstances, often acquires a very beautiful

shape. Unlike other trees that send up a single undivided shaft, the

Elm, when growing in the forest as well as in the open plain, becomes

subdivided into several slightly divergent branches, running up almost

perpendicularly until they reach the level of the wood, when they

suddenly spread themselves out, and the tree exhibits the parasol shape

more nearly even than the Palm. When one of these forest Elms is left by

the woodman, and is seen standing alone in the clearing, it presents

to our sight one of the most graceful and beautiful of all arborescent

forms.

The rows of Willows, so frequent by the way-side where the road passes

over a wet meadow, afford the most common examples of the pollard forms.

Some of these willows, having escaped the periodical trimming of the

woodcutter, have become noble standards, emulating the Oak in the sturdy

grandeur of their giant arms extending over the road. Most of them,

however, from the repeated cropping which they have suffered, exhibit a

round head of long, slender branches, growing out of the extremity of

the beheaded trunk.

My remarks thus far relate to trees considered as individual objects;

but I must not tire the patience of the reader by extending them

farther, though there are many other relations in which they may be

treated. In whatever light we regard them, they will be found to deserve

attention as the fairest ornaments of Nature, and as objects that should

be held sacred from their importance to our welfare and happiness. The

more we study them, the more desirous are we of their preservation, and

the more convinced of the necessity of using some active means to

effect this purpose. He takes but a narrow view of their importance who

considers only their value in the economy of animal and vegetable life.

The painter has always made them a particular branch of his study; and

the poet understands their advantage in increasing the effect of his

descriptions, and believes them to be the blessed gifts of Providence to

render the earth a beautiful abode and sanctify it to our affections.

The heavenly bodies affect the soul with a deeper sense of creative

power; but trees, like flowers, serve to draw us more closely to the

bosom of Nature, by exemplifying the beauties of her handiwork, and the

wonders of that Wisdom that operates unseen, and becomes, in our search

for it, a source of perpetual delight.

VICTOR AND JACQUELINE.

[Concluded.]

VII.

The three days passed away. And every hour's progress was marked as it

passed over the citizens of Meaux. Leclerc, and the doctrines for which

he suffered, filled the people's thought; he was their theme of speech.

Wonder softened into pity; unbelief was goaded by his stripes to

cruelty; faith became transfigured, while he, followed by the hooting

crowd, endured the penalty of faith. Some men looked on with awe that

would become adoring; some with surprise that would take refuge in study

and conviction. There were tears as well as exultation, solemn joy as

well as execration, in his train. The mother of Leclerc followed

him with her undaunted testimony, "Blessed be Jesus Christ and His

Witnesses!"

By day, in the field, Jacqueline Gabrie thought over the reports she

heard through the harvesters, of the city's feeling, of its purpose, of

its judgment; by night she prayed and hoped, with the mother of Leclerc;

and wondrous was the growth her faith had in those days.

On the evening of the third day, Jacqueline and Elsie walked into Meaux

together. This was not invariably their habit. Elsie had avoided too

frequent conversation with her friend of late. She knew their paths were

separate, and was never so persuaded of the fact as this night, when, of

her own will, she sought to walk with Jacqueline. The sad face of her

friend troubled her; it moved her conscience that she did not deeply

share in her anxiety. When they came from Domrémy, she had relied on

Jacqueline: there was safety in her counsel,--there was wisdom in it:

but now, either?

"It made me scream outright, when I saw the play," said she; "but it is

worse to see your face nowadays,--it is more terrible, Jacqueline."

Jacqueline made no reply to this,--and Elsie regarded the silence as

sufficient provocation.

"You seem to think I have no feeling," said she. "I am as sorry about

the poor fellows as you can be. But I cannot look as if I thought the

day of judgment close at hand, when I don't, Jacqueline."

"Very well, Elsie. I am not complaining of your looks."

"But you are,--or you might as well."

"Let not that trouble you, Elsie. Your face is smooth, at least; and

your voice does not sound like the voice of one who is in grief.

Rejoice,--for, as you say, you have a right to yourself, with which I

am not to interfere. We are old friends,--we came away from Lorraine

together. Do not forget that. I never will forget it."

"But you are done with me. You say nothing to me. I might as well be

dead, for all you care."

"Let us not talk of such things in this manner," said Jacqueline,

mildly. But the dignity of her rebuke was felt, for Elsie said,--

"But I seem to have lost you,--and now we are alone together, I may say

it. Yes, I have lost you, Jacqueline!"

"This is not the first time we have been alone together in these

dreadful three days."

"But now I cannot help speaking."

"You could help it before. Why, Elsie? You had not made up your mind.

But now you have, or you would not speak, and insist on speaking. What

have you to say, then?"

"Jacqueline! Are you Jacqueline?"

"Am I not?"

"You seem not to be."

"How is it, Elsie?"

"You are silent and stern, and I think you are very unhappy,

Jacqueline."

"I do not know,--not unhappy, I think. Perhaps I am silent,--I have been

so busy. But for all it is so dreadful--no! not unhappy, Elsie."

"Thinking of Leclerc all the while?"

"Of him? Oh, no! I have not been thinking of him,--not constantly. Jesus

Christ will take care of him. His mother is quiet, thinking that. I,

at least, can be as strong as she. I'm not thinking of the shame and

cruelty,--but of what that can be worth which is so much to him, that

he counts this punishment, as they call it, as nothing, as hardly pain,

certainly not disgrace. The Truth, Elsie!--if I have not as much to say,

it is because I have been trying to find the Truth."

"But if you have found it, then I hope I never shall,--if it is the

Truth that makes you so gloomy. I thought it was this business in

Meaux."

"Gloomy? when it may be I have found, or _shall_ find"--

Here Jacqueline hesitated,--looked at Elsie. Grave enough was that look

to expel every frivolous feeling from the heart of Elsie,--at least,

so long as she remained under its influence. It was something to trust

another as Jacqueline intended now to trust her friend. It was a

touching sight to see her seeking her old confidence, and appearing

to rely on it, while she knew how frail the reed was. But this girl,

frivolous as was her spirit, this girl had come with her from the

distant native village; their childhood's recollections were the same.

And Jacqueline determined now to trust her. For in times of blasting

heat the shadow even of the gourd is not to be despised.

"You know what I have looked for so long, Elsie," she said, "you ought

to rejoice with me. I need work for that no longer."

"What is that, Jacqueline?"

Even this question, betraying no such apprehension as Jacqueline's words

seemed to intimate, did not disturb the girl. She was in the mood when,

notwithstanding her show of dependence, she was really in no such

necessity. Never was she stronger than now when she put off all show

of strength. Elsie stood before her in place of the opposing world. To

Elsie's question she replied as readily as though she anticipated the

word, and had no expectation of better recollection,--not to speak of

better apprehension.

"To bring him out of suffering he has never been made to endure, as

surely as God lives. As if the Almighty judged men so! I shall send back

no more money to Father La Croix. It is not his prayer, nor my earnings,

that will have to do with the eternity of John Gabrie.--Do you hear me,

Elsie?"

"I seem to, Jacqueline."

"Have I any cause for wretched looks, then? I am in sight of better

fortune than I ever hoped for in this world."

"Then don't look so fearful. It is enough to scare one. You are not a

girl to choose to be a fright,--unless this dreadful city has changed

you altogether from what you were. You would frighten the Domrémy

children with such a face as that; they used not to fear Jacqueline."

"I shall soon be sailing on a smoother sea. As it is, do not speak of my

looks. That is too foolish."

"But, oh, I feel as if I must hold you,--hold you!--you are leaving

me!"

"Come on, Elsie!" exclaimed Jacqueline, as though she almost hoped this

of her dear companion.

"But where?" asked Elsie, not so tenderly.

"Where God leads. I cannot tell."

"I do not understand."

"You would not think the Truth worth buying at the price of your life?"

"My life?"

"Or such a price as he pays who--has been branded to-day?"

"It was not the truth to your mother,--or to mine. It was not the truth

to any one we ever knew, till we came here to Meaux."

"It is true to my heart, Elsie. It is true to my conscience. I know that

I can live for it. And it may be"--

"Hush!--do not! Oh, I wish that I could get you back to Domrémy! What is

going to come of this? Jacqueline, let us go home. Come, let us start

to-night. We shall have the moon all night to walk by. There is nothing

in Meaux for us. Oh, if we had never come away! It would have been

better for you to work there for--what you wanted,--for what you came

here to do."

"No, let God's Truth triumph! What am I? Less than that rush! But if His

breath is upon me, I will be moved by it,--I am not a stone."

Then they walked on in silence. Elsie had used her utmost of persuasion,

but Jacqueline not her utmost of resistance. Her companion knew this,

felt her weakness in such a contest, and was silent.

On to town they went together. They walked together through the streets,

passing constantly knots of people who stood about the corners and among

the shops, discussing what had taken place that day. They crossed the

square where the noonday sun had shone on crowds of people, men and

women, gathered from the four quarters of the town and the neighboring

country, assembled to witness the branding of a heretic. They entered

their court-yard together,--ascended the stairway leading to their

lodging. But they were two,--not one.

Elsie's chief desire had been to get Jacqueline safely into the house

ere she could find opportunity for expression of what was passing in her

mind. Her fear was even greater than her curiosity. She had no desire to

learn, under these present circumstances, the arguments and incidents

which the knots of men and women were discussing with so much vehemence

as they passed by. She could guess enough to satisfy her. So she had

hurried along, betraying more eagerness than was common with her to get

out of the street. Not often was she so overcome of weariness,--not

often so annoyed by heat and dust. Jacqueline, without remonstrance,

followed her. But they were two,--not one.

Once safe in their upper room, Elsie appeared to be, after all, not so

devoid of interest in what was passing in the street as her hurried

walk would seem to betoken. She had not quite yet lost her taste for

excitement and display. For immediately she seated herself by the

window, and was all eye and ear to what went on outside.

Jacqueline's demonstrations also were quite other than might have been

anticipated. Each step she took in her chamber gave an indication that

she had a purpose,--and that she would perform it.

She removed from her dress the dust and stain of toil, arranged her

hair, made herself clean and decent, to meet the sober gaze of others.

Then she placed upon the table the remains of their breakfast,--but she

ate nothing.

VIII.

It was nearly dark when Jacqueline said to Elsie,--

"I am now going to see John and his mother. I must see with my own eyes,

and hear with my own ears. I may be able to help them,--and I know they

will be able to help me. John's word will be worth hearing,--and I want

to hear it. He must have learned in these days more than we shall ever

be able to learn for ourselves. Will you go with me?"

"No," cried Elsie,--as though she feared she might against her will

be taken into such company. Then, not for her own sake, but for

Jacqueline's, she added, almost as if she hoped that she might prove

successful in persuasion, "I remember my father and mother. What they

taught me I believe. And that I shall live by. I shall never be wiser

than they were. And I know I never can be happier. They were good and

honest. Jacqueline, we shall never be as happy again as we were in

Domrémy, when the pastor blessed us, and we hunted flowers for the

altar,--never!--never!" And Elsie Méril, overcome by her recollections

and her presentiments, burst into tears.

"It was the happiness of ignorance," said Jacqueline, after a solemn

silence full of hurried thought. "No,--I, for one, shall never be as

happy as I was then. But my joy will be full of peace and bliss. It will

be full of satisfaction,--very different, but such as belongs to me,

such as I must not do without. God led us from Domrémy, and with me

shall He do as seemeth good to Him. We were children then, Elsie; but

now may we be children no longer!"

"I will be faithful to my mother. Go, Jacqueline,--let me alone."

Elsie said this with so much spirit that Jacqueline answered quickly,

and yet very kindly,--

"I did not mean to trouble you, dear,--but--no matter now."

No sooner had Jacqueline left the house than Elsie went down to a church

near by, where she confessed herself to the priest, and received such

goodly counsel as was calculated to fortify her against Jacqueline in

the future.

* * * * *

Jacqueline went to the house of the wool-comber, as of late had been her

nightly custom,--but not, as heretofore, to lighten the loneliness

and anxiety of the mother of Leclerc. Already she had said to the old

woman,--

"I need not work now for my father's redemption. Then I will work for

you, if your son is disabled. Let us believe that God brought me here

for this. I am strong. You can lean on me. Try it."

Now she went to make repetition of the promise to Leclerc, if,

perchance, he had come back to his mother sick and sore and helpless.

For this reason, when she entered the humble home of the martyr, his

eyes fell on her, and he saw her as she had been an angel; how serene

was her countenance; and her courage was manifestly such as no mortal

fear, no human affliction, could dismay.

Already in that room faithful friends had gathered, to congratulate the

living man, and to refresh their strength from the abounding richness of

his.

Martial Mazurier, the noted preacher, was there, and Victor Le Roy;

besides these, others, unknown by name or presence to Jacqueline.

Among them was the wool-comber,--wounded with many stripes, branded,

a heretic! But a man still, it appeared,--a living man,--brave as any

hero, determined as a saint,--ready to proclaim now the love of God, and

from the couch where he was lying to testify to Jesus and his Truth.

It was a goodly sight to see the tenderness of these men here gathered;

how they were forgetful of all inequalities of station, such as

worldlings live by,--meeting on a new ground, and greeting one another

in a new spirit.

They had come to learn of John. A halo surrounded him; he was

transfigured; and through that cloud of glory they would fain penetrate.

Perchance his eyes, as Stephen's, had seen heaven open, when men had

tried their torments. At least, they had witnessed, when they followed

the crowd, that his face, in contrast with theirs who tormented, shone,

as it had been the face of an angel. They had witnessed his testimony

given in the heroic endurance of physical pain. There was more to be

learned than the crowd were fit to hear or _could_ hear. Broken strains

of the Lord's song they heard him singing through the torture. Now they

had come longing for the full burden of that divinest melody.

Jacqueline entered the room quietly, scarcely observed. She sat down by

the door, and it chanced to be near the mother of Leclerc, near Victor

Le Roy.

To their conversation she listened as one who listens for his life,--to

the reading of the Scripture,--to the singing of the psalm,--that grand

old version,--

"Out of the depths I cry to thee,

Lord God! Oh, hear my prayer!

Incline a gracious ear to me,

And bid me not despair.

If thou rememberest each misdeed,

If each should have its rightful meed,

Lord, who shall stand before thee?

"Lord, through thy love alone we gain

The pardon of our sin:

The strictest life is but in vain,

Our works can nothing win,

That man should boast himself of aught,

But own in fear thy grace hath wrought

What in him seemeth righteous.

"Wherefore my hope is in the Lord,

My works I count but dust;

I build not there, but on his word,

And in his goodness trust.

Up to his care myself I yield;

He is my tower, my rook, my shield,

And for his help I tarry."

To the praying of the broken voice of John Leclerc she listened. In his

prayer she joined. To the eloquence of Mazurier, whose utterances she

laid up in her heart,--to the fervor of Le Roy, which left her eyes not

dry, her soul not calm, but strong in its commotion, grasping fast the

eternal truths which he, too, would proclaim, she listened.

She was not only now among them, she was of them,--of them forevermore.

Though she should never again look on those faces, nor listen to those

voices, of them, of all they represented, was she forevermore. Their God

was hers,--their faith was hers; their danger would she share,--their

work would aid.

Their talk was of the Truth, and of the future of the Truth. Well they

understood that the spirit roused among the people would not be quieted

again,--that what of ferocity in the nature of the bigot and the

powerful had been appeased had but for the moment been satisfied. There

would be unremitting watch for victims; everywhere the net for the

unwary and the fearless would be laid. Blood-thirstiness and lust and

covetousness would make grand their disguises,--broad would their

phylacteries be made,--shining with sacred gems, their breast-plates.

Of course it was of the great God's honor these men would be jealous.

This heresy must needs be uprooted, or no knowing where would be the end

of the wild growth. And, indeed, there was no disputing the fact that

there was danger in open acceptance of such doctrines as defied the

authority of priestcraft,--ay, danger to falsehood, and death to

falsehood!

Fanaticism, cowardice, cruelty, the spirit of persecution, the spirit

of authority aroused, ignorance and vanity and foolishness would make

themselves companions, no doubt. Should Truth succumb to these? Should

Love retreat before the fierce onset of Hate? These brave men said not

so. And they looked above them and all human aid for succor,--Jacqueline

with them.

When Mazurier and Victor Le Roy went away, they left Jacqueline with

the wool-comber's mother, but they did not pass by her without notice.

Martial lingered for a moment, looking down on the young girl.

"She is one of us," said the old woman.

Then the preacher laid his hand upon her head, and blessed her.

"Continue in prayer, and listen to the testimony of the Holy Ghost,"

said he. "Then shall you surely come deep into the blessed knowledge and

the dear love of Jesus Christ."

When he had passed on, Victor paused in turn.

"It is good to be here, Jacqueline," said he. '"This is the house of

God; this is the gate of heaven."

And he also went forth, whither Mazurier had gone.

Then beside the bed of the poor wool-comber women like angels

ministered, binding up his wounds, and soothing him with voices soft as

ever spoke to man. And from the peasant whose toil was in harvest-fields

and vineyards came offers of assistance which the poor can best give the

poor.

But the wool-comber did not need the hard-earned pence of Jacqueline.

When she said, "Let me serve you now, as a daughter and a sister, you

two,"--he made no mistake in regard to her words and offer. But he had

no need of just such service as she stood prepared to render. In his

toil he had looked forward to the seasons of adversity,--had provided

for a dark day's disablement; and he was able now to smile upon his

mother and on Jacqueline, and to say,--

"I will, indeed, be a brother to you, and my mother will love you as if

you were her child. But we shall not take the bread from your mouth to

prove it. Our daughter and our sister in the Lord, we thank you and love

you, Jacqueline. I know what you have been doing since I went away.

The Lord love you, Jacqueline! You will no longer be a stranger and

friendless in Meaux, while John Leclerc and his mother are alive,--nay,

as long as a true man or woman lives in Meaux. Fear not."

"I will not fear," said Jacqueline.

And she sat by the side of the mother of Leclerc, and thought of her

own mother in the heavens, and was tranquil, and prepared, she said to

herself, to walk, if indeed she must, through the valley of the shadow

of death, and would still fear no evil.

IX.

Strengthened and inspired by the scenes of the last three days, Martial

Mazurier began to preach with an enthusiasm, bravery, and eloquence

unknown before to his hearers. He threw himself into the work of

preaching, the new revelation of the ancient eternal Truth, with

an ardor that defied authority, that scorned danger, and with a

recklessness that had its own reward.

Victor Le Roy was his ardent admirer, his constant follower, his

loving friend, his servant. Day by day this youth was studying with

indefatigable zeal the truths and doctrines adopted by his teacher.

Enchanted by the wise man's eloquence, already a convert to the faith

he magnified, he was prepared to follow wherever the preacher led. The

fascination of danger he felt, and was allured by. Frowning faces had

for him no terrors. He could defy evil.

Jacqueline and he might be called most friendly students. Often in

the cool of the day the young man walked out from Meaux along the

country-roads, and his face was always toward the setting sun, whence

towards the east Jacqueline at that hour would be coming. The girls were

living in the region of the vineyards now, and among the vines they

worked.

It began to be remarked by some of their companions how much Jacqueline

Gabrie and the young student from the city walked together. But the

subject of their discourse, as they rested under the trees that fringed

the river, was not within the range of common speculation; far enough

removed from the ordinary use to which the peasants put their thought

was the thinking of Le Roy and Jacqueline.

Often Victor went, carefully and with a student's precision, over the

grounds of Martial's arguments, for the satisfaction of Jacqueline.

Much pride as well as joy had he in the service; for he reverenced his

teacher, and feared nothing so much, in these repetitions, as that this

listener, this animated, thinking, feeling Jacqueline, should lose

anything by his transmission of the preacher's arguments and eloquence.

And sometimes, on those special occasions which were now constantly

occurring, she walked with him to the town, and hearkened for herself in

the assemblages of those who were now one in the faith.

Elsie looked on and wondered, but did not jest with Jacqueline, as girls

are wont to jest with one another on such points as seemed involved in

this friendship between youth and youth, between man and woman.

Towards the conclusion of the girls' appointed labor in the vineyard, a

week passed in which Victor Le Roy had not once come out from Meaux in

the direction of the setting sun. He knew the time when the peasants'

labor in the vineyard would be done; Jacqueline had told him; and with

wonder, and with trouble, she lived through the days that brought no

word from him.

At work early and late, Jacqueline had no opportunity of discovering

what was going on in Meaux. But it chanced, on the last day of the last

week in the vineyard, tidings reached her: Martial Mazurier had been

arrested, and would be tried, the rumor said, as John Leclerc had been

tried; and sentence would be pronounced, doubtless, said conjecture,

severe in proportion to the influence the man had acquired, to the

position he held.

Hearing this, oppressed, troubled, yet not doubting, Jacqueline

determined that she would go to Meaux that evening, and so ascertain the

truth. She said nothing to Elsie of her purpose. She was careful in all

things to avoid that which might involve her companion in peril in an

unknown future; but at nightfall she had made herself ready to set

out for Meaux, when her purpose was changed in the first steps by the

appearing of Victor Le Roy.

He had come to Jacqueline,--had but one purpose in his coming; yet it

was she who must say,--

"Is it true, Victor, that Martial Mazurier is in prison?"

His answer surprised her.

"No, it is not true."

But his countenance did not answer the glad expression of her face with

an equal smile. His gravity almost communicated itself to her. Yet this

rebound from her recent dismay surely might demand an opportunity.

"I believe you," said she. "But I was coming to see if it could be true.

It was hard to believe, and yet it has cost me a great deal to persuade

myself against belief, Victor."

"It will cost you still more, Jacqueline. Martial Mazurier has

recanted."

"He has been in prison, then?"

"He has retracted, and is free again,--has denied himself. No more

glorious words from him, Jacqueline, such as we have heard! He has sold

himself to the Devil, you see."

"Mazurier?"

"Mazurier has thought raiment better than life. _He_ has believed a

man's life to consist in the abundance of the things he possesseth,"

said the youth, bitterly. He continued, looking steadfastly at

Jacqueline,--"Probably I must give up the Truth also. My uncle is dead:

must I not secure my possessions?--for I am no longer a poor man; I

cannot afford to let my life fall into the hands of those wolves."

"Mazurier retracted? I cannot believe it, Victor Le Roy!"

"Believe, then, that yesterday the man was in prison, and to-day he is

at large. Yes, he says that he can serve Jesus Christ more favorably,

more successfully, by complying with the will of the bishop and the

priests. You see the force of his argument. If he should be silenced, or

imprisoned long, or his life should be cut off, he would then be able

to preach no more at all in any way. He only does not believe that

whosoever will save his life, in opposition to the law of the

everlasting gospel, must lose it."

"Oh, do you remember what he said to John,--what he prayed in that room?

Oh, Victor, what does it mean?"

"It means what cannot be spoken,--what I dare not say or think."

"Not that we are wrong, mistaken, Victor?"

"No, Jacqueline, never! it can never mean that! Whatever we may do with

the Truth, we cannot make it false. We may act like cowards, unworthy,

ungrateful, ignorant; but the Truth will remain, Jacqueline."

"Victor, you could not desert it."

"How can I tell, Jacqueline? The last time I saw Martial Mazurier, he

would have said nobler and more loving words than I can command. But

with my own eyes I saw him walking at liberty in streets where liberty

for him to walk could be bought only at an infamous price."

"Is there such danger for all men who believe with John Leclerc, and

with--with you, Victor?"

"Yes, there is danger, such danger."

"Then you must go away. You must not stay in Meaux," she said, quickly,

in a low, determined voice.

"Jacqueline, I must remain in Meaux," he answered, as quickly, with

flushed face and flashing eyes. The dignity of conscious integrity, and

the "fear of fear," a beholder who could discern the tokens might have

perceived in him.

"Oh, then, who can tell? Did he not pray that he might not be led into

temptation?"

"Yes," Victor replied, more troubled than scornful,--"yes, and allowed

himself to be led at last."

"But if you should go away"----

"Would not that be flying from danger?" he asked, proudly.

"Nay, might it not be doing with your might what you found to do, that

you might not be led into temptation?"

"And you are afraid, that, if I stay here, I shall yield to them."

"You say you are not certain, Victor. You repeat Mazurier's words."

"Yet shall I remain. No, I will never run away."

The pride of the young fellow, and the consternation occasioned by the

recreancy of his superior, his belief in the doctrines he had confessed

with Mazurier, and the time-serving of the latter, had evidently thrown

asunder the guards of his peace, and produced a sad state of confusion.

"It were better to run away," said Jacqueline, not pausing to choose the

word,--"far better than to stay and defy the Devil, and then find that

you could not resist him, Victor. Oh, if we could go, as Elsie said,

back to Domrémy,--anywhere away from this cruel Meaux!"

"Have you, then, gained nothing, Jacqueline?"

"Everything. But to lose it,--oh, I cannot afford that!"

"Let us stand together, then. Promise me, Jacqueline," he exclaimed,

eagerly, as though he felt himself among defences here, with her.

"What shall I promise, Victor?" she asked, with the voice and the look

of one who is ready for any deed of daring, for any work of love.

"I, too, have preached this word."

Her only comment was, "I know you preached it well."

"What has befallen others may befall me."

"Well."

So strongly, so confidently did she speak this word, that the young man

went on, manifestly influenced by it, hesitating no more in his speech.

"May befall me," he repeated.

"'Whosoever believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live,'"

she answered, with lofty voice, repeating the divine word. "What is our

life, that we should hold it at the expense of his Truth? Mazurier was

wrong. He can never atone for the wrong he has done."

"I believe it!" exclaimed Victor, with a brightening countenance. The

clouds of doubt rose from his face and floated away, as we see the mists

ascending from the heights, when we are so happy as to live in the wild

hill-country. "You prize Truth more than life. Stand with me in this,

Jacqueline. Speak of this Truth as it has come to me. You are all that

I have left. I have lost Mazurier. Jacqueline, you are a woman, but you

never,--yes! yes! though I dare not say as much of myself, I dare say

it of you,--you never could have bought your liberty at such a price as

Martial has paid. I know not how, even with the opportunity, he will

ever gain the courage to speak of these things again,--those great

mysteries which are hidden from the eyes of the covetous and worldly and

unbelieving. Promise, stand with me, Jacqueline, and I will rely on you.

Forsake me not."

"Victor, has He not said, who can best say it, 'I will never leave you

nor forsake you'?"

"But, Jacqueline, I love you."

Having said these words, the face of the young man emerged wholly from

the eclipse of the former shadow.

"What is this?" said the brave peasant from Domrémy, manifestly doubting

whether she had heard aright; and her clear pure eyes were gazing full

on Victor Le Roy, actually looking for an explanation of his words.

"I love you, Jacqueline," he repeated. "And I do not involve you in

danger, oh, my friend! Only let me have it to believe that my life is

dear to Jacqueline, and I shall not be afraid then to lose it, if that

testimony be required of me. Shall we not stand side by side, soldiers

of Christ, stronger in each other than in all the world beside? Shall it

not be so, Jacqueline? True heart, answer me! And if you will not love

me, at least say, say you are my friend, you trust me. I will hold your

safety sacred."

"I am your friend, Victor."

"Say my wife, Jacqueline. I honored you, that you came from Domrémy.

You are my very dream of Joan,--as brave and as true as beautiful.

Jacqueline, it is not all for the Truth's sake, but for my love's sake.

Is not our work one, moreover? Are we not one in heart and purpose,

Jacqueline? You are alone; let me protect you."

He needed no other answer than he had while his eyes constantly sought

hers. Her calm look, the dignity and strength of her composure, assured

him of all he longed to learn,--assured him that their hearts, even as

their purposes and faith, were one."

"But speak one word," he urged.

The word she spoke was, "I can be true to you, Victor."

Won hardly by a word: too easily, you think? She loved the youth, my

friends, and she loved the Truth for which he dared not say that he

could sacrifice himself.

"We are one, then," said Victor Le Roy. "It concerned me above all

things to prove that, Jacqueline. So you shall have no more to do with

these harvest-fields and vineyards henceforth, except to eat of the

fruits, if God will. You have borne all the burden and heat of labor you

shall ever bear. I can say that, with God's blessing. We shall sit under

our own vine. Death in one direction has prepared for life in another.

I inherit what my uncle can make use of no longer. We shall look out

on our own fields, our harvests; for I think this city will keep us no

longer than may he needful. We will go away into Picardy, and I will

show you where our Joan was a prisoner; and we will go back to Domrémy,

and walk in the places she loved, and pray God to bless us by that

fountain, and in the grave-yard where your father and mother sleep. Oh,

Jacqueline, is it not all blessed and all fair?"

She could hardly comprehend all the brightness of this vision which

Victor Le Roy would fain bring before her. The paths he pointed out to

her were new and strange; but she could trust him, could believe that

together they might walk without stumbling.

She had nothing to say of her unfitness, her unworthiness, to occupy the

place to which he pointed. Not a doubt, not a fear, had she to express.

He loved her, and that she knew; and she had no thought of depreciating

his choice, its excellency or its wisdom. Whatever excess of wonder she

may have felt was not communicated. How know I that _she_ marvelled at

her lover's choice, though all the world might marvel?

Then remembering Mazurier, and thinking of her strength of faith, and

her high-heartedness, he was eager that Jacqueline should appoint their

marriage-day. And more than he, perhaps, supposed was betrayed by this

haste. He made his words profoundly good. Strong woman that she was, he

wanted her strength joined to his. He was secretly disquieted, secretly

afraid to trust himself, since this defection of Martial Mazurier.

What did hinder them? They might be married on Sunday, if she would:

they might go down together to the estate, which he must immediately

visit.

Through the hurry of thought, and the agitation of heart, and the rush

of seeming impossibilities, he brought out at length in triumph her

consent.

She did consent. It should all be as he wished. And so they parted

outside that town of Meaux on the fair summer evening.--plighted

lovers,--hopeful man and woman. For them the evening sky was lovely with

the day's last light; for them the serene stars of night arose.

So they parted under the open sky: he going forward to the city,

strengthened and refreshed in faith and holy courage; she, adorned with

holy hopes which never until now had found place among her visions.

Neither was she prepared for them; until he brought them to a heart

which, indeed, could never be dismayed by the approach and claim of

love.

Love was no strange guest. Fresh and fair as Zephyrus, he came from the

forest depths, and she welcomed him,--no stranger,--though the breath

that bore him was all heavenly, and his aspiration was remote from

earthly sources. Yes, she so imagined.

She went back to the cottage where she and Elsie lodged now, to tell

Elsie what had happened,--to thankfulness,--to gazing forward Into a

new world,--to aspiration, expectation, joy, humility,--to wonder, and

to praise,--to all that my best reader will perceive must be true of

Jacqueline on this great evening of her life.

X.

That same night Victor Le Roy was arrested on charge of

heresy,--arrested and imprisoned. Watchmen were on the look-out when the

lover walked forward with triumphant steps to Meaux.

"This fellow also was among the wool-comber's disciples," said they; and

their successful dealing with Mazurier encouraged the authorities to

hope that soon all this evil would be overcome,--trampled in the dust:

this impudent insurrection of thought should certainly be stifled; youth

and age, high station, low, should be taught alike of Rome.

Tidings reached Martial Mazurier next day of what had befallen Victor Le

Roy, and he went instantly to visit him in prison. It was an interview

which the tender-hearted officials would have invited, had he not

forestalled them by inviting himself to the duty. Mazurier had something

to do in the matter of reconciling his conscience to the part he had

taken, in his recent opportunity to prove himself equally a hero with

Leclerc. He had recanted, done evil, in short, that good might come; and

was not content with having done this thing: how should he be? Now that

his follower was in the same position, he had but one wish,--that he

should follow his example. He did not, perhaps, entirely ascertain his

motive in this; but it is hardly to be supposed that Mazurier was so

persuaded of the justice of his course that he desired to have it

imitated by another under the same circumstances.

No! he was forever disgraced in his own eyes, when he remembered the

valiant John Leclerc; and it was not to be permitted that Victor Le Roy

should follow the example of the wool-comber in preference to that

he had given,--that politic, wise, blood-sparing, flesh--loving,

truth-depreciating, God-defrauding example.

Accordingly he lost no time in seeking Victor in his cell. It was the

very cell in which he himself had lately been imprisoned. Within those

narrow walls he had meditated, prayed, and made his choice. There he had

stood face to face with fate, with God, with Jesus, and had decided--not

in favor of the flogging, and the branding, and the glorious infamy.

There, in spite of eloquence and fervor and devotion, in spite of all

his past vows and his hopes, he had decided to take the place and part

of a timeserver;--for he feared disgrace and pain, and the hissing

and scoff and persecution, more than he feared the blasting anger of

insulted and forsaken Truth.

He found Victor within his cell, his bright face not overcast with

gloom, his eyes not betraying doubts, neither disappointed, astonished,

nor in deep dejection. The mood he deemed unfavorable for his special

word,--poor, deceived, self-deceiving Mazurier!

He was not merely surprised at these indications,--he was at a loss. A

little trepidation, doubt, suspicion would have better suited him. Alas!

and was _his_ hour the extremity of another's weakness, not in the

elevation of another's spiritual strength? Once when he preached the

Truth as moved by the Holy Ghost, it was not to the prudence or the

worldly wisdom of his hearers he appealed, but to the higher feelings

and the noblest powers of men. Then he called on them to praise God by

their faith in all that added to His glory and dominion. But now his

eloquence was otherwise directed,--not full of the old fire and

enthusiasm,--not trustful in God, but dependent on prudence, as though

all help were in man. He had to draw from his own experience now,

things new and old,--and was not, by confession of the result of such

experience, humiliated!

"You are under a mistake," was his argument. "You have not gone deep

into these matters; you have made acquaintance only with the agitated

surface of them." And he proceeded to make good all this assertion, it

was so readily proven! _He_ also had been beguiled,--ah, had he not? He

had been beguiled by the rude eloquence, the insensibility to pain, the

pride of opposition, the pride of poverty, the pride of a rude nature,

exhibited by John Leclerc.

He acknowledged freely, with a fatal candor, that, until he came to

consider these things in their true light, when shut away from all

outward influences, until compelled to quiet meditation beyond the reach

and influence of mere enthusiasm, he had believed with Leclerc, even as

Victor was believing now. He could have gone on, who might tell to what

fanatical length? had it not been for that fortunate arrest which made a

sane man of him!

Leclerc was not quite in the wrong,--not absolutely,--but neither was

he, as Mazurier had once believed, gloriously in the right. It was

clearly apparent to him, that Victor Le Roy, having now also like

opportunity for calm reflection, would come to like conclusions.

With such confident prophecy, Mazurier left the young man. His visit was

brief and hurried;--no duty that could be waived should call him away

from his friend at such a time; but he would return; they would speak of

this again; and he kissed Victor, and blessed him, and went out to bid

the authorities delay yet before the lad was brought to trial, for he

was confident, that, if left to reflection, he would come to his senses,

and choose wisely--between God and Mammon? Mazurier expressed it in

another way.

* * * * *

In the street, Elsie Méril heard of Victor's arrest, and she brought the

news to Jacqueline. They had returned to Meaux, to their old lodging,

and a day had passed, during which, moment by moment, his arrival was

anticipated. Elsie went out to buy a gift for Jacqueline, a bit of fine

apparelling which she had coveted from the moment she knew Jacqueline

should be a bride. She stole away on her errand without remark, and

came back with the gift,--but also with that which made it valueless,

unmentionable, though it was a costly offering, purchased with the wages

of more than a week's labor in the fields.

It was almost dark when she returned to Jacqueline. Her friend was

sitting by the window,--waiting,--not for her; and when she went in to

her, it was silently, with no mention of her errand or her love-gift.

Quietly she sat down, thankful that the night was falling, waiting for

its darkness before she should speak words which would make the darkness

to be felt.

"He does not come," said Jacqueline, at length.

"Did you think it was he, when I came up the stairs?" inquired Elsie,

tenderly.

"Oh, no! I can tell your step from all the rest."

"His, too, I think."

"Yes, and his, too. My best friends. Strange, if I could not!"

"Oh, I'm glad you said that, Jacqueline!"

"My best friends," repeated Jacqueline,--not merely to please Elsie.

Love had opened wide her heart,--and Elsie, weak and foolish though

she might be,--Elsie, her old companion, her playmate, her

fellow-laborer,--Elsie, who should be to her a sister always, and share

in her good-fortune,--Elsie had honorable place there.

"Could anything have happened, Jacqueline?" said Elsie, trembling: her

tremulous voice betrayed it.

"Oh, I think not," was the answer.

"But he is so fearless,--he might have fallen into--into trouble."

"What have you heard, Elsie?"

This question was quietly asked, but it struck to the heart of the

questioned girl. Jacqueline suspected!--and yet Jacqueline asked so

calmly! Jacqueline could hear it,--and yet how could this be declared?

Her hesitation quickened what was hardly suspicion into a conviction.

"What have you heard?" Jacqueline again questioned,--not so calmly as

before; and yet it was quite calmly, even to the alarmed ear of Elsie

Méril.

"They have arrested Victor, Jacqueline."

"For heresy?"

"I heard it in the street."

Jacqueline arose,--she crossed the chamber,--her hand was on the latch.

Instantly Elsie stood beside her.

"What will you do? I must go with you, Jacqueline."

"Where will you go?" said Jacqueline.

"With you. Wait,--what is it you will do? Or,--no matter, go on, I will

follow you,--and take the danger with you."

"Is there danger? For him there is! and there might be for you,--but

none for me. Stay, Elsie. Where shall I go, in truth?"

Yet she opened the door, and began to descend the stairs even while she

spoke; and Elsie followed her.

First to the house of the wool-comber. John was not at home,--and his

mother could tell them nothing, had heard nothing of the arrest of

Victor. Then to the place which Victor had pointed out to her as the

home of Mazurier. Mazurier likewise they failed to find. Where, then,

was the prison of Le Roy's captivity? That no man could tell them; so

they came home to their lodging at length in the dark night, there to

wait through endless-seeming hours for morning.

On the Sunday they had chosen for their wedding-day Mazurier brought

word of Victor to Jacqueline,--was really a messenger, as he announced

himself, when she opened for him the door of her room in the fourth

story of the great lodging-house. He had come on that day with a

message; but it was not in all things--in little beside the love it was

meant to prove--the message Victor had desired to convey. In want of

more faithful, more trustworthy messenger, Le Roy sent word by this man

of his arrest,--and bade Jacqueline pray for him, and come to him, if

that were possible. He desired, he said, to serve his Master,--and, of

all things, sought the Truth.

To go to the prisoner, Mazurier assured Jacqueline, was impossible, but

she might send a message; indeed, he was here to serve his dear friends.

Ah, poor girl, did she trust the man by whom she sent into a prison

words like these?--

"Hold fast to the faith that is in you, Victor. Let nothing persuade you

that you have been mistaken. We asked for light,--it was given us,--let

us walk in it; and no matter where it leads,--since the light is from

heaven. Do not think of me,--nor of yourself,--but only of Jesus Christ,

who said, 'Whosoever would save his life shall lose it.'"

Mazurier took this message. What did he do with it? He tossed it to the

winds.

A week after, Le Roy was brought to trial,--and recanted; and so

recanting, was acquitted and set at liberty.

Mazurier supposed that he meant all kindly in the exertion he made to

save his friend. He would never have ceased from self-reproach, had he

conveyed the words of Jacqueline to Victor,--for the effect of those

words he could clearly foresee.

And so far from attempting to bring about an interview between the pair,

he would have striven to prevent it, had he seen a probability that it

would be allowed. He set little value on such words as Jacqueline spoke,

when her conscience and her love rose up against each other. The

words she had committed to him he could account for by no supposition

acceptable and reasonable to him. There was something about the girl he

did not understand; she was no fit guide for a man who had need of clear

judgment, when such a decision was to be made as the court demanded of

Le Roy.

Elsie Méril, between hope and fear, was dumb in these days; but her

presence and her tenderness, though not heroic in action nor wise in

utterance, had a value of which neither she nor Jacqueline was fully

aware.

When Jacqueline learned the issue of the trial, and that Victor had

falsified his faith, her first impulse was to fly, that she might never

see his face again. For, the instant she heard his choice, her heart

told her what she had been hoping during these days of suspense. She had

tried to see Martial Mazurier, but without success, since he conveyed,

or promised to convey, her message to the prisoner. Of purpose he had

avoided her. He guessed what strength she would by this time have

attained, and he was determined to save both to each other, though it

might be against their will.

XI.

Victor Le Roy's first endeavor, on being liberated, was--of course to

find Jacqueline? Not so. That was far from his first design. His impulse

was to avoid the girl he had dared to love. Mazurier had, indeed,

conveyed to his mind an impression that would have satisfied him, if

anything of this character could do so. But this was impossible. The

secret of his disquiet was far too profound for such easy removal.

He had not in himself the witness that he had fulfilled the will of God.

He was disquieted, humiliated, wretched. He could not think of Leclerc,

nor upon his protestations, except with shame and remorse,--remorse,

already. In his heart, in spite of the impression Mazurier had contrived

to convey, he believed not that Jacqueline would bless him to such

work as he could henceforth perform, no longer a free man,--no longer

possessed of liberty of speech and thought.

He had no sooner renounced his liberty than he became persuaded, by an

overwhelming reasoning, as he had never been convinced before, of

the pricelessness of that he had sacrificed. When he went from the

court-room, from the presence of his judges, he was not a free man,

though the dignitaries called him so. Martial Mazurier walked arm in arm

with him, but the world was a den of horrors, a blackened and accursed

world, to the young man who came from prison, free to use his

freedom--as the priests directed!

He went home from the prison with Mazurier. The world had conquered.

Love had conquered,--Love, that in the conquest felt itself disgraced.

He had sold the divine, he had received the human: it was the old

pottage speculation over again. This privilege of liberty from his

dungeon had looked so fair!--but now it seemed so worthless! This

prospect of life so priceless in contemplation of its loss,--oh, the

beggar who crept past him was an enviable man, compared with young

Victor Le Roy, the heir of love and riches, the heir of liberty and

life!

Yes,--he went home with Mazurier. Where else should he go?

Congratulations attended him. He was compelled to receive them with a

countenance not too sombre, and a grace not all thankless, or--or--they

would say it was of cowardice he had saved his precious body from the

sentence of the judges, and given his precious LIFE up to the sentence

of the JUDGE.

Yes,--Martial took him home. There they might talk at leisure of those

things,--and ask a blessing on the testimony of Jesus, made and kept by

them!

Victor Le Roy was too proud to complain now. He assented to all the

preacher's sophistry. He allowed himself to be cheered. But this was

no such evening as had been spent in the room of the wool-comber, when

Leclerc's voice, strong, even through his weakness, called on God,

and blessed and praised Him, and the spirit conquered the flesh

gloriously,--the old mother of Leclerc sharing his joy, as she had also

shared his anguish. Here was no Jacqueline to say to Victor, "Thou hast

done well! 'Glory be to Jesus Christ, and His witnesses!'"

Mazurier thanked God for the deliverance of His servant! He dedicated

himself and Victor anew to the service of Truth, which they had shrunk

from defending! And his eloquence and fervor seemed to stamp the words

with sincerity. He seemed not in the least to suspect or fear himself.

With Victor Le Roy such self-deception, such sophistry, was simply

impossible.

* * * * *

Not of purpose did he meet Jacqueline that night. She had heard that Le

Roy was at liberty, and alone now she applied at the door of Martial

Mazurier for admittance, but in vain. The master had signified that his

evening was not to be interrupted. Therefore she returned, from waiting

near his door, to the street where she and Elsie lived.

Should her woman's pride have led her to her lofty lodging, and kept her

there without a sign, till Victor himself came seeking her? She knew

nothing of such pride,--but much of love; and her love took her back to

the post where she had waited many an hour since that disastrous arrest:

she would wait there till morning, if she must,--at least, till one

should enter, or come forth, who might tell her of Victor Le Roy.

The light in the preacher's study she could see from the door-step in a

court-yard where she waited. Should Mazurier come with Victor, she would

let them pass; but if Victor came alone, she had a right to speak.

It was after midnight when the student came down from the preacher's

study. She heard his voice when the door opened,--by the street-lamp

saw his face. And she recognized also the voice of Mazurier, who, till

the last moment of separation, seemed endeavoring to dissuade his friend

from leaving him that night.

He heard footsteps following him, as he passed along the

pavement,--observed that they gained on him. And could it be any other

than Jacqueline who touched his arm, and whispered, "Victor"?

His fast-beating heart told him it was she. He took her hand, and

drew it within his arm, and looked upon her face,--the face of his

Jacqueline.

"Now where?" said he. "It is late. It is after midnight. Why are you

alone in the street?"

"Waiting for you, Victor. I heard you were at liberty, and I supposed

you were with him. I was safe."

"Yes,--for you fear nothing. That is the only reason. You knew I was

with the preacher, Jacqueline. Why? Because--because I _am_ with him,

of course."

"Yes," she said. "I heard it was so, Victor."

"Strange!--strange!--is it not? A prison is a better place to learn the

truth than the pure air of liberty, it seems," said he, bitterly.

"What is that?" she asked. She seemed not to understand his meaning.

"Nothing. I am acquitted of heresy, you know. It seems, what we talked

so bravely meant--nothing. Oh, I am safe, now!"

"It was to preach none the less,--to hold the truth none the less. But

if he lost his life, there was an end of all; or if he lost his

liberty, it was as bad. But he would keep both, and serve God so," said

Jacqueline.

"Yes," cried Victor, "precisely what he said. I have said the same, you

think?"

"If you are quite clear that Leclerc and the rest of us are all wrong,

Victor."

"Jacqueline!"

"What is it, Victor?"

"'The rest of us,' you say. What would _you_ have done in my place?"

"God knows. I pretend not to know anything more."

"But 'the rest of us,' you said. You think that you at least are with

Leclerc?"

"That was the truth you taught me, Victor. But--I have not yet been

tried."

"That is safe to say. What makes you speak so prudently, Jacqueline? Why

do you not declare, 'Though all men deny Thee, yet will I never deny

Thee'? Ah, you have not been tried! You are not yet in danger of the

judgment, Jacqueline!"

"Do not speak so; you frighten me; it is not like you. How can I tell?

I do not know but in this retirement, in this thought you have been

compelled to, you have obtained more light than any one can have until

he comes to just such a place."

"Ah, Jacqueline, why not say to me what you are thinking? Have you lost

your courage? Say, 'Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.'"

"No,--oh, no! How could I say it, my poor Victor? How do you know?"

"Surely you cannot know, as you say. But from where you stand, that is

what you are thinking. Jacqueline, confess! If you should speak your

mind, it would be, 'Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God, poor

coward!' Oh, Jacqueline, Mazurier may deceive himself! I speak not for

him; but what will you do with your poor Victor, my poor Jacqueline?"

She did not linger in the answer,--she did not sob or tremble,--he was

by her side.

"Love him to the end. As He, when He loved His own."

"Your own, poor girl? No, no!"

"You gave yourself to me," she answered straightway, with resolute

firmness clinging to the all she had.

"I was a man then," he answered. "But I will never give a liar and a

coward to Jacqueline Gabrie. Everything but myself, Jacqueline! Take

the old words, and the old memory. But for this outcast, him you shall

forget. My God! thou hast not brought this brave girl from Domrémy, and

lighted her heart with a coal from Thine altar, that she should turn

from Thee to me! If you love a liar and a coward, Jacqueline, you cannot

help yourself,--he will make you one, too. And what I loved you for was

your truth and purity and courage. I have given you a treasure which was

greater than I could keep.--Where is it that you live now, Jacqueline? I

am not yet such a poltroon that I am afraid to conduct you. I think that

I should have the courage to protect you to-night, if you were in any

immediate danger. Come, lead the way."

"No," said Jacqueline. "I am not going home. I could not sleep; and

a roof over my head--any save God's heaven--would suffocate me, I

believe."

"Go, then, as you will. But where?"

Jacqueline did not answer, but walked quietly on; and so they passed

beyond the city-borders to the river-bank,--far away into the country,

through the fields, under the light of stars and of the waning moon.

"If I had been true!" said Victor,--"if I had not listened to him! But

him I will not blame. For why should I blame him? Am I an idiot? And his

influence could not have prevailed, had I not so chosen, when I stood

before my judges and they questioned me. No,--I acquit Mazurier. Perhaps

what I have denied never appeared to him so glorious as it did once to

me; and so he was guiltless at least of knowing what it was I did. But I

knew. And I could not have been deceived for a moment. No,--I think it

impossible that for a moment I should have been deceived. They would

have made a notable example of me, Jacqueline. I am rich,--I am a

student.--Oh, yes! Jesus Christ may die for me, and I accept the

benefit; but when it comes to suffering for His sake,--you could not

have expected that of such a poltroon, Jacqueline! We may look for it in

brave men like Leclerc, whose very living depends on their ability to

earn their bread,--to earn it by daily sweat; but men who need not

toil, who have leisure and education,--of course you would not expect

such testimony to the truth of Jesus from them! Bishop Briconnet

recants,--and Martial Mazurier; and Victor Le Roy is no braver man, no

truer man than these!"

With bitter shame and self-scorning he spoke.--Poor Jacqueline had not

a word to say. She sat beside him. She would help him bear his cross.

Heavy-laden as he, she awaited the future, saying, in the silence of her

spirit's dismal solitude, "Oh, teach us! Oh, help us!" But she called

not on any name; her prayer went out in search of a God whom in that

hour she knew not. The dark cloud and shadow of Satan that overshadowed

him was also upon her.

"Mazurier is coming in the morning to take me with him, Jacqueline,"

said Victor. "We are to make a journey."

"What is it, Victor?" she asked, quietly.

There was nothing left for her but patience,--that she clearly

saw,--nothing but patience, and quiet enduring of the will of God.

"He is afraid of me,--or of himself,--or of both, I believe. He thinks

a change of scene would be good for both of us, poor lepers that we

are."

"I must go with you, Victor Le Roy," said the resolute Jacqueline.

"Wherefore?" asked he.

"Because, when you were strong and happy, that was your desire, Victor;

and now that you are sick and sorrowing, I will not give you to another:

no! not to Mazurier, nor to any one that breathes, except myself, to

whom you belong."

"I must stay here in Meaux, then?"

"That depends upon yourself, Victor."

"We were to have been married. We were going to look after our estate,

now that the hard summer and the hard years of work are ended."

"Yes, Victor, it was so."

"But I will not wrong you. You were to be the wife of Victor Le Roy.

You are his widow, Jacqueline. For you do not think that he lives any

longer?"

"He lives, and he is free! If he has sinned, like Peter even, he weeps

bitterly."

"Like Peter? Peter denied his Lord. But he did weep, as you

say,--bitterly. Peter confessed again."

"And none served the Master with truer heart or greater courage

afterward. Victor, you remember."

"Even so,--oh, Jacqueline!"

"Victor! Victor! it was only Judas who hanged himself."

"Come, Jacqueline!"

She arose and went with him. At dawn they were married. Love did lead

and save them.

I see two youthful students studying one page. I see two loving spirits

walking through thick darkness. Along the horizon flicker the promises

of day. They say, "O Holy Ghost, hast thou forsaken thine own temples?"

Aloud they cry to God.

I see them wandering among Domrémy woods and meadows,--around the castle

of Picardy,--talking of Joan. I see them resting by the graves they find

in two ancient villages. I see them walk in sunny places; they are not

called to toil; they may gather all the blossoms that delight their

eyes. Their love grows beyond childhood,--does not die before it comes

to love's best estate. Happy bride and bridegroom! But I see them as

through a cloud whose fair hues are transient.

From the meadow-lands and the vineyards and the dark forests of the

mountains, from study and from rest, I see them move with solemn faces

and calm steps. Brave lights are in their eyes, and flowers that are

immortal they carry in their hands. No distillation can exhaust the

fragrance of those blooms.

What dost thou here, Victor? What dost thou here, Jacqueline?

This is the place of prisons. Here they light again, as they have often

lighted, torch and fagot;--life must pay the cost! Angry crowds and

hooting multitudes love this dreary square. Oh, Jacqueline and Victor,

what is this I behold?

They come together from their prison, hand in hand. "The testimony

of Jesus!" Stand back, Mazurier! Retire, Briconnet! Here is not your

place,--this is not your hour! Yet here incendiaries fire the temples

of the Holy Ghost!

The judges do not now congratulate. Jacqueline waits not now at midnight

for the coming of Le Roy. Bride and bridegroom, there they stand; they

face the world to give their testimony.

And a woman's voice, almost I deem the voice of Elsie Méril, echoes the

mother's cry that followed John Leclerc when he fought the beasts at

Meaux,--

"Blessed be Jesus Christ, and His witnesses."

So of the Truth were they borne up that day in a blazing chariot to meet

their Lord in the air, to be forever with their Lord.

* * * * *

ON A MAGNOLIA-FLOWER.

Memorial of my former days,

Magnolia, as I scent thy breath,

And on thy pallid beauty gaze,

I feel not far from death!

So much hath happened! and so much

The tomb hath claimed of what was mine!

Thy fragrance moves me with a touch

As from a hand divine:

So many dead! so many wed!

Since first, by this Magnolia's tree,

I pressed a gentle hand and said,

A word no more for me!

Lady, who sendest from the South

This frail, pale token of the past,

I press the petals to my mouth,

And sigh--as 'twere my last.

Oh, love, we live, but many fell!

The world's a wreck, but we survive!--

Say, rather, still on earth we dwell,

But gray at thirty-five!

SOME NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE.

In 1849, the discovery by Mr. Payne Collier of a copy of the Works

of Shakspeare, known as the folio of 1632, with manuscript notes and

emendations of the same or nearly the same date, created a great and

general interest in the world of letters.

The marginal notes were said to be in a handwriting not much later

than the period when the volume came from the press; and Shakspearian

scholars and students of Shakspeare, and the far more numerous class,

lovers of Shakspeare, learned and unlearned, received with respectful

eagerness a version of his text claiming a date so near to the lifetime

of the master that it was impossible to resist the impression that the

alterations came to the world with only less weight of authority than if

they had been undoubtedly his own.

The general satisfaction of the literary world in the treasure-trove was

but little alloyed by the occasional cautiously expressed doubts of

some caviller at the authenticity of the newly discovered "curiosity of

literature"; the daily newspapers made room in their crowded columns for

extracts from the volume; the weekly journals put forth more elaborate

articles on its history and contents; and the monthly and quarterly

reviews bestowed their longer and more careful criticism upon the new

readings of that text, to elucidate which has been the devout industry

of some of England's ripest scholars and profoundest thinkers; while

the actors, not to be behindhand in a study especially concerning their

vocation, adopted with more enthusiasm than discrimination some of the

new readings, and showed a laudable acquaintance with the improved

version, by exchanging undoubtedly the better for the worse, upon the

authority of Mr. Collier's folio, soon after the publication of which

I had the ill-fortune to hear a popular actress destroy the effect

and meaning of one of the most powerful passages in "Macbeth" by

substituting the new for the old reading of the line,--

"What beast was it, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?"

The cutting antithesis of "What _beast_" in retort to her husband's

assertion, "I dare do all that may become a _man_," was tamely rendered

by the lady, in obedience to Mr. Collier's folio, "What _boast_ was

it, then,"--a change that any one possessed of poetical or dramatic

perception would have submitted to upon nothing short of the positive

demonstration of the author's having so written the passage.

Opinions were, indeed, divided as to the intrinsic merit of the

emendations or alterations. Some of the new readings were undoubted

improvements, some were unimportant, and others again were beyond all

controversy inferior to the established text of the passages; and it

seemed not a little difficult to reconcile the critical acumen and

poetical insight of many of the corrections with the feebleness and

prosaic triviality of others.

Again, it was observed by those conversant with the earlier editions,

especially with the little read or valued Oxford edition, that a vast

number of the passages given as emendations in Mr. Collier's folio were

precisely the same in Hanmer's text. Indeed, it seems not a little

remarkable that neither Mr. Collier nor his opponents have thought it

worth their while to state that nearly half, and that undoubtedly the

better half, of the so-called new readings are to be found in the finely

printed, but little esteemed, text of the Oxford Shakspeare. If, indeed,

these corrections now come to us with the authority of a critic but

little removed from Shakspeare's own time, it is remarkable that Sir

Thomas Hanmer's, or rather Mr. Theobald's, ingenuity should have

forestalled the _fiat_ of Mr. Collier's folio in so many instances. On

the other hand, it may have been judged by others besides a learned

editor of Shakspeare from whom I once heard the remark, that the fact of

the so-called new readings being many of them in Rowe and Hanmer, and

therefore well known to the subsequent editors of Shakspeare, who

nevertheless did not adopt them, proved that in their opinion they were

of little value and less authority. But, says Mr. Collier, inasmuch as

they are in the folio of 1632, which I now give to the world, they are

of authority paramount to any other suggestion or correction that has

hitherto been made on the text of Shakspeare.

Thus stood the question in 1853. How stands it in 1860? After a slow,

but gradual process of growth and extension of doubt and questionings,

more or less calculated to throw discredit on the authority of the

marginal notes in the folio,--the volume being subjected to the careful

and competent examination of certain officers of the library of the

British Museum,--the result seems to threaten a considerable reduction

in the supposed value of the authority which the public was called upon

to esteem so highly.

The ink in which the annotations are made has been subjected to chemical

analysis, and betrays, under the characters traced in it, others made in

pencil, which are pronounced by some persons of a more modern date than

the letters which have been traced over them.

Here at present the matter rests. Much angry debate has ensued between

the various gentlemen interested in the controversy,--Mr. Collier not

hesitating to suggest that pencil-marks in imitation of his handwriting

had been inserted in the volume, and a fly-leaf abstracted from it,

while in the custody of Messrs. Hamilton and Madden of the British

Museum; while the replies of these gentlemen would go towards

establishing that the corrections are forgeries, and insinuating that

they are forgeries for which Mr. Collier is himself responsible.

While the question of the antiquity and authority of these marginal

notes remains thus undecided, it may not be amiss to apply to them the

mere test of common sense in order to determine upon their intrinsic

value, to the adequate estimate of which all thoughtful readers of

Shakspeare must be to a certain degree competent.

The curious point, of whose they are, may test the science of

decipherers of palimpsest manuscripts; the more weighty one, of what

they are worth, remains, as it was from the first, a matter on which

every student of Shakspeare may arrive at some conclusion for himself.

And, indeed, to this ground of judgment Mr. Collier himself appeals, in

his preface to the "Notes and Emendations," in no less emphatic terms

than the following:--"As Shakspeare was especially the poet of common

life, so he was emphatically the poet of common sense; and to the

verdict of common sense I am willing to submit all the more material

alterations recommended on the authority before me."

I take "The Tempest," the first play in Mr. Collier's volume of "Notes

and Emendations," and, while bestowing my principal attention on the

inherent worth of the several new readings, shall point out where

they tally exactly with the text of the Oxford edition, because that

circumstance has excited little attention in the midst of the other

various elements of interest in the controversy, and also because I have

it in my power to give from a copy of that edition in my possession some

passages corrected by John and Charles Kemble, who brought to the study

of the text considerable knowledge of it and no inconsiderable ability

for poetical and dramatic criticism.

In the first scene of the first act of "The Tempest" Mr. Collier gives

the line,--

"Good Boatswain, have care,"--

adding, "It may be just worth remark, that the colloquial expression is

_have a care_, and _a_ is inserted in the margin of the corrected folio,

1632, to indicate, probably, that the poet so wrote it, or, at all

events, that the actor so delivered it."

In the copy of Hanmer in my possession the _a_ is also inserted in the

margin, upon the authority of one of the eminent actors above mentioned.

SCENE II.

"The sky. it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,

But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,

Dashes the fire out."

The manuscript corrector of the folio, 1632, has substituted _heat_

for "cheek," which appears to me an alteration of no value whatever.

Shakspeare was more likely to have written _cheek_ than _heat_; for

elsewhere he uses the expression, "Heaven's face," "the welkin's face,"

and, though irregular, the expression is poetical.

At Miranda's exclamation,--

"A brave vessel,

Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,

Dash'd all to pieces,"--

Mr. Collier does Theobald the justice to observe, that he, as well as

the corrector of the folio, 1632, adds the necessary letter _s_ to the

word "creature," making the plural substantive agree with her other

exclamation of, "Poor souls, they perished!"

Where Mr. Collier, upon the authority of his folio, substitutes

_pre_vision for "provision" in the lines of Prospero,--

"The direful spectacle of the wreck . . .

I have with such provision in mine art

So safely ordered," etc.,--

I do not agree to the value of the change. It is very true that

_pre_vision means the foresight that his art gave him, but _pro_vision

implies the exercise of that foresight or _pre_vision; it is therefore

better, because more comprehensive.

Mr. Collier's folio gives as an improvement upon Malone and Steevens's

reading of the passage,--

"And thy father

Was Duke of Milan; and his only heir

A princess; no worse issued,"--

the following:--

"And thy father

Was Duke of Milan,--thou his only heir

And princess no worse issued."

Supposing the folio to be ingenious rather than authoritative, the

passage, as it stands in Hanmer, is decidedly better, because clearer:--

"And thy father

Was Duke of Milan,--thou, his only heir

A princess--no worse issued."

In the next passage, given as emended by the folio, we have what appears

to me one bad and one decidedly good alteration from the usual reading,

which, in all the editions given hitherto, has left the meaning barely

perceptible through the confusion and obscurity of the expression.

"He being thus _lorded_,

Not only with what my revenue yielded,

But what my power might else exact,--like one

Who having _unto truth_ by telling of it

Made such a sinner of his memory

To credit his own lie,--he did believe

He was indeed the Duke."

The folio says,--

"He being thus _loaded_."

And to this change I object: the meaning was obvious before; "lorded"

stands clearly enough here for made lord of or over, etc.; and though

the expression is unusual, it is less prosaic than the proposed word

_loaded_. But in the rest of the passage the critic of the folio does

immense service to the text, in reading

"Like one

Who having _to untruth_ by telling of it

Made such a sinner of his memory

To credit his own lie,--he did believe

He was indeed the Duke."

This change carries its own authority in its manifest good sense.

Of the passage,--

"Whereon,

A treacherous army levied, one midnight

Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open

The gates of Milan, and in the dead of darkness

The ministers for the purpose hurried thence

Me and thy crying self,"--

Mr. Collier says that the iteration of the word "purpose," in the fourth

line, after its employment in the second, is a blemish, which his folio

obviates by substituting the word _practice_ in the first line. I think

this a manifest improvement, though not an important one.

Mr. Collier gives Rowe the credit of having altered "butt" to _boat_,

and "have quit it" to _had quit it_, in the lines,--

"Where they prepar'd

A rotten carcase of a _butt_ not rigg'd,

Nor tackle, sail, nor mast,--the very rats

Instinctively _have quit it_."

Adding, that in both changes he is supported by the corrector of the

folio, 1632. Hanmer gives the passage exactly as the latter, and as Rowe

does.

We now come to the stage-directions in the folio, to which Mr. Collier

gives, I think, a most exaggerated value. He says, that, where Prospero

says,--

"Lend thy hand

And pluck my magic garment from me,--so

Lie there, my art,"--

the words, "Lay it down," are written over against the passage. Now this

really seems a very unnecessary direction, inasmuch as the text very

clearly indicates that Prospero lays down as well as plucks off his

"magic garment,"--unless we are to suppose Miranda holding it over her

arm till he resumes it. But still less do I agree with Mr. Collier in

thinking the direction, "Put on robe again," at the passage beginning,

"Now I arise," any extraordinary accession to the business, as it is

technically called, of the scene: for I do not think that his resuming

his magical robe was in any way necessary to account for the slumber

which overcomes Miranda, "in spite of her interest in her father's

story," and which Mr. Collier says the commentators have endeavored to

account for in various ways; but putting "_because_ of her interest in

her father's story," instead of "_in spite_ of," I feel none of the

difficulty which beset the commentators, and which Mr. Collier conjures

by the stage-direction which makes Prospero resume his magic robe at

a certain moment in order to put his daughter to sleep. Worthy Dr.

Johnson, who was not among the puzzled commentators on this occasion,

suggests, very agreeably to common sense, that "Experience proves that

any violent agitation of the mind easily subsides in slumber." But Mr.

Collier says, the Doctor gives this very reasonable explanation of

Miranda's sleep only because he was not acquainted with the folio

stage-direction about Prospero's coat, and knew no better. Now we are

acquainted with this important addition to the text, and yet know no

better than to agree with Doctor Johnson, that Miranda's slumbers were

perfectly to be accounted for without the coat. Mr. Collier does not

seem to know that a deeper and heavier desire to sleep follows upon the

overstrained exercise of excited attention than on the weariness of a

dull and uninteresting appeal to it.

But let us consider Shakspeare's text, rather than the corrector's

additions, for a moment. Within reach of the wild wind and spray of

the tempest, though sheltered from their fury, Miranda had watched the

sinking ship struggling with the mad elements, and heard when "rose from

sea to sky the wild farewell." Amazement and pity had thrown her into a

paroxysm of grief, which is hardly allayed by her father's assurance,

that "there's no harm done." After this terrible excitement follows the

solemn exordium to her father's story,--

"The hour's now come;

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.

Obey and be attentive."

The effort she calls upon her memory to make to recover the traces

of her earliest impressions of life,--the strangeness of the events

unfolded to her,--the duration of the recital itself, which is

considerable,--and, above all, the poignant personal interest of

its details, are quite sufficient to account for the sudden utter

prostration of her overstrained faculties and feelings, and the profound

sleep that falls on the young girl. Perhaps Shakspeare knew this, though

his commentators, old and new, seem not to have done so; and without a

professed faith, such as some of us moderns indulge in, in the mysteries

of magnetism, perhaps he believed enough in the magnetic force of the

superior physical as well as mental power of Prospero's nature over

the nervous, sensitive, irritable female organization of his child to

account for the "I know thou canst not choose" with which he concludes

his observation on her drowsiness, and his desire that she will not

resist it. The magic gown may, indeed, have been powerful,--but hardly

more so, we think, than the nervous exhaustion which, combined with

the authoritative will and eyes of her lord and father, bowed down the

child's drooping eyelids in profoundest sleep.

The strangest of all Mr. Collier's comments upon this passage, however,

is that where he represents Miranda as, up to a certain point of her

father's story, remaining "standing eagerly listening by his side." This

is not only gratuitous, but absolutely contrary to Shakspeare's text,--a

greater authority, I presume, than even that of the annotated folio.

Prospero's words to his daughter, when first he begins the recital of

their sea-sorrow, are,--

"Sit down!

For thou must now know further."

Does Mr. Collier's folio reject this reading of the first line? or does

he suppose that Miranda remained standing, in spite of her father's

command? Moreover, when he interrupts his story with the words, "Now I

arise," he adds, to his daughter, "Sit still," which clearly indicates

both that she was seated and that she was about to rise (naturally

enough) when her father did. We say, "Sit _down_," to a person who is

standing; and, "Sit _still_," to a person seated who is about to rise;

and in all these minute particulars, the simple text of Shakspeare, if

attentively followed, gives every necessary indication of his intention

with regard to the attitudes and movements of the persons on the stage

in this scene; and the highly commended stage-directions of the folio

are here, therefore, perfectly superfluous.

The next alteration in the received text is a decided improvement. In

speaking of the royal fleet dispersed by the tempest, Ariel says,--

"They all have met again,

And are upon the Mediterranean _flote_

Bound sadly home for Naples";--

for which Mr. Collier's folio substitutes,--

"They all have met again,

And all upon the Mediterranean _float_,

Bound sadly back to Naples."

Mr. Collier notices, that the improvement of giving the lines,

"Which any print of goodness will not take,"

to Prospero, instead of Miranda, dates as far back as Dryden and

Davenant's alteration of "The Tempest," from which he says Theobald and

others copied it.

The corrected folio gives its authority to the lines of the song,--

"Foot it featly here and there,

And, sweet sprites, the burden bear,"--

which stands so in Hanmer, and, indeed is the usually received

arrangement of the song.

This is the last corrected passage in the first act, in the course of

which Mr. Collier gives us no fewer than sixteen, altered, emended, and

commented upon in his folio. Many of the emendations are to be found

_verbatim_ in the Oxford and subsequent editions, and three only appear

to us to be of any special value, tried by the standard of common sense,

to which we agreed, on Mr. Collier's invitation, to refer them.

The line in Prospero's threat to Caliban,--

"I'll rack thee with old cramps,

Fill all thy bones with _aches_, make thee roar,"--

occasioned one of Mr. John Kemble's characteristic differences with the

public, who objected, perhaps not without reason, to hearing the word

"aches" pronounced as a dissyllable, although the line imperatively

demands it; and Shakspeare shows that the word was not unusually so

pronounced, as he introduces it with the same quantity in the prose

dialogue of "Much Ado about Nothing," and makes it the vehicle of a pun

which certainly argues that it was familiar to the public ear as _ache_

and not _ake_. When Hero asks Beatrice, who complains that she is sick,

what she is sick for,--a hawk, a hound, or a husband,--Beatrice replies,

that she is sick for--or of--that which begins them all, an _ache_,--an

_H_. Indeed, much later than Shakspeare's day the word was so

pronounced; for Dean Swift, in the "City Shower," has the line,--

"Old _aches_ throb, your hollow tooth will

rage."

The opening of this play is connected with my earliest recollections. In

looking down the "dark backward and abysm of time," to the period when

I was but six years old, my memory conjures up a vision of a stately

drawing-room on the ground-floor of a house, doubtless long since swept

from the face of the earth by the encroaching tide of new houses

and streets that has submerged every trace of suburban beauty,

picturesqueness, or rural privacy in the neighborhood of London,

converting it all by a hideous process of assimilation into more London,

till London seems almost more than England can carry.

But in those years, "long enough ago," to which I refer,--somewhere

between Lea and Blackheath, stood in the midst of well-kept grounds a

goodly mansion, which held this pleasant room. It was always light and

cheerful and warm, for the three windows down to the broad gravel-walk

before it faced south; and though the lawn was darkened just in front of

them by two magnificent yew-trees, the atmosphere of the room itself,

in its silent, sunny loftiness, was at once gay and solemn to my small

imagination and senses,--much as the interior of Saint Peter's of Rome

has been since to them. Wonderful, large, tall jars of precious old

china stood in each window, and my nose was just on a level with the

wide necks, whence issued the mellowest smell of fragrant _pot-pourri_.

Into this room, with its great crimson curtains and deep crimson carpet,

in which my feet seemed to me buried, as in woodland moss, I used to be

brought for recompense of having been "very good," and there I used to

find a lovely-looking lady, who was to me the fitting divinity of this

shrine of pleasant awfulness. She bore a sweet Italian diminutive for

her Christian name, added to one of the noblest old ducal names of

Venice, which was that of her family.

I have since known that she was attached to the person of, and warmly

personally attached to, the unfortunate Caroline of Brunswick, Princess

of Wales,--then only unfortunate; so that I can now guess at the drift

of much sad and passionate talk with indignant lips and tearful eyes, of

which the meaning was then of course incomprehensible to me, but which I

can now partly interpret by the subsequent history of that ill-used and

ill-conducted lady.

The face of my friend with the great Venetian name was like one of

Giorgione's pictures,--of that soft and mellow colorlessness that

recalls the poet's line,--

"E smarrisce 'l bel volto in quel colore

Che non è pallidezza, ma candore,"--

or the Englishman's version of the same thought,--

"Her face,--oh, call it fair, not pale!"

It seemed to me, as I remember it, cream-colored; and her eyes, like

clear water over brown rocks, where the sun is shining. But though the

fair visage was like one of the great Venetian master's portraits, her

voice was purely English, low, distinct, full, and soft,--and in this

enchanting voice she used to tell me the story of the one large picture

which adorned the room.

Over and over again, at my importunate beseeching, she told

it,--sometimes standing before it, while I held her hand and listened

with upturned face, and eyes rounding with big tears of wonder and pity,

to a tale which shook my small soul with a sadness and strangeness

far surpassing the interest of my beloved tragedy, "The Babes in the

Wood,"--though at this period of my existence it has happened to me to

interrupt with frantic cries of distress, and utterly refuse to hear,

the end of that lamentable ballad.

But the picture.--In the midst of a stormy sea, on which night seemed

fast settling down, a helmless, mastless, sailless bark lay weltering

giddily, and in it sat a man in the full flower of vigorous manhood.

His attitude was one of miserable dejection, and, oh, how I did long to

remove the hand with which his eyes were covered, to see what manner of

look in them answered to the bitter sorrow which the speechless lips

expressed! His other hand rested on the fair curls of a girl-baby of

three years old, who clung to his knee, and, with wide, wondering blue

eyes and laughing lips, looked up into the half-hidden face of her

father.--"And that," said the sweet voice at my side, "was the good Duke

of Milan, Prospero,--and that was his little child, Miranda."

There was something about the face and figure of the Prospero that

suggested to me those of my father; and this, perhaps, added to the

poignancy with which the representation of his distress affected my

childish imagination. But the impression made by the picture, the story,

and the place where I heard the one and saw the other, is among the most

vivid that my memory retains. And never, even now, do I turn the magic

page that holds that marvellous history, without again seeing the lovely

lady, the picture full of sad dismay, and my own six-year-old self

listening to that earliest Shakspearian lore that my mind and heart ever

received. I suppose this is partly the secret of my love for this,

above all other of the poet's plays;--it was my first possession in the

kingdom of unbounded delight which he has since bestowed upon me.

* * * * *

THE GREAT ARM-CHAIR.

Shall I not to-day, Estelle, give you the history of this great

arm-chair, the only historical piece of furniture in our house? The

heavy oak frame was carved by an imprisoned poet. They took away his

pen, and in larger lines he carved this chair. Heavily moulded Sphinxes

form its arms; the strong legs and feet of some wild beast its support;

the crest, a winged figure with bandaged eyes,--a Fate or Fortune

we might call it,--that mild look not to be resisted in its gentle

strength. But blind Fortune could not so master him: his prison made for

him only a secure room, in which to study, to work out, the mysteries.

The rich covering was wrought long years ago, in some ancient convent,

by a saintly nun. Holy, pious tears dropped on it as she wrought. She

pricked out brave bright flowers with her needle, though her own life

was pale and sad. I cover this sacred work with housewifely care; but it

makes our rest there more hallowed.

This old chair we call our dreaming-chair,--to borrow a name, our

Sleepy-Hollow. It is so simple and grand in workmanship, it should be

the seat of honor in a king's palace; and yet it is in place in our

small parlor. Perhaps some day I may tell you of the ancient dames and

knights who once possessed it; but they have long since slept their last

sleep,--no summer-afternoon's nap, but a sleep so long to last, now

their long day's work is done.

Not quite finished is the old man's work who this afternoon sat in the

chair and quietly dreamed back his youth. I saw the hardened, withered

face soften, as the bright light of childhood played around it; the

meagre, hard old man forgot for a little the sharp want that pinched

him; when he waked, he still babbled of green fields.

"Did Robinson Crusoe ever come back to his father and mother?" he says

to me. "Poor boy! poor boy! I went to sea when I was young. Father and

mother didn't like it. Came back after a four-years' voyage, and off

again, soon as the ship had unloaded, on another trip up the Channel:

took all my money to fit out. Might have had the Custom-House, if there

had been anybody to speak for me; would have done my work well, and

maybe had kept it thirty or forty years. Should be glad to creep into a

hay-mow and pay somebody to feed me. Wish old Uncle Jack was good for

somethin' besides work, work,--nothin' but hard work! Wish he could talk

and say somethin'.

"Now that was good, sensible poetry you were reading, wasn't it? Good

stuff? Couldn't hear a word of it: poor old fellow can't hear much now.

Wish my father had lived longer; he would have told me things; he used

to be different to me. I could have been a sight of comfort to him in

mathematics." (His father died when the son was fifty years old; the

thirty years he had lived since seemed a long life to the old man.)

"Mayn't I look at the poetry?"

I found the place for him,--"New England."

"Yes, the farmer takes lots of comfort, walking on the road, foddering

cattle, cutting wood."

Uncle Jack believes heartily in New England corn, and in the planting

and hoeing of Indian corn he takes great delight: not to corn-laws, but

to Indian corn, the talk always drifts.

"I hear you are going to plant a couple of acres of corn, Sir. Glad of

it. This is an excellent dish of tea, Marm. This bread tastes like my

mother's bread; baked in a bake-kettle. These mangoes are nice,--such as

we used to have."

Turning to Aunt Sarah, he says,--

"Did you ever notice a difference in eggs, Marm?"

"Yes, Aunt thinks there is a difference between fresh and stale eggs."

"But I mean, Marm, that some are thin-shelled, some rough, some

round, some peaked: a hen lays 'em just so all her life. Ever see a

difference?"

It is an open question.

Then turning to the master of the house,--

"Do you like choc'late, Sir? Well, how you going to fix it when you

haven't got any milk? Well, you just beat up an egg, and pour on the

choc'late, boiling hot, stirring all the time, and you won't want any

milk, Sir. That was what kept me alive aboard the Ranger."

Now comes the story of the Ranger. He was getting in years, he said, and

wanted a home for his old age; so he built him a boat. He put a little

open stove in it, because an open fire felt kind o' comfortable to his

toes. He named it the Ranger; because when he was a little boy he took a

long walk to the beach with his father, the little Iulus following with

unequal steps, and they saw a shipwrecked vessel, named the Ranger, and

he liked the name. He kept that name in his heart many years. When at

last, by dint of much saving and scraping together, much hoeing of

Indian corn, the old stocking-foot was at last filled, all the little

odd bits, poured out and counted up, came to enough to speak to the

ship-builder. Oh, the model! how the old man's brain worked over that!

Then the timber,--each was a chosen piece; oak, apple, cherry, pine,

each tree sent a stick. The home was builded, was launched, was

christened: The Ranger. Alas, it was an ill-omened name to him! Brave

and young was he in heart, and loved right well his tossing, rolling

home; and many a hard gale did he ride out in her alone, old as he was.

Too old was he to be trusted on the treacherous deep; and friends (?)

advised and counselled, and the home of his old age was sold. (He never

got the pay!) Now, with restless, wandering feet, he makes long tramps,

trying to collect old debts. Kind-hearted old man that he is, thinking

always he is hard on 'em when he gets a promise to pay! A wife has been

sick; perhaps he had better not ask for it now. His ox has died; maybe

he had better wait. Fumbling over old papers in his pocket-book,

muttering something about a pension: he was on the list, but was never

called out, or somebody took his place.

Poor old Uncle Jack, with his dream of a pension, his dream of an

office, his dream of a home in a boat! With him "many a dream has gone

down the stream."

May some friendly hand at last close his eyes to that last long sleep,

when his turn comes to heave down!

He is always finding Indian arrowheads and hatchets and pestles. He

picks full pails of the nicest-looking huckleberries. He is always

dressed in clean, tidy clothes, a little scant and well patched. He pats

me on the head and says, "Didn't know you were Evelyn's sister; thought

it was a little three-year old." About to tell me a sad story he had

read in the newspaper, he stops suddenly and says, "Believe I won't tell

you, dear!" "Did you hear the newspipe has broke?" when the Atlantic

Telegraph Cable parted. He had plans for shoving off the Leviathan when

it stuck.

Shall I not tell you he brings me a little bunch of eels of his own

spearing? that you must be careful at table he has enough to eat, he

takes such small pieces? that he is altogether a sparse man? has rows of

pins on his sleeve that he picks up?--an old-fashioned man, whose type

is fast fading out from these "fast," "steep" times. He tells a story of

a stream of black flies which came so thick and so fast pouring on, he

looked as long as he darst to. Yet he can tell a good, big story yet,

and when somebody was talking of turtles of good size, jumped up

suddenly, "Did you ever see a terrapin, Sir?" and then walked round the

long dining-table to tell how big he was and how high he stood on his

feet. "When I was in the West Indies, Sir----Wish I could creep into a

good English hay-mow and pay somebody to feed me!"

Do you remember, Estelle, the story we read together once, out of the

"Casket" or "Gem," one of those old annuals, where a certain princess

was sent to a desolate island, whose maids of honor were all old crones,

once distinguished by their wonderful beauty? Her task was to discover

each especial grace, long since buried by the rubbish which time and

folly had heaped upon it; in each old, yellow, wrinkled hag to find

the charm which had once adorned her: as she found the grace, it was

transferred to her own youthful person. Slowly and patiently she unwound

those wrapped-up mummies, and disclosed the gems hidden in those

burial-clothes; and returned to her father's court enriched with all

those long-buried graces, now revived to their former youthful beauty,

and with the added charm which wisdom and patience give.

My task is not so difficult,--as I seek virtues, not perishable stuffs.

We will learn the history of these thickly crossing wrinkles, that,

checkering, map out the face like the streets of a busy city. We will

read the story "that youth and observation copied there." Many sit in my

chair with weather-beaten looks, but time and want and necessity have

ploughed still deeper furrows.

It is not in vain, this brave encounter with the elements,--this battle

to keep the wolf Want outside the door,--the patient, laborious building

up of the small house, made almost a comfortable home by many years of

toil,--the sufficient meal snatched from Nature by the line or the gun,

or wrung from her by hard labor of the hands. Is the face too thin and

hard, the lips compressed? Would you turn away from so much patient

endurance of a hard lot? Turn again, and read the story the clear eye

tells; listen to the words of a deep religious experience which the

thin, cracked voice relates: how in visions of the night the Comforter

has come to them, and henceforth the way of duty is clear, and the

burden of life is lightened. Will you go with me, dear, into those

homely houses, sit with me by the firesides, and hear the simple story

of New England's farmers and farmers' wives? We cannot call those poor

who are so rich in all the manly virtues, and in the deep experiences of

a faithful life.

Uncle Jack stops on his way, going up to get the oxen, and passes the

night,--says, "Other people can't find enough to do; for his part, he

should like to lie down in the hay-mow and rest,--all worn out, used up.

Now Josiah, good, conversable man, knows about geography and the country

round. Well, when you've got that, got the best of him,--likes variety

too well,--goes off, leaves the homestead like a dismantled ship. Now,

if a man only gets three good days down cellar, that's something. Don't

believe 'Siah ever does it. So many notions in's head bothers him."

(Uncle Jack is quite right; 'tis not economical to have notions;

besides, they are revolutionary, they subvert the order of things.) "Got

a cunning little heifer used to have some manners. Lost some of our

lambs; read in a book, that, take what care you might, you would lose

some lambs at times."--To-day he has gone driving the oxen round by

Perkins's.

"Had the rheumatism this winter,--guess Jack Frost pinched him."--Ah!

dear old man, an older than Jack Frost has got hold of your aged limbs!

Harder pinches old Time gives than any mortal man!

"Used to get a little bird, Harris and me, and roast it, and mother

would give us a little apple-sauce in a clam-shell, and we would go off

back the island and eat it. Harris was sent to school up to Perkins's;

couldn't stay; run away, and _borrowed_ a boat, and came home again;

afraid of his father, and hid in the barn. Dug a well in the hay,

and they used to lower him down things to eat, and water to drink in

scooped-out water-melon rinds."

* * * * *

THE SONG OF FATIMA.

On, sad are they who know not love,

But, far from passion's tears and smiles,

Drift down a moonless sea, and pass

The silver coasts of fairy isles!

And sadder they whose longing lips

Kiss empty air, and never touch

The dear warm mouth of those they love,

Waiting, wasting, suffering much!

But clear as amber, sweet as musk,

Is life to those whose lives unite:

They walk in Allah's smile by day,

And nestle in his heart by night!

SOMETHING ABOUT HISTORY.

There is no kind of writing which is undertaken so much from will and so

little from instinct as History. It seems the great resource of baffled

ambition, of leisure, of minds disciplined rather than inspired, of men

with pecuniary means and without professional obligations. Sympathy

with or opposition to an author prompts those thus situated to write

criticism; a dominant sentiment inspires poetical composition; and

usually an impressive experience suggests adventure in the field of

fiction: but we find educated men, in independent circumstances, not

remarkable for sensibility to Nature, acute critical perception, or

dramatic talent, whose literary aspirations are vague, and who desire

to be occupied eligibly, turn to History as the most available

vantage-ground, busy themselves with wars and councils that happened

ages ago,--with kings and soldiers, institutions and adventures,

politics and dynasties, so far removed from the associations and

interests of the hour, that only a scholar's enthusiasm or ambition

could sustain the research or keep alive the enterprise thus voluntarily

assumed. It is this objective method and motive that chiefly accounts

for the numberless inert and the few vital histories. Like any

intellectual task assumed without special fitness therefor or motive

thereto,--without a comprehensive grasp of mind that impels to

historic exploration,--without a patriotic zeal that warms to national

heroism,--without, especially, a love of some principle, a conviction

of some truth, an admiration of some national development, irresistibly

urging the cultivated and ardent mind to seek for the facts, to

celebrate the persons, to evolve the truth involved in and manifest

through public events,--the annals recorded are but dry chronology,--a

monotonous, more or less authentic, perhaps quite respectable, but far

from a very important or peculiarly interesting work. Thousands of

such cumber the shelves of libraries and fill the pages of

catalogues,--dusted once a year, perhaps, to verify a date, to

authenticate the details of a treaty, or fix the statistics of a war,

but never read consecutively and with zest, because there was no genuine

relation between the writer and his book. He undertook the latter in

the spirit of a mechanical job; industry and learning may be embodied

therein, but no moral life, no human charm; yet the work is cited with

respect, the author enrolled with honor;--whereas, had he sought

in poetry or philosophy, in a novel or a drama, thus to occupy and

celebrate himself with literature, the failure would have been signal,

the attempt ignominious. There is, indeed, no safer investment for

middling literary abilities than History; for, if it fail to yield any

large harvest of renown, it is comparatively secure from the assaults

of ridicule, such as make pretension in other spheres of writing

conspicuous.

Even in what are considered the successful exemplars in this department

of literature, the errors incident to artificiality, the conventional

forms of writing, are patent. Only in passages do we recognize that

beauty or truth, that reality and genuineness, which so often wholly

pervade a poem, a story, a memoir, or even a disquisition: at some

point, the flow incident to wilful instead of soulful utterance becomes

apparent;--ambition, pride of opinion, love of display somewhere

manifest themselves. It has been said that the chief element of Hume's

mental power was skepticism; and, singular as it may appear, his doubts

about what are deemed the vital interests of humanity gave a charm to

his record of her political vicissitudes; while he made capital of

touching "situations," he displayed his own strength of intellect; but,

with all this, did not write complete and authentic history. And when

analyzed, what was the _animus_ of Gibbon's elaborate chronicle? He

"spent his time, his life, his energy," says a severe, but just critic,

"in putting a polished gloss on human tumult, a sneering gloss on human

piety." And who has not felt, in following Macaulay's animated periods

and thorough exposition and illustration of some event, trait, or

economy,--in itself of little importance and limited value,--how much

better it would have been to reserve his brilliant descriptive and keen

analytical powers for the grand episodes, the prolific crises, and the

leading characters of history, instead of indiscriminately devoting them

to a consecutive account of national incidents and persons, both great

and small, illustrious and insignificant?

A popular British author of our own day, in order to demonstrate the

law of compensation, as regards the literary vocation, cites its

inexpensiveness,--arguing, that, whereas the artist must invest capital,

however small, in colors, marble, canvas, and studio-hire, and the

professional man occupy a costly locality, the author needs but a quire

of foolscap and a pen and ink to set up in trade. While there is literal

truth in this comparison, the fact is not applicable to historical

writing, except in a very limited degree. The preparation of the most

successful works in this department, in modern times, has been attended

with an outlay impossible to the poor scholar. It has involved the

examination and reproduction of voluminous manuscript authorities,

distant travel, the purchase of rare books and family papers, and

sometimes years of busy reference, observation, and study, lucrative

only in prospect. The same amount of culture and facile vigor of

composition which less prosperous authors expend on a masterly review

would suffice to make them famous historians, if blessed with the

pecuniary means to seek foreign sources of information, or gather about

them scattered and rare materials wherewith to weave a chronicle of the

past. Hence, not only has History become the chosen field of writers

with no special gift for more individually inspired kinds of literature,

but of the educated sons of fortune. Accordingly, it is curious to

remark the contrast between the lives of historians and those of

poets; and in the average circumstances of the former there is some

justification for the title of an aristocratic guild in letters.

Compare Cowper's humble home at Olney with Gibbon's elegant library at

Lausanne,--the social environment of Hallam, Grote, or Macaulay with

the rustic isolation of Wordsworth, the economies of Shelley, or the

life-struggle of Jerrold. Of course, there can thence be inferred no

general rule; and the very differences in temperament between inventive

and reproductive writers suggest a consequent diversity of habits; but

the very idea of historical composition, on an extensive scale and as a

permanent occupation, implies the leisure which competency alone yields,

the means indispensable for gradual literary achievement, and more or

less of the luxury and social position which, when education obtains,

usually attend upon these advantages.

It results from these considerations that there is no sphere of

literature which is so often the refuge of wealthy scholars, idle men of

taste, baffled politicians of independent means, ambitious and well-read

but not specially gifted citizens who have inherited comfortable

estates. It is so dignified an employment, that it gratifies pride,--so

possible without trenchant opinions, that it does not alarm the

conservative,--so thoroughly respectable, safe, and capable of being

made illustrious, so comparatively easy to the fluent but unoriginal

mind, and practicable to follow, when methodically carried out, in

a stated, regular manner, that we can scarcely be astonished at

the alacrity with which such voluntary tasks are undertaken or the

steadiness with which they are followed; at the same time, it may be

because so few are able to command the means and opportunity, that

historical writing is so highly estimated. As a test of intellectual

power, a gauge of individual sentiment, an evidence of original genius,

it is immeasurably inferior to dramatic, philosophical, or any of the

more personal forms of literature, when inspired by deep convictions,

original ideas, or creative imagination. It requires more knowledge

than reflection, more patience than earnestness, more judgment than

sentiment; and those who have raised it to a vital significance and

profound beauty and interest have done so by virtue of endowments which,

otherwise directed, would have placed them high and firm on the roll of

genius: for it is possible to write history without this transcendent

gift,--possible to write it respectably without the slightest grandeur

or grace of mind,--by virtue of command of words, industry, care, and

good sense. We cannot imagine Shakspeare tracing out his conception

of Hamlet, or giving language to Lear or Miranda, without a soulful

experience as far above mere intellectual assiduity as humanity is above

mechanism; we cannot think of Milton elaborating his sublime epic,

without, in fancy, taking in the studious years, the Italian nights

of music, starlight, and high converse, the beautiful youth, the

self-sacrificing prime, the blind old age, the religious patriotism,

the pious loyalty, the learning and love, and the isolated meditation,

cheered by grand symphonies and hoarded wisdom, through and by which,

concentrated into melodious expression, the life of a noble mind thus

majestically expressed itself: but we can easily fancy cold and cultured

Gibbon returning from the Continent, full of classic lore, disgusted

with his failure in public life, not sympathetic enough to enjoy

heartily a career either of pleasure or of society, and so, in his

dreams of scholarship, seizing upon the idea of a long, laborious,

erudite, and elegant task; and we can also well imagine Hume, with his

love of speculation, turning gratefully to the records of the past for

subjects of reflection, analysis, and inference. In these and other

notable instances, we feel it is more an accident than an inspiration,

more from circumstances than from innate and absolute endowment and

impulse, that the historic Muse is wooed.

Within a brief period the grave has closed over one of the most

irreproachable and assiduous of American writers of History,--whose

career signally illustrates the blessing of such a resource to

unoccupied and cultivated leisure, and at the same time the fortuitous

circumstances which often originate and prolong this kind of literary

labor. In a letter to a friend abroad, written by Prescott soon after

he found himself thus congenially occupied, the case is most frankly

stated. "Ennui crept over me, when I found myself a perfectly idle man,

with nothing to do, and, what made it worse, with eyes so debilitated

that I had no power of doing anything with them. However, 'necessity is

the mother of invention,' and I resolved to turn author in spite of my

eyes; and it is a great satisfaction to me to think that the volumes I

have put together for my own amusement should have afforded some to my

countrymen, and, above all, to my friends."[A]

[Footnote A: Letter of W. H. Prescott to Miss Preble, dated Boston,

February 28, 1845. _Memoir of Harriet Preble_, by Professor R.H. LEE, p.

285-6.]

This modest and candid estimate of his vocation indicates how much more

a thing of volition and opportunity, and how much less a work of special

endowment and intuitive recognition is the literature of History than

that of Poetry, Psychology, or Philosophy, notwithstanding all these may

be fused therein. "Whatever may be the use of this sort of composition

in itself and abstractedly," observes a judicious critic,[B] "it is

certainly of great use relatively and to literary men. Consider the

position of a man of that species. He sits beside a library-fire, with

nice white paper, a good pen, a capital style, every means of saying

everything, but nothing to say. What, again, if something would happen,

and then one could describe it? Something has happened, and that

something is History." To feel fully the difference between a formal,

mechanical annalist and the revival of the past through poetic or

artistic sympathy, it is only requisite to turn from some dry chronicle

of political vicissitudes, duly registered by a dull, matter-of-fact,

conscientious antiquary, to the fresh classical or colonial romance, of

which such graceful and well-studied exemplars have been produced by

Lockhart, Bulwer, D'Azeglio, Kingsley, Ware, Longfellow, and other

bards and novelists. While the attempt, by intensity of description and

brilliant generalities, to impart to veritable history the charm we

accept in the historical romance, has caused many an old-school reader

to place Macaulay's fascinating volumes, called "The History of

England," on the same shelf with works of fiction,--Aytoun, Hugh

Miller, and William Penn's champions have given special meaning to

this principle or prejudice, whichever it may be, by challenging the

delightful author to the test of fact.

[Footnote B: Bagehot.]

In statesmen, or those who have excelled in political writing, the

ambition to write history, the desire to illustrate and record national

events, is not only a natural, but an auspicious feeling; and so it is

in educated poets in whom the sentiment of patriotism or the narrative

art gives scope and glow to such an enterprise. That Fox and Bacon,

Milton and Swift, Mackintosh, Schiller, and Lamartine, should have

partially adventured in this field seems but a legitimate result of

their endowments and experience, however fragmentary or inadequate may

have been some of the fruits of their historic studies.

When an enlightened and executive or speculative man is an obvious part

of the history of his own times, his chronicle must have a certain

significance and value. Raleigh, when he wrote the "History of the

World" in prison, gave hints by which subsequent and less obsolete

annalists have wisely profited. The scholar and the patriot coalesced in

the mind of Camden, prompting him to rescue and conserve the materials

of English history and note the fading traditions,--a purely antiquarian

service, which only those can appreciate who seek authentic data of

the far past. Such as cavil at the legal tone and crude arrangement

of Clarendon are none the less his debtors for specific memoirs, the

personal element of history; and while Burnet has been vigorously

repudiated by standard historians, he continues, and justly, to be a

prolific authority. It is conceded by all candid explorers, that, as far

as it goes, the account of England by Rapin is the best. Franklin's

old friend Ralph was commended and quoted by Fox. As the enterprise of

historical writers enlarged and their style became elaborate, these and

such as these lost in popularity what they gained in usefulness. The

charm of rhetorical elegance and broad generalizations gradually usurped

the place of simple narrative and detailed statement. In the very design

of Gibbon there is a certain poetical attraction; his work may aptly

be described as panoramic, unrolling a vast picture or succession of

pictures, too vague in outline and too monotonous in color for minute

impressions, yet, on this account, the more remarkable for general

effect. What Europe was in the Middle Ages we find more specifically in

Hallam; the Moors in Spain have been more vividly painted by subsequent

writers, whose aim was less comprehensive: but how the imperial sway of

Rome subsided into the Christian era, how a republican episode gleamed

athwart her waning power in the casual triumph of Rienzi, the

later emperors, and what occurred in their reign in Jerusalem and

Constantinople, pass emphatically before us in the stately pages which

once charmed readers of English as the model of historic eloquence, and

now excite the admiration of scholars as a monument of erudition and

elaborate but artificial writing. There was a new attraction in the

pleasing style of Robertson and the characterization of Hume; the

winsome language of the one and the transparent diction of the other

made historical reading not so much a task to cumber the memory as a

pastime to entertain the mind; in the one chronicle we followed events

gracefully unfolded, and in the other discussed persons with acuteness;

yet, when to either was subsequently applied the test of absolute

accuracy and sound deduction, large allowances were demanded for

inadequate research on the part of Robertson and partial inferences on

that of Hume. The theories of the latter indicate why and how, with

all his intellectual abilities, the sympathies of his readers were

inevitably limited; in his view of humanity we find the true cause

of all his deficiencies as an historian: "Human life," he somewhere

remarks, "is more governed by fortune than by reason, is to be regarded

more as a dull pastime than a serious occupation, and is more influenced

by particular humor than by general principles." Yet, in a philosophical

retrospect of English historians, we can trace a progressive development

from the purely antiquarian researches of Camden to the personal memoirs

of Clarendon and Burnet; thence to the comprehensive erudition and

majestic narrative of Gibbon; onward to the reasoning, lucid record of

Hume and the fascinating narrative of Robertson;--all of which qualities

of industry, characterization, broad knowledge, taste, emphasis,

and reflection blend, culminate, and intensify along the copious,

rhetorical, and vivid page of Macaulay.

The Italian historians prolong, in style at least, the method of their

classic predecessors: _"La Storia del Guicciardini è considerata come

opera classica,"_--we are told by one of the critics of that nation; who

adds, "His descriptions are always accurate, clear, and expressed with

eloquence; the causes of events and their consequences are enumerated

with rare acuteness; and his personages are delineated in their true

characters, the historian descending into the deepest penetralia of

their hearts: but the most eminent merit of this History consists in the

moral and political considerations with which it abounds; it is like

Tacitus." In like manner, Machiavelli is compared to Thucydides; while

Varchi's long periods, adulation of the Medici, and municipal details

are condemned by the same authority: yet one familiar with modern

literature in this department will, despite this general commendation of

native critics, be apt to ascribe the conservative charm of the Italian

historians to their style rather than their method or matter.

It is remarkable how late the French writers won laurels in the field

of historical composition, and how long France, with all her national

vanity, has lacked a complete and classical chronicle,--brilliant and

invaluable fragments whereof abound. According to the most esteemed

French critics, until this century the nation actually knew nothing

of its own history; and it is characteristic of their speculative

and methodical mind and taste, that History became popular and

philosophical, a novelty and a reform, simultaneously. Guizot, Thierry,

Sismondi, and others, created a new era in this branch of letters;

Thiers and Michelet enlarged its sphere and increased its charms; and

yet, while the graphic simplicity of Froissart, the critical insight and

ingenious generalizations of Guizot, and the poetical glow and richness

of Michelet have made the history of France both highly suggestive as

regards the development of civilization, and picturesque and dramatic as

a narrative, the greatest allowance for brilliant theorizing, political

sympathies, and an errant fancy are indispensable in order to attain to

a clear view of genuine facts and absolute principles. It has been said

that "leading ideas" are fatal to accuracy of statement; and these

dominate in the minds of French philosophical annalists; while the more

sympathetic class are fond of rhetorical display and fanciful episodes.

A recent critic, after bestowing merited encomiums on Michelet, gives

the following instance of his absurd generalizations, which occur in the

midst of grave historical statements and descriptions: "Wool and flesh

are the primitive foundations of England and the English race; ere

becoming the world's manufactory of hardware and tissues, England was a

victualling-shop; before they became a commercial, they were a breeding

and a pastoral people,--a race fatted on beef and mutton; hence their

freshness of tint, their beauty and strength: _their greatest man,

Shakspeare, was originally a butcher_."

Less prominent and more recent names on the roll of historic literature

are as distinctly associated with special excellences and defects. Thus,

Grote keeps attention more by the intelligence of his comments than by

the flow of his narration; he is far more political than picturesque;

and while he gives a masterly analysis of the Athenian system of

government, so as to place it in a new light even to the scholar's

apprehension, he discusses the arts and the literature so inspiring

to most cultivated minds, when describing Greece, with comparative

indifference. Those who would examine English annals unbiased by

Protestant zeal, and realize how the events and characters look to a

Roman Catholic vision, may gather from Lingard some views which may

not disadvantageously modify their interpretation of familiar men and

occurrences. Two English writers have hastily compiled her annals

during certain epochs; but while they are equally chargeable with

superficiality, the manner in which the work is done is by no means

similar. Smollet's continuation of Hume was confessedly a bookseller's

job: four octavo volumes in only ten times the number of months, even in

our days of locomotive celerity, would be thought rather a suspicious

piece of literary handiwork; and besides the indecent haste, so

incompatible with thoroughness, the misrepresentations of Smollet are

patent. Goldsmith, as unambitious in research as he was genial in

expression, made so agreeable a story, that, with all its imperfection,

his sketch still finds readers; while the rarely quoted work of Henry

most conveniently enumerates, at the end of each reign, details

economical and social which identify and illustrate both period and

progress in Anglo-Saxon civilization. As a copious and consecutive

record of the salient incidents in modern Continental history,--so

needful now for reference, and the diverse phases of which are so widely

chronicled in the memoirs, the journals, the diplomatic correspondence,

and what may be called the incidental history of the period,--the plan

of Alison's work might have achieved a triumph of industry and skill,

valuable as well as interesting to general readers and professional

writers: but the political opinions, with the partial feelings they

engender, continually distort the view and influence the estimate of

this positive yet pleasant historian; while his almost wilful blunders,

like the errors of Lord Mahon in regard to the American War, have

been repeatedly demonstrated. Mackintosh philosophized about events,

measures, and men, better than he described either. Sharon Turner nobly

illustrates the value of intrepid research and patient collation.

Mitford represents the aristocratic as Grote the democratic element in

Grecian history. Tytler wrote of the past in the life of nations with

the exclusive reliance on written proof that a conveyancer places upon

title-deeds, and beside the glowing and harmonious pictures of later

annalists such writing now appears obsolete. Napier describes battles

scientifically, and Carlyle revolutions melodramatically,--each with

original power, in their respective methods,--while Miss Strickland

brings to the record of queenly sorrows and duties a woman's sympathetic

prepossessions.

Since those quaintly simple and emphatic statements which, under the

name of Froissart's Chronicles, seem to perpetuate the instinctive

notion of History, as an honest and earnest, but unadorned and

unelaborate narrative of military and political facts,--not only has

there been a continual refinement of style and enlargement of scope and

art, but a greater complexity and subdivision in the historian's labors.

Abstract political ideas, purely intellectual phenomena, have found

their annalists, as well as executive enterprise; events have been

analyzed, as well as described,--characters discussed, as well as

pictured,--the elements of society laid bare with as much zeal and

scrutiny as its development has been traced and delineated. European

historical students read anew the records of the past by the light

of philosophy; more subtile divisions than the geographer indicates

organize the record; events are narrated with reference to a dominant

idea; governments are chronicled through their ultimate results, and

not exclusively with regard to their locality; rulers are considered

in groups; a faith is made the nucleus of an historical development,

instead of a nation. Thus, we have Ranke's "Popes" and D'Aubigne's

"Reformation," Hallam's "Middle Ages" and "English Constitution"; De

Quincey treats of "The Caesars"; Vico demonstrates that History is a

science with positive laws; Gervinus illustrates it as a development of

certain inevitably progressive ideas; Niebuhr interprets it by fresh

tests and ordeals; Dr. Arnold teaches it by an original method; Humboldt

points out its naturalistic tendencies and origin; Herder and Hegel, De

Tocqueville and Guizot, the eminent writers on Civilization, on Art, on

Education, Political Economy, Literature, and Natural History, more

and more exhibit the facts of humanity and of time under such new

combinations, by so many parallel truths and principles, that it is

difficult to conceive that History, as now understood by the educated

and the reflective, is the same thing once crudely embodied in a ballad

or mystically conserved by an inscription. To multiply relations is the

destiny of our age, and to converge all that is discovered through the

laws of Science upon the records and relics of the past is a process now

habitual and pervasive.

And yet how little positive satisfaction does the lover of truth, the

aspirant for what is authentic and significant, find in current and even

popular histories! Certain general notions of the character of nations

we, indeed, distinctly and correctly attain: that Chinese civilization

is stationary, the French instinctively a military race, the Swiss

mercenary, and adventurous in engineering and religious reform,--that

modern German literature was as sudden as simultaneous in its

development,--that Holland redeemed her foundations from the sea,--that

Italy owes to art, and England to manufactures, her growth and grandeur.

These and such as these are problems which the history of the respective

countries, however inadequately told, reveals with authenticity; but

when we go beyond and below the patent facts of local civilization, to

the analysis of character, and, through it, of destiny, few and far

between are the satisfactory records whence we can draw legitimate

materials for inference and conjecture. The most attractive method

is apt to be that upon which least reliance can be placed. We seldom

consult Sir Walter's essays at serious history, while the novels he

created out of historic material are as familiar as they are endeared;

but their imaginative charm is in the inverse ratio of their

authenticity. With every new candidate for public favor in this sphere

of literature, there arises a "mooted question" whereon the historian

and his readers are irreconcilably divided. The character of Penn, of

Marlborough, and of the facts of the Massacre at Glencoe are still

vehemently discussed, whenever Macaulay's popular History is referred

to. Froude advances a new and plausible theory of the character of Henry

VIII.; few of Bancroft's American readers accept his estimate of John

Jay, Sam Adams, or Dr. Johnson, or of the political character of the

Virginia Colonists; and Palfrey and Arnold interpret quite diversely

the influence and career of Roger Williams. Nor are such discrepancies

surprising, when we remember how the history which transpires now and

here fails of harmonious report. Every battle, diplomatic arrangement,

political event, nay, each personal occurrence, which forms the staple

of to-day's journalism and talk, is regarded from so many different

points of view, and stated under so many modifying influences, that only

judicial minds have a prospect of reaching the exact truth. Hence the

true way to profit by History is eclectic.

Let the erudition of the German, the genial animation of the French,

the Saxon good sense, the Italian grace be enjoyed, and whatsoever of

glamour or of inadequacy these charms hide be duly estimated; reflection

and sympathy will often separate the gold of truth from the alloy of

prejudice or fantasy. Above all, let this eclectic test be applied

beyond nominal history,--to the geological data on the ancient

rock,--the handwriting of the ages upon race, costume, language,--the

incidental, but genuine history innate in all true literature, vivid

elements whereof live in passages of Milton's controversial writings, in

Petrarch's sonnets, De Foe's fictions, our Revolutionary correspondence,

South's sermons, Swift's diaries, Burke's speeches, French memoirs,

Walpole's letters, in the poems, plays, and epistles of the past, and

every fact and person which society and life offer to our cognizance or

sympathy.

"When we are much attached to our ideas, we endeavor to attach

everything to them," says Madame de Staël. "The secret of writing well,"

observes a Scotch professor, "is to write from a full mind." These

two maxims seem to us to illustrate the whole subject of historical

composition; an earnest votary thereof will instinctively find material

in every interest and influence that sways events or moulds character,

and from the assimilation of all these will educe a vital and harmonious

picture and philosophy. There is an historical as well as a judicial or

poetic type of mind; and to such there is no object too trifling, no

fact too remote, not directly or indirectly to minister to the unwritten

history which vaguely shapes itself to his intelligence. In his reading

and travel it is by no means to the ostensible monuments and trophies of

the past that his observation and inquiry are confined: the Letters of

Madame de Sévigné give him authentic hints for the social tendencies

of France and their influence upon politics, as the blood-stains at

Holyrood identify the place of Rizzio's murder; the "Edinburgh

Review" reveals the spirit of the Reform movement as clearly as the

Parliamentary records its letter; the South-Sea House and the Temple are

as suggestive as Whitehall and the Abbey,--for trade and jurisprudence,

in the retrospect, are as much a part of the by-gone life and present

character of a nation, as the fate and the fame of her dead kings; and a

Spanish ballad is as valuable an illustration as a Madrid state-paper;

while the life of Harry Vane vindicates the Puritan nature as clearly

as the letter of a Venetian ambassador exhibits the domestic life of a

Pope.

The redeeming influence of strong personal sympathy and earnest

conviction, both in the choice of a subject and the method of its

treatment, has been signally illustrated by a countryman of our own.

The interest of the general reader and the approbation of historical

scholars were at once enlisted by Motley's "Rise and Fall of the Dutch

Republic." That work differs from and is superior to any American

historical composition by virtue of a certain fluent animation, a

certain decided and sustained tone, such as can be derived only from an

absolute relation between the author's mind and heart and his subject.

Accordingly his record not only seizes upon the attention, but wins the

sympathy of the reader, who recognizes a vital and genuine spirit in the

work, which gives it unity, completeness, and a living style, whereby

its incidents, characters, and philosophy are unfolded, not only with

art, but with nature, and so made real, attractive, and significant.

That we are right in ascribing these merits to the affinity between the

author and his work is amply evidenced by his own confession in a letter

called forth by the death of Prescott, in which he says,--

"It seems to me but as yesterday, though it must be now twelve years

ago, that I was talking with our ever-lamented friend Stackpole about my

intention of writing a history upon a subject to which I have since that

time been devoting myself. I had then made already some general studies

in reference to it, without being in the least aware that Prescott had

the intention of writing the history of Philip II. Stackpole had heard

the fact, and that large preparations had already been made for the

work, although 'Peru' had not yet been published. I felt, naturally,

much disappointed. I was conscious of the immense disadvantage to myself

of making my appearance, probably at the same time, before the public,

with a work not at all similar in plan to 'Philip II.,' but which must,

of necessity, traverse a portion of the same ground. My first thought

was, inevitably as it were, only of myself. It seemed to me that I had

nothing to do but to abandon at once a cherished dream, and probably to

renounce authorship. _For I had not first made up my mind to write a

history, and then cast about to take up a subject. My subject had taken

up me, drawn me on, and absorbed me into itself. It was necessary for

me, it seemed, to write the book I had been thinking much of,--even if

it were destined to fall dead from the press,--and I had no inclination

or interest to write any other_."

The same inspiration is partially obvious in those portions of every

history which come home to the writer's experience: as, for instance,

some of the military episodes in Colletta's "History of Naples," he

having been a soldier,--and the descriptive phases of Parkman's "History

of Pontiac," the author having been a Prairie traveller, and familiar

with the woods and the bivouac. In like manner, it is the idiosyncrasy

of historians which gives original value to their labors: Botta's

knowledge of American localities and civilization was meagre, but his

sympathy with the patriots of the Revolution was strong, and this gave

warmth and effect to his "Guerra Americana"; Niebuhr was specially

gifted to develop what has been called the law of investigation, and

hence he penetrates the Roman life, and lays bare much of its unapparent

meaning and spirit. So apt and patient are the Germans in research, that

they have been justly said to "quarry" out the past; while so native are

rhetoric, theorizing, and fancifulness to the French, that they make

history, as they do life and government, theatrical and picturesque,

rather than gravely real and practically suggestive.

A peculiar feature in the labors of modern historians is the research

expended upon what the elder annalists regarded as purely incidental

and extraneous. The collation of archives, official correspondence, and

state-papers is now but the rough basis of research; memoirs are equally

consulted,--localities minutely examined,--the art and literature of a

given era analyzed,--the geography, climate, and ethnology of the scene

made to illustrate the life and polity,--social phases, educational

facts estimated as not less valuable than statistics of armies and

judicial enactments. Michelet has some charming rural pictures and

female portraits in his History of France; Macaulay thinks no custom

or economy of a reign insignificant in the great historical aggregate.

Topography, botany, artistic knowledge are not less parts of the

chronicler's equipment than philology, rhetoric, and philosophy; a

newspaper is not beneath nor a traveller's gossip beyond his scope;

architecture reveals somewhat which diplomacy conceals; an inscription

is not more historical than the average temperature or the staple

productions. Whatever affects national character and destiny, whatever

accounts for national manners or confirms individual sway, is brought

into the record. Diaries, like those of Pepys and Evelyn, the tithe-book

of a county, the taste in portraiture, the costume and the play-bill

yield authentic hints not less than the census, the parliamentary

edicts, or the royal signatures; the popular poem, the social favorite,

the _cause célèbre_, what pulpit, bar, peasant and beau, doctor and lady

_à la mode_ do, say, and are, then and there, must coalesce with

the battle, the legislation, and the treaty,--or these last are but

technical landmarks, instead of human interests.

Even our most generalized historical ideas are made emphatic only

through association and observation. How the vague sense of Roman

dominion is deepened as we trace the outline of a camp, the massive

ranges of a theatre, or the mouldy effigy on a coin, in some region

far distant from the Imperial centre,--as at Nismes or Chester! How

complete becomes the idea of mediaeval life, contemplated from the

ramparts of a castle, in the "dim, religious light" of an old monastic

chapel, or amid the obsolete trappings and weapons of an armory! What

a distinct and memorable revelation of ancient Greece is the Venus or

Apollo, a Parthenon frieze or a fateful drama! The best political essays

on the French Revolution are based on the economical and social facts

recorded in the Travels of Arthur Young. The equivocal action of

Massena, when he commanded Paris against the Allies, is explained in

the recently published letter of Joseph Bonaparte, wherein we learn his

deficiency of muskets. Humboldt accounted for the defects of Prescott's

"Conquest of Mexico" by the fact that the historian had never visited

that country. Napoleon gave a key to the misfortunes of Italy, when he

said, "It is a peninsula too long for its breadth." And the significance

of the Seven Years' War is expressed in a single phrase by Milton's last

biographer, when he defines it as the "consummation politically and the

attenuation spiritually of the movement begun in Europe by the Lutheran

Reformation."

Indeed, so intimate is the connection between private life and public

events, between political and social phenomena, that the historical mind

finds material in all literature, and the very attempt to keep to a high

strain and to bend facts to theory limits the authenticity of professed

annalists. What Macaulay says of an eminent party-leader is modified to

those who have studied the character through his memoirs or writings.

The charming narrative of Robertson, the characterization of Hume, the

stately periods of Gibbon, fail to win implicit confidence, when the

scene, the age, or the personages described are known to the reader

through original authorities. When Bancroft declares a treaty of

Colonial governors against Indian ravages the germ of democratic

government, we know that it is his attachment to a theory, and not the

actual circumstances, which leads to such an inference; for the very

authority he cites merely indicates a defensive alliance among rulers,

not a coalition of the ruled. And so when to an account of the Battle

of Lexington he appends a rhetorical argument connecting that event, so

meagre and simple in itself and so wonderful in its consequences, with

the progress of truth and humanity in political science and reformed

religion, we feel that the reasoning is forced and irrelevant,--more an

experiment in fine writing than an evolution of absolute truth.

Thus continually is the independent reader of history taught

eclecticism: he makes allowance for the want of careful research in this

writer, for the love of effect in that,--for the skepticism of one,

and the credulity of another,--for enthusiasm here, and fastidiousness

there,--and especially for the greater or less attachment to certain

opinions, and the absence or presence of strong convictions and genuine

sympathies. Hence, to read history aright, we must read human nature as

well; we must bring the light of philosophy and of faith, the calmness

of judgment and the insight of love, to the record; collateral

revelations drawn from our own experience, modified acceptance of both

statement and inference, superiority to the blandishments of style,

are as needful for the right interpretation of a chronicle as of a

scientific problem. Thus history is perpetually rewritten; fresh

knowledge opens new vistas in the past as well as the future; the

discovery of to-day may rectify, in important respects, the statement

which has been unchallenged for centuries; one new truth leavens a

thousand old formulas; and nothing is more gradual than the elucidation

of historical events and characters. Even our own brief annals suggest

how large must be the historian's faith in time: only within a year or

two has it been possible to demonstrate the justice of Washington's

estimate of Lee, and how completely the sagacious provision of Schuyler

secured the capture of Burgoyne. Since the American Revolution, one of

these men has been as much overrated as the other has failed of

just appreciation--because the documentary wisdom requisite for an

enlightened judgment has not until now been patent.[C]

[Footnote C: See Lossing's _Life and Correspondence of General

Schuyler_, and Professor Moore's paper on Charles Lee.]

With the imposing array of professed histories and historians in view,

it is curious to revert to the actual sources of our own historic

ideas,--those which are definite and pervasive. The vast number of

intelligent readers, who have made no special study of this kind

of literature, probably derive their most distinct and attractive

impressions of the past from poetry, travel, and the choicest works of

the novelist; local association and imaginative sympathy, rather than

formal chronicles, have enlightened and inspired them in regard to

Antiquity and the great events and characters of modern Europe. This

fact alone suggests how inadequate for popular effect have been the

average labors of historians; and so fixed is the opinion among scholars

that it is impossible for the annalist to be profound and interesting,

authentic and animated, at the same time, that a large class of the

learned repudiate as spurious the renown of Macaulay,--although his

research and his minuteness cannot be questioned, and only in a few

instances has his accuracy been successfully impugned. They distrust him

chiefly because he is agreeable, doubt his correctness for the reason

that his style fascinates, and deem admiration for him inconsistent with

their own self-respect, because he is such a favorite as no historian

ever was before, and his account of a parliament, a coinage, or a feud

as winsome as a portraiture of a woman. In one of his critical essays,

Macaulay himself gives a partial explanation of this protest of the

minority in his own case. "People," he remarks, "are very loath to admit

that the same man can unite very different kinds of excellence. It is

soothing to envy to believe that what is splendid cannot be solid and

what is clear cannot be profound." And it has been most justly said of

his own method of writing history, "He must make _everything_ clear and

bright, and bring it into the range of his analysis; his exaggeration

chiefly applies to individual characters, not to general facts"; and the

reason given for the decided preference manifested for his vivid record

is not less true than philosophical,--"We learn so much from him

_enjoyably_." It is precisely the lack of this pleasurable trait which

makes the greater part of the annals of the past a dead letter to the

world, and wins to romance, ballad, epic, fiction, relic, and poetry the

keen attention which facts coldly "set in a note-book" never enlisted.

How many of us unconsciously have adopted the portraits of the early

English kings as Shakspeare drew them! To what a host of living souls is

the history of Scotland what the author of "Waverley" makes it! Charles

I. haunts the fancy, not as drawn by Hume, but as painted by Vandyck.

The institutions of the Middle Ages are realized to every reflective

tourist through the architecture of Florence more than by the municipal

details of Hallam. Pyramids, obelisks, mummies have brought home

Egyptian civilization; the "old masters," that of Europe in the

fifteenth century; the ruins of the Colosseum, Roman art and barbarism,

as they never were by Livy or Gibbon. Lady Russell's letters tell us of

the Civil War in England,--Saint Mark's, at Venice, of Byzantine taste

and Oriental commerce,--the Escurial and the Alhambra, Versailles, a

castle on the Rhine, and a "modest mansion on the banks of the Potomac,"

of their respective eras and their characteristics, social, political,

religious,--more than the most elaborate register, muster-roll, or

judicial calendar. For around and within these memorials lingers the

life of Humanity; they speak to the eye as well as to memory,--to the

heart as well as the intelligence; they draw us by human associations

to the otherwise but technical statement; they lure us to repeople

solitudes and reanimate shadows; and having become intimate with the

scenes, the effigies, the monuments of the Past, we have, as it were, a

vantage-ground of actual experience an impulse from personal observation

and, perhaps, a sympathy born of local inspiration, whereby the phantoms

of departed ages are once more clothed with flesh, and their sorrows and

triumphs are renewed in the soul of enlightened contemplation.

* * * * *

MY NEIGHBOR, THE PROPHET.

The point of commencement for a story is altogether arbitrary. Some

writers stick to Nature and go back to the Creation; others take a few

dozen of the grandfatherly old centuries for granted; others seize Time

by the forelock and bounce into the middle of a narrative; but, as I

said before, the beginning is a mere matter of taste and convenience.

I choose to open my tale with the day on which I took possession of my

newly purchased country-house.

It was a pretty little cottage, wooden, old-fashioned, a story and a

half high, with a long veranda, a shady door-yard, and a sunny garden. I

bought it as it was, furniture included, of a gentleman who was about

to remove southward on account of his wife's health, or, to speak

more exactly, on account of her want of it. I laugh here to think

how surprised you will be when you learn that these matters have no

connection with my story. All the important events which I propose

to relate might have happened had this gentleman never sold nor I

purchased; and, as a proof of it, I can adduce the fact that they

actually did occur some years before we enjoyed the honor of each

other's acquaintance. But I could not resist the temptation of the

episode. I am as delighted at getting into my first house as was my

little son when he poked his chubby legs into his first trousers.

"Who is my nearest neighbor?" I asked of the former proprietor, when he

made his parting call.

"What, the occupant of the new house just below you? I can tell you very

little of him. I haven't made his acquaintance, and don't know his name.

We call him the Mormon."

"Mercy on us! You don't mean to hint at anything in the way of polygamy,

I hope. He doesn't keep an omnibus with seats for twenty, does he?"

"No, not so bad as that. In fact, I don't know much about him. I thought

you were aware of his--his style of living," stammered my friend. "Oh,

I dare say he is respectable enough. But then we noticed three or four

women about the house, and only one man; and so we clapped the title of

Mormon on him. Nicknaming is funny work, you know,--a short and easy way

to be witty. I believe, however, that he does pretend to be a prophet."

"The Pilgrim Fathers protect us! Why, he may attempt to proselytize us

by force. He may declare a religious war against us. It would be no

joke, if he should invade us with the sword in one hand, and the Koran,

or whatever he may call his revelation, in the other."

"Oh, don't be alarmed. He is quite harmless, and even unobtrusive. A

sad-faced, pale, feeble-looking, white-bearded old man. He won't attack

you, or probably even speak to you. I will tell you all I know of

him. The house was built under his direction about six months ago.

I understand that the women own it, and that they are not relatives

according to the flesh, but simply sisters in faith. They have some

queer sort of religion which I am shamefully ignorant of. At all events,

they believe this old gentleman to be a prophet, and consider it a duty

or a pleasure to support him. That is the extent of my knowledge. I hope

it doesn't disgust you with your neighborhood?"

"By no means. May you find as pleasant a one, wherever you settle!"

"Thank you. Well, it is nearly train-time, and I suppose I must leave

you and my old place. I wish you every happiness in it."

And so the old proprietor sighingly departed, leaving the new one

smiling on the doorstep. I was just thinking how nicely the world is

arranged, so that one man's trouble may turn out another man's blessing,

(the illness in this gentleman's family, for instance, being the cause

of my getting a neat country-house cheap,) when my attention was

arrested by the appearance of a thin, feeble-looking, white-bearded old

man, who passed down the street with head bent and hands joined behind

him. I stared at him till he got by; then I ran down to the gate and

looked after him earnestly; and at last I darted forward, hatless, in

eager pursuit. He heard my approaching steps, and put his snowy beard

against his right shoulder in the act of taking a glance rearward. I now

recognized the profile positively, and began conversation.

"Is it possible? My dear Doctor Potter, how are you? Don't you know me?

Your old friend Elderkin."

"Sir? Elderkin? Oh!--ah!--yes! How do you do, Mr. Elderkin?" he

stammered, seeming very awkward, and hardly responding at all to my

vigorous hand-shaking.

"I am delighted to see you again," I continued. "I have had no news of

you these five years. Do you live in this neighborhood?"

"I--I reside in the next house, Sir," he replied, not looking me in the

face, but glancing around uneasily, as if he wanted to run away.

"What! are you the prophet?" I blurted out before I could stop myself.

"I am, Mr. Elderkin," he said, blushing until I thought his white hair

would turn crimson.

We stared at each other in silence for ten seconds, each wishing himself

or his interlocutor at the antipodes.

"I congratulate you on your gift," I remarked, as soon as I could speak.

"I will see you again soon, and have a talk on the subject. We have

discussed similar matters before. Good day, Doctor."

"Good day, Mr. Elderkin," he replied, drawing himself up with a poor

pretence at self-respect.

He was greatly changed. Heterodoxy had not been so fattening to him as

Orthodoxy. When I knew him, six years before, as pastor of a flourishing

church, Doctor of Divinity, and staunch Calvinist, he had a plump and

rosy face, a portly form, and vigorous carriage. He was a great favorite

with the ladies, as clergymen are apt to be, and consequently never

lacked for delicate and appetizing sustenance. He was esteemed,

self-respectful, and happy; and all these things tend to good health and

good looks. I propose to make myself famous as the Gibbon of the decline

and fall of this reverend gentleman, once so honorably established on

the everlasting hills of Orthodoxy, and now so overthrown and trampled

under foot by the Alaric of Spiritualism. I do not expect, indeed, that

anybody will take warning by my friend's sad history; nor do I insist

that people in general would find it advantageous to learn much wisdom

from the experience of others; for it is very clear, that, if we

attempted only what our neighbors or our fathers had succeeded in doing,

we should kill all chance of variety or improvement. It would be a

stupidly wise world; there would be no sins, and, very possibly, no

virtues; instead of "Everything happens," it would be "Nothing happens."

Believing and hoping, therefore, that Dr. Potter's calamities will not

be the smallest check upon any person who shall feel disposed to follow

in his footsteps, I present the story to the public, not at all as a

lesson, but merely as an item of curious information.

Oddly enough, it was on that day of delusions, the first of April, that

I stumbled into the Doctor's revival of the age of miracles. I had been

engaged for three months on a geological survey in a Western Territory,

during which time I had received very brief and vague news from the

little city which was then my place of abode, and had not even had

a hint of the signs and wonders which there awaited my astonished

observation. Reaching home, I made it my first business to call on my

reverend friend; for the Doctor, it must be known, was one of my most

valued intimates, had baptized me, had counselled me, had travelled with

me in foreign lands; we had many interests, many sympathies in common,

and no differences except with regard to the extent of the Flood, the

date of the Creation, and other matters of small personal importance.

I found him in his study, surrounded by those seven hundred and odd

volumes, the learning and excellent spirit of which gave to his sermons

such a body of venerable divinity, such a bouquet of savory eloquence.

He was walking to and fro rapidly, studying a slip of manuscript with an

air of serious ecstasy. He did not look up until I had seized his hand,

and even then he stared at me as a man might be supposed to stare who

had been passing a fortnight with angels or other spiritual existences

and unexpectedly found himself among natural and reasonable beings

again.

"Ah, my dear Elderkin," he said at last, "I am glad to see you. How are

you, and how have you been? Excuse me for not recognizing you at once. I

had just lost myself in the consideration of a mystery which I believe

to be of the sublimest importance. Oh, my dear friend, I hope you will

be brought to attend to these things! They are above and beyond all your

geologies; they preceded and will outlive them."

"Indeed!" I replied. "Nothing in the way of chaos, I hope?"

"Look here at this sheet of foolscap," he exclaimed, waving it

excitedly. "Do you remember the belief which I have often expressed to

you,--the belief that the dispensation of miracles has never yet ceased

from earth,--that we have still a right to expect signs, wonders,

instantaneous healings, and unknown tongues,--and that, but for our

wretched incredulity, these things would constantly happen among us? You

have disputed it and ridiculed it, but here I hold a proof of its truth.

A month ago this blessing was vouchsafed to me. It was at one of our

Wednesday-evening exercises. I had just been speaking of supernatural

gifts, and of the duty which we lie under of expecting and demanding

them. The moment I sat down, a stranger (a gentleman whom I had

previously noticed at church) rose up with a strangely beaming look and

broke out in a discourse of sounds that were wholly unintelligible. You

need not smile. It was a true language, I am confident; it flowed forth

with a moving warmth and fluency; and the gestures which accompanied it

were earnest and most expressive."

"That was fortunate," said I; "otherwise you must have been very little

edified. But isn't it rather odd that the man should use earthly

gestures with an unearthly language?"

The Doctor shook his head reprovingly, and continued,--

"Deacon Jones, the editor of the 'Patriot,' is a phonographer. He took

down the close of the stranger's address, and next day brought it to me

written out in the ordinary alphabet. Let me read it to you. As you are

acquainted with several modern languages, perhaps you can give me a key

to an interpretation."

"I don't profess to know the modern languages of the other world," said

I. "However, let us hear it."

"Isse ta sopon otatirem isais ka rabatar itos ma deok," began the

Doctor, with a gravity which almost made me think him stark mad. "De

noton irbila orgonos ban orgonos amartalannen fi dunial maran ta

calderak isais deluden homox berbussen carantar. Falla esoro anglas

emoden ebuntar ta diliglas martix yehudas sathan val caraman

mendelsonnen lamata yendos nix poliglor opos discobul vanitarok ken

laros ma dasta finomallo in salubren to mallomas. Isse on esto opos fi

sathan."

And so he read on through more than a page and a half of closely written

manuscript, his eyes flashing brighter at each line, and his right hand

gesturing as impressively as if he understood every syllable.

"Bless you, it's nothing new," said I. "There's an institution at

Hartford where they cure people of talking that identical language."

"Just what I expected you to say," he replied, flushing up. "I know

you,--you scientific men,--you materialists. When you can't explain a

phenomenon, you call it nonsense, instead of throwing yourselves with

childlike faith into the arms of the supernatural. That is the sum and

finality of your so-called science. But, come, be rational now. Don't

you catch a single glimpse or suspicion of meaning in these remarkable

words?"

"I am thankful to say that I don't," declared I. "If ever I go mad, I

may change my mind."

"Well now, I _do_" he asseverated loudly. "There are words here that I

believe I understand, and I am not ashamed to own it. Why, look at it,

yourself," he added, pleadingly. "That word _sathan_, twice repeated,

can it be anything else than _Satan_? _Yehudas_, what is that but

_Jews?_ And then _homox_, how very near to the Latin _homo!_ I think,

too, that I have even got a notion of some of the grammatical forms of

the language. That termination of _en_, as in _deluden, salubren,_ seems

to me the sign of the present tense of the plural form of the verb. That

other termination of _tar_, as in _ebuntar, carantar_, I suppose to be

the sign of the infinitive. Depend upon it that this language is one

of absolute regularity, undeformed by the results of human folly and

sorrow, and as perfect as a crystal."

"But not as clear," I observed,--"at least, not to our apprehension.

Well, how was this extraordinary revelation received by the audience?"

"In dumb silence," said the Doctor. "Faith was at too low an ebb among

us to reach and encircle the amazing fact. I had to call out the

astonished brethren by name; and even then they responded briefly and

falteringly. But the leaven worked. I went round the next day and

talked to all my leading men. I found faith sprouting like a grain

of mustard-seed. I found my people waking up to the great idea of a

continuous, deathless, present miracle-demonstration. And these dim

suspicions, these far-off longings and fearful hopes, were, indeed,

precursors of such a movement of spirits, such a shower of supernatural

mercies, as the world has not perhaps seen for centuries. Yes, there

have been wonders wrought among us, and there are, I am persuaded,

greater wonders still to come. What do you think must be my feelings

when I see my worthiest parishioners rise in public and break out with

unknown tongues?"

"I should suppose you would rather see them break out with the

small-pox," I answered.

"Ah, Professor! wait, wait, and soon you will not laugh," said the

Doctor, solemnly.

"Perhaps not. I am a sincere friend of yours, and a tolerably

good-hearted sort of man, I hope. I shall probably feel more like

crying. But the world may laugh long and loud, Doctor. All who hate the

true revelation may laugh to see it mocked and caricatured by those who

profess and mean to honor it. Just consider, while it is yet time to

mend matters, how imprudent you are. Why, what do you know of the man

who has been your Columbus in this sea of wonders? Are you sure that he

is not a sharper, or an impostor, or a lunatic?"

"Impossible! He brought letters to three of our most respectable

families. His name is Riley, John M. Riley, of New York; and he is

son of the wealthy old merchant, James M. Riley, who has been such a

generous donor to all good works. As for his being a lunatic, you shall

hear his conversation."

"I should be a very poor judge of it, if he always speaks in his unknown

tongues."

"English! English! he talks English as good as your own. A more

gentlemanly person, a more intelligent mind, a meeker and more believing

spirit, I have not met this many a day. He is still here, and he is my

right hand in the work. I shall soon have the pleasure of making you

acquainted with him."

"Thank you; I shall be delighted," said I. "Only be good enough to hint

to him that I like to understand what is said to me. If he comes at me

with unknown tongues, I shall wish him in unknown parts. I can't stand

mysteries. I am a geologist, and believe that there are rocks all the

way down, and that we had much better stand on them than wriggle in mere

chaotic space. Good morning, Doctor. I shall come again soon; I shall

keep a lookout on you."

"Good morning," he replied, kindly. "I hope to see you in a better frame

before many days."

I hurried back to my hotel, and questioned the landlord about this

revival of the age of miracles. He gave me a long account of the affair,

and then every neighbor who strolled in gave me another, until by

dinner-time I had heard wonders and absurdities enough to make a new

"Book of Mormon." The lunacies of this Riley had entered into Dr. Potter

and his parishioners, like the legion of devils into the herd of swine,

and driven them headlong into a sea of folly. There had been more

tongues spoken during the past month in this little Yankee city than

would have sufficed for our whole stellar system. Blockheads who were

not troubled with an idea once a fortnight, and who could neither write

nor speak their mother English decently, had undertaken to expound

things which never happened in dialects which nobody understood. People

who hitherto had been chiefly remarkable for their ignorance of the

past and the slowness of their comprehension of the present fell to

foretelling the future, with a glibness which made Isaiah and Ezekiel

appear like minor prophets, and a destructiveness which nothing would

satisfy out the immediate advent of the final conflagration. Gouty

brothers whose own toes were a burden to them, and dropsical sisters

with swelled legs, hobbled from street to street, laying would-be

miraculous hands on each other, on teething children, on the dumb and

blind, on foundered horses and mangy dogs even, or whatsoever other

sickly creature happened to get under their silly noses. The doctors

lost half their practice in consequence of the reliance of the people on

these spiritual methods of physicking. Children were taken out of school

in order that they might attend the prophesyings and get all knowledge

by supernatural intuition. Logic and other worldly methods of arriving

at truth were superseded by dreams, discernings of spirits, and similar

irrational processes. The public madness was immense, tempestuous, and

unequalled by anything of the kind since the "jerks" which appeared in

the early part of this century under the thundering ministrations of

Peter Cartwright. That nothing might be lacking to make the movement a

fact in history, it had acquired a name. As its disciples used the word

"dispensation" freely, the public called them Dispensationists, and

their faith Dispensationism, while their meetings received the whimsical

title of Dispensaries.