Amid this clamor of daft delusion, Dr. Potter congratulated his people

on the resurrection of the age of miracles, and preached in furtherance

of the work with a fervid sincerity and eloquence rarely surpassed by

men who support the claims of true religion and right reason. Had he

brought the same zeal to bear against mathematics, it seems to me he

might have shaken the popular faith in the multiplication-table. The

wonders transacting in his church being noised abroad, the town was soon

crowded with curious strangers, mostly laymen, but several clergymen,

some anxious to believe, others ready to sneer, but all resolute to see.

As might have been expected, the nature of the excitement alarmed the

wiser pastors of the vicinity for the cause of Orthodoxy. They saw that

several of the asserted miracles were simply hoaxes or delusions; they

suspected that the unknown tongues might be nothing but the senseless

bubbling of overheated brainpans; they perceived that the Doctor in

his enthusiastic flights was soaring clear into the murky clouds of

Spiritualism; and they dreaded lest the scoffing world should make a

weapon out of these absurdities for an attack upon the Christian faith.

They began to preach against the fanaticism; and, of course, my friend

denounced them as infidels. High war ensued among the principalities and

powers of theology in all that portion of Yankeedom.

The reaction roused by the unbelieving clergymen reached the Doctor's

congregation, and emboldened all the sensible members to combine into

an anti-miracle party. At a meeting of these persons a committee was

appointed to wait upon the pastor and respectfully request him to

dismiss Riley, to cease his efforts after the supernatural, and to

return to his former profitable manner of ministration. Dr. Potter was

amazed and indignant; he replied, that he should preach the truth as it

was revealed to himself; he scouted the dictation of the committee, and

fell back upon the solemn duty of his office; he ended by informing the

gentlemen that they were unbelievers and materialists. Naturally the

dissenters grew all the more fractious for this currying, and held

another meeting, in which the reaction kicked up higher than ever. Being

resolved now to proceed to extremities, and, if necessary, to form a new

congregation, they drew up the following recantation and sent it to Dr.

Potter,--not with any hope that he would put his name to it, but for the

purpose of ridiculing his infatuation, and driving him to resign his

pulpit.

"I, the undersigned, pastor of the First Church in Troubleton, having

been led far from the truth by the absurdities of modern miracleism

and spiritualism, and having seen the error of my ways, do penitently

subscribe to the accompanying articles.

"1st. I promise to cease all intercourse with a blasphemous blockhead

named John M. Riley, who has been the human cause of my downfall.

"2d. I promise to avoid in future all rhapsodies, ecstasies, frenzies,

and whimseys which throw ridicule on true religion by caricaturing its

influences.

"3d. I promise to regard with the profoundest contempt and indifference

both my own dreams or somnambulisms and those of other people.

"4th. I promise not to unveil the secret things of Infinity, nor to

encourage others to unveil them, but to mind my own finite business, and

to rest satisfied with the revelations that are contained in the Bible.

"5th. I promise not to speak unknown tongues as long as I can speak

English, and not to listen to other people who commit the like

absurdity, unless I know them to be Frenchmen or Dutchmen or other

foreigners of some human species.

"6th. I promise not to heal the sick by any unnatural and miraculous

means, but rather to call in for their aid properly educated physicians,

giving the preference to those of the allopathic persuasion.

"7th. I promise not to work signs in heaven nor wonders on earth, but

to let all things take the course allotted to them by a good and wise

Providence."

Of course Dr. Potter looked upon this production as the height of

irreverence and irreligion, and proposed to excommunicate the authors

of it. Hence the dissenters declared themselves seceders, and took

immediate steps to form a new society.

It was at this stage of the excitement that I returned to Troubleton and

made my call upon the Doctor. I felt anxious to save my old friend and

worthy pastor. I saw, that, if he continued in his present courses,

he would strip himself, one after the other, of his influence, his

position, his religion, and his reason. That very evening, after the

usual conference-meeting was over, I called again on him, and found him

in a truly lyrical frame of spirit.

"Ah, my dear friend, there is no end to it!" exclaimed he. "The doors

are opening, one beyond another. Wonder shows forth after wonder,

miracle after miracle. Behind the veil! behind the veil!"

"Indeed!" said I, rather vexed. "You'll find yourself behind a grate

some day."

"There is now no question of the physical value as well as the spiritual

sublimity of these revelations," he continued, without observing my

sneer. "Life and death, the sparing of precious blood, the prevention of

crime, the punishment of the guilty,--you can appreciate these things, I

presume."

"When I am in my senses," returned I. "But what is the row? if I may use

that worldly expression. Has Mr. John M. Riley been brought to confess

any state-prison offences?"

"Ah, Elderkin!" sighed the Doctor, letting go my hand with a look of sad

reproach. "But no: you cannot remain forever in this skepticism; you

will be brought over to us before long. Let me tell you what has

happened. But, remember, you must keep the secret until to-morrow, as

you value precious lives. Mr. Riley has just left me. He has made me a

revelation, a prophecy, which will be proof to all men of the origin

of our present experiences. He has had a vision, thrice repeated. It

foretold that this very night a robbery and murder would be attempted in

the city of New Haven. The evil drama will open between two and three

o'clock. There will be three burglars. The house threatened is situated

in the suburbs, to the east of the city, and about a mile from the

colleges."

"Is it? And what are you going to do about it?--telegraph?"

"No. We will be there in person. We will ourselves prevent the crime and

seize the criminals. I shall have a word in season for that family, Sir.

I wish to improve the occasion for its conversion to a full belief in

these sublime mysteries. Mr. Riley, with three of my people, will meet

me at the station. We shall be in New Haven by eleven, stay an hour or

two in some hotel, and at half past one go to the house."

"My dear Sir, I remonstrate," exclaimed I. "You will get laughed at. You

will get shot at. You will get into disgrace. You will get into jail.

For pity's sake, give up this quixotic expedition, and grant me an

absolution before the fact for kicking Riley out of doors."

The Doctor turned his face away from me and walked to a window. His air

of profound, yet uncomplaining grief, struck me with compunction, and,

following him, I held out my hand.

"Come, excuse me," said I. "Look here,--if this comes true, I'll quit

geology and go to working miracles to-morrow. I'll come over to your

faith, if I have to wade through my reason."

"Will you?" he responded, joyfully. "You will never repent it. There,

shake hands. I am not angry. Your unbelief is natural, though saddening.

To-morrow night, then, come and see me again and I will tell you the

whole adventure. I must be off to the train now. Excuse me for leaving

you. Would you like to sit here awhile and look at Humby's 'Modern

Miracles'?"

"No, thank you. Prefer to look at your miracles. I am going with you."

"Going with me? Are you? I'm delighted!" he cried, not in the least

startled or embarrassed by the proposition. "Now you shall see with your

own eyes."

"Yes, if it isn't too dark, I will,--word of a geologist. Well, shall we

start?"

"But won't you have a weapon? We go armed, of course, inasmuch as the

scoundrels may show fight when we come to arrest them."

"I don't want it," said I, gently pushing away a pocket-pistol, about as

dangerous as a squirt. "All the burglars you see to-night may shoot at

me, and welcome."

We walked to the station, and found our party waiting for the Boston

train. The Doctor introduced me, with much affectionate effusion and

many particulars concerning my family and early history, to the man of

unearthly lingoes. He was a tall, lean, flat-chested, cadaverous being,

of about forty, his sandy hair nicely sleeked, thin yellow whiskers

spattered on his hollow cheeks, his nose short and snub, his face

small, wilted, and so freckled that it could hardly be said to have

a complexion. In short, by its littleness, by its yellowness, by its

appearance of dusty dryness, this singular physiognomy reminded me so

strongly of a pinch of snuff, that I almost sneezed at sight of it. His

diminutive green eyes were fringed with ragged flaxen lashes, and seemed

to be very loose in their reddened lids, as if he could cry them out at

the shortest notice. I observed that he never looked his interlocutors

in the face, but stared chiefly at their feet, as if surmising whether

they would kick, or gazed into remote distance, as if trying to see

round the world and get a view of his own back. His dress was a full

suit of black, fine in texture, but bagging about him in a way that made

you wonder whether he had not lost a hundred-weight or so in training

for his spiritual battles. His manners were quiet, and would not have

been disagreeable, but for an air of uncomfortably stiff solemnity,

which draped him from head to foot like a robe of moral oilcloth, and

might almost be said to rustle audibly. Whether he was a practical

joker, a swindler, a fanatic, or a madman, my spiritual vision was not

keen enough to discover at first sight. Beside him and ourselves the

party consisted of a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick-maker,

all members of the Doctor's church and indefatigable workers of

miracles,--plain men and foolish, but respectable in standing and

sincere in their folly. Mr. Riley was so commonplace as to address me in

English, probably because he wanted an answer.

"Do you accompany us, Sir, on this blessed crusade against crime and

unbelief?" he asked.

"My friend, Dr. Potter, has granted me that inestimable privilege,"

responded I.

"I hope--in fact, I firmly believe--that Providence will aid us," he

continued.

"I hope so, too," said I. "But wouldn't it be advisable to have a

policeman, too?"

"By no means! Certainly not!" he returned, with considerable excitement.

"All we want is a band of saints, of justified souls, of men fitted for

the martyr's crown."

"Oh, that's all, is it, Sir? Well, shall we get into the cars? There

they are."

The train was full, and our party had to scatter, but Mr. Riley and I

got seats together.

"I have not seen you at our meetings, Sir," he continued. "Allow me to

ask, are you a believer in Dispensationism?"

"Not so strong as I might be. However, I have been absent from

Troubleton for three months, and only returned yesterday."

"Ah! you have lost precious opportunities. You must lose no more. Life

is short."

"And uncertain," I added. "Especially in railroad travelling."

"My dear Sir, I hope this road is prudently conducted," he said, with a

look of some little anxiety.

"Not many accidents," I answered. "And then, you know, we are always

in the hands of Providence. No fear of slipping through the fingers

unnoticed."

"No, Sir, certainly not," he remarked, wrapping his moral oilcloth about

him again. "Have you felt any extraordinary spiritual impressions since

you returned?"

"Nothing lasting, I think. Nothing that a night's sleep wouldn't take

off the edge of."

"No desire to lay hands on some sin-stricken wretch and cure him of the

evil that is in him?"

Now I did feel a strong desire to lay hands on this very Riley and pull

out his snub nose for him; but I forbore to say so, and simply shook my

head despondently.

"I know, that, if you would come to our Dispensaries and join in our

exercises, you would be sensible of a softening," he observed.

"Yes, in the brain," thought I; but I still remained silent.

"You should meditate upon the value of manifestations, unknown tongues,

the laying on of hands, visions, ecstasies, and such like matters," he

continued.

"So I have," said I.

"And with no result?"

"Nothing that particularly astonishes me. I think that I hate humbug

more than I did."

"That's a good sign," he replied, after a brief, sharp glance of inquiry

at me. "This vain world is a humbug, as you phrase it. Dead Orthodoxy is

a humbug. Human reason is a humbug. We are all humbugs, unless we are

made true by Dispensation. This age will be a humbug, unless it can

be wrought into an age of miracles. If you could be brought to hate

earnestly all these things, it would be a hopeful sign."

I was on the point of disputing the hypothesis, but prudently checked

myself. Suddenly he removed my hat and put his broad, hard palm upon my

organs with an impudent dexterity which made me doubt whether he had not

been a pickpocket or a phrenological lecturer.

"I lay my hand upon your head and desire you to note the effect," said

he. "Can no life come into these dry bones? Shall they not live?

Yea, they shall live! Do you feel no irrepressible emotion, Sir,--no

shaking?"

"Not a shake," replied I,--"unless it be from the bad grading."

"Evil is mighty, but the good must eventually prevail," he observed,

impertinently cocking his snub nose toward heaven.

"I believe you are quite right in both propositions," I admitted.

"Cardinal points of mine. But excuse me, Sir, if you could spare my hat,

I should like to put it on my head."

I had lost patience with the man, partly because it irks me to have

strangers take liberties with my person, and also because I had reached

the conclusion that he was simply a shallow dissembler and rascal. In

a minute more I had cause to reconsider my charge of hypocrisy, and to

question whether he might not lay claim to the nobler distinction of

lunacy. The conductor came down the car, picking out Troubletonians with

his undeceivable eye, and leaned toward us with outstretched fingers.

Mr. Riley rose to his whole gaunt height at a jerk, and laid his hand on

the official's arm with a fierce, bony gripe, which seemed to startle

him as if it were the clutch of a skeleton.

"There is my ticket," said he. "Where is yours? Have you one for the

Holy City? None? Then you are lost, lost, lost!"

The last words rose to a high, clear shriek, which pierced the heavy

rumble of the train and rang throughout the car. The conductor, in spite

of the coolness which becomes second nature to men of his profession,

turned slightly pale and shrank back before this wild apostrophe, with

a thrill of spiritual horror at the solemn meaning of the words, (I

thought,) and not because he considered the man a maniac. The fanaticism

of Troubleton had already flown far and cast a vague shadow of dread

over a large community.

Turning abruptly from the conductor, my companion flung out his long

arms toward the staring passengers, and continued in his strident,

startling tenor:--"I have warned him. I call you all to witness that I

have warned this man of his fearful peril. His blood be on his own head!

The blood of your souls will be upon your heads, unless you turn to

Dispensationism. I have said it. Amen!"

Before he had sat down again I was in the alley on my way to another

car, not anxious to become known as the intimate of this extraordinary

apostle. I found an empty seat by the Doctor, dropped into it, and told

my story.

"My dear friend, give the fellow up," I concluded. "He's as mad as he

can possibly be."

"So Festus thought of Paul," returned my poor comrade, with hopeless

fatuity.

"Festus be d----d!" said I, losing my temper, and swearing for the first

time since I graduated.

"I fear he was so," remarked the Doctor, severely. "Let me urge you to

take warning from his fate."

"I beg your pardon, and that of Festus," I apologized. "But when I see

you losing your reason, I can't keep my patience, and don't wish to."

"You will wonder at these feelings before many hours," he responded

gently. "To-morrow you will be a believer."

"That makes no difference with me now," said I. "I am just as skeptical

as if I hadn't a chance of conversion. Why, Doctor,--well, come

now,--I'll argue the case with you. In the first place, all Church

history is against you. There isn't a respectable author who upholds the

doctrine of modern miracles."

"Mistake!" he exclaimed. "I wish I had you in my library. I could face

you with writer on writer, fact on fact, all supporting my views. I can

prove that miracles have not ceased for eighteen centuries; that they

appeared abundantly in the days of the venerable Catholic fathers; that

a stream of prophecies and healings and tongues ran clear through the

Dark Ages down to the Reformation; that the superhuman influence flamed

in the dreams of Huss, the ecstasies of Xavier, and the marvels of Fox

and Usher. Look at the French Prophets, or Tremblers of the Cevennes,

who had prophesyings and healings and discoverings of spirits and

tongues and interpretations. Look at the ecstatic Jansenists, or

Convulsionists of St. Médard, who were blessed with the same holy gifts.

Look at the Quakers, from Fox downward, who have held it as a constant

principle to expect powers, revelations, discernings of spirits, and

instantaneous healings of diseases. Why, here we are in our own days;

here we are with our chain of miracles still unbroken; here we are in

the midst of this geological and unbelieving nineteenth century."

"Yes, here we are," said I; "and we must make the best of it. It's a bad

affair, of course, to live in scientific times; and it's a great pity

that we were not born in the Dark Ages; but it is too late to try to

help it."

"Ah! you answer with a sneer; you are materialistic and infidel."

"Stop, Doctor! Let me make a bargain with you. If you won't call me

names, I won't call you names. You are not in the pulpit now, and you

have no right to domineer over me."

"But what do you say to all these signs and wonders which I have

mentioned?"

"What do you say to the Rochester knockings and the Stratford mysteries

and the Mormon miracles?"

"All deceptions, or works of the Devil," affirmed the Doctor, without a

moment's hesitation.

"Excuse me for smiling," I replied "It is pleasant to observe what a

quick spirit you have for discerning the true wonders from the false."

"You will see, you will see," he answered, and relapsed into a grave

silence.

We reached New Haven and took rooms at the New Haven Hotel. I had

anticipated a little nap before going out on our expedition; but I had

not made allowance for the proselyting zeal of Dispensationists. My poor

bewildered friend Potter uttered something which he sincerely meant to

be a prayer, but which sounded to me painfully like blasphemy. Next they

sang a queer hymn of theirs in discordant chorus. After that, Mr. Riley

rolled up his sleeves and his eyes, flung his arms about, wept and

shrieked unknown tongues for twenty minutes. Then the butcher, the

baker, and candlestick-maker had a combined convulsion on the floor,

rolling over each other and upsetting furniture. By this time the hotel

was roused and the landlord made us a call.

"What the Old Harry are you about?" he demanded, angrily. "Don't you

know it's after midnight?"

"We are holding a Dispensary," said Mr. Riley, solemnly.

"Well, I'll dispense with your company, if you don't stop it," returned

mine host. "There's a nervous lady in the next room, and you've worried

her into fits."

"Let me see her," cried the Doctor, eagerly. "It may be that the power

of our faith is upon her. Which is her door?"

"You're drunk, Sir," returned the landlord, severely. "Keep quiet now,

or I'll have you put to bed by the porters."

So saying, he shut the door and went muttering down-stairs. This

untoward incident put an end to our exercises. A whispered palaver on

Dispensationism followed, during which I tilted my chair back against

the wall and stole a pleasant little nap.

It was about half past one when the Doctor shook me up and said, "It is

time." We slipped down-stairs in our stockinged feet, got the front-door

open without awakening the porter, shut it carefully after us, and put

on our boots outside. Mr. Riley immediately started up College Street,

which, as all the world is aware, runs northerly to the Canal Railroad,

where it changes to Prospect Street and goes off in a half-wild state up

country. At the end of College Street we left the city behind us, struck

the rail-track, forsook that presently for a desert sort of road known

as Canal Street, and kept on in a northwesterly direction for half a

mile farther. It was a dark, cool, and blustering night, such as the New

Englanders are very apt to have on the second of April. The wind blew

violently down the open country, shaking the scattered trees as if

it meant to wake them instantly out of their winter's slumber, and

screeching in the murky distances like a tomcat of the housetops, or

rather like a continent of tomcats. The Doctor lost his hat, chased it a

few rods, and then gave it up, lest he should miss his burglars. Once I

halted and watched, thinking that I saw two or three dark shapes dogging

us not far behind, but concluded that I had been deceived by the

black-art of magical Night, and hastened on after my crazy comrades.

Presently Riley stopped, pointed to a dark mass on our right which

seemed about large enough to be a story-and-a-half cottage, and

whispered, "Here we are, brethren."

"No doubt about that," said I. "But what the mischief is to come of it?"

"Oh! let's go back and call the police," urged the baker, in a tremulous

gurgle.

"Too late!" returned Riley. "It is given to me to see the burglars. They

are inside. They are taking the silver out of the closet. There will be

murder in five minutes."

"If there must be murder, why, of course we ought to have a hand in it,"

I suggested. "Our motives at least will be good."

"Right!" said Riley. "Come on, brethren! We must prove our faith by our

works."

But the baker hung back in a most dough-faced fashion, while the butcher

and the candlestick-maker encouraged him in his cowardice. At last it

was agreed that this unheroic trio should wait in the yard as a reserve,

while Riley, the Doctor, and I went in to worry the burglars. Leaving

the weaker brethren in a clump of evergreen shrubbery, we, the

forlorn-hope, stole around the house to get at a back-door which Prophet

Riley had plainly seen in his dream, and which he foretold us we should

find unlocked. I was not much amazed to discover a back-door, inasmuch

as most houses have one, but I really was surprised to learn that it was

unfastened. My astonishment at this circumstance, however, was over-

balanced by my alarm at finding that the Doctor still persisted in his

intention of entering; for I had hoped that at the last moment his

faith would give way, and let him slide down from the elevation of his

ridiculous and reckless purpose.

"But you are not really going in?" I whispered, jerking at his

coat-tails.

"Certainly," he replied. "The robbers are surely there. The door was

unlocked."

"Mere carelessness of the servants. Stop! Come back! Nonsense! Madness!

You'll get into a scrape. Respectable family. Good gracious, what a pack

of fools!"

While I was rapidly muttering these observations, he was pulling away

from me and stealing into the house after his prophet. Finding that

there was no stopping him, I followed, in obedience, perhaps, to that

great and no doubt beneficent, but as yet unexplained, instinct which

causes sheep to leap after their bellwether. We were in a basement, or

semi-subterranean story. I felt the walls of a narrow passage on

either side of me, and can swear to a kitchen near by, for I smelt its

cooking-range. I walked on the foremost end of my toes, and would have

paid five dollars for a pair of list slippers. Rather than take another

such little promenade as I had in that passage, I would submit to be

placed on the middle sleeper of a railroad-bridge, with an express-train

coming at me without a cowcatcher. Presently I overtook the Doctor's

coat-tails again, and found that they were ascending a staircase. At the

top of the stairs was a door, and on the other side of the door was a

room, the uses of which I won't undertake to swear to, for I never saw

it, although I was in it longer than I wanted to be. All I know is

that it seemed to be as full of chairs, and tables, and sofas, and

sideboards, and stoves, and crickets, as if it had been a shop for

second-hand furniture. I was just rubbing my shins after an encounter

with a remarkably solid object, nature uncertain, when somebody near me

fell over something with a crash and a groan. Immediately somebody else

seized me by the cravat and began to throttle me. Whoever it was, I

floored him with a right-hander, and sent him across the other person,

as I judged by the combined grunt, and the desperate, though dumb

struggle which followed. Now there were two of them down, and how many

standing I could not guess. An instant afterward, a muffled voice, like

that of a man only half awake, shouted from a room behind me, "Who's

there? Get out! I'm a-coming!" This seemed to encourage the individuals

who were having a rough-and-tumble on the carpet, for they commenced

roaring simultaneously, "Help! murder! thieves! fire!" without, however,

relaxing hostilities for a moment.

The next pleasant incident was a pistol-shot, the ball of which whizzed

so near my head that it made me dodge, although I have not the least

notion who fired it or whom it was aimed at. Female screams and

masculine shouts now sounded from various directions. Thinking that

I had done all the good in my power, I concluded to get out of this

confusion; but either the doorway by which we entered had suddenly

walled itself up, or else I had lost my reckoning; for, stumble where I

would, feel about as I would, I could not find it. I did, indeed, come

to an opening in the wall, but there was no staircase the other side of

it, and it simply introduced me to another invisible apartment. I had no

chance to reflect upon the matter and decide of my own free will whether

I would go in or not. A sudden rush of fighting, howling persons swept

me along, jammed me against a pillar, pushed me over a table, and forced

me to engage in a furious struggle, exceedingly awkward by reason of the

darkness and the extraordinary amount of furniture. A tremendous punch

in the side of the head upset me and made me lose my temper. Rising in a

rage, I grappled some man, tripped up his heels, got on his chest, and

never left off belaboring him until I felt pretty sure that he would

keep quiet during the rest of the _soiree_. I hope sincerely that this

suffering individual was Mr. John M. Riley; but, from the rotundity of

stomach which I bestrode, I very much fear that it was the Doctor.

All this while the house resounded with outcries of, "Who's there?"

"What's the matter?" "Father!" "Henry!" "Jenny!" "Maria!" "Thieves!"

"Murder!" "Police!" and so forth. Of course I did not feel disposed to

tell who was there; and in actual fact I could not have explained

what was the matter. Accordingly I left all these inquisitive people

unsatisfied, and busied myself solely with my fallen antagonist.

Quitting him at last in a state of quiescence, I knocked over a person

who had been attacking me in the rear, and then blundered into a

passage, which I suppose to have been the front-hall, just as a light

glimmered up in the rooms behind me. It gives one a very odd sensation

to tread on a prostrate body, not knowing whether it is dead or alive,

whether it is a man or a woman. I had that sensation in ascending a

stairway which seemed to be the only egress from the aforesaid passage.

The individual made no movement, and I did not stop to count his or her

pulses. Without feeling at all disposed to take my oath on the matter, I

rather suspect that a negro servant-girl had fainted away there in the

act of trying to run off in her nightgown. Upstairs I tumbled, resolved

to get upon the roof and slide down the lightning-rod, or else jump from

a window. Pushing open a door, which I fell against, I found myself in

a pretty little bedroom lighted by a single candle, articles of female

costume banging across chairs and scattered over dressing-tables, while

on the floor, just as she had swooned in her terror, lay a blonde girl

of nineteen or twenty, pale as marble, but beautiful. Right through my

alarm jarred a throb of mingled self-reproach and pity and admiration. I

tossed a pile of bedclothes over her, kissed the long light-brown hair

which rippled on the straw matting, daguerreotyped the face on my memory

with a glance, blew out the light, opened a window, and slipped out of

it. It is unpleasant to drop through darkness, not knowing how far you

will fall, nor whether you will not alight on iron pickets. Fortunately,

I came down in a fresh flower-bed, with no unpleasant result, except a

sensation of having nearly bitten my tongue off. I had scarcely steadied

myself on my feet, when a tall figure made a rush from some near

ambuscade and seized me by the collar. Supposing him to be one of our

reserve force, I quietly suffered him to lead me forward, and was on the

point of whispering my name, when my eye caught a glimmer of metal, and

I knew that I was in the hands of a policeman.

"Come in and help," said I. "The house is full of rascals."

Thinking me one of the family, he loosed his hold on my broadcloth and

hurried away to the back-door. Whoever reads this story has already

taken it for granted that I did not follow him, but that I did, on the

contrary, make for the city and never cease travelling until I had

reached the hotel. Let no man reproach me with forsaking my friend, the

Doctor, in his extremity. I was brought up to reverence the law and to

entertain a virtuous terror of policemen; and, besides, what could I

have effected in that horrible labyrinth of dark rooms and multitudinous

furniture? I rang up the porter, went to bed, and lay awake alt the rest

of the night, listening for the return of my companions. No one came:

no Doctor, no Riley, no butcher, no baker, no candlestick-maker. I was

apparently the sole survivor of our little army. In the morning I walked

over to the police-station, peeped cautiously through the grated door of

a long room where the night's gatherings are lodged, and discovered my

five friends, tattered and bruised, but holding a lively Dispensary in

one corner. From that moment I despaired of the Doctor and resolved to

let him manage his own monomania. I was still peeping when two of the

police and a sly-looking man in citizen's dress came up and stared

boldly at the prisoners.

"Well, Old Cock, do you see your game?" asked one of the "force."

"Thaht's him," returned the Old Cock, speaking with the soft drawl of

the New York cockney. "Tall fellah thah with thah black eye, thaht's

a-goin' it now. Thundah, what a roarah!"

"Well, what is he?" inquired the second of the New-Haveners.

"Joseph Hull, 'ligious lunatic," said the Old Cock. "Was in thah

Bloomingdale Asylum. Cut off one night about foah months ago and stole a

suit o' clothes that belonged to John M. Riley, with a lot o' money and

papahs and lettahs in thah pockets. How'd you get hold of him?"

"Broke into a house eout here last night," related the first

New-Havener. "He and them other fellers, and one more that we ha'n't

found. I was on my beat 'bout one o'clock, and see 'em puttin' up

College Street full chisel. I thought they looked kinder dangerous. So I

called Doolittle here, and Jarvis, and Jacobs, and we after 'em. Chased

'em 'bout a mild and treed 'em at Square Russoll's, way up Canal, eout

in the country. Three was in the yard and gin right up without doublin'

a fist, though they had their pockets chuck full o' little pistols. We

locked 'em into the cellar, and then, went upstairs, where there was a

devil of a yellin' and fightin'. Hanged if I know what they come there

for. They'd been pitchin' into one another and knockin' one another's

heads off, besides smashin' furnichy and chimbly crockery, but hadn't

stole a thing. The fat one and the long one--them two with white

chokers--was lyin' on the floor pootty much used up. There was another

that got up-stairs and jumped out a winder. Jarvis was outside and

collared him, but thought he was Russell's son-in-law,--ho, ho, ho!--and

let him off,--ho, ho, ho! Tell ye, Jarvis feels thunderin' small 'bout

it. Ha'n't been reound this mornin'."

"Well, I'll leave my warrant with your big-wigs, and come after my man

when they've got through with him," said the New York detective, turning

away.

Fearing the return of the enlightened Jarvis, I now left, and,

taking the first train to Troubleton, informed some of the leading

Dispensationists concerning their pastor's calamity. By dint of heavy

bail and strong representations they saved him, together with the

butcher and baker and candlestick-maker, from the disgrace of prison and

the lunatic asylum. But the adventure was the ruin of Dispensationism.

Mr. Joseph Hull had to give up Mr. John M. Riley's valuables, and return

to his seclusion at Bloomingdale. Deprived of the apostle who had set

them on fire, and overwhelmed by public ridicule, the Dispensationists

lost their faith, got ashamed of their minister, and turned him adrift.

He disappeared in the great whirl of men and other circumstances which

fills this wonderful country. From time to time, during five years, I

had made inquiries concerning him of mineralogists, botanists, and

other vagrant characters, without getting the smallest hint as to his

whereabouts. At last he had turned up as the private prophet of three

middle-aged widows.

"Jenny," said I to my wife, "do you remember the night I frightened you

so and kissed you as you lay in a fainting-fit?"

"You always say you kissed me, but I don't believe it," returned that

dear woman whom I love, honor, and cherish. "Yes, I remember the night

well enough."

"Well, that poor Doctor Potter, who was my Mahomet on that occasion,

and led me to victory in your parlor, and was the indirect means of my

getting my houri,--I have heard from him. He is our next neighbor."

"Mercy on us, Frederic! I hope not! What mischief won't he do to people

who are so handy?"

"Don't be worried, my dear," said I. "I sha'n't go over to his religion

again,--unless, indeed, you should insist upon it. But here he is, and

still a supernaturalist. I am anxious to know just how mad he is. I

shall call on him in a day or two."

So I did. One of the three widows met me with a tearful countenance and

told me that Doctor Potter had disappeared. So he had. I think that he

was ashamed to meet me again, and therefore ran away. The widows thought

not. They came to the conclusion, that, like Enoch and Elijah before

him, he had been translated. They cried for him a good deal more than he

was worth, quarreled scandalously among themselves, sold their house at

a loss, and dispersed. I know nothing more of them. Neither do I know

anything further of my neighbor, the prophet.

* * * * *

THE PILOT'S STORY.

I.

It was a story the pilot told, with his back to his hearers,--

Keeping his hand on the wheel and his eye on the globe of the jack-staff,

Holding the boat to the shore and out of the sweep of the current,

Lightly turning aside for the heavy logs of the drift-wood,

Widely shunning the snags that made us sardonic obeisance.

II.

All the soft, damp air was full of delicate perfume

From the young willows in bloom on either bank of the river,--

Faint, delicious fragrance, trancing the indolent senses

In a luxurious dream of the river and land of the lotus.

Not yet out of the west the roses of sunset were withered;

In the deep blue above light clouds of gold and of crimson

Floated in slumber serene, and the restless river beneath them

Rushed away to the sea with a vision of rest in its bosom.

Far on the eastern shore lay dimly the swamps of the cypress;

Dimly before us the islands grew from the river's expanses,--

Beautiful, wood-grown isles,--with the gleam of the swart inundation

Seen through the swaying boughs and slender trunks of their willows;

And on the shore beside its the cotton-trees rose in the evening,

Phantom-like, yearningly, wearily, with the inscrutable sadness

Of the mute races of trees. While hoarsely the steam from her

'scape-pipes

Shouted, then whispered a moment, then shouted again to the silence,

Trembling through all her frame with the mighty pulse of her engines,

Slowly the boat ascended the swollen and broad Mississippi,

Bank-full, sweeping on, with nearing masses of drift-wood,

Daintily breathed about with hazes of silvery vapor,

Where in his arrowy flight the twittering swallow alighted,

And the belated blackbird paused on the way to its nestlings.

III.

It was the pilot's story:--"They both came aboard there, at Cairo,

From a New Orleans boat, and took passage with us for Saint Louis.

She was a beautiful woman, with just enough blood from her mother,

Darkening her eyes and her hair, to make her race known to a trader:

You would have thought she was white. The man that was with her,--you

see such,--

Weakly good-natured and kind, and weakly good-natured and vicious,

Slender of body and soul, fit neither for loving nor hating.

I was a youngster then, and only learning the river,--

Not over-fond of the wheel. I used to watch them at _monte_,

Down in the cabin at night, and learned to know all of the gamblers.

So when I saw this weak one staking his money against them,

Betting upon the turn of the cards, I knew what was coming:

_They_ never left their pigeons a single feather to fly with.

Next day I saw them together,--the stranger and one of the gamblers:

Picturesque rascal he was, with long black hair and moustaches,

Black slouch hat drawn down to his eyes from his villanous forehead:

On together they moved, still earnestly talking in whispers,

On toward the forecastle, where sat the woman alone by the gangway.

Roused by the fall of feet, she turned, and, beholding her master,

Greeted him with a smile that was more like a wife's than another's,

Rose to meet him fondly, and then, with the dread apprehension

Always haunting the slave, fell her eye on the face of the gambler,

Dark and lustful and fierce and full of merciless cunning.

Something was spoken so low that I could not hear what the words were;

Only the woman started, and looked from one to the other,

With imploring eyes, bewildered hands, and a tremor

All through her frame: I saw her from where I was standing, she shook so.

'Say! is it so?' she cried. On the weak, white lips of her master

Died a sickly smile, and he said,--'Louise, I have sold you.'

God is my judge! May I never see such a look of despairing,

Desolate anguish, as that which the woman cast on her master,

Griping her breast with her little hands, as if he had stabbed her,

Standing in silence a space, as fixed as the Indian woman,

Carved out of wood, on the pilot-house of the old Pocahontas!

Then, with a gurgling moan, like the sound in the throat of the dying,

Came back her voice, that, rising, fluttered, through wild incoherence,

Into a terrible shriek that stopped my heart while she answered:--

'Sold me? sold me? sold----And you promised to give me my freedom!--

Promised me, for the sake of our little boy in Saint Louis!

What will you say to our boy, when he cries for me there in Saint Louis?

What will you say to our God?--Ah, you have been joking! I see it!--

No? God! God! He shall hear it,--and all of the angels in heaven,--

Even the devils in hell!--and none will believe when they hear it!

Sold me!'--Fell her voice with a thrilling wail, and in silence

Down she sank on the deck, and covered her face with her fingers."

IV.

In his story a moment the pilot paused, while we listened

To the salute of a boat, that, rounding the point of an island,

Flamed toward us with fires that seemed to burn from the waters,--

Stately and vast and swift, and borne on the heart of the current.

Then, with the mighty voice of a giant challenged to battle,

Rose the responsive whistle, and all the echoes of island,

Swamp-land, glade, and brake replied with a myriad clamor,

Like wild birds that are suddenly startled from slumber at midnight;

Then were at peace once more, and we heard the harsh cries of the

peacocks

Perched on a tree by a cabin-door, where the white-headed settler's

White-headed children stood to look at the boat as it passed them,

Passed them so near that we heard their happy talk and their laughter.

Softly the sunset had faded, and now on the eastern horizon

Hung, like a tear in the sky, the beautiful star of the evening.

V.

Still with his back to us standing, the pilot went on with his story:--

"Instantly, all the people, with looks of reproach and compassion,

Flocked round the prostrate woman. The children cried, and their mothers

Hugged them tight to their breasts; but the gambler said to the

captain,--

'Put me off there at the town that lies round the bend of the river.

Here, you! rise at once, and be ready now to go with me.'

Roughly he seized the woman's arm and strove to uplift her.

She--she seemed not to heed him, but rose like one that is dreaming,

Slid from his grasp, and fleetly mounted the steps of the gangway,

Up to the hurricane-deck, in silence, without lamentation.

Straight to the stern of the boat, where the wheel was, she ran, and

the people

Followed her fast till she turned and stood at bay for a moment,

Looking them in the face, and in the face of the gambler.

Not one to save her,--not one of all the compassionate people!

Not one to save her, of all the pitying angels in heaven!

Not one bolt of God to strike him dead there before her!

Wildly she waved him back, we waiting in silence and horror.

Over the swarthy face of the gambler a pallor of passion

Passed, like a gleam of lightning over the west in the night-time.

White, she stood, and mute, till he put forth his hand to secure her;

Then she turned and leaped,--in mid air fluttered a moment,--

Down, there, whirling, fell, like a broken-winged bird from a tree-top,

Down on the cruel wheel, that caught her, and hurled her, and

crushed her,

And in the foaming water plunged her, and hid her forever."

VI.

Still with his back to us all the pilot stood, but we heard him

Swallowing hard, as he pulled the bell-rope to stop her. Then, turning,--

"This is the place where it happened," brokenly whispered the pilot.

"Somehow, I never like to go by here alone in the night-time."

Darkly the Mississippi flowed by the town that lay in the starlight,

Cheerful with lamps. Below we could hear them reversing the engines,

And the great boat glided up to the shore like a giant exhausted.

Heavily sighed her pipes. Broad over the swamps to the eastward

Shone the full moon, and turned our far-trembling wake into silver.

All was serene and calm, but the odorous breath of the willows

Smote like the subtile breath of an infinite sorrow upon us.

A DAY WITH THE DEAD.

"Good morning!" said the old custodian, as he stood in the door of the

lodge, brushing out with his knuckles the cobwebs of sleep entangled in

his eyelashes, and ventilating the apartments of his fleshly tabernacle

with prolonged oscitations. "You are on hand early _this_ time, a'n't

you? You're the first live man I've seen since I got up."

So saying, he vanished, and reappearing in a moment with a huge brass

key, entered the arch, unlocked the gate which closed the aperture

fronting the east like the cover of a porthole, and sent it with a heavy

push wide open.

Wading through the flood of sunlight which poured into the

passage-way----But stop! I was about,--who knows?--in imitation of

divers admired models, to tell the reader in choicest poetic diction how

the City of the Dead, with its magnificent streets, shining palaces, and

lofty monuments, burst upon my dazzled vision,--how I walked for half a

mile along a spacious avenue, beneath an arcade of giant elms hung with

wreaths of mist and vocal with singing, feathery fruit,--past marble

tombs whose yards were filled with bright and fragrant flowers,--

among waving grassy knolls spread with the silver nets of spiders and

sparkling dew,--through vales of cool twilight and ravines of sombre

dusk,--and so on for more than a page, until finally, step by step,

through laboriously elegant sentences, I worked my way up to the top

of a lofty hill, the view from which to be graphically described as a

picture and a poem dissolved together into mingled glory and mirage, and

inundating with a billowy sea of beauty the landscape below;--and then

further depicting to the delighted fancy of the reader, how on one

side was a most remarkable river,--such as was never heard of before,

probably,--in fact, a web of water framed between the hills, its rushing

warp-currents, as it rolled along, woven by smoking steam-shuttles with

a woof of foam,--how, at the entrance of a bay, flocks of snowy sails,

with black, shining beaks, and sleek, unruffled plumage, were swimming

out to sea,--how another river, not quite so unique as the last, was

also in sight, coiling among emerald steeps and crags and precipices

and forest,--while beyond, green woodlands, checkered fields, groves,

orchards, villages, hills, farms, and villas, all glowed in an

exceedingly charming manner in the morning sun;--and then, still

further, to say something as brilliant as possible about a certain

city, designated as the Great Metropolis,--how it resembled, perhaps,

a Cyclopean type-form, with blocks of buildings for letters, domes,

turrets, and towers for punctuation-points, church-spires for

interrogation and exclamation marks, and squares and avenues for

division-spaces between the paragraphs, set up and leaded with

streets into a vast editorial page of original matter on Commerce and

Manufactures, rolled every morning with the ink of toil, and printing

before night an edition of results circulated to the remotest quarters

of the globe. And the tall chimneys yonder were to be called--let me

see--oh, the smoking cathedral-towers of the Holy Catholic Church of

Labor, islanding the air with clouds of incense more grateful to the

Deity than the fume of priest-swung censers. All this, and much more of

a similar nature, including an eloquent address to the ocean hard by,

it is possible I was about to say. But, unwilling to smother the reader

beneath a mountain of rhetorical flowers,--which accident might happen,

should I resolve to be "equal to the occasion,"--I shall contain myself,

and state, in the way of a curt preface, in plain prose, and directly to

the point, that I entered a remarkably large and populous cemetery,

no matter where, very early one morning,--in fact, you have the

gate-keeper's word for it that I was the first person there,--that I

climbed to the summit of a high hill and enjoyed the view of a beautiful

landscape, just after sunrise; and with this finally said and done, let

us proceed.

As I stood listening to the music of the sea-breeze in the pine-forests

below, and watching the ships sinking into the ocean from view or

dropping through the sky into sight at the rim of the horizon, and the

clouds changing their picturesque sunrise-dress for a uniform of sober

white, forming into rank and file, marching and countermarching, sending

off scouts into the far distance and foraging-parties to scour the

yellow fields of air, pitching their tents and placing sentinels on

guard around the camp,--amusing myself with fashioning quaint, arabesque

fancies,--a sort of intellectual whittling-habit I have when idle,--I

was roused from my reverie by the creaking of an iron gate.

Descending a few steps into a cluster of trees, I saw through their

leafy lattice-work, in an inclosure ornamented with rose-bushes and

other flowering shrubs, a young woman, richly dressed in black, kneeling

by the side of a new-made grave. The mound, evidently covering a

full-grown person, was nicely laid at the top with carefully cut sods,

the dark edges of which projected a little over the lighter-colored

gravel that sloped gradually down to the greensward. I was not long in

becoming satisfied that the person I saw was a young widow at the grave

of her husband, now three or four weeks dead, hither on her accustomed

morning visit to display her love and affection for his memory.

Bowing her head, for a few moments she gave way to sobs and weeping, and

then, removing the cover from a little willow basket, which stood by her

side, she took from it handfuls of bright flowers, and began to adorn

the table of sods upon the top of the mound.

As I regard her thus employed, weaving the tokens of her affection into

garlands, chaplets, and fanciful devices, arranging their symbolic

characters into interpretable monograms and hieroglyphs, matching their

colors and blending their hues and shades with the skill of an artist,

she becomes more and more absorbed in her work, the tears disappear from

her eyes, and the morning light flushes her pale and beautiful face. Is

she thinking now, I wonder, of the dead husband, or of something else?

What has she found among the flowers so consoling? Do they suggest

pleasant fancies, or recall the memories of happy days? Have they,

perhaps, a double meaning,--souvenirs of felicity as well as symbols

of sorrow? Are they opiates obliterating actual suffering, or prophets

uttering hopeful predictions? Or is it none of these things, and does

she find her work pleasant only because duty makes its performance

cheerful labor? I cannot say _what_ it is, but _something_ has assuaged

her grief; for I see her smiling now, as she holds a rosebud in her

fingers, and gazes at it abstractedly; and her thoughts and feelings,

whatever they may be, are indubitably not of a mournful character;--in

fact, I am sure that she never was happier in her life than she is at

this moment.

"Happy, do you say?"

Yes, I say happy.

The nature of woman, it is conceded by all men, is a curious,

interesting, and perplexing, if not, in respect of positive practical

results, a most unsatisfactory study. But nothing puzzles us so much

to comprehend as the fact just alluded to. The tenderest female

constitution will sustain a burden of grief which would crush a robust

and iron-nerved man, and drive him to despair and suicide. A woman

rarely succumbs to a calamity; however sudden and overwhelming the

initial shock may be, she revives and grows cheerful and happy under it

in a way and to a degree marvellous to behold. What singular secret is

there among the psychological mysteries of her nature which is able to

account for this phenomenon?--A gentle, timid girl of sixteen, whom the

sight of a spider or a live snake would have frightened into hysterics,

I had once an opportunity, on a tour through Italy, to observe, while

she took little or no notice of other works of art, would gaze, as if

fascinated, at the writhings of Laocoön and his sons in the folds and

fangs of the serpents, at the sculptured death of the Gladiator, and

even at the ghastly, repulsive pictures of martyrdoms and barbaric

mutilations and tortures,--the hideous monstrosities of a diseased and

degraded imagination found in the churches and convents of Rome, which

made others turn their backs with a shivering of the bones and a

creeping of the flesh. On expressing surprise at such a singular

exhibition of taste, I received this innocent, unpremeditated

reply:--"Why, I don't like them; the sight of them almost freezes my

blood; but--somehow I do like to look at them, _for I always feel better

after it_!" Now is there not involved in this artless answer a possible

explanation of the above-mentioned fact? Has not woman, hidden somewhere

among her other (of course angelic)--affections, a positive _love_ of

sickness, death, sorrow, and suffering, which man does not possess? Is

not the pain they cause, in her case, qualified by actual pleasure?

Do they not act as a stimulus upon her sensitive nervous system, and

produce, somehow, a _delightfully intoxicated state of the feelings_?

Would not this explain her otherwise unaccountable fondness for

witnessing the execution of murderers, for the horrible in novels

and the deaths and catastrophes in the newspapers, that she has a

constitutional relish for such horrid things, and that she enjoys them,

not because they are _in se_ productive of pleasure, but just, as is the

case with her "crying," _because she feels better after it_? And I think

it would be found, if an investigation of the subject were instituted,

that a foreknowledge of this inevitable result, derived from intuition

or experience, is the agent which breaks up the clouds of her sorrow:

so that, while the grief of a man stricken down by misfortune is an

equinoctial storm, dark and dismal, which lasts for weeks and months,

the grief of woman is a succession of refreshing April showers, each of

brief duration, and the spaces between them filled with sunshine and

rainbows.

But the sweets of that widow's present sorrow will be soon extracted.

How many weeks will she find it a pleasure to make morning visits here

and plait pretty flowers on the grave of her husband?--The grave in the

next inclosure furnishes an answer to the question. A few months ago,

it, too, was tended at sunrise by just such a tearful woman; but now the

wreaths of evergreen are yellow, and the weeds are springing up among

the withered garlands. The living partner has visited already the

"mitigated grief" department of the mourning store, and the severed

cords of her affections have been spliced and made almost as good as

new. Not that I would not have it so; not that I believe the grief of

woman to be less real and sincere than man's, though it _be_ enjoyed;

not that I would have her thrum a long mournful threnody on the

harpstrings of her heart, and waste on the dead, who need them not,

affections which, Heaven knows, the living need too much.

Retracing my steps, and descending the opposite slope of the hill, I

entered a beautiful vale covered with stately tombs and containing a

little lake, in the middle of which a fountain was springing high into

the air. In a spot so much frequented at a later hour of the day only a

single human being was in sight,--a young man, perhaps five-and-twenty

years of age, jauntily dressed, and his upper lip adorned with a long

moustache, who was leaning lazily upon a marble balustrade, and staring,

with a stupid, vacant look, at the massive monument it surrounded. As

nothing appeared at the moment more attractive to my eyes, I fixed them

upon him. No great skill in deciphering human character is required to

tell his past or foretell his future history, or even to read the few

poor spent thoughts that flicker in his brain. His father--some city

merchant--died last year, and left him a man of leisure, with a fortune

on his hands to spend in idleness and dissipation. This is the first

anniversary of the old gentleman's decease and departure to another and

better world, and the hopeful heir of his bank-stock and buildings has,

as a matter of etiquette, come out here from the city this morning to

pass an hour of solemn meditation--as he calls the sixty minutes in

which he does not smoke or swear--by the old man's grave. I observe him

every moment forming a firm resolution to fix his feeble thoughts upon

sober things and his latter end, and breaking it the second afterwards:

the effort is too much for the exhausted condition of his mind, and

results in a total failure. He is evidently well pleased that any

attention is directed towards him, and fancies that I regard him as a

very dutiful son, and his appearance here, so early in the morning

and long before breakfast, a remarkable example of posthumous filial

affection. To intensify, if possible, this sentiment in my breast, he

has just now pulled out a white cambric handkerchief and pretends to be

wiping tears from his eyes. Poor fellow! you have no natural talent for

the solemn parts in acting, or you would know that the expression

which your face now wears is not that of sorrow, solemnity, meekness,

gentleness, humility, or any other sober Christian grace or virtue. But

I leave you, for I see something more attractive now. Stand thy hour

out, young man! we shall meet again.

"In the other world?"

No: to-morrow evening, as I am taking my accustomed walk into the

country, I shall be wellnigh run over by a swiftly driven team; I shall

spring suddenly aside, when thou wilt pass, O bogus son of Jehu, with

thy dog-cart and two-forty span of bays, dashing down the road, thy

thoughts fixed on horse-flesh instead of eternity, and thy soul bounded,

north by thy cigar, east and west by the wheels thy vehicle, and south

by the dumb beasts that drag thee along.

But, not to introduce the reader to more solemn scenes of affliction and

sorrow which are witnessed here during the first vigil of the day, we

pass to a later hour. The mourners who come hither in the early morning

to decorate the graves of the recent dead, and to weep over them

undisturbed by visitors, have now departed. The sun is already high, the

dew has disappeared from the trees and the shrubs, and the paths and

walks and avenues begin to be thronged with loungers and sight-seers

from the city.

I had stopped at the forks of a lane and was hesitating which branch

to take and what to do with myself, when a tall and beautiful Willow,

standing upon a knoll a few rods distant, with thick drooping boughs

sweeping the ground on every side, beckoned to me. On approaching him,

he extended a branch, shook me cordially by the hand, and invited me

to accept the shelter and hospitality of his roof. The proposal so

generously made was at once accepted with profuse thanks, and, parting

the boughs, I entered the tent and threw myself upon the soft grass.

Do you ever talk with trees? It is a custom of mine, and I usually find

their conversation much more entertaining and profitable than that of

most men I know. "Good morning!" I say to an acquaintance. "Fine day,"

he replies; "how's business?" And so on for an hour, over themes of

every nature, the current of conversation rippled with trite truisms,

and whirling in the surface-eddies of Tupper's "Proverbial Philosophy."

But the tree takes the whole of the Tupperian philosophy for granted at

the start, and the truisms which most men utter, and takes _you_ for

granted likewise,--supposing neither half of your eyeballs blind,

and that you have a soul as well as a body,--and enters at once into

conversation upon the high table-land of science, reason, and poetry.

The entire talk of a fashionable tea-party, strained from its lees of

scandal, filtered through a sober reflection of the following morning,

is not equal in value to the quivering of a single leaf. A tree will

discourse with you upon botany, physiology, music, painting, philosophy,

and a dozen arts and sciences besides, none of which it simply chats

about, but all of which it _is_: and if you do not understand its

language and comprehend what it tells you about them, so much the worse

for you; it is not the fault of the tree.

I say, I talk with trees for this reason,--because their wisdom is so

much greater than that of my ordinary acquaintances,--and further,

(to put the major after the minor premise,) because they are virtually

living beings, endowed with instinct, feeling, reason, and display every

essential attribute of sentient creatures,--in fact, because they have

souls as well as men, only they are clothed in vegetable flesh.

"That is transcendental moonshine, and you don't believe a word of it!"

Well, my friend, allow me, then, to tell you, in all charity and with

bowels of compassion, that you hold dangerous and fatal views respecting

one of the cardinal doctrines of mythology,--yes, to be plain, you are a

Joveless infidel, and in fearful danger of being locked out of Elysium;

and I shall offer up a smoking sacrifice, the next time I get a sirloin,

and pour out a solemn libation, in the presence of my whole family

seated around the domestic altar early in the morning, for your speedy

conversion.

Know, then, O obtuse, faithless, and perverse skeptic, that these

things are so: that ocular and auricular evidence, indubitable and

overwhelming, exists, that the arboreal and human natures are in

substance one. Know that once on a time, as Daphne, the lovely daughter

of Peneus, was amusing herself with a bow and arrows in a forest of

Thessaly, she was surprised by a rude musician named Phoebus. Timid and

bashful, as most young ladies are, she turned and fled as fast as her

[Greek: skelae] could carry her. After running, closely pursued by the

eager Delphian, for several miles, and becoming very much fatigued, she

felt inclined to yield: but wishing to faint in a reputable manner, she

lifted up her hands and asked the gods to help her. Her call was heard

in a jiffy, and quicker than you could say, "Presto: change!" she was a

Laurel-tree, which Phoebus married on the spot. This was the Eve of the

Laurel family, so that all these trees you meet in the world at present

must be rational beings, since they are the descendants of the beautiful

Greek maiden Daphne. And to satisfy you that this is no foolish legend,

but, on the contrary, a well-authenticated fact, clinched and riveted

in the boiler-head of historical truth, permit me to assure you,--for I

have seen it myself,--that in the Villa Borghese, near Rome in Italy,

is an exact representation of the wonderful incident, cut in Carrara

marble,--the bark of the Laurel growing over the vanishing girl, and her

hands and fingers sprouting into branches and leaves,--supposed to

have been copied from a photograph taken on the spot,--for there is a

photograph in existence exactly like the marble statue.

We know positively--for we have an equally minute account of the

transaction--that the Cypress originated in a similar way. And is it

not reasonable to infer, therefore, though we may not find the facts

stated in _every_ case, that all trees were created out of men and

women, their bodies being miraculously clothed in woody tissue? In the

time of Virgil this was certainly the established orthodox belief; for

he relates an anecdote, expressing no doubt whatever of its truth, of a

party of travellers who commenced one day in a forest the indiscriminate

destruction of some young trees, when their roots forthwith began

to bleed, and voices proceeded from them, begging to be spared from

laceration. And, in fact, hundreds of instances, similarly weighty as

evidence, from equally veracious and trustworthy classic authors, might

be cited to the point, did time and space permit. But we hasten to the

other proof of their essential humanity, which I set out with assuming

as an undoubted fact, and which is already foreshadowed in the adventure

of the Trojan wanderers just related,--namely, that they possess the

faculty of speech.

Tasso, the author of a well-known metrical history, states distinctly,

as you shall see in half a moment, that a tree upon one occasion

discoursed with Major General Tancred,--

"Pur tragge alfin la spada e con gran forza

Percuote l' alta pianta. Oh, maraviglia!

----quasi di tomba, uscir ne sente

Un indistinto gemito dolente,

Che poi _distinto in voci_."

And then it goes on to tell the General how it once rejoiced in

extensive hoops, wore a coal-scuttle on its head, and rubbed its face

with prepared chalk,--(w-w-w-hy! what _was_ I saying? such a mistake! I

should say)--was a woman by the name of Clorinda, and is still animated

and sentient both in trunk and limbs, and that he will presently be

guilty of murder, if he continues to hack her with his sword.

The celebrated explorer, Sir John Mandeville, relates in the history

of his discoveries that he heard whole groves of trees talking _to one

another_. And when we come down to the present day, R.W. Emerson, of

Concord, asseverates that trees have conversed with him,--that they

speak Italian, English, German, Basque, Castilian, and several other

languages perfectly,--

"Mountain speech to Highlanders,

Ocean tongues to islanders,"--

and that he himself was on one occasion transformed into a Pine (_Pinus

rigida_) and talked quite a large volume of philosophy while in that

condition. Walter Whitman, Esq., author of "Leaves of Grass," relates

similar personal experience. Tennyson, (Alfred,) now the Laureate of

England, and upon whom the University of Oxford, a few years ago,

conferred the title of Doctor of Laws, gives us a long conversation he

once held with an Oak, reporting the exact words it said to him: they

are excellent English, and corroborate what I said above respecting the

wisdom of trees.

If all this evidence, and I might add much more equally conclusive, did

I think it necessary, does not, O skeptic, convince you of the humanity

of trees, why, let me say that you hold for true a hundred things not

based upon half so good testimony as this,--that I have seen juries

persuaded of facts, and bring in verdicts in accordance with them, not

nearly so well authenticated as these,--and that I have heard clergymen

preach sermons two hours long, constructed out of arguments which they

positively persisted you should regard as decisive, that were, to say

the least, no _better_ than those here advanced. And now, if these

things be so, in the words of the great Grecian, John P., _what are you

going to do about it_?

Trees, like animals, are righteously sacrificed only when required to

supply our wants. A man does not go out into the fields and mutilate or

destroy his horses and oxen: let him treat the oaks and the elms with

the same humanity. I would that enough of the old mythology to which I

have alluded, and which our fathers called religion, still lived among

us to awaken a virtuous indignation in our breasts when we witnessed the

wanton destruction of trees. I once remonstrated with a cruel wretch

whom I saw engaged in taking the life of some beautiful elms inhabiting

a piece of pasture-land. He replied, that in the hot days of summer the

cattle did nothing but lie under them and chew their cud, when they

should be at work feeding on the grass,--that his oxen did not get fat

fast enough, nor his cows give as much milk as they should give,--"and

so," said he, "I'm goin' to fix 'em,"--and down came every one of the

hospitable old trees. We are not half so humane in our conduct towards

the inferior races and tribes as the old Romans whom we calumniate with

the epithet of Pagans. The Roman Senate degraded one of its members for

putting to death a bird that had taken refuge in his bosom: would not

the Senate of the United States "look pretty," undertaking such a thing?

A complete Christian believes not only in the dogmas of the Bible, but

_also_ in the mythology, or religion of Nature, which teaches us, no

less than it taught our fathers, to regard wanton cruelty towards any

vegetable or animal creature which lives in the breath and smile of the

Creator, as a sin against Heaven.

Having in the above paragraph got into the parson's private preserve,

as I shall be liable anyhow to an action for trespass, I am tempted to

commit the additional transgression of poaching, and to give you a

few extracts from a _sermon_ a friend of mine once delivered. [It was

addressed to a small congregation of Monothelites in a village "out

West," just after the annual spring freshet, when half the inhabitants

of the place were down with the chills and fever. It was his maiden

effort,--he having just left the Seminary,--and did not "take" at

all, as he learned the next day, when Deacon Jenners (the pious

philanthropist of the place) called to tell him that his style of

preaching "would never do," that his thoughts were altogether of too

worldly a nature, and his language, decidedly unfit for the sacred

"desk." Besides,--though he would not assume the responsibility

of deciding that point before he had consulted with the Standing

Committee,--he did not think his sentiments exactly orthodox. My friend

was disgusted on the spot, and, being seized with a chill shortly

afterwards, concluded not to accept the "call," and, packing his

trunk, started in quest of a healthier locality and a more enlightened

congregation.]

"And here permit me to add a word or two for the purpose of correcting a

very prevalent error.

"Most men, I find, suppose that this earth belongs to them,--to the

human race alone. It does not,--no more than the United States belong to

Rhode Island. Human life is not a ten-thousand-millionth of the life on

the planet, nor the race of men more than an infinitesimal fraction of

the creatures which it nourishes. A swarm of summer flies on a field of

clover, or the grasshoppers in a patch of stubble, outnumber the men

that have lived since Adam. And yet we assume the dignity of lords and

masters of the globe! Is not this a flagrant delusion of self-conceit?

Let a pack of hungry wolves surround you here in the forest, and who is

master? Let a cloud of locusts descend upon a hundred square miles

of this territory, and what means do you possess to arrest their

ravages?...

"As a matter of _fact_, then, we do not own the world. And now let

me say, that, as a matter of _right_, we ought not: man was the last

created of creatures. When our race appeared on the earth, it had been

for millions of years in quiet, exclusive, undisputed possession of the

birds, beasts, fishes, and insects: it was _their_ world then, and we

were intruders and trespassers upon their domain....

"If, then, the other races have a right to exist on the planet as much

as we, what follows? Surely, that they have a right to their share and

proportion of the ground and its fruits, and the blessings of Heaven by

which life here is sustained: man has no right to expect a monopoly of

them. If we get a week of sunshine which supplies our wants, we have no

reason to complain of the succeeding week of rain which supplies the

wants of other races. If we raise a crop of wheat, and the insect

foragers take tithes of it, we have no right to find fault: a share of

it belongs to them. If you plant a field with corn, and the weeds spring

up also along with it, why do you complain? Have not the weeds as much

right there as the corn? If you encamp in one of the numberless swamps

which surround this settlement, and get assailed by countless millions

of robust mosquitoes, why do you rave and swear (as I know most of you

would do under such circumstances) and want to know 'what in the ----

mosquitoes were made for'? Why, to puncture the skin of blockheads and

blasphemers like you, and suck the last drop of blood from their veins.

Why, let me ask you, did you go out there? That place belonged to the

mosquitoes, not to you; and you knew you were trespassing upon their

land. The mosquitoes exist for themselves, and were created for the

enjoyment of their own mosquito-life. Why was _man_ created? The Bible

does not answer the question directly; the divines in the Catechism say,

'To glorify God.' Now I should like to know if a Westminster Catechism

of the mosquitoes would'nt make as good an answer for them?

"And here I am just in the act of annihilating with a logical stroke

a multitude of grumblers and croakers. If this world does not belong

exclusively to man, and the other races have as much right here as he,

and, consequently, a claim to their proportion of land, water, and sky,

and their share of food for the sustenance of life, what follows?

"A great many men, taking northeast storms, bleak winds,

thunder-showers, flies, mosquitoes, Canada thistles, hot sunshine, cold

snows, weeds, briers, thorns, wild beasts, snakes, alligators, and such

like things, which they don't happen to like, and putting them all

together, attempt to persuade you that this green earth is a complete

failure, a wreck and blasted ruin. Don't you believe that, for it's

wicked infidelity. I tell you the world is not all so bad as Indiana,

and especially that part of the State which you, unfortunately, inhabit.

I have seen, my friends, a large portion of the planet, and if there is

another spot anywhere quite so infernal as Wabashville, why, I solemnly

assure you I never found it.--And now for the point which shall prick

your conscience and penetrate your understanding! Do the bears and

wolves, the coons and foxes, the owls and wild-geese, find this region

unhealthy, and get the chills and fever, and go around grumbling and

cursing? Don't they find this climate especially salubrious and suited

exactly to their constitutions? Well, then, that's because they belong

here, _and you don't_. This region was never intended for the habitation

of man: it belongs exclusively to the wild beasts and the fowls of the

air, and you have no business here. [Manifest signs of disapprobation

on part of Deacon Taylor, an extensive owner of town-lots.] And if you

persist in remaining here, what moral right have you to complain of

God?...

"Remember, then, in conclusion, that, for millions of years before our

race existed, mosquitoes, weeds, briers, thorns, thistles, snow-storms,

and northeast winds prevailed upon this planet, and that during all this

time it was pronounced by the Deity himself to be '_very good_.' If,

then, the earth appears to be evil, is it not because 'thine eye is

evil'? We share this world, my friends, with other races, whose wants

are different from ours; and we are all of equal importance in the eyes

of our Maker, who distributes to each its share of blessings--man and

monster both alike--with impartial favor. Is not thus the fallacy of the

corruption of Nature exposed, and the lie against our Creator's wisdom,

love, and goodness dragged into noonday light?"

* * * * *

But it is time to recommence our rambles through the City of the Dead.

Right here I come across on a tombstone,--"All our children. Emma, aged

1 mo. 23 days. John, 3 years 5 days. Anna, aged 1 year 1 mo." As a

physiologist, I might make some very instructive comments upon this; but

I forbear.

And here, upon another, a few rods farther on, is an epitaph in verse:--

(FIRST VERSE.)

"Calm be her slumbers near kindred are sighing,

A husband deplores in deep anguish of heart,

Beneath the cold earth _unconsciously lying_,

No murmur can reach her, no tempest can start."

(SECOND VERSE.)

"Calm be her sleep as the silence of even

When hearts unto deep invocation give birth.

With a prayer she has _knelt at the portal of heaven_

And found the admission she hoped for on earth_."

Not to speak of the "poetry" just here, how charmingly consistent with

each other are the ideas contained in the passages I have italicized! In

the first verse, you observe, the inmate is sleeping unconscious beneath

the ground: in the second verse, she has ascended to heaven and

found admittance to mansions in the skies!--A similar confusion and

contradiction of ideas occur in most of the epitaphs I see. Does our

theology furnish us with no clear conception of the state of the soul

after death? The Catholic Church teaches that the spirit at death

descends into the interior of the earth to a place called Hades, where

it is detained until the day of judgment, when it is reunited with the

dust of the body, and ascends to a heaven in the sky. This doctrine

has the merit of being positive, clear, and comprehensible, and,

consequently, whenever expressed, it always means something exact and

well-defined. Has the Protestant Church equally definite notions on the

subject, or, in fact, any fixed opinions respecting it whatever? If not,

why, as a matter of good taste, for no weightier reason, in records

almost imperishable like these, leave the matter alone! Silence

is better than nonsense. Suppose a few thousand years hence our

civilization to have become extinct, and that some antiquary from the

antipodes should visit this desolate hill to excavate, like Layard at

Nineveh, for relics of the old Americans. Suppose, having collected a

ship-load of broken tombstones, he should forward them to the Polynesian

Museum, and set the _savans_ of the age at work deciphering their

inscriptions, what sense would be made out of these epitaphs? How would

they interpret our notions of a future state? Taking our own monuments,

cut with our own hands, inscribed with our own signs-manual, what would

they infer our system of religion to have been? If the Egyptians were as

vague and careless as we in this matter, our archaeologists must have

made some amusing blunders.

Here are two epitaphs which suggest something else:--

No. I.

"I loved him in his beauty,

A _mother_ boy while here,

I knew he was an angel bright

Formed for another sphere."

No. II.

"Farewell my wife and children dear

God calls you home to rest.

Still Angels _wisper_ in my ear

We'll meet in heavenly bliss."

I want to make two annotations upon these. In No. 1 you will notice that

a possessive _'s_ is wanting, and in No. 2 that the _h_ is omitted from

_whisper_. A marble-cutter told me once, that a Pennsylvania Dutchman

came to him one day to have an inscription cut upon a gravestone for his

daughter, whose name was Fanny. The father, upon learning that the price

of the inscription would be ten cents a letter, insisted that Fanny

should be spelt with one _n_, as he should thereby save a dime! The

marble-cutter, unable to overcome the obstinacy of the frugal Teuton,

and unwilling to set up such a monument of his ignorance of spelling,

compromised the matter by conforming to the current orthography, and

inserted the superfluous consonant for nothing. And my second annotation

shall consist of an inquiry: What is there in corrupt and diseased human

nature which makes persons prefer such execrable rhyme as that quoted

above, and that which I find upon two-thirds of the tombstones here, to

decent English prose, which one would suppose might have been produced

at a much less expenditure of intellectual effort? But since it is an

unquestionable fact that we are thus totally depraved in taste and

feeling, why don't some of our bards, to whom the Muse has not been

propitious in other departments of metrical composition, and who, to be

blunt, are good for nothing else, such as ----, or ----, and many

others you know, come out here among the marble-cutters and open an

_epitaph-shop_? Mournful stanzas might then be procured of every size

and pattern, composed with decent reverence for the rules of grammar,

respect for the feet and limbs of the linear members, and possibly some

regard for consistency in the ideas they might chance occasionally to

express. Genin the hatter, and Cockroach Lyon, each keeps a poet. Why

cannot the marble-cutters procure some of the Heliconian fraternity as

partners? Bards would thus serve the cause of education, benefit future

antiquaries, and earn more hard dimes ten times over than they do in

writing lines for the blank corners of newspapers and the waste spaces

between articles in magazines. I throw this hint out of the window of

the "Atlantic," in the fervent hope that it will be seen, picked up,

and pocketed by some reformer who is now out of business; and I would

earnestly urge such individual to agitate the question with all his

might, and wake up the community to the vital importance, by making use

of "poetic fire" and "inspired frenzy" now going to waste, or some other

instrumentality, of a reformation in epitaphic necrology.

Seriously, modern epitaphs are a burlesque upon religion, a caricature

of all things holy, divine, and beautiful, and an outrage upon the

common sense and culture of the community. A collection of comic

churchyard poetry might be made in this place which would eclipse the

productions of Mr. K.N. Pepper, and cause a greater "army of readers to

explode" than his "Noad to a Whealbarrer" or the "Grek Slaiv" has done.

* * * * *

During our rambles among the tombstones the sun has long since passed

the meridian, and the streets and avenues of the cemetery are crowded

with carriages and thronged with pedestrians, the tramping of horses'

feet, the rumbling of wheels, and the voices of men fill the air, and

the place which was so silent and deserted this morning is now as noisy

and bustling as the metropolis yonder. And soon begin to arrive thick

and fast the funeral trains. Many of the black-plumed hearses are

followed by only a single hired coach or omnibus, others by long trails

of splendid equipages. Upon the broad slope of a hill, whither the

greater number of the processions move, entirely destitute of trees

and flooded with sunshine, many thousand graves, mostly unmarked by

headstones, lie close together, resembling in appearance a corn-field

which has been permitted to run to grass unploughed. Standing upon an

elevated point near the summit, and looking down those acres of hillocks

to where the busy laborers are engaged in putting bodies into the

ground, covering them with earth, and rounding the soil over them, one

is perhaps struck for the first time with the full force, meaning,

and beauty of the language of Paul in his first letter to the

Corinthians:--"That which thou sowest is not that body which shall be,

but bare grain. It [the human body] is sown in corruption, is sown in

dishonor, is sown in weakness. It is sown a natural body; it is raised

[or springs up, to complete the figure] a spiritual body. Flesh

and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven."--I once heard a

distinguished botanist dispute the accuracy of this simile, inasmuch, he

said, as the seed, when it is sown in the ground, does not _die_, but in

fact then first begins to _live_ and to display the vital force which

was previously asleep in it; while the human body decays and is resolved

into its primitive gaseous, mineral, and vegetable elements, the

particles of which, disseminated everywhere, and transferred through

chemical affinities into other and new organisms, lose all traces of

their former connection.--In answer to such a finical criticism as this,

intended to invalidate the authority of the great Apostolic Theologian,

I replied, that Paul was not an inspired _botanist_,--in fact, that

he probably knew nothing whatever about botany as a science,--but an

inspired religious teacher, who employed the language of his people and

the measure of knowledge to which his age had attained, to expound to

his contemporaries the principles of his Master's religion. I am not

familiar with the nicer points of strict theological orthodoxy, but,

from modern sermons and commentaries, I should infer that few doctors

of even the most straitest school of divinity hold to the doctrine of

verbal inspiration. That the Prophets and Apostles were acquainted with

botany, chemistry, geology, or any other modern science, is a notion

as unfounded in truth as it is hostile and foreign to the object and

purpose of Revelation, which is strictly confined to religion and

ethics. Those persons, therefore, (and they are a numerous class,) who

resort to the Bible, assuming that it professes to be an inspired manual

of universal knowledge, and then, because they find in its figurative

Oriental phraseology, or in its metaphors and illustrations, some

inaccuracies of expression or misstatements of scientific facts, would

throw discredit upon the essential religious dogmas and doctrines which

it is its object to state and unfold, are, to say the least, extremely

disingenuous, if not deficient in understanding.

But a much more prolific source of injury to the character of the Bible

than that just mentioned is the injudicious and impertinent labors of

many who volunteer in its defence. "Oh, save me from my friends!" might

the Prophets and Apostles, each and all, too often exclaim of their

supporters.--It is said that all men are insane upon some point: so are

classes and communities. The popular monomania which at present prevails

among a class of persons whose zeal surpasses their prudence and

knowledge is a foolish fear and trembling lest the tendencies of science

should result in the overthrow of the Bible. They seem, somehow, to be

fully persuaded that the inspired word of God has no inherent power to

stand alone,--that it has fallen among thieves and robbers,--is being

pelted with fossil coprolites, suffocated with fire-mist and primitive

gases, or beaten over the head with the shank-bones of Silurian

monsters, and is bawling aloud for assistance. Therefore, not stopping

to dress, they dash out into the public notice without hat or coat, in

such unclothed intellectual condition as they happen to be in,--in their

shirt, or stark naked often,--and rush frantically to its aid.

The most melancholy case of this intellectual _delirium tremens_

that probably ever came under the notice of any reader is found in a

professed apology for the Scriptures, recently published, under

the pompous and bombastic title of "COSMOGONY, OR THE MYSTERIES OF

CREATION."--A volume of such puerile trash, such rubbish, twaddle,

balderdash, and crazy drivelling[A] as this, was never before vomited

from the press of any land, and beside it the "REVELATIONS" of Andrew

Jackson Davis, the "Poughkeepsie Seer," rises to the lofty grandeur of

the "Novum Organon,"--a sight that makes one who really respects the

Bible hang his head for shame.

[Footnote A: As the reader may never have seen this unique volume, and

will be amused by a specimen of its grammar, rhetoric, wisdom, and

learning, let him take a _morceau_ or two from the commencement of

a chapter entitled, "_Naturalists.--Their Classification of Man and

Beasts_."--"We look upon the animal in no different light from that of

a vegetable, a plant, or a rock-crystal, which forms under the Creative

hand, performs its part for the use of man, dissolves and reproduces by

its parts another comfort for him. The animal bears _no resemblance_ to

man, not even in his brain."--"One tree may bear apples, and another

acorns, but they are not to be compared, the one as bearing a relation

to the other, because they have each a body and limbs. They are distinct

trees, and one will always produce apples and the other acorns, as long

as they produce anything." (Indeed!)--"The usual classification of

animals, is that of Vertebrata, Articulata, Mollusca, and Radiata.

This is not only offensive to man,--_but is impiety towards God_."

(Why?)--"We are told by these naturalists that man belongs to the class

called 'Vertebrata.' So does the snake, the monkey, the lizard and

crocodile, and many other low and mean animals.--Have these creatures

the reasoning faculties of man? Do they walk erect like man? Have they

feet, hands, legs, arms, _hair upon their heads, or beards upon their

faces_? Do they speak languages and _congregate and worship at the

altar_?" (!!)--"Those who are ambitious of such relations, may plant

their heraldic coat-of-arms in the serpent, the lizard, the crocodile,

or the monkey, but we disclaim such relationship--we do not think it

_good taste or good morals_ to place the fair daughters of Eve on

a level with horrid and hideous animals, simply from some apparent

similarity, which we are certain never existed."]

The belligerent pundit who has flung in the face of peaceful geologists

this octavo _camouflet_ of his scientific lucubrations professes to

have scoured the surface and ravaged the bottom (in a suit of patent

sub-marine Scriptural armor) of a no less abysmal subject than the

cryptology of Genesis,--to have undermined with his sapping intellect

and blown up with his explosive wisdom the walled secrets of time and

eternity, carrying away with him in the shape of plunder a whole cargo

of the plans and purposes of the Omnipotent in the Creation. I have not

the least doubt, if he were respectfully approached and interrogated

upon the subject, he would answer with the greatest ease and accuracy

the famous question with which Dean Swift posed the theological tailor.

The man who can tell us all about the institution of the law of gravity,

how the inspired prophet thought and felt while writing his history, and

who knows everything respecting "affinity and attraction when they

were in Creation's womb," could not hesitate a moment to measure an

arch-angel for a pair of breeches.--But I was talking of _funerals_.

* * * * *

A friend once assured me that the heartiest laugh of which he was ever

guilty on a solemn occasion occurred at a funeral. A trusty Irish

servant, who had lived with him for many years, and for whom he had

great affection, died suddenly at his house. As he was attending the

funeral in the Catholic burial-place, and stood with his wife and

children listening to the service which the priest was reading, his

heart filled with grief and his eyes moist with tears, the inscription

on a gravestone just before him happened to attract his attention. It

was this_:--"Gloria in Excelsis Deo!_ Patrick Donahoe died July 12.

18--." Now the exclamation-point after _"Deo"_ and the statement of

the fact of Mr. D.'s demise following immediately thereafter made the

epitaph to read, "Glory to God in the highest! Patrick is dead." This,

which at another time would perhaps have caused no more than a smile,

struck him as irresistibly funny, and drove in a moment every trace

of sadness from his face and sorrow from his heart,--to give place to

violent emotions of another nature, which his utmost exertions could not

conceal.

["I beg your pardon! I've been afloat," was the graceful parenthetical

apology which a distinguished naval officer used to make, when by

mistake he let drop one of "those big words which lie at the bottom of

the best man's vocabulary," in conversation with sensitive persons whose

ears he feared it might offend. I ought possibly, at the end of the

following anecdote, to make some such excuse to the scrupulous reader,

whose notions of propriety it will perhaps slightly infringe: "I beg

your pardon! I couldn't help telling it."]