CHAPTER XVIII.

Ally and Rosey were to be married[3] in the little church, and, directly

after supper, we all went to the wedding. The seats had been removed

from the centre of the building, for, though duly consecrated to the use

of the saints, the sinners were to exercise their heels in it after the

ceremony was over. At its farther extremity, the carpenter's bench of

which I have spoken, elongated at both ends, and covered with a white

table cloth, was piled high with eatables; indicating that a time of

'great refreshment' was at hand. The bounteous supply of ham, chicken,

wild duck, roast pig, fish, hoecake, wheat bread, tea, coffee, milk, and

pumpkin and sweet-potato pies under which the bench groaned, showed that

some liberal hand had catered for the occasion.

Black Joe, dressed in his 'Sunday best,' was seated on the rustic settee

at the back of the desk, and Phyllis and Dinah occupied chairs inside

the low railing, which faced the pulpit. Phyllis looked careworn and

sad, but Ally's mother was as radiant as a brass kettle in a blaze of

light wood. She wore a white dress, stiffly starched and expanded by

immense hoops, and a crimped nightcap, whose broad border flapped about

like the wings of a crowing rooster; and she looked, for all the world,

like a black ghost in a winding sheet, escaped from below, and bound on

a 'good time generally.' Two 'shining lights,' on either side of the

pulpit, held aloft blazing torches of pine, which illuminated the sea of

grinning darkness, and sent up a smoke like that arising from the pit

which is said to be bottomless. About a hundred darkies were present;

and the number of glossy coats, fancy turbans, gaudy bonnets, red

shawls, and flaming dresses, which the light disclosed, was amazing. The

poor worm that grubbed in the earth, had appeared ('for that occasion

only') as a butterfly; and Lazarus, rid of his rags, had come forth

dressed like a Broadway dandy.

Any person of sensitive olfactories would have halted in the doorway;

but I elbowed through the woolly gathering, and followed Frank and Selma

to the family pew. Tittering, laughing, and flaunting their red and

yellow kerchiefs, the black people were enjoying themselves amazingly,

when 'Dar dey comes,' 'Dar'm de happy pussons,' went round the

assemblage, and the bride and groom, attended by two sable couples,

entered the building. After some ludicrous mistakes, they got 'into

position' in front of the railing, and Black Joe took a stand before

them.

Rosey was dressed in white, with a neat fillet of pink and blue ribbon

about her head; and Ally wore a black frock coat, with white vest, and

white cotton gloves. One of the groomsmen--a rustic beau from a

neighboring plantation--wore an immensely long-tailed blue coat with

brass buttons, a flaming red waistcoat, yellow woollen mittens, and a

neckerchief that looked like a secession flag hugging a lamp-post. Both

of these gentry had hats of stove-pipe pattern, very tall, and with

narrow brims; and--they wore them during the ceremony.

'Silence in de meetin',' cried Joe.

The boisterous sea of black wool subsided to a dead calm. Those not

already standing rose, and Joe commenced reading the marriage service of

the Episcopal Church.

The parties immediately interested appeared to have conned their lessons

well; for they made all the responses with great propriety; but some of

the congregation seemed less familiar with the service. When Joe

repeated the words, 'If any man kin show cause why dese folks should not

be lawfully jined togedder, leff him now speak, or else foreber hole

his peace,' Dinah turned to the audience, and cried out:

'Yas, jess leff him come out wid it _now_. I'd like ter see de man dat's

got onyting agin it.'

No one appeared to have 'onyting agin it,' and Joe proceeded to read the

words: 'I require and charge you, if either of you know any impediment,'

etc. In the midst of it a voice called out:

'Dar ain't no 'pedimen', Boss Joe; I knows dat. Gwo on, sar!' 'Dat's so,

brudder,' said another voice. 'Dat's de Lord's trufh,' echoed a third.

'Doan't be 'sturbin' de meetin'; de young folks want de 'splicin' done,'

cried a fourth; and 'Amen,' shouted a dozen.

'Shet up, all on you,' yelled Joe, turning on them with an imperious

gesture; 'ef you hain't no more manners dan dat, clar out.'

Silence soon ensued, and Joe went on without interruption to the place

where the minister asks the bride-groom: 'Wilt thou have this woman to

thy wedded wife?' Then Dinah, unable to contain herself longer, joyfully

exclaimed:

'Ob course he will--ony youn' feller'd be glad to hab _har_.'

[Never having gone through the ceremony herself, the poor woman could

not be expected to know what was appropriate to the occasion.]

No further interruption occurred, and soon the happy couple were 'bone

of one bone, and flesh of one flesh.' The assemblage still standing, Joe

then turned to Ally and Rosey, and, with a manner so solemn and

impressive that he seemed altogether a different person from the merry

darky who had entered so heartily into the 'high ole heel scrapin'' of

the morning; he spoke somewhat as follows:

'My chil'ren, love one anoder; bar wid one anoder; be faithful to one

anoder. You hab started on a long journey; many rough places am in de

road; many trubbles will spring up by de wayside; but gwo on hand an'

hand togedder; love one anoder; an' no matter what come onter you, you

will be happy--fur love will sweeten ebery sorrer, lighten ebery load,

make de sun shine in eben de bery cloudiest wedder. I knows it will, my

chil'ren, 'case I'se been ober de groun'. Ole Aggy an' I hab trabbled de

road. Hand in hand we hab gone ober de rocks; fru de mud; in de hot,

burnin' sand; ben out togedder in the cole, an' de rain, an' de storm,

fur nigh onter forty yar, but we hab clung to one anoder; we hab loved

one anoder; and fru eberyting, in de bery darkest days, de sun ob joy

an' peace hab broke fru de clouds, an' sent him blessed rays down inter

our hearts. We started jess like two young saplin's you's seed a growin'

side by side in de woods. At fust we seemed way 'part, fur de brambles,

an' de tick bushes, an' de ugly forns--dem war our bad ways--war atween

us; but love, like de sun, shone down on us, and we grow'd. We grow'd

till our heads got above de bushes; till dis little branch an' dat

little branch--dem war our holy feelin's--put out toward one anoder, an'

we come closer an' closer togedder. And dough we'm old trees now, an'

sometime de wind blow, an' de storm rage fru de tops, and freaten to

tear off de limbs, an' to pull up de bery roots, we'm growin' closer an'

closer, an' nearer an' nearer togedder ebery day. And soon de old tops

will meet; soon de ole branches, all cobered ober wid de gray moss, will

twine round one anoder; soon de two ole trunks will come togedder and

grow inter _one_ foreber--grow inter one up dar in de sky, whar de wind

neber'll blow, whar de storm neber'll beat; whar we shill blossom an'

bar fruit to de glory ob de Lord, an' in His heabenly kingdom foreber!

'Yas, my chil'ren, you hab started on a long journey, an' nuffin' will

git you fru it but _love_. Nuttin' will hole you up, nuffin' will keep

you faithful to one anoder, nuffin' will make you bar wid one anoder,

but love. None ob us kin lib widout it; but married folks want it most

ob all. Dey need it more dan de bread dey eat, de water dey drink, or de

air dey breafe. De worle couldn't gwo on widout it. De bery sun would

gwo out in de heabens but fur dat! An' shill I tell you why? You hab

heerd massa Robert talk 'bout de great law dat make de apple fall from

de tree, de rock sink in de water; dat bines our feet to de round 'arth

so we don't drop off as it gwo fru de air; dat holes de sun an' de stars

in dar 'pointed places, so dat, day after day, an' yar after yar, dough

dey'm trabblin' fasser dan de lightnin' eber went, dey'm right whar dey

should be. He call it 'traction, an' all de great men call it so; but

dat ain't de name! It am LOVE. It am GOD, fur GOD am love, an' love am

GOD, an' love bines de whole creashun togedder! An' shill I tell you how

it do it? Does you see dis hand? how I open de fingers; how I shet'm up;

how I rise de whole arm? Does you see dis foot, dat I does wid jess de

same? Does you see dis whole body, how I make it, in a twinklin', do

jess what I like? Now what am it dat make my hand move, an' my whole

'body turn round so sudden, dat I'se only to say: 'Do it,' an' it'm

done? Why, it am ME. It'm _me_, dat libs up yere in de brain, an' sends

my _will_ fru ebery part--fru ebery siner, an' ebery muscle, an' ebery

little jint, an' make'm all do jess what I like. Now man am made in de

image of GOD, an' dis pore, weak ole body am a small pattern ob de whole

creashun. Eberyting go on jess as _it_ do. Eberyting am held togedder,

an' moved 'bout, jess as _it_ am--but it'm GOD dat move it, not me! He

libs up dar in de sky--which am His brain--wid de stars fur His hands,

de planets fur His feet, an' de whole univarse fur His body; an' He

sends His will--which am love--fru ebery part ob de whole, an' moves it

'bout, an' make it do jess as He likes. So you see, it am my will sent

fru ebery muscle, an' ebery little siner, dat moves my body; so it am

_His_ will sent fru what de'stronomers an' de poets call de heabenly

ether, dat moves _His_ body--which am de 'arth, an' de sun, an' de

stars, an' you an' me, an' ebery libin' ting in all creashun! His will

move 'em all; AN' HIS WILL AM LOVE! An' don't you see dat you can't do

widout His love? Dat it am de bery breaf ob life? Dat, ef it war tooken

'way from you, fur jess one moment, you'd drop down, an' die, an' neber

come to life agin--no, not in dis worle, nor in any oder worle? It am

so, my chil'ren; an' de more you hab ob dat love, de happier you'll be;

de more you'll love one ander; de easier you'll gwo fru you' life--de

more joyfuller you'll meet you' deafh--de happier you'll be all fru de

long, long ages dat'm comin' in de great Yereafter! Den, O my chil'ren!

Love God, Love one anoder! You can't be happy widout you love GOD, an'

you can't love Him widout you love one anoder!'

When Joe had concluded, he saluted the bride in a manner that many

another sooty gentleman present would have been glad to imitate, and

then took a stand at the head of the supper table. An immense tureen,

filled with steaming oysters, was soon brought in and placed before him,

and looking up, he said grace, in which he thanked Him who feedeth the

ravens for putting it into his master's heart to feed His other black

creatures, the darkies present on that occasion. He asked for his master

many a happy 'Chrismus down yere,' and an eternal 'Chrismus in heaben,'

and he added: 'An' knowin' dat dou hatest long prayers, an' long faces,

an' dose folks dat gwo 'bout grumblin', as ef dy happy 'arth war nuffin'

but a graveyard; may we enjoy dis feast an' dis day as dy true

chil'ren--de chil'ren ob a good Fader, who am all joy an' all

gladness--an' while we'm eatin' an' drinkin' an' dancin', may we make

merry in our hearts to _Thee_. Amen.'

When he concluded, Preston stepped to his side, and taking the big

ladle from his hand, said:

'Stand aside, Joe, you have done work enough for to-night;' and turning

to 'we white folks' in the family pew, he added: 'If any man among you

would be master, let him now be the servant of all. Let him try his hand

at the waiter business, and see if he can't throw these shady people

into the _shade_.'

Selma, Frank, 'massa Joe,' and I went forward, and tying the negroes'

aprons about our waists, took appropriate places around the table.

'Now all of you find seats,' cried Preston; and amid a hurricane of

giggling and merry laughter, the black people seated themselves on the

floor, on the platform, and on the row of benches ranged along the

walls. Preston proceeded to fill up the bowls with the savory stew, and

we dispensed the eatables among them, and for half an hour I witnessed

as much enjoyment as often falls to the lot of black sinners in this

'vale of tears.'

'Now, ef dis doan't beat all,' exclaimed old Dinah, as I handed her a

huge chunk of gingerbread; 'ef 'ou ain't right smart at waitin', massa

Kirke, I'd like ter know it.'

'Keep dark, ole 'ooman,' shouted Black Joe; 'doan't you say nuffin'

'bout dat, or de traders'll be a hole ob him. He'd sell fur a right

likely hand, _shore_.'

'I woan't do nuffin' but keep dark, Boss Joe,' rejoined Dinah, grinning

till her face opened from ear to ear. 'I'll hab 'ou know, sar, dat none

but white ladies paints!'

'Good fur you, ole lady,' cried the preacher. 'After dat you'll gib me

de pleasure ob your hand in de fuss dance.'

'Ob course, I will, _mister_ Joe; an' ef 'ou'm tired ob de ole 'ooman,

I'll gib 'ou my han' in anoder dance.'

'No, you woan't, I doan't gwo fur second marridges,' rejoined Joe,

looking slyly at Preston; 'dey ain't made in heaben.'

'No more' dey ain't,' said the old woman, heaving a long sigh, and also

looking at Preston.

'You ain't a gwine to leff dese folks dance in de church, am you, Boss

Joe?' asked a prim, demure-looking darky, in a black suit, with a white

neckerchief and stiff shirt collar; probably some neighboring preacher.

'I reckon so,' replied Joe, dryly.

'An' _I_ reckons so, too, mister I scare-you-out (Iscariot),' cried the

old negress. 'Ain't de planets de Lord's feet, an' doant dey dance! I

reckons we ain't no better dan de Lord is; an' ef He mobes him feet,

'ou'd better mobe 'our'n. _We_ b'lieve in sarvin' HIM wid our han's an'

our feet, too; we does, mister I-scare-you-out.'

She did scare him out, for the 'pious gemman' left suddenly.

When about all of the eatables had found their way down the

cavernous--and ravenous--throats of the darkies, Boss Joe rose and

called out:

'Yere, you massa Joe, you pull off you' apern, an' take de big

fiddle--I'm 'gaged fur de fuss dance.'

Young Preston seated himself on the platform, and several sable

gentlemen with banjoes and fiddles took places beside him.

'Now all you men folks s'lect you' pardners,' cried the preacher, taking

Dinah by the hand, and leading her out to the middle of the floor.

They all paired off, the fiddles broke into a merry tune, and soon the

little church, which had so often echoed with the groans of the saints,

shook with the heels of the sinners. When the first dance was over, Boss

Joe again called out:

'Now, massa Joe, strike up de waltz--Dinah an' I am gwine to show dese

folks some highfalutin dancin'.'

The waltz struck up, and off they whirled; Dinah went into it as if she

were working for pay, and as Joe held her closely in his arms, her wide

hoops expanded till she looked like a topsail schooner scudding under

bare poles.

As Joe was wiping the perspiration from his face, at the end of the

waltz, an old negro entered, and whispered something in his ear. Joe's

countenance fell in an instant, and, without saying a word, he left the

room.

'Massa Joe,' relinquishing the big fiddle, then took the floor with

Rosey, and gave the audience a genuine breakdown. His heels bobbed

around like balls at a cricket match, and Rosey's petticoats fluttered

about like the contents of a clothes line caught out in a hurricane. A

better-looking couple were never seen in a ball room.

'He's a natural born darky,' said his father, laughing; 'he takes to

dancing as a duck takes to water.'

A general dance followed. In the midst of it the old negro who had

called Joe out, again came in, and making his way to where Preston and I

were standing, said, in a low tone:

'Massa Robert, Ole Jack am dyin'; will 'ou come?'

'Dying!' exclaimed Preston. 'Yes, I'll be there at once. Kirke, you

remember the old man--come with me.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This was the conjuror's bag of the Africans. It is called

'waiter,' or 'kunger,' by the Southern blacks, and is supposed to have

the power to charm away evil spirits, and to do all manner of

miraculously good things for its wearer. Those that I have seen are

harmless little affairs, consisting only of small pieces of rags sewed

up in coarse muslin.]

[Footnote 2: The name of the African god.]

[Footnote 3: Usually there is no marriage performed at the union of

slaves. They simply agree, tacitly or otherwise, to live together till

death or their master parts them.]

THE CAPTAIN OF '63 TO HIS MEN.

Come to the field, boys, come!

Come at the call of the stirring drum--

Come, boys, come!

Yonder's the foe to our country's fame,

Waiting to blot out her very name--

Where is the man that would see her shame?

Come, boys, come!

Form, my brave men, form!

Stand in good order to 'meet the storm'--

Form, men, form!

Sacred to us is our native land!

Shrivelled for aye be each traitor hand

Lifted to shatter so bright a band--

Form, men, form!

Charge, my soldiers, charge!

From the steep hill to the river's marge,

Charge! charge! charge!

Think of our wives and mothers dear;

Think of the hopes that have led us here;

Think of the hearts that will give us cheer--

Charge, boys, charge!

Die with me, boys, die!

There's a place for all in yon bannered sky,

If we die, boys, die!

Think of the names that are shining bright,

Written in letters of living light!

Rather than give up the sacred Right,

Let's die, boys, die!

THE VISION OF THE MONK GABRIEL.

'Tis the soft twilight. 'Round the shining fender,

Two at my feet and one upon my knee,

Dreamy-eyed Elsie, bright-lipped Isabel,

And thou, my golden-headed Raphael,

My fairy, small and slender,

Listen to what befel

Monk Gabriel,

In the old ages ripe with mystery--

Listen, my darlings, to the legend tender.

A bearded man, with grave, but gentle look--

His silence sweet with sounds

With which the simple-hearted Spring abounds:

Lowing of cattle from the abbey grounds,

Chirping of insect, and the building rook,

Mingled like murmurs of a dreaming shell;

Quaint tracery of bird and branch and brook

Flitting across the pages of his book,

Until the very words a freshness took--

Deep in his cell,

Sate the Monk Gabriel.

In his book he read

The words the Master to His dear ones said:

'A little while and ye

Shall see,

Shall gaze on Me;

A little while, again,

Ye shall not see Me then.'

_A little while!_

The monk looked up--a smile

Making his visage brilliant, liquid-eyed:

'O Thou, who gracious art

Unto the poor of heart,

O Blessed Christ!' he cried,

'Great is the misery

Of mine iniquity;

But would _I_ now might see,

Might feast on Thee!'

The blood, with sudden start,

Nigh rent his veins apart--

(O condescension of the Crucified!)

In all the brilliancy

Of His Humanity,

The Christ stood by his side!

Pure as the early lily was His skin,

His cheek out blushed the rose,

His lips, the glows

Of autumn sunset on eternal snows:

And His deep eyes within,

Such nameless beauties, wondrous glories dwelt,

The monk in speechless adoration knelt.

In each fair hand, in each fair foot, there shone

The peerless stars He took from Calvary:

Around His brows, in tenderest lucency,

The thorn-marks lingered, like the flush of dawn;

And from the opening in His side there rilled

A light, so dazzling, that the room was filled

With heaven: and transfigured in his place,

His very breathing stilled,

The friar held his robe before his face,

And heard the angels singing!

'Twas but a moment--then, upon the spell

Of this sweet Presence, lo! a something broke:

A something, trembling, in the belfry woke,

A shower of metal music flinging

O'er wold and moat, o'er park and lake and fell,

And, through the open windows of the cell,

In silver chimes came ringing.

It was the bell

Calling Monk Gabriel

Unto his daily task,

To feed the paupers at the abbey gate.

No respite did he ask,

Nor for a second summons idly wait;

But rose up, saying in his humble way:

'Fain would I stay,

O Lord! and feast alway

Upon the honeyed sweetness of Thy beauty--

But 'tis _Thy_ will, not mine, I must obey;

Help me to do my duty!'

The while the Vision smiled,

The monk went forth, light-hearted as a child.

An hour thence, his duty nobly done,

Back to his cell he came.

Unasked, unsought, lo! his reward was won!

Rafters and walls and floor were yet aflame

With all the matchless glory of that Sun,

And in the centre stood the Blessed One--

(Praised be His Holy Name!)

Who, for our sakes, our crosses made His own.

And bore our weight of shame!

Down on the threshold fell

Monk Gabriel,

His forehead pressed upon the floor of clay;

And, while in deep humility he lay,

Tears raining from his happy eyes away,

'Whence is this favor, Lord?' he strove to say.

The Vision only said,

Lifting its shining head:

'If thou hadst staid, O son! _I_ must have fled!'

PHILADELPHIA

THE CENTURY OF INVENTIONS.

CONTAINING A FEW COMMENTS ON THE WORK OF THAT NAME, PUBLISHED BY THE

MARQUIS OF WORCESTER, IN 1663.

There is nothing which the world dreads so much as an unpitying truth.

The history of ideas is that of men trying to persuade themselves that

special miracles of amiability are ever being worked, from the cradle to

the grave, in their favor. Of the tremendous inconsistency and

destructiveness which such miracles imply, they take no heed. The most

unpalatable fact in physics is that of the Struggle for Life.

Ideas once born may never die, but it is worth noting how many men must

die ere their ideas can live. The Indo-Germanic race has always been

blessed with many of those self-cursed martyrs, the Anticipators, or the

men who have outstripped their age. Like the advance guard of the summer

swallows, they have generally died by frosts and lived in fables.

Germany is very proud of her Berchthold Schwartz, and in her pride has

made a proverb declaring that his invention was the proof of supreme

wisdom. When they describe a fool, they say there that he did not

discover gunpowder. But 'the first handful of gunpowder' did not, as

Carlyle claims, drive Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling. Long

before Schwartz, lived Bacon; and a century or so before Bacon, there

were in existence Norman-Latin recipes, says Palsgrave--who had seen

them--_ad faciendum le craké_, for making firecrackers--at least, for

making gunpowder which would crack merrily when fired. Stained glass

windows, according to the cheap and easy explanations of those who used

to send us to natural scenery for every origin in architecture, were

suggested by beholding the winter sunset lines of the sky through the

bare gothic-window tracery of a leafless forest. Recent research finds

the stained window in the antique burning East, where no studies were

made by frost or forest light--nay, the leaves carved by

tradition-loving Gothic Free Masons in churches often keep a peculiar

Eastern form.

I am not, however, lecturing of Lost Arts in the strain which sings

'there is nothing new under the sun,' and which in a chilling manner

benumbs the faith in progress by shaking with a grin before the wearied

inventor some skeleton puppet of buried ages, which resembles his great

thought as a hut resembles a palace. On the contrary, I find in this

strange frequency of anticipation among Indo-Germanic races, and in its

premature failures, a vast proof of inventive vitality and of promise of

great rising truths into all future ages. 'Steam power is nothing new,'

say the advocates of the genius of the past. Hero of Alexandria invented

a steam toy--as he who can read his _Spiritalia_ published by the

Jesuits in 1693 may learn for himself. But the power now roaring and

whizzing all over the world, and which would build every pyramid and

every monument of Egypt now extant in twenty-four hours, is no toy. When

I think of this, there is no ingenious trifle for amusement which does

not inspire a droll awe. Possibly those walking dolls now performing

their weary pilgrimages on level glass-pane floors in Broadway

windows--gravely lifting those enormous gilded boots, which remind me of

Miss Kilmansegg and Queen Berta _à grands piés_, in one--have a good

reason for their dignity of gait. For may they not be golden-footed and

solemn, like her who rose from the waves of old to prophesy to her

son?--and if she was _silver_-footed, it makes no difference, for so are

some of the _autoperiper_--nay, _that_ word finishes me, and I go no

further. Such a block of Greek would bring even a German sentence down

with a crash to a verbless conclusion. What I would have said was, that

it may be that these dolls are heralds of greater dolls yet to come,

which shall be wound up to fetch and carry, to sew on buttons--nay, it

is even possible (in the wildest of dreams) that they may be made to

boil potatoes properly. And I have been told that a recent improvement

in boys' rocking horses, by means of which a trotting motion is given to

the legs of those docile animals, has suggested to a mechanic of this

city the construction of a very good automatic steed, whose only fault

is slowness. May I suggest that a very great improvement indeed may yet

be made on that horse, and that the two-forty of a coming generation may

be the result, not of oats and hay, but of steel springs and cylinders?

The first wooden horse burnt Troy--what will the last do?

I have been reminded of the strange tendency in man--but more especially

of the Indo-Germanic or Aryan man--to anticipate by invention the wants

of an age, sometimes centuries beforehand--by turning over that very

curious work, the 'Century of Inventions,' by the Marquis of Worcester,

in which, as in the commonplace book of an author, one may find jotted

down many an undeveloped idea of great promise. In this connection we

may be allowed to borrow somewhat from a biography by Charles F.

Partington, published in 1825.

Edward Lord Herbert, the sixth earl and second Marquis of Worcester, was

born at Ragland near Monmouth; and his family, long distinguished for

the most devoted loyalty, possessed the largest landed estate of any

then attached to the British court. What this was in those times is set

forth by the fact that in 1628 the father of the marquis had a revenue

of upward of twenty thousand pounds. In 1642, the year in which his son

was created marquis, the young heir raised, supported, and commanded an

army of 1,500 foot and near 500 horse soldiers.

He had a stormy life before him, this young marquis, with many more

scenes, adventures, and changes than are to be found in Woodstock and

Peveril of the Peak. How he fought well, recapturing Monmouth among

other things from the Puritan General Massey, how he was appointed, in

consequence of his daring cavaliering raids, by Charles II to negotiate

with the Irish Catholics; how the king often visited him at Ragland, is

all a fine story, well worth reading. We can get glimpses of that REGAL

life--as Mr. Partington admiringly small-caps his climax, from the 'list

of the Ragland household' with the earl's order of dining--castle gates

closed at eleven o'clock in the morning, the entry of the earl with a

grand escort, 'the retiral of the steward'--the advance of 'the

Comptroller, Mr. Holland, attended by _his_ staff'--'as did the sewer,

the daily waiters, and many gentlemen's sons, with estates from two to

seven hundred pounds a year, who were bred up in the castle, and my

lady's gentlemen of the chamber.' Therein, too, we see the rattling of

trenchers, and hear the gurgling of bottles, at the first table, of the

noble family, and such stray nobility as came there; at the second

table, of knights and honorables--at the second 'first table' in the

hall of 'Sir Ralph Blackstone, Steward; the Comptroller, the Master of

the Horse, the Master of the Fish Ponds, my Lord Herbert's Preceptor,'

and such gentlemen as were under degree of a knight--these all being

'plentifully served with wine.' Of the second table there is no note of

much wine, but it still had 'hot meats from my Lord's table,' and at it

sat the Sewer with gentlemen waiters and pages to the number of

twenty-four--and even now we are not yet come to the vulgar. For at the

_third_ table sat my Lord's Chief Auditor, his Purveyor of the Castle,

Keeper of the Records--Ushers of the Hall--Clerk--Closet Keeper--Master

of the Armory--and below these divers Masters of the Hounds--Twelve

Master Grooms of the Stables, Master Falconer--Keepers of the Red Deer

Park--and below these yet one hundred and fifty 'footmen, grooms, and

other menial servants.'

Bright gleams vanish--the stately dinner parties grow dim, Masters of

Horses and Hounds go to battle, the plate is melted down, and all is sad

and sere. The young lord is sent by King Charles abroad, and

Parliamentary Fairfax comes thundering at the gate, where admittance is

refused by the venerable old marquis. Fairfax besieges boldly and is

gallantly attacked by repeated sallies. I had rather the Puritans, with

whom all my head goes, and with it half my heart, had behaved better

than they did on this occasion. For after the venerable old marquis had

fought nobly and surrendered on honorable terms, I am sorry to say he

was most dishonorably treated, the conditions of capitulation being

disgracefully violated, and the old marquis put in close prison, where

he soon died in his eighty-fifth year.--Well, well--there was abundance

of such false faith and dark villany on both sides ere the war was over.

Be it remembered that these same nobles had kept the honor too closely

to themselves, and ridiculed it out of life quite too sharply in the

'base mechanicals' to fairly expect mastery in gentility from them. And

in these same Partingtonian Biographies, I am often inclined to suspect

that the lions do some of their own carving.

Puritans sequestered and smashed the estate right and left--lead sold

for six thousand pounds, woods cut down and sold for one hundred

thousand more. 'Pity!' do you say? Reader mine, there is enough land in

parks at this present day in broad England to feed that wretched one

eighth of her population who are now buried at public expense. That

dis-parking business was at any rate not badly done.

Little more is seen of the young lord through the war. In 1654 he is at

King Charles's court in France--is sent to London to procure supplies of

money for the king--is caught and Towered, where he rests for several

years, sorrowfully poor, if we may judge from a letter to Colonel

Copley, in which he declares that 'I am forced to begge, if you could

possible, eyther to helpe me with tenne pownds to this bearer, or to

make vse of the coache and to goe to Mr. Clerke, and if he could this

daye helpe me to fifty pownds then to paye yourself the five pownds I

owe you out of them.' A melancholy letter, after all that glittering

Arthur's-court splendor of first, second, and third tables of nobility,

Masters of Robes and Records--a letter in which there seems some trace

of getting money by 'projects' and 'bubbles'--whether of doing little

bills or by Notable Inventions, I will not say. Prison does not, it is

true, last forever, but its doors open on a scene of baseness blacker

than that which brought the brave old marquis with sorrow to his grave.

The tale is told in a paragraph:

'On the king's restoration, the Marquis of Worcester was one of the

first to congratulate his Majesty on the happy event, though the

situation of the unfortunate nobleman was little bettered by the

change; indeed it appeared but as the signal for new persecutions,

as one of the earliest public acts of the ungrateful monarch may be

characterized as an insidious attempt to set aside the claims of

his earliest and best friend.'

'Put not thy trust in princes.' To contrast this treatment of poor

Worcester with the fervent written promises of the ungrateful 'C. R.' or

Carolus Rex, might have shook the faith of Dr. Johnson in his beloved

'merry monarch.' The earlier letters of the king to the marquis, when

something was expected of the 'gallant cavalier,' and the latter had

'money to lend,' are painfully amusing:

OXFORD, _Feb. 12._ * * 'I am sensible of the dangers yu will

undergo, and ye greate trouble and expences you must be at, not

being able to assist yu who have already spente aboue a Million of

Crowns in my Service, neither can I saye more then I well remembr

to have spoke and written to you that allready words could not

expresse your merits nor my gratitude: and that next to my wife and

children I was most bound to take care of you, whereof I have

besides others, particularly assured yor Cosin Biron as a person

deare unto you. * * And rest assured, if God should crosse me wth

your miscarrying I will treate your Sonne as myne owne, and that

yw labour for a deare friende as well as a thankfull Master when

tyme shall afforde meanes to acknowledge how much I am

'Yor most assured real constant

and thankfull friend

'CHARLES R.'

There are other letters from Charles R., very little to his credit as

regards the keeping of promises, and likewise several strange papers of

the Worcester people, showing that they had their clouds and humors,

like other families. Of our marquis--the reader will readily pardon me

all that I have digressed to say of his early history--it must suffice

to tell that, after the Restoration, he appears as a poor inventor, and

that on the 3d April, 1663, a bill was brought into Parliament for

granting to him and his successors the whole of the profits that might

arise from the use of a water-raising engine, described in the last

article in the 'Century' of Inventions. The 'Century' itself had been

presented to the king and commons some months previously. This

invention, coupled with its penultimate and antepenultimate ninety-ninth

and ninety-eighth inventions, may indeed be justly considered as the

wonder of the 'Century,' since, when united with the sixty-eighth, they

appear, in Partington's opinion, to suggest all the data essential for

the construction of a modern steam engine. The injustice which he

encountered during life, seems to have followed Worcester for two

centuries after death; for Lord Orford declares that the bill granting

the marquis such advantages as his invention might give birth to, was

passed on a simple affirmation of the discovery that he (the marquis)

had made. 'His lordship's want of candour in this statement will be

apparent when it is known that there were no less than seven meetings of

committees on the subject, composed of some of the most learned men in

the house, who, after considerable amendments, finally passed it on the

12 May.'

It is touching to see the absolute, extreme, life-giving faith in the

merit of his invention which inspired the marquis--and in this strange

faith, like a prophecy, even more than in his invention itself,

considering the way in which he probably came by it, do we recognize

that Genius which rises here and there in the past history of the Aryan

races, and that so all-sidedly and confidingly as to seem miraculous. I

confess that when I look closely and deeply into the knowledge of Dante

and Lionardo da Vinci, of Fiar Bacon, and the Cavalier Marquis of

Worcester, an awe comes over me. All of them seem to have been so

great, some of their order so _unearthly_ great; and they held the keys

to so many mysteries, and to doors of science which were not unlocked

for long centuries after their death; and there was in all of them such

a strange sympathy and knowledge with the other great men as yet unborn,

who were to come after them, and for whom they seem to have labored, and

to whom they talked with the confidence of friends. I never pause before

a certain passage in Dante's 'Inferno,' without the feelings of one

standing before a great prophet--some marvellous earthly ancient of

days, who foresaw all to come:

'Di là fosti cotanto quant'io scesi:

Quando mi volsi, tu possasti 'l punto

Alqual si troggon d'ogni parte i pasi.'

'Thou wast on the other side so long as I

Descended; when I turned thou didst o'erpass

That point to which from every part is dragged

All heavy unbalance!'

It was well thought by Monti that, had this passage been noted by

Newton, it might have given him a better hint than the falling apple.

Perhaps it did, for Newton was no poet, and it is the poetic,

associative-minded men of genius who have always preceded the greatest,

strictly scientific minds, and far surpassed the latter in the

comprehensiveness of their views. Bear with me, ye men of Induction, for

I believe in the coming age, at whose threshold we even now stand, when

ye and the poets shall be one.

The Marquis of Worcester was not like the indifferentist philosopher, so

well set forth by Charles Woodruff Shields in his _Philosophia

Ultima_,[4] as one who would not invade, but only ignore the province of

revelation, regarding its mysteries as matters entirely too vague to be

taken into the slightest account in his exact science. For our good Lord

Herbert thought Heaven had a great deal to do with his inventions, as is

proved by his 'ejaculatory and extemporary Thanksgiving Prayer, when

first with his corporeal eyes he did see finished a perfect trial of his

Water-commanding Engine, delightful and useful to whomsoever hath in

recommendation either knowledge, profit, or pleasure.' And--never mind

the delay, reader--we will even look at that prayer, in which this world

and the next blend so strangely;

'Oh! infinitely omnipotent GOD! whose mercies are fathomless, and

whose knowledge is immense and inexhaustible; next to my creation

and redemption I render thee most humble thanks from the very

bottom of my heart and bowels, for thy vouchsafing me (the meanest

in understanding) an insight in soe great a secret of nature,

beneficent to all mankind, as this my water-commanding engine.

Suffer me not to be puffed up, O Lord, by the knowing of it, and

many more rare and unheard off, yea, unparalleled inventions,

tryals, and experiments. But humble my haughty heart, by the true

knowledge of myne owne ignorant, weake, and unworthy nature; proane

to all euill. O most merciful Father my creator, most

compassionatting Sonne my redeemers, and Holyest of Spiritts the

sanctifier, three diuine persons and one God, grant me a further

concurring grace with fortitude to take hould of thy goodnesse, to

the end that whatever I doe, unanimously and courageously to serve

my king and country, to disabuse, rectifie, and convert my

undeserved yet wilfully incredulous enemyes, to reimburse

thankfully my creditors, to reimmunerate my benefactors, to

reinhearten my distressed family, and with complacence to gratifie

my suffering and confiding friends, may, voyde of vanity or selfe

ends, be only directed to thy honour and glory everlastingly.

_Amen!_'

How this great invention faded and was forgotten till the days of Watt

and Fulton, is hardly worth surmising. It had been born and died long

before. Was it not in 1514 that Blasco de Garay set a steamboat afloat

on the Tagus? Sometimes, as in the case of John Fitch, it seems to have

grown spontaneously from the instinctive impulse to create, as Fichte

calls art. I have seen old men, who had known Fitch: their account of

his severely won improvements, and more recently his 'Life,' make me

believe that he owed nothing to precedent. But the marquis, I am sorry

to say, notwithstanding his prayer and his bold claim to originality,

cannot come off with so clear a record, so far as invention is

concerned. He certainly gave a good, plausible account of the discovery,

or it was given for him, and this went current for many years in books

of inventions. It was said that the marquis, while confined in the Tower

of London, was preparing some food in his apartment, and the cover of

the vessel, having been closely fitted, was, by the expansion of the

steam, suddenly forced off and driven up the chimney. 'This

circumstance, attracting his attention, led him to a train of thought,

which terminated in the completion of his 'water-commanding engine.''

_E ben trovato._ Unfortunately, within a few years, and since Partington

published the 'Century of Invention,' there was unearthed from the

gossiping letters of a gay French court-belle, who little dreamed what

ill service she was doing her gallant, and what good service to history,

a chance bit of trifling, as she probably deemed it, which sends the

marquis's story exploding up the chimney after the lid of his apocryphal

kettle. It seems that when the marquis was in France, he, in accordance

with the elegant and refined custom which prevailed there and in

England, as the reader may gather from Boswell's 'Johnson'--went with

this lady to visit the madmen confined in the public prison.

I have already digressed so widely in this article, that a sin more or

less, of the kind, need not be noted too severely. Reader, if you are

one of those who think that mankind do not progress in heart, what think

you of this pretty custom of the last century, according to which

gentlemen and ladies of the highest rank, 'persons of quality,' made up

parties to visit public madhouses, which, by the way, were common shows,

at one penny entrance fee, and where the young gentlemen poked the mad

people with sticks, and pelted them, shook their chains, and jeered

them, till they foamed and raved, and the young misses giggled and gave

pretty screams, and cried, 'Oh, fie!' and 'lor!' and then the visitors

all laughed together? Then Miss ----, a little bolder, hissed at the

lunatics herself, and poked them with a stick--and then there was a

fresh storm of tears and howls and blasphemy and obscenity; and the

keepers, rushing in with heavy cudgels, beat the 'patients' right and

left like cattle--and it was all 'so horrible!' _Bad_, think you? These

were the ladies and gentlemen of the old school--the Grandisons and

Chesterfields and their dames. At the present day there are still vulgar

people who haunt insane asylums and prisons, and scenes of domestic

affliction and courts, for the sake of gratifying a gross love of

excitement, which they disguise to themselves under various ingenious

pretences. But the tendency of the age is to discourage such meddling

and prying into the mysteries and miseries of humanity. It is low, it is

mean, and the better nurtured and higher minded leave it to boors--be

they of Peoria or the Fifth avenue.

Well, our marquis, then the first gentleman in Great Britain, one of

'the barons of England who fought for the crown,' when in France as

particular friend of His Majesty Charles II, went one day on such a

party of pleasure, and somewhat annoyed his pretty companion by

persisting in listening to the drivelling talk of a madman--one Solomon

de Caus--who, while he rattled his chains, talked of a great invention

he had made, whereby chariots were to go by steam, and weights be

raised, and all manner of brave work be effected, at small cost or labor

to man. And the marquis talked to the madman, and the lady laughed, and

the chains rattled, and the straw rustled, and--well, it _has_ been made

the subject of a very good picture--which you, reader, may have seen,

either in original or engraving.

I will not pretend to say how far what is known of the life of this

French inventor is reconcilable with this story of the madhouse. It is

certain that Solomon de Caus, a French engineer, architect, and author,

died about 1635, that he was born probably at Dieppe, and devoted

himself to mathematics. The marquis might have met him in a better place

than a bedlam, since in 1612 De Caus went to London, where he was

attached to the Prince of Wales, and afterward to Charles I. From 1614

to 1620 he lived in Heidelberg at the court of the Elector Frederic V,

and returned to France in 1624, where he received the title of royal

engineer and architect. More than this, he wrote books on mechanics, in

one of which, _Les Raysons des Forces Mouvantes_, he speaks of the

expansion and condensation of steam in a manner which has been supposed

to suggest the alternate action of the piston, the principle of the

steam engine, and, finally, 'the great discovery' of and to the Marquis

of Worcester. How far all this may be supposed to contradict the lady's

story, I will not say. Certain it is, that many a man who has done quite

as well in worldly honors, has, after all, come to misery and madness

through unfortunately making an invention.

Inventors have, on the whole, a little easier time of it in these

days--and yet not so very much easier, as the reader who has chanced,

like myself, to study law in an office where there are many 'patent

cases,' will bear witness. Eighteen hundred years ago, the inventor was

crucified--lest his malleable glass should injure Ephesian or other

silversmiths. During the middle ages, they burnt him alive. In the times

of Worcester he seldom escaped prison, for to be a 'projector' was a

charge which greatly aggravated that of treason; while in France, where

they managed these things better, according to the views of the day,

they simply cast him into a dungen among madmen. In America in the

nineteenth century he has indeed occasionally better luck, and yet in

most cases not so much better as most think. For, apart from the fact

that he must generally sell his invention to richer men endowed with

business faculty, who get nearly all the profits, and, not unfrequently,

by clapping their names to the project, all the credit, he must also

wage a weary, heart-breaking legal war on infringers of patents and

other thieves; so that by the time his time has expired, he has seldom

much to show for his brain-work.[5] 'Serves him right, he has no

business capacity,' cry the multitude. We need not look far for

examples. I am not sure that Eli Whitney, when he fell with his cotton

gin among the thieves of the South, did not fare quite as badly and

suffer quite as much as Solomon de Caus. For to be clapped fair and

square into a dungeon is at all events a plain martyrdom, with which one

can grapple philosophically or go mad _à discretion_, while to be only

half honored and nine-tenths plundered, dragged meanwhile through courts

and newspapers, may be better or worse, according to one's measure.

After all, the good old Roman plan of putting a man to death for

inventing malleable glass had its advantages--it was at least more

merciful from a Christian point of view, and would, at the present day,

save a vast amount of yards of Patent Law red tape.

_Artis et Naturæ proles_, 'the offspring of Nature and of Art.' Such is

the motto with which the Marquis of Worcester prefaced his 'Century of

the Names and Scantlings of such inventions as he could in the year 1663

call to mind,' and which he presented to Government in the bold hope

that by their purchase or other disposition he might even out-go the six

or seven hundred thousand pounds already sacrificed for the king, as he

asserts, but rather meaning, I imagine, that he might get some portion

of it back again. Let no one laugh at the character of many of these

'Scantlings.' Science was young then; thaumaturgy, or the working of

mere wonders, was still the elder sister of art; astrology might be

found in every street; alchemists still labored in lonely towers all

over England; and witches were still burned to the glory of GOD. The

'Mathematicall Magick, or the Wonders that may be performed by

Mechanicall Geometry'--now by chance open before me--by Bishop Wilkins,

the brother-in-law of Cromwell, with its disquisitions on 'Perpetuall

Motion,' 'Volant Automata,' and 'Perpetuall Lamps,' passed for sound

sense, and with it passed much occult nonsense of a darker dye. Manners

and morals were as yet badly organized. Gambling was a daily amusement

with all the gentry, and its imitators; for the Revolution, though it

had very promptly driven out of England the very little merriment and

cheerfulness which the Reformation had spared, had by no means taken

away vice, and to cheat at cards was a part of all play in the best

society--which it had not been in the olden time. Political plots were

still rife, and cipher alphabets, signals by knots and signs, deadly

secret weapons, and devices to escape prison were in daily demand, just

as patent apple-parers and ice-cream freezers are at the present day.

The marquis, who had lived well through his times, knew what would be

popular, and, though a man of honor as times went, and a pious

Christian, never dreamed that he did not play his part as a good citizen

in supplying such grotesque wants.

First among his Inventions is one which, revived in modern times, meets

the eye of every one daily on the face of every letter. As he designed

it, it was, however, very elaborate, embracing 'several sorts of seals,

some showing by screws, others by gauges, fastening or unfastening all

the marks at once: others by additional points and imaginary places,

proportionable to ordinary escutcheons and seals at arms, each way

palpably and punctually setting down (yet private from all others but

the owner, and by his assent) the day of the month, the day of the week,

the month of the year, the year of our Lord, the names of the witnesses,

and the individual place where anything was sealed, though in ten

thousand several places, together with the very number of lines

contained in a contract, whereby falsification may be discovered and

manifestly proved.' Upon these seals, too, one could keep accounts of

receipts and disbursements, from one farthing to millions, and, finally,

as a climax to their mystery, by their means any letter, 'though written

but in English, may be read and understood in eight several languages,

and in English itself, to clear contrary and different sense, unknown to

any but the correspondent, and not to be read or understood by him

neither, if opened before it arrive unto him.'

It is believed that the secret of these seals is simply this: a number

of movable metallic circles are made to slide within each other, on one

common centre, the whole being enclosed in an outer frame. Within these

circles may be placed either movable types, or letters and figures may

be engraved on the circles themselves, and these, according to a key, of

which the corresponding parties must possess a duplicate. To fully

understand the secret of the composition of a sentence 'in eight several

languages,' we must have recourse to invention No. 32 of the 'Century,'

teaching 'how to compose an universal character, methodical and easily

to be written, yet intelligible in _any_ language .... distinguishing

the verbs from the nouns, the numbers, tenses, and cases, as properly

expressed in their own language as it was written in English.' Such a

system was composed by the Bishop Wilkins already referred to; Bacon

had busied himself with a 'pasigraphy' long before; Leibnitz, Dalgaru,

Frischius, Athanasius Kircher, Pére Besnier, and some twenty others have

done the same. The most practical solution of the problem seems to have

been that of John Joachim Becher, who in 1661 published a Latin folio,

which, apart from its main subject, is valuable from its observations on

grammar, and on the affinities existing between seven of the ancient and

modern tongues. With this he gives a Latin dictionary, in which every

word corresponds with one or more Arabic numerals. 'Every word is

assumed as distinctive, or denoting the same word in all languages; and

consequently nothing more is required than to compose a dictionary for

each, similar to that which he has given for the Latin.' Certain

determinate numbers being given for the declensions and conjugations,

and the cases, moods, tenses, and persons, the whole grammar becomes

extremely easy of acquisition. Let us suppose that a Frenchman wishes to

write to a German: _La guerre est un grand mal_--'War is a great evil.'

He seeks in his index _guerre_, and finds 13. The verb _etre_, 'to be,'

is 33. _Grand_, or 'great,' is 67; and _mal_, or 'evil,' is 68. The

sentence then reads:

13. 33. 67. 68.

The sentence might be understood by these four numbers, but the author

perfects it. _Guerre_, or 'war,' is the nominative case, and is

appropriately designated by the Arabic numeral 1. The third person,

singular, present tense, of the indicative mood of a verb, is

characterized by 15. _Grand_ and _mal_ being each in the nominative

case, also require the figure 1. He will therefore write:

13. 1 | 33. 15 | 67. 1 | 68.1

--the numbers being separated by a vertical dash, to avoid confusion.

The German, inverting the process, turns to _his_dictionary, and finds

_Der Krieg ist ein grosses Uebel_.

If the world were to be persuaded to adopt these dictionaries, and with

them some uniform oral system of counting, such as might be learned in a

day, who shall say in what conversation might result! Fancy an orator

counting '83.1--10.16--225.2'--interrupted by enthusiastic cries of

'2.30' and '11.45!' Fancy a lover breathing his tender passion in

'837.25--29.1,' and extracting a reluctant '12' from his adored. Fancy a

drunken Delaware Democrat--a SAULSBURY--flourishing a revolver, and

gurgling out '54.40' to the Sergeant-at-Arms in particular, and decency

in general, as a proof of his fitness to be regarded as a mate for his

Southern colleagues. Fancy Brignoli singing '1.2.3,' as he reminds us by

his good singing and wooden acting of a nightingale imprisoned in a

pump--

Or fancy the appearance of a page of Shakspeare or Homer thus

metamorphosed.

'He lisped in numbers for, the numbers came.'

It is something to the marquis's credit that he evidently, to judge from

the sixth article of his 'Century,' had discovered the telegraph, an

invention not much used in Europe until the commencement of the French

Revolution. It had indeed been understood in a rude form by the

ancients. 'Polybius describes a method of communication which was

invented by Cleoxenus, which answered both by day and night,' but that

of Worcester's is thought to have been far superior to anything known

before his time. The following paragraphs all indicate inventions

greatly in advance of his age:

'No. IX.--An engine portable in one's pocket, which may be carried

and fastened in the inside of the greatest ship, _tanquam aliud

agens_, and at any appointed minute, though a week after, either of

day or night, it shall irrecoverably sink that ship.'

A bombshell filled with gunpowder, a gunlock, and a small clock, have

been suggested as forming the components of this invention. I am

satisfied however, that several very dangerous detonating powders were

well known to the alchemists; and the condensed pocket size of the

machine described, would evidently require some such preparation.

'No. X.--A way from a mile off to dive and fasten a like engine to

any ship so as it may punctually work the same effect either for

time or execution.'

Precisely the same experiment has within a week of the time at which I

am now writing, been made at Washington, as it was by Mr. Fulton half a

century ago with his Torpedo-harpoon. If the marquis contemplated simply

human agency as the aid to apply his portable powder-machine, it must be

admitted that he had at least contemplated a more effective diving bell

than any known to modern times. Submarine transit was indeed a subject

to which he had devoted special study.

'No. XI.--How to prevent and safeguard any ship from such an

attempt by day or night.

'No. XII.--A way to make a ship not possible to be sunk, though

shot at an hundred times between wood and water by cannon, and

should she lose a whole plank, yet, in half an hour's time, should

be made to sail as fit as before.'

It is thought that a great number of airtight compartments was the

secret here hinted at; but the spirit of positive confidence with which

the marquis speaks, and the great number of successful shots which he

defies, seems to hint at something like the Ericsson Monitor of these

days. Not without interest is the following:

'No. XIII--How to make such false decks as in a moment should kill

and take prisoners as many as should board the ship, without

blowing the real decks up, or destroying them from being reducible;

and in a quarter of an hour's time should recover their former

shape, and to be made fit for any employment, _without discovering

the secret_.'

The words italicized set forth the startling marvel of the whole. It is

said that a false deck of thick plank may be easily blown into the air,

when a number of small iron boxes, open at the top, and filled with

gunpowder, are placed beneath. How this could be done and yet kept

secret is indeed a wonder, and we must therefore conjecture that the

marquis had some other device in his mind. Certain it is, that the idea

of converting vessels into traps of destruction, or of so defending them

as to destroy assailants after boarding the decks, has not been very

extensively developed.

'No. XVI.--How to make a sea castle or a fortification _cannon

proof_, capable of a thousand men, yet sailable at pleasure to

defend a passage, or in an hour's time to divide itself into three

ships, as fit and trimmed to sail as before; and even whilst it is

a fort or castle, they shall be unanimously steered, and

effectually be driven by an indifferent strong wind.'

It is to be regretted that Parliamentary or other inducements were not

employed to obtain from the marquis, at least the publication of his

views as regards making vessels cannon proof. From the general character

of his inventions, and from comparison of them, it appears he had full

faith in cannon-proof floating batteries as a means of defence, and, we

may consequently and justly infer, as superior to the latter. Among his

inventions there are but two in reference to 'fortifications,' and both

of these are after a manner a transfer of the floating battery to land,

or an application of the principle of mobile defences. These are as

follows:

'No. XXIX.--A portable fortification, able to contain five hundred

fighting men, and yet, in six hours' time, may be set up and made

cannon proof, upon the side of a river or pass, with cannon mounted

upon it, and as complete as a regular fortification, with halfmoons

and counterscarps.

'No. XXX.--A way in one night's time to raise a bulwark, twenty or

thirty foot high, cannon proof, and cannon mounted upon it; with

men to overlook, command, and batter a town, for though it (the

bulwark) contain but four pieces, they shall be able to discharge

two hundred bullets each hour.'

There can be but little question, from all I have cited, that the

Marquis of Worcester was singularly in advance of his age as regarded

the great principles of warfare. We have found him thus far, in all

probability, acquainted with the construction of permutable seals, and

indeed of the grand principle of permutation applied to technology in

several respects (vide "Century" Nos. III, IV, V,) of the telegraph, of

sinking vessels by torpedoes, and, finally, of floating batteries and

cannon-proof vessels. In No. 30, we have, however, a hint that the

marquis had studied the principles of revolving firearms, when he

speaks of four cannon discharging two hundred bullets each hour. That he

had, theoretically, at least, anticipated Colt, appears from

'No. LVIII.--How to make a pistol discharge a dozen times with one

loading, and without so much as once new priming requisite, _or to

change it out of one hand into the other_, or stop one's horse.'

I call attention to the words which I have italicized. It is well known

that the mere principle of revolving barrels in firearms was already

old, even when Worcester wrote. I have seen guns of the kind over three

hundred years old, and they are not uncommon in foreign museums. But it

would appear that the marquis was acquainted with the principle of the

self-cocking pistol. How else could he propose to discharge a gun a

dozen times, without changing it from one hand to another? And this, I

believe, was not known before his day. But how this could have been

conveniently carried out, without some application of detonating powders

in place of flint, steel, and gunpowder, I do not understand. That he

was very probably familiar with the application of such chemical

detonating agents has already been suggested. In another number, he

suggests the application of this principle to 'carbines.' So in No.

LXII, he proposes 'a way for a harquebuss, a crock, or ship musket, six

upon a carriage, shooting with such expedition as, without danger, one

may charge, level, and discharge them sixty times in a minute of an

hour, two or three together.' To which he adds the following:

'No. LXIV.--A seventh, tried and approved before the late king (of

ever blessed memory), and an hundred lords and commons, in a cannon

of eight inches and half a quarter, to shoot bullets of sixty-four

pounds weight, and twenty-four pounds of powder, twenty times in

six minutes; so clear from danger, that after all were discharged,

a pound of butter did not melt, being laid upon the cannon britch,

nor the green oil discoloured that was first anointed and used

between the barrel thereof, and the engine having never in it, nor

within six foot, but one charge at a time.'

Several improvements of this kind are suggested in the 'Century,' which

evidently involve different principles from that of the modern revolver,

in reference to which difference we are informed in a 'note by the

author,' that 'when I first gave my thoughts to make guns shoot often, I

thought there had been but one only exquisite way inventible; yet, by

several trials, and much charge, I have perfectly tried all of these.'

I cannot venture in a single article to exhaust the suggestions in the

Century, and must refer my reader to the volume himself, assuring him

that he will there find many curious hints, several of which have, since

its publication, been very practically realized. It is worth noting,

however, that the author seems to have fully anticipated a very

remarkable modern invention, in declaring that 'a woman even may with

her delicate hand, vary the ways of coming to open a lock ten millions

of times, beyond the knowledge of the smith that made it, or of me who

invented it.' From this, as I have already suggested, it appears that he

had, far in advance of his age, mastered a very great principle in

mechanics; and as he appears to have understood, in theory at least,

several others, it is no more than justice to rank him far above those

mere charlatans of science, and hunters for marvels by means of

isolated observation and experiment, with whom many would place him.

That the 'Century' contains much which would be very discreditable to

any man of science at the present day, is very true. Perpetual motion,

perfect aerostation, devices for idle tricks and mere thaumaturgy,

appear in company with schemes to take unfair advantages at card

playing, and for the construction of false dice boxes--of which latter

it is indignantly observed by honest Partington, that, there are few who

profess the science of cheating at cards or dice, or to be encouragers

of those who do; and it may fairly be conceded that there are not two

periods in our regal annals, in which this detestable meanness had

become fashionable enough to sanction a nobleman in inscribing to a king

and his parliament a method by which it might be advantageously

effected! We may, however, believe that a second period has at the

present dawned over England, not much inferior as regards 'detestable

meanness,' to that of Charles the Second. A recent transaction has shown

that noblemen and their friends in the year 1862, are not above

ascertaining from Johnson's Dictionary, the obsolete spelling of a word,

such as _rain_-deer, betting a hundred pounds with an American as to its

true orthography, and agreeing with him to abide by Johnson's authority;

a piece of swindling quite as detestable in its meanness as the using of

loaded dice. Neither can I see that the conduct of a majority of the

British people, in fomenting Abolition for many years, and then giving

her aid and countenance to our Southern rebels, on the flimsy, and, at

best, brazenly selfish plea of the Morrill Tariff, is less detestable or

less mean. We may regret to see a vice in individuals tolerated in high

places; but when the blackest inconsistency, and the most contemptible

avarice are elevated by a Christian nation into principles of conduct

toward another nation struggling to free the oppressed, we may well

doubt whether another period has not approached in England, over which

the future historiographer may not sigh as deeply as over that of

Charles the Second.

I attach no serious value to the efforts of the Marquis of Worcester,

save as illustrating the principle with which I prefaced this article:

that according to the mental peculiarities of the most vigorous of

races--the Indo-Germanic above others--there is a tendency in certain

active minds to generalize and draw practical conclusions, not

unfrequently centuries in advance of the wants of their age. The partial

and premature forcing of these principles into practice, is sometimes

quoted in after years as derogatory to the merit due to modern

inventors, and as illustrating to a degree never contemplated by him who

uttered it, the maxim that there's 'nothing new under the sun.'

_Nothing?_ Why, _everything_ is new under the sun when it first assumes

fit time and place. Were this not true, we might as well return to

'Nature's Centenary of Inventions,' as set forth by a pleasant pen in

_Household Words_:

'Before the first clumsy sail was hoisted by a savage hand, the

little Portuguese man-of-war, that frailest and most graceful

nautilus boat, had skimmed over the seas with all its feathery

sails set in the pleasant breeze; and before the great British

Admiralty marked its anchors with the Broad Arrow, mussels and

pinna had been accustomed to anchor themselves by flukes to the

full as effective as the iron one in the Government dockyards. The

duck used oars before we did; and rudders were known by every fish

with a tail, countless ages before human pilots handled tillers;

the floats on the fishermen's nets were pre-figured in the bladders

on the sea weed; the glowworm and firefly held up their

light-houses before pharas or beacon-tower guided the wanderer

among men; and, as long before Phipps brought over the diving bell

to this country as the creation, spiders were making and using

airpumps to descend into the deep. Our bones were moved by tendons

and muscles long before chains and cords were made to pull heavy

weights from place to place. Nay, until quite lately--leaving these

discoveries to themselves--we took no heed of the pattern set us

in the backbone, with the arching ribs springing from it, to

construct the large cylinder which we often see now attaching all

the rest of a set of works. This has been a very modern discovery;

but, prior even to the first man, Nature had cast such a cylinder

in every ribbed and vertebrate animal she had made. The cord of

plaited iron, too, now used to drag machinery up inclined planes,

was typified in the backbone of the eels and snakes in Eden;

tubular bridges and hollow columns had been in use since the first

bird with hollow bones flew through the wood, or the first reed

waved in the wind. Strange that the principle of the Menai Straits'

railway bridge, and of the iron pillars in the Crystal Palace,

existed is the Arkite dove, and in the bulrushes that grew round

the cradle of Moses! Our railway tunnels are wonderful works of

science, but the mole tunnelled with its foot, and the pholas with

one end of its shell, before our navvies handled pick or spade upon

the heights of the iron roads: worms were prior to gimlets,

ant-lions were the first funnel makers, a beaver showed men how to

make the milldams, and the pendulous nests of certain birds swung

gently in the air before the keen wit of even the most loving

mother laid her nursling in a rocking cradle. The carpenter of

olden time lost many useful hours in studying how to make the

ball-and-socket joint which he bore about with him in his own hips

and shoulders; the universal joint, which filled all men with

wonder when first discovered, he had in his wrist; in the jaws of

all flesh-eating animals his huge one-hinge joint; in the

graminivora and herbivora the joint of free motion; for grinding

millstones were set up in our molars and in the gizzards of birds

before the Egyptian women ground their corn between two stones; and

the crushing teeth of the hyena make the best models we know of for

hammers to break stones on the road. The tongue of certain shell

fish--of the limpet, for instance--is full of siliceous spines

which serve as rasp and drill; and knives and scissors were carried

about in the mandibles and beaks of primeval bees and parrots.

Yes, they were all there--and if the undeveloped germ may be taken for

the great fruit-bearing tree, there is nothing new under the sun, labor

and effort are of no avail, and it is not worth while for man to live

threescore years and ten, since a much less time would suffice to show

his utter worthlessness. But the bee and the wild bird, the pearly

nautilus driving before the fresh breeze, and the reed waving in the

wind, should teach us a higher lesson. They teach us that life is

beautiful and to be enjoyed, that infinite laws and infinite ingenuity

were not displayed to be called idle and vain, and that, as the insect

works according to his instinct, man should labor, from the dictates of

reason, with heart and soul to do his best to turn to higher advantage

the innumerable advantages afforded him.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: _Philosophia Ultima_, CHARLES WOODRUFF SHIELDS.

Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1861.]

[Footnote 5: One of the greatest inventors of this or of any age, and

one whom the world regards as 'successful,' is said to have advised an

ingenious friend, never in any case or under any circumstances to take

out a patent for an invention. He 'had been through the mill,' and knew

what it cost.]

THE LADY AND HER SLAVE.

A Tale.

LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO MY SISTERS IN THE SOUTH.

'Nor private grief nor malice holds my pen,

I owe but kindness to my fellow men.

And, South or North, wherever hearts of prayer

Their woes and weakness to our Father bear,

Wherever fruits of Christian love are found

In holy lives, to me is holy ground.'

--WHITTIER.

My young mistress! frown not on me! come! my heart is beating low!

Softly raise the quilt--my babe! Ah, smile on her ere I go!

Yes, the smile comes warm as sunshine, and it falls on my sick heart

As if Heaven were shining through it, and new hopes within me start.

Your clear eyes shine blue upon me through the clouds of sunny curls,

Sadder now, but still as kindly, as when we were little girls.

Your poor slave and you, fair mistress, were born in the same hour,

As if God himself had marked me from my birth to be your dower.

Oft have I laid my dusky hand upon your neck of snow,

To see it sparkle through the jet--how long that seems ago!

So long! before young master came to woo Virginia's daughter,

And tempt her to the cotton fields on Mississippi's water.

I could not leave you, mistress, so I followed to the swamp,

Where fevers fire the burning blood and the long moss hangs damp.

I left poor Sam, he loved me well, but you were my heart's god;

My mother's tears fell hot and fast--I followed where you trod.

Sin and sorrow fell upon me! and soon you felt it shame

To have lost Amy near you, and you blushed to hear her name.

Reared near virgin purity, you could not understand

How I could break from virtue's laws, and form a lawless band.

Then you questioned kindly, sternly,--but you could not make me tell;

I would not wring your trusting heart with tales scarce fit for hell!

You deemed me hardened, sunk in vice; I choked down every moan,

Turned from your breast the poisoned dart to bury in my own.

Driven from your presence, mistress, in agony and shame

I bore a wretched infant--she must never know her name!

How I crawled around your windows when your joyous boy was born,

To hear your voice, to catch a glimpse,--the sun rose fair that morn.

Ah! not mine to hold your darling! not mine to soothe his cries

When the stern death-angel seized him and bore him to the skies!

Then judgment came--the fever fell--young master gasped for breath--

God's hand was on him--vain were prayers,--how still he lay in death!

I heard you shriek--I rushed within--I held you in my arms

That frenzied night when sudden woe had wrought its worst of harms.

When reason dawned on you again, sweet pity stirred within,

You heard my cough, my labored breath, and saw me ghastly, thin.

Then you took my hand so kindly, gazing on my faded face:

'Speak, and tell me truly, Amy, how you fell in such disgrace.'

If he had lived, sweet mistress, I had borne it to the grave;

I would not mar your happiness, child, self or race to save.

Say! must I speak of one you loved now sleeping 'neath the sod?

Your 'yes' is bitter; but we owe the naked truth to God!

The truth to God, for guiltless you must stand before His face,

Nor wrong my pallid baby, nor scorn my suffering race.

Am I too bold? Death equals all--my heart beats faint and low;

Turn not away, sweet mistress, hear the truth before I go!

Gaze upon my shivering baby, scan the little pallid face,

Mark the forehead, eyes of azure--Ha! you do the likeness trace!

Nay, start not in horror from me! Oh, it was no fault of mine;

I would have died a thousand deaths ere wronged a thought of thine.

He came at midnight to my hut--abhorrent to my sense--

Force--threats of shame--foul violence--a slave has no defence!

Wronged--soiled--and outraged--sick at heart--what right had I to feel?

He deemed his chattel honored,--God! how brain and senses reel!

We're women, though our hair is crisped, and though our skin be black:

Men, ask your virgin daughters what's the maiden's deadliest rack!

I scorned myself! I hated him! but felt a living goad

Writhe and crawl beneath my bosom--shameful burden! sinful load!

Sick and faint, I loathed my master, loathed his inant, loathed my life

Till its flame burned dim within me, choked by shame, rage, hate, and strife.

Better feelings woke within me when the helpless girl was born;

Mother's love poured wild upon her: how love conquers rage and scorn!

But my tortured heart was broken, and a slave girl ought to die

When a tyrant master wrongs her, and she dreads her mistress' eye:

Dreads one she loves may read in her, in spite of silence deep,

That which would blight all happiness, and pale the rosy cheek:

Dreads that a wife may shuddering read a husband's naked heart--

Humbled and crushed by treachery, may into madness start.

But Amy dies: she has forgiven--forgive with her the wrong!

Smile on the helpless baby--make her truthful, pure, and strong.

Let her wait upon you, mistress; twine your ringlets golden still;

Take her back to old Virginia, to the homestead by the hill.

My heart clings to you with wild love--wherefore I scarce dare whisper--

Forgive--I am your father's child! pity your ruined sister!

The hot white blood in my baby's veins, though mixed with duskier flow,

Will make her wretched if a slave; let her in freedom go!

Oh make her free, sweet mistress, that such a fate as mine

Blanch not her cheek with agony, nor blast her ere her prime!

You smile--I need no promise; angel-like to me you seem;

Will you open heaven for me? bring the seraphs? how I dream!

I go to God. He made me. All His children, black and white,

Will meet in heaven if pure and true, clad in the eternal Light.

I die--God bless you, mistress!'... Sigh, and gasp--then all is o'er!

And the lady kneels beside a corpse upon the cabin floor.

Her thoughts are busy with the past, with love in falsehood spoken,

While her dusky sister's faithful heart had in silent anguish broken.

She takes the cold hand in her own: 'Poor Amy, can it be

That thou wert of a race accursed, unworthy to be free?

Man's falsehood! God! Thy right hand rests upon the dusky brow;

Thou starr'st it round with virtues brighter than our boasted snow!

I have learned a bitter lesson; to my slave I've been to school;

God has humbled me, but chastened; I will keep His Golden Rule.

Slaves and chattels! God forgive us! they are men and women--Thine!

If Christ may dwell within them, shall I dare to call them _mine_?

No woman must be outraged, nor owned by man, if we

Would hold _our_ sanctity intact--all women must be free.

Sacred from every touch profane, yes, holy things and pure;

A wrong to one is wrong to all; we must the weak secure.

United we must strike the shame; if known aright our power,

Slavery and crime would perish: Sisters, peal their final hour!

Mothers, maidens, wives, no longer aid your dusky sisters' shame!

Strike for our common womanhood, uphold our spotless fame!

Its majesty is in your hands, trail it not in the dust,

Nor keep your shrinking slaves as prey for lovers', husbands' lust!

All womanhood is holy! it shall not be profaned!

Our sanctity is threatened: Men! it shall not thus be stained!

Break up your harems! free our slaves! we will not share your shame!

O mothers of the living, chaste must be life's sacred flame!

Fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands, their chains must be untwined!

Touch not the ark where purity in woman's form is shrined!

Poor Amy! love has conquered! the veil is raised, I see

Sister spirits 'neath the dusky hue; thy people shall go free!'

The lady rose with high resolve upon her pale sad face;

And moved among the slave girls, the angel of their race.

Angel of freedom, charity, she breathes, and fetters melt,

And the holy might of Purity in Southern heart is felt.

Ah! the stars upon our banner, driven apart and dimmed with blood,

Might again in glory cluster through a perfect womanhood!

FOR AND AGAINST.

When his father called Fred Fontevrault, then a boy of fifteen, into his

sick chamber, and made him subscribe to the whimsical conditions of the

will, the female _gendarmerie_, so well versed in my affairs, declared

that my husband had wretchedly repented his early marriage, and

resolving his son should walk into fate with eyes unbandaged, forbade

his alliance before the age of twenty-six. Though Mr. Fontevrault was

fifty and I sixteen when I married him, he was not unhappy. He occupied

himself in looking after his money, and making a collection of mosaics.

We never had any matrimonial disturbances. I think they are vulgar. Any

woman can do as she pleases without a remonstrant word, provided she has

mind enough. It is the brainless women who scold. But scolds do not

rule.

Fred was unreasonably fond of his father, and assented to his wishes

without demur, even when the great Fontevrault estates hung on his

fidelity to a useless oath. Then he died, and I settled into the blank

stupidity of my widowhood. I, who had known no master but my own sweet

will, now found myself in a hundred ways restricted. I was ruled through

Fred. He must graduate at Harvard; the great establishment, splendid but

tedious, must be maintained. So our residence in Boston was

necessitated. I shut myself up in the legitimate manner, and--mourned of

course. If it had not been for novels, worsted work, and my beauty, I

should have gaped myself out of existence the first year. What nonsense

it is to say the prime of a woman's loveliness passes before the

thirties! For, look at me, am I old or faded? Would you believe that

Fred, so tall and splendidly developed, was my son? From me he took his

wealth of nature, for Mr. Fontevrault was one of those dried, wrinkled

old men, women like me often marry; not because of the settlements only,

but because of the foil. My figure was moulded like the Venus they

copied in the colder marble from Pauline. Shoulders and arms, delicious

in their curves, shining with a rosy fairness. A creamy skin, with a

faint coralline tinge in the cheeks. The forehead is too low, some say;

and yet artists have praised its bend, and the Greek line of the nose;

not intellectual, but womanly, you know. Hair of a bright brown, feeling

like floss silk. Eyes, I believe, few people ever fairly saw. Men are

bewitched by them, women cannot understand their charm. Perhaps you have

seen Wilson's portrait of me, the one with the grayish green background;

you notice that the eyes were turned from the spectator, and half shaded

by white lid and gilded lash. He could not catch the flitting spark that

made them mine, and refused to paint them at all. My son promises to be

as perfect in his way as I in mine. Just now a student, he is too

Raphael-angel-like to suit me; but the very fellow to bewilder girls and

set the boarding schools crazy. Luckily he is bound against inthralment.

By and by the house grew so lonely that I was fain to send for Leonora

to make durance less vile. It was positively refreshing to hear her

voice sing through the solemn old hall. Very warm was the welcome she

received from both Fred and me. He had often said she was the only woman

he could talk to without suppressing a yawn. It was ungallant of him,

but I could sympathize with the sentiment. Women usually weary me. I

told Leonora she must make up her mind to stay with me, as long as she

remained unmarried.

Fred, holding her hand, laughingly made her promise never to take a

husband without his consent. While I passed on, he drew her back; the

mirror above the door framed a picture prettier than I liked to see.

'There is but one man I will authorize you to marry,' said my son.

Then it suddenly flashed on my mind that Fred was of the age of Scott's

heroes, and would be sure to fall in love with a woman older than

himself. The love did not matter so much, but marriage would be an

absurdity. I expected to have a daughter-in-law some day or other; but

it was never to be Leonora. In a hundred ways she had resisted me, and

overcome me. I was as resolutely opposed to her, as if she had been my

enemy. She was a connection of the family, independent, yet in some sort

alone in the world. If it had been conferring a favor on her, to ask her

to stay with me, be sure I never would have uttered a persuasive word.

But it was asking her to leave gay society, and the incense of

admiration, to bury herself in a dull house. Then she was 'ornamental;'

I liked to see her about; she was satirical, and pleased me by a little

spicy abuse. They called her handsome. She _was_ too small, I think, too

slight, perhaps; and then her complexion was almost swarthy. But her

hair was fine, her eyes large and brilliant, and her mouth mobile and

sweet. The face was nothing to me; but her companionship was enlivening.

The young lady professed herself glad of a winter of exclusion, and when

I saw how she set herself at work with books and embroidery, I confess I

was astonished at her resignation. Then I saw her look at my son, and

perceived she did not find it so _very_ stupid after all. Slowly she

snarled him in her meshes.

One time my husband had a friendless youth for his secretary, called

Denis Christopher. His name attracted me before his person. Mr.

Fontevrault became so deeply interested in his character and talents,

that he used his extensive influence, and gave Mr. Christopher an

enviable lift over the world's rough places. Fontevrault was like a

grieved child when he left us. I was sorry, but concealed it. One of the

young man's agreeable privileges had been to attend me in public, thus

relieving Mr. Fontevrault. I assure you he was more knightly than his

master, whose stiff protection I never missed while under Launcelot's

tender care. I never fully admitted to myself the power I found in the

hitherto unknown fascination of a _young_ man's society; nor how much

pleasure I took in touching those hidden chords that only respond to a

woman's touch. That he adored me, I saw in his eyes. I liked it well,

and the strange, unwonted feeling that shivered through me, now, when by

chance my hand touched his.

Well--people began to talk, as people will, and Mr. Fontevrault sent him

to Malaga. He came to bid me good-by; 'forever,' he thought; ah me! It

was forever in one sense. Fred was a mere boy then, who heard and saw

everything. I had hard work to get him out of the house that morning. I

wanted Denis's last look all to myself. Before he left me, Christopher

offered me a bracelet of cornelians, cut rarely as seals. Each gem bore

an exquisite device. On one were a few words in Latin. When I was alone,

I pressed the seal on a drop of hot wax, and read his dedication.

All that was years ago; he is here again, and I am free. I sat before

the glass long the day I expected him, threading my brown hair, and

longing to wear his color--blue. But then the widow's cap suited me

divinely, and the folds of crape set off my peculiar tints as nothing

else can. I came before him; he started forward to seize both hands, and

gaze in my face, to find no change. Then he pressed his lips to my warm

white fingers. A new boldness became his, a new timidity mine.

Fresh from lessons of my own, I could read a change in Leonora, and

perceive mischief in the air. Her extreme quietness when my son entered

the apartment, the faint shade of shyness in his manner of addressing

her attracted me curiously. He began to linger in our haunts so long and

on such frivolous pretexts, that I began seriously to think what was to

be done with such a lovesick page. To oppose Fred would be worse than

useless. Opposition determined him. If I could have sent her away,

solitude would be my bane; for not one of the Fontevraults could I

endure. Then as I pondered, I laughed at the absurdity of the whole

thing. Not only was Leonora older than the student, a woman in society,

but she had been engaged (with that fact I resolved to frighten Fred),

nor would she wait five years for him to declare his passion. And his

flickering fancy the slightest breath of doubt would change: a nature

easily moulded by the inexorable. I resolved to let affairs take their

own course, and trust her common sense, and my own gentle diplomacy.

What memorable meetings had we four during those sharp winter days! I

lived as in an Arabian dream. There was Denis Christopher, with his

brown face and thrilling eyes; Fred lackadaisical, but handsome as

Antinous; Leonora, and I.

A very orderly company, but what hot feeling repressed, what romantic

possibility, what fates unfulfilled lay under the courteous

conventionality of the time! Fred leaned over Leonora at the piano.

Their voices sounded well together, and if he could not declare his

admiration of her, no doubt he conveyed it to her in some tender refrain

or serenade. Their blended, passionate voices often moved me in a

strange excitement, for I was not musical. I had no way of relieving

myself, as these singers and painters have, who crystallize an emotion

or a sorrow into a picture or a cadence. I can only gnaw the bedpost, or

tear up something, in the mere need of expression. Denis watched them

awhile, and then it became a trio instead of a duet. Mr. Christopher

brought Spanish music. Light, rippling airs, dances, whose strange

swaying rhythm had been borne to his ears in the Malaga nights.

My son grew jealous, therefore unreasonable. He would not play

subordinate, so left Leonora no choice but to lend herself gracefully to

Denis's companionship. These two were sure to misunderstand one another.

Fred was contradictory. With intense and variable feeling, he possessed

the traits of slower natures. A kind of natural prudence retarded him.

He puzzled Leonora. One moment he cooed over her, the next became

Horatian. Painfully sensitive, and proud withal, she was never sure of

his opinion of her. Having little faith in the firmness of any man's

admiration of _her_, she believed less than was avowed. And Fred,

exacting much, was too inexperienced to understand her. They were

drifting apart, I thought; but in avoiding Scylla, had I not plunged

into Charybdis?

I had been a widow a year when Mr. Christopher left Spain. Another had

now passed, and with it my seclusion. While Denis had talked to me, I

had cared to hear no other man speak; but now, in a kind of thirst, I

drank deep of pleasure. I played with the warm avowals of men past the

reasoning age, and made Fred's classmates melancholy. Denis did not even

disapprove. He was often near me now, but silent as a shadow.

How it stormed the night of the seventh of February, and like the

whirling snow I danced! Christopher led me through the last Lancers, and

then we stopped to rest. Hanging on his arm, and heedless of to-morrow,

was I not happy? We passed through the long rooms, while the soft waltz

music began to swell, and the untiring dancers took the floor.

I remember he asked for Leonora, and then if Fred meant to marry her. I

would not say no, but would acknowledge that his fancy was heated.

'She will be a pleasant vision of boy-love a few years hence,' I said.

'Leonora has too much good sense to marry him, Mr. Christopher.'

'I don't know,' said he, meditatively, and drew my hand through his arm.

The cornelian bracelet slipped into view. 'Mrs. Fontevrault,' uttered

he, in a ceremonious tone--my warm pulse grew still--'do you never

forget?'

'Do you desire it?' I answered, gaily:

''If to remember, or forget,

Can give a longing, or regret,

command me.'

He smiled, and, stopping at a side table, poured out two glasses of

wine.

'Here's to the past,' said he, eagerly; 'drink Lethe.'

We drained the glasses. Then I understood he withdrew his claim.

I wanted to go home after _that_; so Mr. Christopher summoned the

carriage. The walks were white, and I trembled--was it with cold?--as he

handed me in, and bade me good night.

The house at midnight was silent and warm. I went up stairs, and stood

in the threshold of the library. The sleet driving against the window

panes prevented their hearing me, I suppose. They seemed to be

translating something or other. Fred's arm lay over the back of her

chair. Very fast and earnestly he was talking. Marginal notes suggested

by the text of Sismondi?

'What, home so early!' was his exclamation, on discovering me.

Leonora looked, up with a deep rose in her dark cheeks, a dangerous fire

melting in her eyes. I had left her pale, with a headache.

'You are better, I conclude. I expected to find you among your pillows,'

said I, accusative.

'I have cured her,' said Fred, coming forward and clasping my hands in

his firm, cool hold. 'What ails you, mamma? You look as if you had a

fever, and wickedly handsome. What have you been about?' He slipped off

my ermine cloak, and kissed me with a mixture of pride and love. The boy

bewildered me.

As fate would have it, Fred was right. I felt very ill. I believe I

_resisted_ a fever, for I have a sensation of struggle connected with

that sickness. But I cannot separate the pictures of my distempered

fancy from the actualities of the time. Leonora took devoted care of me.

Night after night Fred sat by me, and they relieved each other. Like one

bound in an enchantment, I lay unable to prevent their mutual

confidence, and the return of her young lover's adoring regard.

He sat beside her as the fire burned low; his blonde hair touched her

dusky cheek as he bent over her.

'Leo, darling, I wish I was sick, like mamma.'

'Hush!' said she.

'Then you would soothe me, and part my hair with your soft fingers, that

refuse to touch mine now. You would be sorry for me, and give me a

little caressing, and I should be so happy I would not get well.'