CHAPTER I.

Produced by David Widger and Several Other Project Gutenberg Volunteers

THE ENTIRE PROJECT GUTENBERG WORKS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, SR.

By Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

CONTENTS:

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table

The Professor at the Breakfast-table

The Poet at the Breakfast Table

Over the Teacups

Elsie Venner

The Guardian Angel

A Mortal Antipathy

Pages from an Old Volume of Life

Bread and the Newspaper

My Hunt after "The Captain"

The Inevitable Trial

Cinders from Ashes

The Pulpit and the Pew

Medical Essays

Homeopathy and its Kindred Delusions

The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever

Currents and Counter-currents in Medical Science

Border Lines of Knowledge in Some Provinces of Medical Science

Scholastic and Bedside Teaching

The Medical Profession in Massachusetts

The Young Practitioner

Medical Libraries

Some of My Early Teachers

A Memoir of John Lothrop Motley

A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our Hundred Days in Europe

THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE

THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

The interruption referred to in the first sentence of the first of

these papers was just a quarter of a century in duration.

Two articles entitled "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table" will be

found in the "New England Magazine," formerly published in Boston

by J. T. and E. Buckingham. The date of the first of these

articles is November 1831, and that of the second February 1832.

When "The Atlantic Monthly" was begun, twenty-five years

afterwards, and the author was asked to write for it, the

recollection of these crude products of his uncombed literary

boyhood suggested the thought that it would be a curious experiment

to shake the same bough again, and see if the ripe fruit were

better or worse than the early windfalls.

So began this series of papers, which naturally brings those

earlier attempts to my own notice and that of some few friends who

were idle enough to read them at the time of their publication.

The man is father to the boy that was, and I am my own son, as it

seems to me, in those papers of the New England Magazine. If I

find it hard to pardon the boy's faults, others would find it

harder. They will not, therefore, be reprinted here, nor as I

hope, anywhere.

But a sentence or two from them will perhaps bear reproducing, and

with these I trust the gentle reader, if that kind being still

breathes, will be contented.

--"It is a capital plan to carry a tablet with you, and, when you

find yourself felicitous, take notes of your own conversation."--

--"When I feel inclined to read poetry I take down my Dictionary.

The poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of sentences.

The author may arrange the gems effectively, but their fhape and

luftre have been given by the attrition of ages. Bring me the

fineft fimile from the whole range of imaginative writing, and I

will fhow you a fingle word which conveys a more profound, a more

accurate, and a more eloquent analogy."--

--"Once on a time, a notion was ftarted, that if all the people in

the world would fhout at once, it might be heard in the moon. So

the projectors agreed it fhould be done in juft ten years. Some

thousand fhip-loads of chronometers were diftributed to the

selectmen and other great folks of all the different nations. For

a year beforehand, nothing else was talked about but the awful

noise that was to be made on the great occafion. When the time

came, everybody had their ears so wide open, to hear the universal

ejaculation of BOO,--the word agreed upon,--that nobody spoke

except a deaf man in one of the Fejee Islands, and a woman in

Pekin, so that the world was never so ftill fince the creation."--

There was nothing better than these things and there was not a

little that was much worse. A young fellow of two or three and

twenty has as good a right to spoil a magazine-full of essays in

learning how to write, as an oculist like Wenzel had to spoil his

hat-full of eyes in learning how to operate for cataract, or an

ELEGANT like Brummel to point to an armful of failures in the

attempt to achieve a perfect tie. This son of mine, whom I have

not seen for these twenty-five years, generously counted, was a

self-willed youth, always too ready to utter his unchastised

fancies. He, like too many American young people, got the spur

when he should have had the rein. He therefore helped to fill the

market with that unripe fruit which his father says in one of these

papers abounds in the marts of his native country. All these

by-gone shortcomings he would hope are forgiven, did he not feel sure

that very few of his readers know anything about them. In taking

the old name for the new papers, he felt bound to say that he had

uttered unwise things under that title, and if it shall appear that

his unwisdom has not diminished by at least half while his years

have doubled, he promises not to repeat the experiment if he should

live to double them again and become his own grandfather.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

BOSTON. Nov. 1st 1858.

CHAPTER I

I was just going to say, when I was interrupted, that one of the

many ways of classifying minds is under the heads of arithmetical

and algebraical intellects. All economical and practical wisdom is

an extension or variation of the following arithmetical formula:

2+2=4. Every philosophical proposition has the more general

character of the expression a+b=c. We are mere operatives,

empirics, and egotists, until we learn to think in letters instead

of figures.

They all stared. There is a divinity student lately come among us

to whom I commonly address remarks like the above, allowing him to

take a certain share in the conversation, so far as assent or

pertinent questions are involved. He abused his liberty on this

occasion by presuming to say that Leibnitz had the same

observation.--No, sir, I replied, he has not. But he said a mighty

good thing about mathematics, that sounds something like it, and

you found it, NOT IN THE ORIGINAL, but quoted by Dr. Thomas Reid.

I will tell the company what he did say, one of these days.

--If I belong to a Society of Mutual Admiration?--I blush to say

that I do not at this present moment. I once did, however. It was

the first association to which I ever heard the term applied; a

body of scientific young men in a great foreign city who admired

their teacher, and to some extent each other. Many of them

deserved it; they have become famous since. It amuses me to hear

the talk of one of those beings described by Thackeray--

"Letters four do form his name"--

about a social development which belongs to the very noblest stage

of civilization. All generous companies of artists, authors,

philanthropists, men of science, are, or ought to be, Societies of

Mutual Admiration. A man of genius, or any kind of superiority, is

not debarred from admiring the same quality in another, nor the

other from returning his admiration. They may even associate

together and continue to think highly of each other. And so of a

dozen such men, if any one place is fortunate enough to hold so

many. The being referred to above assumes several false premises.

First, that men of talent necessarily hate each other. Secondly,

that intimate knowledge or habitual association destroys our

admiration of persons whom we esteemed highly at a distance.

Thirdly, that a circle of clever fellows, who meet together to dine

and have a good time, have signed a constitutional compact to

glorify themselves and to put down him and the fraction of the

human race not belonging to their number. Fourthly, that it is an

outrage that he is not asked to join them.

Here the company laughed a good deal, and the old gentleman who

sits opposite said, "That's it! that's it!"

I continued, for I was in the talking vein. As to clever people's

hating each other, I think a LITTLE extra talent does sometimes

make people jealous. They become irritated by perpetual attempts

and failures, and it hurts their tempers and dispositions.

Unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a weak

flavor of genius in an essentially common person is detestable. It

spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character, as the

rinsings of an unwashed wineglass spoil a draught of fair water.

No wonder the poor fellow we spoke of, who always belongs to this

class of slightly flavored mediocrities, is puzzled and vexed by

the strange sight of a dozen men of capacity working and playing

together in harmony. He and his fellows are always fighting. With

them familiarity naturally breeds contempt. If they ever praise

each other's bad drawings, or broken-winded novels, or spavined

verses, nobody ever supposed it was from admiration; it was simply

a contract between themselves and a publisher or dealer.

If the Mutuals have really nothing among them worth admiring, that

alters the question. But if they are men with noble powers and

qualities, let me tell you, that, next to youthful love and family

affections, there is no human sentiment better than that which

unites the Societies of Mutual Admiration. And what would

literature or art be without such associations? Who can tell what

we owe to the Mutual Admiration Society of which Shakspeare, and

Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher were members? Or to that of

which Addison and Steele formed the centre, and which gave us the

Spectator? Or to that where Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Burke, and

Reynolds, and Beauclerk, and Boswell, most admiring among all

admirers, met together? Was there any great harm in the fact that

the Irvings and Paulding wrote in company? or any unpardonable

cabal in the literary union of Verplanck and Bryant and Sands, and

as many more as they chose to associate with them?

The poor creature does not know what he is talking about, when he

abuses this noblest of institutions. Let him inspect its mysteries

through the knot-hole he has secured, but not use that orifice as a

medium for his popgun. Such a society is the crown of a literary

metropolis; if a town has not material for it, and spirit and good

feeling enough to organize it, it is a mere caravansary, fit for a

man of genius to lodge in, but not to live in. Foolish people hate

and dread and envy such an association of men of varied powers and

influence, because it is lofty, serene, impregnable, and, by the

necessity of the case, exclusive. Wise ones are prouder of the

title M. S. M. A. than of all their other honors put together.

--All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called

"facts." They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.

Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact

or two which they lead after them into decent company like so many

bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or

convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no "facts"

at this table. What! Because bread is good and wholesome and

necessary and nourishing, shall you thrust a crumb into my windpipe

while I am talking? Do not these muscles of mine represent a

hundred loaves of bread? and is not my thought the abstract of ten

thousand of these crumbs of truth with which you would choke off my

speech?

[The above remark must be conditioned and qualified for the vulgar

mind. The reader will of course understand the precise amount of

seasoning which must be added to it before he adopts it as one of

the axioms of his life. The speaker disclaims all responsibility

for its abuse in incompetent hands.]

This business of conversation is a very serious matter. There are

men that it weakens one to talk with an hour more than a day's

fasting would do. Mark this that I am going to say, for it is as

good as a working professional man's advice, and costs you nothing:

It is better to lose a pint of blood from your veins than to have a

nerve tapped. Nobody measures your nervous force as it runs away,

nor bandages your brain and marrow after the operation.

There are men of esprit who are excessively exhausting to some

people. They are the talkers who have what may be called JERKY

minds. Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of sequence.

They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags

rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with one of these

jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief.

It is like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel.

What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times!

A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to

our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds.

"Do not dull people bore you?" said one of the lady-boarders,--the

same that sent me her autograph-book last week with a request for a

few original stanzas, not remembering that "The Pactolian" pays me

five dollars a line for every thing I write in its columns.

"Madam," said I, (she and the century were in their teens

together,) "all men are bores, except when we want them. There

never was but one man whom I would trust with my latch-key."

"Who might that favored person be?"

"Zimmermann."

--The men of genius that I fancy most have erectile heads like the

cobra-di-capello. You remember what they tell of William Pinkney,

the great pleader; how in his eloquent paroxysms the veins of his

neck would swell and his face flush and his eyes glitter, until he

seemed on the verge of apoplexy. The hydraulic arrangements for

supplying the brain with blood are only second in importance to its

own organization. The bulbous-headed fellows that steam well when

they are at work are the men that draw big audiences and give us

marrowy books and pictures. It is a good sign to have one's feet

grow cold when he is writing. A great writer and speaker once told

me that he often wrote with his feet in hot water; but for this,

ALL his blood would have run into his head, as the mercury

sometimes withdraws into the ball of a thermometer.

--You don't suppose that my remarks made at this table are like so

many postage-stamps, do you,--each to be only once uttered? If you

do, you are mistaken. He must be a poor creature that does not

often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of

advice, "Know thyself," never alluding to that sentiment again

during the course of a protracted existence! Why, the truths a man

carries about with him are his tools; and do you think a carpenter

is bound to use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty board

with, or to hang up his hammer after it has driven its first nail?

I shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea often. I shall

use the same types when I like, but not commonly the same

stereotypes. A thought is often original, though you have uttered

it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new

and express train of associations.

Sometimes, but rarely, one may be caught making the same speech

twice over, and yet be held blameless. Thus, a certain lecturer,

after performing in an inland city, where dwells a Litteratrice of

note, was invited to meet her and others over the social teacup.

She pleasantly referred to his many wanderings in his new

occupation. "Yes," he replied, "I am like the Huma, the bird that

never lights, being always in the cars, as he is always on the

wing."--Years elapsed. The lecturer visited the same place once

more for the same purpose. Another social cup after the lecture,

and a second meeting with the distinguished lady. "You are

constantly going from place to place," she said.--"Yes," he

answered, "I am like the Huma,"--and finished the sentence as

before.

What horrors, when it flashed over him that he had made this fine

speech, word for word, twice over! Yet it was not true, as the

lady might perhaps have fairly inferred, that he had embellished

his conversation with the Huma daily during that whole interval of

years. On the contrary, he had never once thought of the odious

fowl until the recurrence of precisely the same circumstances

brought up precisely the same idea. He ought to have been proud of

the accuracy of his mental adjustments. Given certain factors, and

a sound brain should always evolve the same fixed product with the

certainty of Babbage's calculating machine.

--What a satire, by the way, is that machine on the mere

mathematician! A Frankenstein-monster, a thing without brains and

without heart, too stupid to make a blunder; that turns out results

like a corn-sheller, and never grows any wiser or better, though it

grind a thousand bushels of them!

I have an immense respect for a man of talents PLUS "the

mathematics." But the calculating power alone should seem to be

the least human of qualities, and to have the smallest amount of

reason in it; since a machine can be made to do the work of three

or four calculators, and better than any one of them. Sometimes I

have been troubled that I had not a deeper intuitive apprehension

of the relations of numbers. But the triumph of the ciphering

hand-organ has consoled me. I always fancy I can hear the wheels

clicking in a calculator's brain. The power of dealing with

numbers is a kind of "detached lever" arrangement, which may be put

into a mighty poor watch--I suppose it is about as common as the

power of moving the ears voluntarily, which is a moderately rare

endowment.

--Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks of specialized

knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited about.

Nature is very wise; but for this encouraging principle how many

small talents and little accomplishments would be neglected! Talk

about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what

salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable.

Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's

plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and

the wave in which he dips. When one has had ALL his conceit taken

out of him, when he has lost ALL his illusions, his feathers will

soon soak through, and he will fly no more.

"So you admire conceited people, do you?" said the young lady who

has come to the city to be finished off for--the duties of life.

I am afraid you do not study logic at your school, my dear. It

does not follow that I wish to be pickled in brine because I like a

salt-water plunge at Nahant. I say that conceit is just as

natural a thing to human minds as a centre is to a circle. But

little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five

minutes' conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine

their whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large intellect

does not sensibly differ from a straight line. Even if it have the

third vowel as its centre, it does not soon betray it. The highest

thought, that is, is the most seemingly impersonal; it does not

obviously imply any individual centre.

Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it, is always imposing.

What resplendent beauty that must have been which could have

authorized Phryne to "peel" in the way she did! What fine speeches

are those two: "Non omnis mortar," and "I have taken all knowledge

to be my province"! Even in common people, conceit has the virtue

of making them cheerful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his

house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is

almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be

tedious at times.

--What are the great faults of conversation? Want of ideas, want

of words, want of manners, are the principal ones, I suppose you

think. I don't doubt it, but I will tell you what I have found

spoil more good talks than anything else;--long arguments on

special points between people who differ on the fundamental

principles upon which these points depend. No men can have

satisfactory relations with each other until they have agreed on

certain ultimata of belief not to be disturbed in ordinary

conversation, and unless they have sense enough to trace the

secondary questions depending upon these ultimate beliefs to their

source. In short, just as a written constitution is essential to

the best social order, so a code of finalities is a necessary

condition of profitable talk between two persons. Talking is like

playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hand on the

strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out

their music.

--Do you mean to say the pun-question is not clearly settled in

your minds? Let me lay down the law upon the subject. Life and

language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide--that is,

violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate

meaning, which is its life--are alike forbidden. Manslaughter,

which is the meaning of the one, is the same as man's laughter,

which is the end of the other. A pun is prima facie an insult to

the person you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to

or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how serious. I

speak of total depravity, and one says all that is written on the

subject is deep raving. I have committed my self-respect by

talking with such a person. I should like to commit him, but

cannot, because he is a nuisance. Or I speak of geological

convulsions, and he asks me what was the cosine of Noah's ark;

also, whether the Deluge was not a deal huger than any modern

inundation.

A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow

were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be

judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter

were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable

homicide. Thus, in a case lately decided before Miller, J., Doe

presented Roe a subscription paper, and urged the claims of

suffering humanity. Roe replied by asking, When charity was like a

top? It was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified silence.

Roe then said, "When it begins to hum." Doe then--and not till

then--struck Roe, and his head happening to hit a bound volume of

the Monthly Rag-bag and Stolen Miscellany, intense mortification

ensued, with a fatal result. The chief laid down his notions of

the law to his brother justices, who unanimously replied, "Jest

so." The chief rejoined, that no man should jest so without being

punished for it, and charged for the prisoner, who was acquitted,

and the pun ordered to be burned by the sheriff. The bound volume

was forfeited as a deodand, but not claimed.

People that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the

railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but

their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for

the sake of a battered witticism.

I will thank you, B. F., to bring down two books, of which I will

mark the places on this slip of paper. (While he is gone, I may

say that this boy, our land-lady's youngest, is called BENJAMIN

FRANKLIN, after the celebrated philosopher of that name. A highly

merited compliment.)

I wished to refer to two eminent authorities. Now be so good as to

listen. The great moralist says: "To trifle with the vocabulary

which is the vehicle of social intercourse is to tamper with the

currency of human intelligence. He who would violate the

sanctities of his mother tongue would invade the recesses of the

paternal till without remorse, and repeat the banquet of Saturn

without an indigestion."

And, once more, listen to the historian. "The Puritans hated puns.

The Bishops were notoriously addicted to them. The Lords Temporal

carried them to the verge of license. Majesty itself must have its

Royal quibble. 'Ye be burly, my Lord of Burleigh,' said Queen

Elizabeth, 'but ye shall make less stir in our realm than my Lord

of Leicester.' The gravest wisdom and the highest breeding lent

their sanction to the practice. Lord Bacon playfully declared

himself a descendant of 'Og, the King of Bashan. Sir Philip

Sidney, with his last breath, reproached the soldier who brought

him water, for wasting a casque full upon a dying man. A courtier,

who saw Othello performed at the Globe Theatre, remarked, that the

blackamoor was a brute, and not a man. 'Thou hast reason,' replied

a great Lord, 'according to Plato his saying; for this be a

two-legged animal WITH feathers.' The fatal habit became universal.

The language was corrupted. The infection spread to the national

conscience. Political double-dealings naturally grew out of verbal

double meanings. The teeth of the new dragon were sown by the

Cadmus who introduced the alphabet of equivocation. What was

levity in the time of the Tudors grew to regicide and revolution in

the age of the Stuarts."

Who was that boarder that just whispered something about the

Macaulay-flowers of literature?--There was a dead silence.--I said

calmly, I shall henceforth consider any interruption by a pun as a

hint to change my boarding-house. Do not plead my example. If _I_

have used any such, it has been only as a Spartan father would show

up a drunken helot. We have done with them.

--If a logical mind ever found out anything with its logic?--I

should say that its most frequent work was to build a pons asinorum

over chasms which shrewd people can bestride without such a

structure. You can hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer, to prove

anything that you want to prove. You can buy treatises to show

that Napoleon never lived, and that no battle of Bunker-hill was

ever fought. The great minds are those with a wide span, which

couple truths related to, but far removed from, each other.

Logicians carry the surveyor's chain over the track of which these

are the true explorers. I value a man mainly for his primary

relations with truth, as I understand truth,--not for any secondary

artifice in handling his ideas. Some of the sharpest men in

argument are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should not trust

the counsel of a smart debater, any more than that of a good

chess-player. Either may of course advise wisely, but not

necessarily because he wrangles or plays well.

The old gentleman who sits opposite got his hand up, as a pointer

lifts his forefoot, at the expression, "his relations with truth,

as I understand truth," and when I had done, sniffed audibly, and

said I talked like a transcendentalist. For his part, common sense

was good enough for him.

Precisely so, my dear sir, I replied; common sense, AS YOU

UNDERSTAND IT. We all have to assume a standard of judgment in our

own minds, either of things or persons. A man who is willing to

take another's opinion has to exercise his judgment in the choice

of whom to follow, which is often as nice a matter as to judge of

things for one's self. On the whole, I had rather judge men's

minds by comparing their thoughts with my own, than judge of

thoughts by knowing who utter them. I must do one or the other.

It does not follow, of course, that I may not recognize another

man's thoughts as broader and deeper than my own; but that does not

necessarily change my opinion, otherwise this would be at the mercy

of every superior mind that held a different one. How many of our

most cherished beliefs are like those drinking-glasses of the

ancient pattern, that serve us well so long as we keep them in our

hand, but spill all if we attempt to set them down! I have

sometimes compared conversation to the Italian game of mora, in

which one player lifts his hand with so many fingers extended, and

the other gives the number if he can. I show my thought, another

his; if they agree, well; if they differ, we find the largest

common factor, if we can, but at any rate avoid disputing about

remainders and fractions, which is to real talk what tuning an

instrument is to playing on it.

--What if, instead of talking this morning, I should read you a

copy of verses, with critical remarks by the author? Any of the

company can retire that like.

ALBUM VERSES.

When Eve had led her lord away,

And Cain had killed his brother,

The stars and flowers, the poets say,

Agreed with one another

To cheat the cunning tempter's art,

And teach the race its duty,

By keeping on its wicked heart

Their eyes of light and beauty.

A million sleepless lids, they say,

Will be at least a warning;

And so the flowers would watch by day,

The stars from eve to morning.

On hill and prairie, field and lawn,

Their dewy eyes upturning,

The flowers still watch from reddening dawn

Till western skies are burning.

Alas! each hour of daylight tells

A tale of shame so crushing,

That some turn white as sea-bleached shells,

And some are always blushing.

But when the patient stars look down

On all their light discovers,

The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown,

The lips of lying lovers,

They try to shut their saddening eyes,

And in the vain endeavour

We see them twinkling in the skies,

And so they wink forever.

What do YOU think of these verses my friends?--Is that piece an

impromptu? said my landlady's daughter. (Aet. 19 +. Tender-eyed

blonde. Long ringlets. Cameo pin. Gold pencil-case on a chain.

Locket. Bracelet. Album. Autograph book. Accordeon. Reads

Byron, Tupper, and Sylvanus Cobb, junior, while her mother makes

the puddings. Says "Yes?" when you tell her anything.)--Oui et

non, ma petite,--Yes and no, my child. Five of the seven verses

were written off-hand; the other two took a week,--that is, were

hanging round the desk in a ragged, forlorn, unrhymed condition as

long as that. All poets will tell you just such stories. C'est le

DERNIER pas qui coute. Don't you know how hard it is for some

people to get out of a room after their visit is really over? They

want to be off, and you want to have them off, but they don't know

how to manage it. One would think they had been built in your

parlour or study, and were waiting to be launched. I have

contrived a sort of ceremonial inclined plane for such visitors,

which being lubricated with certain smooth phrases, I back them

down, metaphorically speaking, stern-foremost, into their "native

element," the great ocean of out-doors. Well, now, there are poems

as hard to get rid of as these rural visitors. They come in

glibly, use up all the serviceable rhymes, DAY, RAY, BEAUTY, DUTY,

SKIES, EYES, OTHER, BROTHER, MOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN, and the like; and

so they go on until you think it is time for the wind-up, and the

wind-up won't come on any terms. So they lie about until you get

sick of the sight of them, and end by thrusting some cold scrap of

a final couplet upon them, and turning them out of doors. I

suspect a good many "impromptus" could tell just such a story as

the above.--Here turning to our landlady, I used an illustration

which pleased the company much at the time, and has since been

highly commanded. "Madam," I said, "you can pour three gills and

three quarters of honey from that pint jug, if it is full, in less

than one minute; but, Madam, you could not empty that last quarter

of a gill, though you were turned into a marble Hebe, and held the

vessel upside down for a thousand years.

One gets tired to death of the old, old rhymes, such as you see in

that copy of verses,--which I don't mean to abuse, or to praise

either. I always feel as if I were a cobbler, putting new

top-leathers to an old pair of boot-soles and bodies, when I am

fitting sentiments to these venerable jingles.

. . . . youth

. . . . . morning

. . . . . truth

. . . . . warning

Nine tenths of the "Juvenile Poems" written spring out of the above

musical and suggestive coincidences.

"Yes?" said our landlady's daughter.

I did not address the following remark to her, and I trust, from

her limited range of reading, she will never see it; I said it

softly to my next neighbour.

When a young female wears a flat circular side--curl, gummed on

each temple,--when she walks with a male, not arm in arm, but his

arm against the back of hers,--and when she says "Yes?" with the

note of interrogation, you are generally safe in asking her what

wages she gets, and who the "feller" was you saw her with.

"What were you whispering?" said the daughter of the house,

moistening her lips, as she spoke, in a very engaging manner.

"I was only laying down a principle of social diagnosis."

"Yes?"

--It is curious to see how the same wants and tastes find the same

implements and modes of expression in all times and places. The

young ladies of Otaheite, as you may see in Cook's Voyages, had a

sort of crinoline arrangement fully equal in radius to the largest

spread of our own lady-baskets. When I fling a Bay-State shawl

over my shoulders, I am only taking a lesson from the climate that

the Indian had learned before me. A BLANKET-shawl we call it, and

not a plaid; and we wear it like the aborigines, and not like the

Highlanders.

--We are the Romans of the modern world,--the great assimilating

people. Conflicts and conquests are of course necessary accidents

with us, as with our prototypes. And so we come to their style of

weapon. Our army sword is the short, stiff, pointed gladius of the

Romans; and the American bowie-knife is the same tool, modified to

meet the daily wants of civil society. I announce at this table an

axiom not to be found in Montesquieu or the journals of Congress:-

The race that shortens its weapons lengthens its boundaries.

Corollary. It was the Polish LANCE that left Poland at last with

nothing of her own to bound.

"Dropped from her nerveless grasp the SHATTERED SPEAR!"

What business had Sarmatia to be fighting for liberty with a

fifteen-foot pole between her and the breasts of her enemies? If

she had but clutched the old Roman and young American weapon, and

come to close quarters, there might have been a chance for her; but

it would have spoiled the best passage in "The Pleasures of Hope."

--Self-made men?--Well, yes. Of course everybody likes and

respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in

that way than not to be made at all. Are any of you younger people

old enough to remember that Irishman's house on the marsh at

Cambridgeport, which house he built from drain to chimney-top with

his own hands? It took him a good many years to build it, and one

could see that it was a little out of plumb, and a little wavy in

outline, and a little queer and uncertain in general aspect. A

regular hand could certainly have built a better house; but it was

a very good house for a "self-made" carpenter's house, and people

praised it, and said how remarkably well the Irishman had

succeeded. They never thought of praising the fine blocks of

houses a little farther on.

Your self-made man, whittled into shape with his own jack-knife,

deserves more credit, if that is all, than the regular

engine-turned article, shaped by the most approved pattern, and

French-polished by society and travel. But as to saying that one is

every way the equal of the other, that is another matter. The right

of strict social discrimination of all things and persons, according

to their merits, native or acquired, is one of the most precious

republican privileges. I take the liberty to exercise it, when I say,

that, OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, in most relations of life I prefer a

man of family.

What do I mean by a man of family?--O, I'll give you a general idea

of what I mean. Let us give him a first-rate fit out; it costs us

nothing.

Four or five generations of gentlemen and gentlewomen; among them a

member of his Majesty's Council for the Province, a Governor or so,

one or two Doctors of Divinity, a member of Congress, not later

than the time of top-boots with tassels.

Family portraits. The member of the Council, by Smibert. The

great merchant-uncle, by Copley, full length, sitting in his

arm-chair, in a velvet cap and flowered robe, with a globe by him,

to show the range of his commercial transactions, and letters with

large red seals lying round, one directed conspicuously to The

Honourable etc. etc. Great-grandmother, by the same artist; brown

satin, lace very fine, hands superlative; grand old lady, stiffish,

but imposing. Her mother, artist unknown; flat, angular, hanging

sleeves; parrot on fist. A pair of Stuarts, viz., 1. A superb

full-blown, mediaeval gentleman, with a fiery dash of Tory blood in

his veins, tempered down with that of a fine old rebel grandmother,

and warmed up with the best of old India Madeira; his face is one

flame of ruddy sunshine; his ruffled shirt rushes out of his bosom

with an impetuous generosity, as if it would drag his heart after

it; and his smile is good for twenty thousand dollars to the

Hospital, besides ample bequests to all relatives and dependants.

2. Lady of the same; remarkable cap; high waist, as in time of

Empire; bust a la Josephine; wisps of curls, like celery-tips, at

sides of forehead; complexion clear and warm, like rose-cordial.

As for the miniatures by Malbone, we don't count them in the

gallery.

Books, too, with the names of old college-students in them,--family

names;--you will find them at the head of their respective classes

in the days when students took rank on the catalogue from their

parents' condition. Elzevirs, with the Latinized appellations of

youthful progenitors, and Hic liber est meus on the title-page. A

set of Hogarth's original plates. Pope, original edition, 15

volumes, London, 1717. Barrow on the lower shelves, in folio.

Tillotson on the upper, in a little dark platoon of octo-decimos.

Some family silver; a string of wedding and funeral rings; the arms

of the family curiously blazoned; the same in worsted, by a maiden

aunt.

If the man of family has an old place to keep these things in,

furnished with claw-footed chairs and black mahogany tables, and

tall bevel-edged mirrors, and stately upright cabinets, his outfit

is complete.

No, my friends, I go (always, other things being equal) for the man

who inherits family traditions and the cumulative humanities of at

least four or five generations. Above all things, as a child, he

should have tumbled about in a library. All men are afraid of

books, who have not handled them from infancy. Do you suppose our

dear didascalos over there ever read Poli Synopsis, or consulted

Castelli Lexicon, while he was growing up to their stature? Not

he; but virtue passed through the hem of their parchment and

leather garments whenever he touched them, as the precious drugs

sweated through the bat's handle in the Arabian story. I tell you

he is at home wherever he smells the invigorating fragrance of

Russia leather. No self-made man feels so. One may, it is true,

have all the antecedents I have spoken of, and yet be a boor or a

shabby fellow. One may have none of them, and yet be fit for

councils and courts. Then let them change places. Our social

arrangement has this great beauty, that its strata shift up and

down as they change specific gravity, without being clogged by

layers of prescription. But I still insist on my democratic

liberty of choice, and I go for the man with the gallery of family

portraits against the one with the twenty-five-cent daguerreotype,

unless I find out that the last is the better of the two.

--I should have felt more nervous about the late comet, if I had

thought the world was ripe. But it is very green yet, if I am not

mistaken; and besides, there is a great deal of coal to use up,

which I cannot bring myself to think was made for nothing. If

certain things, which seem to me essential to a millennium, had

come to pass, I should have been frightened; but they haven't.

Perhaps you would like to hear my

LATTER-DAY WARNINGS.

When legislators keep the law,

When banks dispense with bolts and locks,

When berries, whortle--rasp--and straw--

Grow bigger DOWNWARDS through the box,--

When he that selleth house or land

Shows leak in roof or flaw in right,--

When haberdashers choose the stand

Whose window hath the broadest light,--

When preachers tell us all they think,

And party leaders all they mean,--

When what we pay for, that we drink,

From real grape and coffee-bean,--

When lawyers take what they would give,

And doctors give what they would take,--

When city fathers eat to live,

Save when they fast for conscience' sake,--

When one that hath a horse on sale

Shall bring his merit to the proof,

Without a lie for every nail

That holds the iron on the hoof,--

When in the usual place for rips

Our gloves are stitched with special care,

And guarded well the whalebone tips

Where first umbrellas need repair,--

When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot

The power of suction to resist,

And claret-bottles harber not

Such dimples as would hold your fist,--

When publishers no longer steal,

And pay for what they stole before,--

When the first locomotive's wheel

Rolls through the Hoosac tunnel's bore;--

TILL then let Cumming a blaze away,

And Miller's saints blow up the globe;

But when you see that blessed day,

THEN order your ascension robe!

The company seemed to like the verses, and I promised them to read

others occasionally, if they had a mind to hear them. Of course

they would not expect it every morning. Neither must the reader

suppose that all these things I have reported were said at any one

breakfast-time. I have not taken the trouble to date them, as

Raspail, pere, used to date every proof he sent to the printer; but

they were scattered over several breakfasts; and I have said a good

many more things since, which I shall very possibly print some time

or other, if I am urged to do it by judicious friends.

I finished off with reading some verses of my friend the Professor,

of whom you may perhaps hear more by and by. The Professor read

them, he told me, at a farewell meeting, where the youngest of our

great Historians met a few of his many friends at their invitation.

Yes, we knew we must lose him,--though friendship may claim

To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame;

Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own,

'Tis the whisper of love when the bugle has blown.

As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel,--

As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel,--

As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string,

He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.

What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom

Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom,

While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes

That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies!

In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time,

Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime,

There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung,

There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue!

Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed

From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed!

Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom,

Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom!

* * * * *

The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake

On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake,

To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine,

With incense they stole from the rose and the pine.

So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed

When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed:

THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING,--the world holds him dear,--

Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career!

CHAPTER II

I really believe some people save their bright thoughts, as being

too precious for conversation. What do you think an admiring

friend said the other day to one that was talking good things,

--good enough to print? "Why," said he, "you are wasting

mechantable literature, a cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I

can tell, of fifty dollars an hour." The talker took him to the

window and asked him to look out and tell what he saw.

"Nothing but a very dusty street," he said, "and a man driving a

sprinkling-machine through it."

"Why don't you tell the man he is wasting that water? What would

be the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our

THOUGHT-SPRINKLERS through them with the valves open, sometimes?

"Besides, there is another thing about this talking, which you

forget. It shapes our thoughts for us;--the waves of conversation

roll them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me

modify the image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an

artist models in clay. Spoken language is so plastic,--you can pat

and coax, and spread and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick

on so easily when you work that soft material, that there is

nothing like it for modelling. Out of it come the shapes which you

turn into marble or bronze in your immortal books, if you happen to

write such. Or, to use another illustration, writing or printing

is like shooting with a rifle; you may hit your reader's mind, or

miss it;--but talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an

engine; if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can't

help hitting it."

The company agreed that this last illustration was of superior

excellence, or, in the phrase used by them, "Fust-rate." I

acknowledged the compliment, but gently rebuked the expression.

"Fust-rate," "prime," "a prime article," "a superior piece of

goods," "a handsome garment," "a gent in a flowered vest,"--all

such expressions are final. They blast the lineage of him or her

who utters them, for generations up and down. There is one other

phrase which will soon come to be decisive of a man's social

STATUS, if it is not already: "That tells the whole story." It

is an expression which vulgar and conceited people particularly

affect, and which well-meaning ones, who know better, catch from

them. It is intended to stop all debate, like the previous

question in the General Court. Only it doesn't; simply because

"that" does not usually tell the whole, nor one half of the whole

story.

--It is an odd idea, that almost all our people have had a

professional education. To become a doctor a man must study some

three years and hear a thousand lectures, more or less. Just how

much study it takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but probably not

more than this. Now most decent people hear one hundred lectures

or sermons (discourses) on theology every year,--and this, twenty,

thirty, fifty years together. They read a great many religious

books besides. The clergy, however, rarely hear any sermons except

what they preach themselves. A dull preacher might be conceived,

therefore, to lapse into a state of quasi heathenism, simply for

want of religious instruction. And on the other hand, an attentive

and intelligent hearer, listening to a succession of wise teachers,

might become actually better educated in theology than any one of

them. We are all theological students, and more of us qualified as

doctors of divinity than have received degrees at any of the

universities.

It is not strange, therefore, that very good people should often

find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep their attention fixed

upon a sermon treating feebly a subject which they have thought

vigorously about for years, and heard able men discuss scores of

times. I have often noticed, however, that a hopelessly dull

discourse acts INDUCTIVELY, as electricians would say, in

developing strong mental currents. I am ashamed to think with what

accompaniments and variations and fioriture I have sometimes

followed the droning of a heavy speaker,--not willingly,--for my

habit is reverential,--but as a necessary result of a slight

continuous impression on the senses and the mind, which kept both

in action without furnishing the food they required to work upon.

If you ever saw a crow with a king-bird after him, you will get an

image of a dull speaker and a lively listener. The bird in sable

plumage flaps heavily along his straight-forward course, while the

other sails round him, over him, under him, leaves him, comes back

again, tweaks out a black feather, shoots away once more, never

losing sight of him, and finally reaches the crow's perch at the

same time the crow does, having cut a perfect labyrinth of loops

and knots and spirals while the slow fowl was painfully working

from one end of his straight line to the other.

[I think these remarks were received rather coolly. A temporary

boarder from the country, consisting of a somewhat more than

middle-aged female, with a parchment forehead and a dry little

"frisette" shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold

beads, a black dress too rusty for recent grief and contours in

basso-rilievo, left the table prematurely, and was reported to have

been very virulent about what I said. So I went to my good old

minister, and repeated the remarks, as nearly as I could remember

them, to him. He laughed good-naturedly, and said there was

considerable truth in them. He thought he could tell when people's

minds were wandering, by their looks. In the earlier years of his

ministry he had sometimes noticed this, when he was preaching;

--very little of late years. Sometimes, when his colleague was

preaching, he observed this kind of inattention; but after all, it

was not so very unnatural. I will say, by the way, that it is a

rule I have long followed, to tell my worst thoughts to my

minister, and my best thoughts to the young people I talk with.]

--I want to make a literary confession now, which I believe nobody

has made before me. You know very well that I write verses

sometimes, because I have read some of them at this table. (The

company assented,--two or three of them in a resigned sort of way,

as I thought, as if they supposed I had an epic in my pocket, and

was going to read half a dozen books or so for their benefit.)--I

continued. Of course I write some lines or passages which are

better than others; some which, compared with the others, might be

called relatively excellent. It is in the nature of things that I

should consider these relatively excellent lines or passages as

absolutely good. So much must be pardoned to humanity. Now I

never wrote a "good" line in my life, but the moment after it was

written it seemed a hundred years old. Very commonly I had a

sudden conviction that I had seen it somewhere. Possibly I may

have sometimes unconsciously stolen it, but I do not remember that

I ever once detected any historical truth in these sudden

convictions of the antiquity of my new thought or phrase. I have

learned utterly to distrust them, and never allow them to bully me

out of a thought or line.

This is the philosophy of it. (Here the number of the company was

diminished by a small secession.) Any new formula which suddenly

emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains of

thought; it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance

among the recognized growths of our intellect. Any crystalline

group of musical words has had a long and still period to form in.

Here is one theory.

But there is a larger law which perhaps comprehends these facts.

It is this. The rapidity with which ideas grow old in our memories

is in a direct ratio to the squares of their importance. Their

apparent age runs up miraculously, like the value of diamonds, as

they increase in magnitude. A great calamity, for instance, is as

old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened. It stains

backward through all the leaves we have turned over in the book of

life, before its blot of tears or of blood is dry on the page we

are turning. For this we seem to have lived; it was foreshadowed

in dreams that we leaped out of in the cold sweat of terror; in the

"dissolving views" of dark day-visions; all omens pointed to it;

all paths led to it. After the tossing half-forgetfulness of the

first sleep that follows such an event, it comes upon us afresh, as

a surprise, at waking; in a few moments it is old again,--old as

eternity.

[I wish I had not said all this then and there. I might have known

better. The pale schoolmistress, in her mourning dress, was

looking at me, as I noticed, with a wild sort of expression. All

at once the blood dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury drops

from a broken barometer-tube, and she melted away from her seat

like an image of snow; a slung-shot could not have brought her down

better. God forgive me!

After this little episode, I continued, to some few that remained

balancing teaspoons on the edges of cups, twirling knives, or

tilting upon the hind legs of their chairs until their heads

reached the wall, where they left gratuitous advertisements of

various popular cosmetics.]

When a person is suddenly thrust into any strange, new position of

trial, he finds the place fits him as if he had been measured for

it. He has committed a great crime, for instance, and is sent to

the State Prison. The traditions, prescriptions, limitations,

privileges, all the sharp conditions of his new life, stamp

themselves upon his consciousness as the signet on soft wax;--a

single pressure is enough. Let me strengthen the image a little.

Did you ever happen to see that most soft-spoken and velvet-handed

steam-engine at the Mint? The smooth piston slides backward and

forward as a lady might slip her delicate finger in and out of a

ring. The engine lays one of ITS fingers calmly, but firmly, upon

a bit of metal; it is a coin now, and will remember that touch, and

tell a new race about it, when the date upon it is crusted over

with twenty centuries. So it is that a great silent-moving misery

puts a new stamp on us in an hour or a moment,--as sharp an

impression as if it had taken half a lifetime to engrave it.

It is awful to be in the hands of the wholesale professional

dealers in misfortune; undertakers and jailers magnetize you in a

moment, and you pass out of the individual life you were living

into the rhythmical movements of their horrible machinery. Do the

worst thing you can, or suffer the worst that can be thought of,

you find yourself in a category of humanity that stretches back as

far as Cain, and with an expert at your elbow who has studied your

case all out beforehand, and is waiting for you with his implements

of hemp or mahogany. I believe, if a man were to be burned in any

of our cities tomorrow for heresy, there would be found a master of

ceremonies that knew just how many fagots were necessary, and the

best way of arranging the whole matter.

--So we have not won the Goodwood cup; au contraire, we were a "bad

fifth," if not worse than that; and trying it again, and the third

time, has not yet bettered the matter. Now I am as patriotic as

any of my fellow-citizens,--too patriotic in fact, for I have got

into hot water by loving too much of my country; in short, if any

man, whose fighting weight is not more than eight stone four

pounds, disputes it, I am ready to discuss the point with him. I

should have gloried to see the stars and stripes in front at the

finish. I love my country, and I love horses. Stubbs's old

mezzotint of Eclipse hangs over my desk, and Herring's portrait of

Plenipotentiary,--whom I saw run at Epsom,--over my fireplace. Did

I not elope from school to see Revenge, and Prospect, and Little

John, and Peacemaker run over the race-course where now yon

suburban village flourishes, in the year eighteen hundred and

ever-so-few? Though I never owned a horse, have I not been the

proprietor of six equine females, of which one was the prettiest

little "Morgin" that ever stepped? Listen, then, to an opinion I

have often expressed long before this venture of ours in England.

Horse-RACING is not a republican institution; horse-TROTTING is.

Only very rich persons can keep race-horses, and everybody knows

they are kept mainly as gambling implements. All that matter about

blood and speed we won't discuss; we understand all that; useful,

very,--OF course,--great obligations to the Godolphin "Arabian,"

and the rest. I say racing horses are essentially gambling

implements, as much as roulette tables. Now I am not preaching at

this moment; I may read you one of my sermons some other morning;

but I maintain that gambling, on the great scale, is not

republican. It belongs to two phases of society,--a cankered

over-civilization, such as exists in rich aristocracies, and the

reckless life of borderers and adventurers, or the semi-barbarism

of a civilization resolved into its primitive elements. Real

Republicanism is stern and severe; its essence is not in forms of

government, but in the omnipotence of public opinion which grows

out of it. This public opinion cannot prevent gambling with dice

or stocks, but it can and does compel it to keep comparatively

quiet. But horse-racing is the most public way of gambling, and

with all its immense attractions to the sense and the feelings,--to

which I plead very susceptible,--the disguise is too thin that

covers it, and everybody knows what it means. Its supporters are

the Southern gentry,--fine fellows, no doubt, but not republicans

exactly, as we understand the term,--a few Northern millionnaires

more or less thoroughly millioned, who do not represent the real

people, and the mob of sporting men, the best of whom are commonly

idlers, and the worst very bad neighbors to have near one in a

crowd, or to meet in a dark alley. In England, on the other hand,

with its aristocratic institutions, racing is a natural growth

enough; the passion for it spreads downwards through all classes,

from the Queen to the costermonger. London is like a shelled

corn-cob on the Derby day, and there is not a clerk who could raise

the money to hire a saddle with an old hack under it that can sit down

on his office-stool the next day without wincing.

Now just compare the racer with the trotter for a moment. The

racer is incidentally useful, but essentially something to bet

upon, as much as the thimble-rigger's "little joker." The trotter

is essentially and daily useful, and only incidentally a tool for

sporting men.

What better reason do you want for the fact that the racer is most

cultivated and reaches his greatest perfection in England, and that

the trotting horses of America beat the world? And why should we

have expected that the pick--if it was the pick--of our few and

far-between racing stables should beat the pick of England and

France? Throw over the fallacious time-test, and there was nothing

to show for it but a natural kind of patriotic feeling, which we

all have, with a thoroughly provincial conceit, which some of us

must plead guilty to.

We may beat yet. As an American, I hope we shall. As a moralist

and occasional sermonizer, I am not so anxious about it. Wherever

the trotting horse goes, he carries in his train brisk omnibuses,

lively bakers' carts, and therefore hot rolls, the jolly butcher's

wagon, the cheerful gig, the wholesome afternoon drive with wife

and child,--all the forms of moral excellence, except truth, which

does not agree with any kind of horse-flesh. The racer brings with

him gambling, cursing, swearing, drinking, the eating of oysters,

and a distaste for mob-caps and the middle-aged virtues.

And by the way, let me beg you not to call a TROTTING MATCH a RACE,

and not to speak of a "thoroughbred" as a "BLOODED" horse, unless

he has been recently phlebotomized. I consent to your saying

"blood horse," if you like. Also, if, next year, we send out

Posterior and Posterioress, the winners of the great national

four-mile race in 7 18.5, and they happen to get beaten, pay your

bets, and behave like men and gentlemen about it, if you know how.

[I felt a great deal better after blowing off the ill-temper

condensed in the above paragraph. To brag little,--to show well,

--to crow gently, if in luck,--to pay up, to own up, and to shut up,

if beaten, are the virtues of a sporting man, and I can't say that

I think we have shown them in any great perfection of late.]

--Apropos of horses. Do you know how important good jockeying is

to authors? Judicious management; letting the public see your

animal just enough, and not too much; holding him up hard when the

market is too full of him; letting him out at just the right buying

intervals; always gently feeling his mouth; never slacking and

never jerking the rein;--this is what I mean by jockeying.

--When an author has a number of books out a cunning hand will keep

them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates; fetching

each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an advertisement, a puff,

or a quotation.

--Whenever the extracts from a living writer begin to multiply fast

in the papers, without obvious reason, there is a new book or a new

edition coming. The extracts are GROUND-BAIT.

--Literary life is fun of curious phenomena. I don't know that

there is anything more noticeable than what we may call

CONVENTIONAL REPUTATIONS. There is a tacit understanding in every

community of men of letters that they will not disturb the popular

fallacy respecting this or that electro-gilded celebrity. There

are various reasons for this forbearance: one is old; one is rich;

one is good-natured; one is such a favorite with the pit that it

would not be safe to hiss him from the manager's box. The

venerable augurs of the literary or scientific temple may smile

faintly when one of the tribe is mentioned; but the farce is in

general kept up as well as the Chinese comic scene of entreating

and imploring a man to stay with you with the implied compact

between you that he shall by no means think of doing it. A poor

wretch he must be who would wantonly sit down on one of these

bandbox reputations. A Prince-Rupert's-drop, which is a tear of

unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely, if you keep it from meddling

hands; but break its tail off, and it explodes and resolves itself

into powder. These celebrities I speak of are the Prince-Rupert's

drops of the learned and polite world. See how the papers treat

them! What an array of pleasant kaleidoscopic phrases, which can

be arranged in ever so many charming patterns, is at their service!

How kind the "Critical Notices"--where small authorship comes to

pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary, and sappy--always are to

them! Well, life would be nothing without paper-credit and other

fictions; so let them pass current. Don't steal their chips; don't

puncture their swimming-bladders; don't come down on their

pasteboard boxes; don't break the ends of their brittle and

unstable reputations, you fellows who all feel sure that your names

will be household words a thousand years from now.

"A thousand years is a good while," said the old gentleman who sits

opposite, thoughtfully.

--Where have I been for the last three or four days? Down at the

Island, deer-shooting.--How many did I bag? I brought home one

buck shot.--The Island is where? No matter. It is the most

splendid domain that any man looks upon in these latitudes. Blue

sea around it, and running up into its heart, so that the little

boat slumbers like a baby in lap, while the tall ships are

stripping naked to fight the hurricane outside, and storm-stay-

sails banging and flying in ribbons. Trees, in stretches of miles;

beeches, oaks, most numerous;--many of them hung with moss, looking

like bearded Druids; some coiled in the clasp of huge, dark-stemmed

grape-vines. Open patches where the sun gets in and goes to sleep,

and the winds come so finely sifted that they are as soft as

swan's down. Rocks scattered about,--Stonehenge-like monoliths.

Fresh-water lakes; one of them, Mary's lake, crystal-clear, full of

flashing pickerel lying under the lily-pads like tigers in the

jungle. Six pounds of ditto killed one morning for breakfast.

EGO fecit.

The divinity-student looked as if he would like to question my

Latin. No, sir, I said,--you need not trouble yourself. There is

a higher law in grammar, not to be put down by Andrews and

Stoddard. Then I went on.

Such hospitality as that island has seen there has not been the

like of in these our New England sovereignties. There is nothing

in the shape of kindness and courtesy that can make life beautiful,

which has not found its home in that ocean-principality. It has

welcomed all who were worthy of welcome, from the pale clergyman

who came to breathe the sea-air with its medicinal salt and iodine,

to the great statesman who turned his back on the affairs of

empire, and smoothed his Olympian forehead, and flashed his white

teeth in merriment over the long table, where his wit was the

keenest and his story the best.

[I don't believe any man ever talked like that in this world. I

don't believe _I_ talked just so; but the fact is, in reporting

one's conversation, one cannot help BLAIR-ing it up more or less,

ironing out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping

and plaiting a little sometimes; it is as natural as prinking at

the looking-glass.]

--How can a man help writing poetry in such a place? Everybody

does write poetry that goes there. In the state archives, kept in

the library of the Lord of the Isle, are whole volumes of

unpublished verse,--some by well-known hands, and others quite as

good, by the last people you would think of as versifiers,--men who

could pension off all the genuine poets in the country, and buy ten

acres of Boston common, if it was for sale, with what they had

left. Of course I had to write my little copy of verses with the

rest; here it is, if you will hear me read it. When the sun is in

the west, vessels sailing in an easterly direction look bright or

dark to one who observes them from the north or south, according to

the tack they are sailing upon. Watching them from one of the

windows of the great mansion, I saw these perpetual changes, and

moralized thus:-

SUN AND SHADOW.

As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green,

To the billows of foam-crested blue,

Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen,

Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue:

Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray

As the chaff in the stroke of the flail;

Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way,

The sun gleaming bright on her sail.

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,--

Of breakers that whiten and roar;

How little he cares, if in shadow or sun

They see him that gaze from the shore!

He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef,

To the rock that is under his lee,

As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf,

O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea.

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves

Where life and its ventures are laid,

The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves

May see us in sunshine or shade;

Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark,

We'll trim our broad sail as before,

And stand by the rudder that governs the bark,

Nor ask how we look from the shore!

--Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good

mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if

anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or

reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough

to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. We

frequently see persons in insane hospitals, sent there in

consequence of what are called RELIGIOUS mental disturbances. I

confess that I think better of them than of many who hold the same

notions, and keep their wits and appear to enjoy life very well,

outside of the asylums. Any decent person ought to go mad, if he

really holds such or such opinions. It is very much to his

discredit in every point of view, if he does not. What is the use

of my saying what some of these opinions are? Perhaps more than

one of you hold such as I should think ought to send you straight

over to Somerville, if you have any logic in your heads or any

human feeling in your hearts. Anything that is brutal, cruel,

heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind and

perhaps for entire races,--anything that assumes the necessity of

the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated,

--no matter by what name you call it,--no matter whether a fakir, or

a monk, or a deacon believes it,--if received, ought to produce

insanity in every well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a

normal one, under the circumstances. I am very much ashamed of

some people for retaining their reason, when they know perfectly

well that if they were not the most stupid or the most selfish of

human beings, they would become non-compotes at once.

[Nobody understood this but the theological student and the

schoolmistress. They looked intelligently at each other; but

whether they were thinking about my paradox or not, I am not

clear.--It would be natural enough. Stranger things have happened.

Love and Death enter boarding-houses without asking the price of

board, or whether there is room for them. Alas, these young people

are poor and pallid! Love SHOULD be both rich and rosy, but MUST

be either rich or rosy. Talk about military duty! What is that to

the warfare of a married maid-of-all-work, with the title of

mistress, and an American female constitution, which collapses just

in the middle third of life, and comes out vulcanized India-rubber,

if it happen to live through the period when health and strength

are most wanted?]

--Have I ever acted in private theatricals? Often. I have played

the part of the "Poor Gentleman," before a great many audiences,

--more, I trust, than I shall ever face again. I did not wear a

stage-costume, nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork; but I was

placarded and announced as a public performer, and at the proper

hour I came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile upon my

countenance, and made my bow and acted my part. I have seen my

name stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show myself

in the place by daylight. I have gone to a town with a sober

literary essay in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere announced

as the most desperate of buffos,--one who was obliged to restrain

himself in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential

considerations. I have been through as many hardships as Ulysses,

in the pursuit of my histrionic vocation. I have travelled in cars

until the conductors all knew me like a brother. I have run off

the rails, and stuck all night in snow-drifts, and sat behind

females that would have the window open when one could not wink

without his eyelids freezing together. Perhaps I shall give you

some of my experiences one of these days;--I will not now, for I

have something else for you.

Private theatricals, as I have figured in them in country

lyceum-halls, are one thing,--and private theatricals, as they may be

seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are

another. Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do

not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of

our stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their

graces and talents; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled,

high bred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice,

acting in those love-dramas which make us young again to look upon,

when real youth and beauty will play them for us.

--Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to write. I did not

see the play, though. I knew there was a young lady in it, and

that somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him,

and somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and,

very naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him. The play of

course ends charmingly; there is a general reconciliation, and all

concerned form a line and take each others' hands, as people always

do after they have made up their quarrels,--and then the curtain

falls,--if it does not stick, as it commonly does at private

theatrical exhibitions, in which case a boy is detailed to pull it

down, which he does, blushing violently.

Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going to change my caesuras

and cadences for anybody; so if you do not like the heroic, or

iambic trimeter brachy-catalectic, you had better not wait to hear

it

THIS IS IT.

A Prologue? Well, of course the ladies know;--

I have my doubts. No matter,--here we go!

What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach:

Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech.

'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings,

The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;--

Prologues in metre are to other pros

As worsted stockings are to engine-hose.

"The world's a stage," as Shakspeare said, one day;

The stage a world--was what he meant to say.

The outside world's a blunder, that is clear;

The real world that Nature meant is here.

Here every foundling finds its lost mamma;

Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa;

Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid,

The cheats are taken in the traps they laid;

One after one the troubles all are past

Till the fifth act comes right side up at last,

When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all,

Join hands, SO happy at the curtain's fall.

--Here suffering virtue ever finds relief,

And black-browed ruffians always come to grief,

--When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech,

And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach,

Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven!" and drops upon her knees

On the green--baize,--beneath the (canvas) trees,--

See to her side avenging Valor fly:-

"Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!"

--When the poor hero flounders in despair,

Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire,--

Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy,

Sobs on his neck, "MY BOY! MY BOY!! MY BOY!!!"

Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night.

Of love that conquers in disaster's spite.

Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt

Wrong the soft passion in the world without,

Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere,

One thing is certain: Love will triumph here!

Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,--

The world's great masters, when you're out of school,--

Learn the brief moral of our evening's play:

Man has his will,--but woman has her way!

While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire,

Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,--

The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves

Beats the black giant with his score of slaves.

All earthly powers confess your sovereign art

But that one rebel,--woman's wilful heart.

All foes you master; but a woman's wit

Lets daylight through you ere you know you're hit.

So, just to picture what her art can do,

Hear an old story made as good as new.

Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade,

Alike was famous for his arm and blade.

One day a prisoner Justice had to kill

Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill.

Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed,

Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd.

His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam,

As the pike's armor flashes in the stream.

He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go;

The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow.

"Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act,"

The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.)

"Friend I HAVE struck," the artist straight replied;

"Wait but one moment, and yourself decide."

He held his snuff-box,--"Now then, if you please!"

The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze,

Off his head tumbled,--bowled along the floor,--

Bounced down the steps;--the prisoner said no more!

Woman! thy falchion is a glittering eye;

If death lurks in it, oh, how sweet to die!

Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head;

We die with love, and never dream we're dead!

The prologue went off very well, as I hear. No alterations were

suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, so far as I know.

Sometimes people criticize the poems one sends them, and suggest

all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that wanted

Burns to alter "Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the last line,

thus

"EDWARD!" Chains and slavery!

Here is a little poem I sent a short time since to a committee for

a certain celebration. I understood that it was to be a festive

and convivial occasion, and ordered myself accordingly. It seems

the president of the day was what is called a "teetotaller." I

received a note from him in the following words, containing the

copy subjoined, with the emendations annexed to it.

"Dear Sir,--your poem gives good satisfaction to the committee.

The sentiments expressed with reference to liquor are not, however,

those generally entertained by this community. I have therefore

consulted the clergyman of this place, who has made come slight

changes, which he thinks will remove all objections, and keep the

valuable portions of the poem. Please to inform me of your charge

for said poem. Our means are limited, etc., etc., etc.

Yours with respect,"

HERE IT IS--WITH THE SLIGHT ALTERATIONS!

Come! fill a fresh bumper,--for why should we go

While the [nectar] [logwood] still reddens our cups as they flow?

Pour out the [rich juices] [decoction] still bright with the sun,

Till o'er the brimmed crystal the [rubies] [dye-stuff] shall run.

The [purple glebed clusters] [half-ripened apples] their life-dews

have bled;

How sweet is the [breath] [taste] of the [fragrance they shed]

[sugar of lead]!

For summer's [last roses] [rank poisons] lie hid in the [wines]

[WINES!!!]

That were garnered by [maidens who laughed through the vines.]

[stable-boys smoking long-nines.]

Then a [smile] [scowl], and a [glass] [howl], and a [toast]

[scoff], and a [cheer] [sneer],

For all [the good wine, and we've some of it here] [strychnine and

whiskey, and ratsbane and beer]

In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall,

[Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all!] [Down, down,

with the tyrant that masters us all!]

The company said I had been shabbily treated, and advised me to

charge the committee double,--which I did. But as I never got my

pay, I don't know that it made much difference. I am a very

particular person about having all I write printed as I write it.

I require to see a proof, a revise, a re-revise, and a double

re-revise, or fourth-proof rectified impression of all my productions,

especially verse. A misprint kills a sensitive author. An

intentional change of his text murders him. No wonder so many poets

die young!

I have nothing more to report at this time, except two pieces of

advice I gave to the young women at table. One relates to a

vulgarism of language, which I grieve to say is sometimes heard

even from female lips. The other is of more serious purport, and

applies to such as contemplate a change of condition,--matrimony,

in fact.

--The woman who "calculates" is lost.

--Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.

CHAPTER III

[The "Atlantic" obeys the moon, and its LUNIVERSARY has come round

again. I have gathered up some hasty notes of my remarks made

since the last high tides, which I respectfully submit. Please to

remember this is TALK; just as easy and just as formal as I choose

to make it.]

--I never saw an author in my life--saving, perhaps, one--that did

not purr as audibly as a full-grown domestic cat, (Felis Catus,

LINN.,) on having his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful

hand.

But let me give you a caution. Be very careful how you tell an

author he is DROLL. Ten to one he will hate you; and if he does,

be sure he can do you a mischief, and very probably will. Say you

CRIED over his romance or his verses, and he will love you and send

you a copy. You can laugh over that as much as you like--in

private.

--Wonder why authors and actors are ashamed of being funny?--Why,

there are obvious reasons, and deep philosophical ones. The clown

knows very well that the women are not in love with him, but with

Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed hat. Passion

never laughs. The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a

procession.

If you want the deep underlying reason, I must take more time to

tell it. There is a perfect consciousness in every form of wit

--using that term in its general sense--that its essence consists in

a partial and incomplete view of whatever it touches. It throws a

single ray, separated from the rest,--red, yellow, blue, or any

intermediate shade,--upon an object; never white light; that is the

province of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit,--all the

prismatic colors,--but never the object as it is in fair daylight.

A pun, which is a kind if wit, is a different and much shallower

trick in mental optics throwing the SHADOWS of two objects so that

one overlies the other. Poetry uses the rainbow tints for special

effects, but always keeps its essential object in the purest white

light of truth.--Will you allow me to pursue this subject a little

further?

[They didn't allow me at that time, for somebody happened to scrape

the floor with his chair just then; which accidental sound, as all

must have noticed, has the instantaneous effect that the cutting of

the yellow hair by Iris had upon infelix Dido. It broke the charm,

and that breakfast was over.]

--Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say

disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer

you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact

and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare,

leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies; they

are ready enough to tell them. Good-breeding NEVER forgets that

amour-propre is universal. When you read the story of the

Archbishop and Gil Blas, you may laugh, if you will, at the poor

old man's delusion; but don't forget that the youth was the greater

fool of the two, and that his master served such a booby rightly in

turning him out of doors.

--You need not get up a rebellion against what I say, if you find

everything in my sayings is not exactly new. You can't possibly

mistake a man who means to be honest for a literary pickpocket. I

once read an introductory lecture that looked to me too learned for

its latitude. On examination, I found all its erudition was taken

ready-made from D'Israeli. If I had been ill-natured, I should

have shown up the little great man, who had once belabored me in

his feeble way. But one can generally tell these wholesale thieves

easily enough, and they are not worth the trouble of putting them

in the pillory. I doubt the entire novelty of my remarks just made

on telling unpleasant truths, yet I am not conscious of any

larceny.

Neither make too much of flaws and occasional overstatements. Some

persons seem to think that absolute truth, in the form of rigidly

stated propositions, is all that conversation admits. This is

precisely as if a musician should insist on having nothing but

perfect chords and simple melodies,--no diminished fifths, no flat

sevenths, no flourishes, on any account. Now it is fair to say,

that, just as music must have all these, so conversation must have

its partial truths, its embellished truths, its exaggerated truths.

It is in its higher forms an artistic product, and admits the ideal

element as much as pictures or statues. One man who is a little

too literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of

esprit.--"Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful people's

nonsense? Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!"

--Certainly, if a man is too fond of paradox,--if he is flighty and

empty,--if, instead of striking those fifths and sevenths, those

harmonious discords, often so much better than the twinned octaves,

in the music of thought,--if, instead of striking these, he jangles

the chords, stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remember

that talking is one of the fine arts,--the noblest, the most

important, and the most difficult,--and that its fluent harmonies

may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note. Therefore

conversation which is suggestive rather than argumentative, which

lets out the most of each talker's results of thought, is commonly

the pleasantest and the most profitable. It is not easy, at the

best, for two persons talking together to make the most of each

other's thoughts, there are so many of them.

[The company looked as if they wanted an explanation.]

When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is

natural enough that among the six there should be more or less

confusion and misapprehension.

[Our landlady turned pale;--no doubt she thought there was a screw

loose in my intellects,--and that involved the probable loss of a

boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a

sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I

understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring

theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down

of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to

Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe

the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize the

carving-knife; at any rate, he slid it to one side, as it were

carelessly.]

I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here,

that there are at least six personalities distinctly to be

recognized as taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas.

Three Johns.

1. The real John; known only to his Maker.

2. John's ideal John; never the real one, and often very unlike

him.

3. Thomas's ideal John; never the real John, nor John's John, but

often very unlike either.

Three Thomas.

1. The real Thomas.

2. Thomas's ideal Thomas.

3. John's ideal Thomas.

Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a

platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the

conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and

ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men

the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly

conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks

from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him

to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he is, so far as

Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful

rogue, though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply

to the three Thomases. It follows, that, until a man can be found

who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as

others see him, there must be at least six persons engaged in every

dialogue between two. Of these, the least important,

philosophically speaking, is the one that we have called the real

person. No wonder two disputants often get angry, when there are

six of them talking and listening all at the same time.

[A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made

by a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me

at table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little

known to boarding-houses, was on its way to me via this unlettered

Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket,

remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him

that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the

mean time he had eaten the peaches.]

--The opinions of relatives as to a man's powers are very commonly

of little value; not merely because they sometimes overrate their

own flesh and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are

quite as likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the

habit of considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like

what florists style the BREAKING of a seedling tulip into what we

may call high-caste colors,--ten thousand dingy flowers, then one

with the divine streak; or, if you prefer it, like the coming up in

old Jacob's garden of that most gentlemanly little fruit, the

seckel pear, which I have sometimes seen in shop-windows. It is a

surprise,--there is nothing to account for it. All at once we find

that twice two make FIVE. Nature is fond of what are called

"gift-enterprises." This little book of life which she has given into

the hands of its joint possessors is commonly one of the old

story-books bound over again. Only once in a great while there is a

stately poem in it, or its leaves are illuminated with the glories of

art, or they enfold a draft for untold values signed by the

million-fold millionnaire old mother herself. But strangers are

commonly the first to find the "gift" that came with the little book.

It may be questioned whether anything can be conscious of its own

flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still

more eloquently silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware of

any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man knows his

own voice; many men do not know their own profiles. Every one

remembers Carlyle's famous "Characteristics" article; allow for

exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the

self-unconsciousness of genius. It comes under the great law just

stated. This incapacity of knowing its own traits is often found

in the family as well as in the individual. So never mind what

your cousins, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and the rest, say

about that fine poem you have written, but send it (postage-paid)

to the editors, if there are any, of the "Atlantic,"--which, by the

way, is not so called because it is A NOTION, as some dull wits

wish they had said, but are too late.

--Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has

mingled with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute,

peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them

are apt to get a bullying habit of mind;--not of manners, perhaps;

they may be soft and smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet

assertion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy Weights,

commonly the best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears

upon what he very inelegantly calls his "mug." Take the man, for

instance, who deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no

elasticity in a mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it

never yields a hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that

comes in collision with it. What the mathematician knows being

absolute, unconditional, incapable of suffering question, it should

tend, in the nature of things, to breed a despotic way of thinking.

So of those who deal with the palpable and often unmistakable facts

of external nature; only in a less degree. Every probability--and

most of our common, working beliefs are probabilities--is provided

with BUFFERS at both ends, which break the force of opposite

opinions clashing against it; but scientific certainty has no

spring in it, no courtesy, no possibility of yielding. All this

must react on the minds which handle these forms of truth.

--Oh, you need net tell me that Messrs. A. and B. are the most

gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preeminent in the

ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you.

But mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not

force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half

dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think

only in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once

visiting a certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to

express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman

who was an attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the

statement, and appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove

it. The rash man stuck to his hasty generalization,

notwithstanding.

[--It is my desire to be useful to those with whom I am associated

in my daily relations. I not unfrequently practise the divine art

of music in company with our landlady's daughter, who, as I

mentioned before, is the owner of an accordion. Having myself a

well-marked barytone voice of more than half an octave in compass,

I sometimes add my vocal powers to her execution of

"Thou, thou reign'st in this bosom."

not, however, unless her mother or some other discreet female is

present, to prevent misinterpretation or remark. I have also taken

a good deal of interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to,

sometimes called B. F., or more frequently Frank, in imitation of

that felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and convenience,

adopted by some of his betters. My acquaintance with the French

language is very imperfect, I having never studied it anywhere but

in Paris, which is awkward, as B. F. devotes himself to it with the

peculiar advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The boy, I think, is

doing well, between us, notwithstanding. The following is an

UNCORRECTED French exercise, written by this young gentleman. His

mother thinks it very creditable to his abilities; though, being

unacquainted with the French language, her judgment cannot be

considered final.

LE RAT DIES SALONS A LECTURE.

Ce rat ci est un animal fort singulier. Il a deux pattes de

derriere sur lesquelles il marche, et deux pattes de devant dont il

fait usage pour tenir les journaux. Cet animal a la peau noire

pour le plupart, et porte un cerele blanchatre autour de son cou.

On le trouve tous les jours aux dits salons, on il demeure, digere,

s'il y a do quoi dans son interieur, respire, tousse, eternue,

dort, et renfle quelquefois, ayant toujours le semblant de lire.

On ne sait pas s'il a une autre gite que cela. Il a l'air d'une

bete tres stupide, mais il est d'une sagacite et d'une vitesse

extraordinaire quand il s'agit de saisir un journal nouveau. On ne

sait pas pourquoi il lit, parcequ'il ne parait pas avoir des idees.

Il vocalise rarement, mais en revanche, il fait des bruits nasaux

divers. Il porte un crayon dans une de ses poches pectorales, avec

lequel il fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des

livres, semblable aux suivans: !!!--Bah! Pooh! Il ne faut pas

cependant les prendre pour des signes d'intelligence. Il ne vole

pas, ordinairement; il fait rarement meme des echanges de

parapluie, et jamais de chapeau, parceque son chapeau a toujours un

caractere specifique. On ne sait pas au juste ce dont il se

nourrit. Feu Cuvier etait d'avis que c'etait de l'odeur du cuir

des reliures; ce qu'on dit d'etre une nourriture animale fort

saine, et peu chere. Il vit bien longtems. Enfin il meure, en

laissant a ses heritiers une carte du Salon a Lecture on il avait

existe pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient toutes les nuits,

apres la mort, visiter le Salon. On peut le voir, dit on, a

minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant le journal du soir, et

ayant a sa main un crayon de charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des

caracteres inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui prouve que le

spiritualisme est vrai, et que Messieurs les Professeurs de

Cambridge sont des imbeciles qui ne savent rien du tout, du tout.

I think this exercise, which I have not corrected, or allowed to be

touched in any way, is not discreditable to B. F. You observe that

he is acquiring a knowledge of zoology at the same time that he is

learning French. Fathers of families in moderate circumstances

will find it profitable to their children, and an economical mode

of instruction, to set them to revising and amending this boy's

exercise. The passage was originally taken from the "Histoire

Naturelle des Betes Ruminans et Rongeurs, Bipedes et Autres,"

lately published in Paris. This was translated into English and

published in London. It was republished at Great Pedlington, with

notes and additions by the American editor. The notes consist of

an interrogation-mark on page 53d, and a reference (p. 127th) to

another book "edited" by the same hand. The additions consist of

the editor's name on the title-page and back, with a complete and

authentic list of said editor's honorary titles in the first of

these localities. Our boy translated the translation back into

French. This may be compared with the original, to be found on

Shelf 13, Division X, of the Public Library of this metropolis.]

--Some of you boarders ask me from time to time why I don't write a

story, or a novel, or something of that kind. Instead of answering

each one of you separately, I will thank you to step up into the

wholesale department for a few moments, where I deal in answers by

the piece and by the bale.

That every articulately-speaking human being has in him stuff for

ONE novel in three volumes duodecimo has long been with me a

cherished belief. It has been maintained, on the other hand, that

many persons cannot write more than one novel,--that all after that

are likely to be failures.--Life is so much more tremendous a thing

in its heights and depths than any transcript of it can be, that

all records of human experience are as so many bound herbaria to

the innumerable glowing, glistening, rustling, breathing,

fragrance-laden, poison-sucking, life-giving, death-distilling

leaves and flowers of the forest and the prairies. All we can do

with books of human experience is to make them alive again with

something borrowed from our own lives. We can make a book alive

for us just in proportion to its resemblance in essence or in form

to our own experience. Now an author's first novel is naturally

drawn, to a great extent, from his personal experiences; that is,

is a literal copy of nature under various slight disguises. But

the moment the author gets out of his personality, he must have the

creative power, as well as the narrative art and the sentiment, in

order to tell a living story; and this is rare.

Besides, there is great danger that a man's first life-story shall

clean him out, so to speak, of his best thoughts. Most lives,

though their stream is loaded with sand and turbid with alluvial

waste, drop a few golden grains of wisdom as they flow along.

Oftentimes a single CRADLING gets them all, and after that the poor

man's labor is only rewarded by mud and worn pebbles. All which

proves that I, as an individual of the human family, could write

one novel or story at any rate, if I would.

--Why don't I, then?--Well, there are several reasons against it.

In the first place, I should tell all my secrets, and I maintain

that verse is the proper medium for such revelations. Rhythm and

rhyme and the harmonies of musical language, the play of fancy, the

fire of imagination, the flashes of passion, so hide the nakedness

of a heart laid open, that hardly any confession, transfigured in

the luminous halo of poetry, is reproached as self-exposure. A

beauty shows herself under the chandeliers, protected by the

glitter of her diamonds, with such a broad snowdrift of white arms

and shoulders laid bare, that, were she unadorned and in plain

calico, she would be unendurable--in the opinion of the ladies.

Again, I am terribly afraid I should show up all my friends. I

should like to know if all story-tellers do not do this? Now I am

afraid all my friends would not bear showing up very well; for they

have an average share of the common weakness of humanity, which I

am pretty certain would come out. Of all that have told stories

among us there is hardly one I can recall who has not drawn too

faithfully some living portrait that might better have been spared.

Once more, I have sometimes thought it possible I might be too dull

to write such a story as I should wish to write.

And finally, I think it very likely I SHALL write a story one of

these days. Don't be surprised at any time, if you see me coming

out with "The Schoolmistress," or "The Old Gentleman Opposite."

[OUR schoolmistress and OUR old gentleman that sits opposite had

left the table before I said this.] I want my glory for writing

the same discounted now, on the spot, if you please. I will write

when I get ready. How many people live on the reputation of the

reputation they might have made!

--I saw you smiled when I spoke about the possibility of my being

too dull to write a good story. I don't pretend to know what you

meant by it, but I take occasion to make a remark which may

hereafter prove of value to some among you.--When one of us who has

been led by native vanity or senseless flattery to think himself or

herself possessed of talent arrives at the full and final

conclusion that he or she is really dull, it is one of the

most tranquillizing and blessed convictions that can enter a

mortal's mind. All our failures, our shortcomings, our strange

disappointments in the effect of our efforts are lifted from our

bruised shoulders, and fall, like Christian's pack, at the feet of

that Omnipotence which has seen fit to deny us the pleasant gift of

high intelligence,--with which one look may overflow us in some

wider sphere of being.

--How sweetly and honestly one said to me the other day, "I hate

books!" A gentleman,--singularly free from affectations,--not

learned, of course, but of perfect breeding, which is often so much

better than learning,--by no means dull, in the sense of knowledge

of the world and society, but certainly not clever either in the

arts or sciences,--his company is pleasing to all who know him. I

did not recognize in him inferiority of literary taste half so

distinctly as I did simplicity of character and fearless

acknowledgment of his inaptitude for scholarship. In fact, I think

there are a great many gentlemen and others, who read with a mark

to keep their place, that really "hate books," but never had the

wit to find it out, or the manliness to own it. [Entre nous, I

always read with a mark.]

We get into a way of thinking as if what we call an "intellectual

man" was, as a matter of course, made up of nine-tenths, or

thereabouts, of book-learning, and one-tenth himself. But even if

he is actually so compounded, he need not read much. Society is a

strong solution of books. It draws the virtue out of what is best

worth reading, as hot water draws the strength of tea-leaves. If

_I_ were a prince, I would hire or buy a private literary tea-pot,

in which I would steep all the leaves of new books that promised

well. The infusion would do for me without the vegetable fibre.

You understand me; I would have a person whose sole business should

be to read day and night, and talk to me whenever I wanted him to.

I know the man I would have: a quick-witted, out-spoken, incisive

fellow; knows history, or at any rate has a shelf full of books

about it, which he can use handily, and the same of all useful arts

and sciences; knows all the common plots of plays and novels, and

the stock company of characters that are continually coming on in

new costume; can give you a criticism of an octavo in an epithet

and a wink, and you can depend on it; cares for nobody except for

the virtue there is in what he says; delights in taking off big

wigs and professional gowns, and in the disembalming and

unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet he is as tender and

reverential to all that bears the mark of genius,--that is, of a

new influx of truth or beauty,--as a nun over her missal. In

short, he is one of those men that know everything except how to

make a living. Him would I keep on the square next my own royal

compartment on life's chessboard. To him I would push up another

pawn, in the shape of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would

of course take--to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally

provide. In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive

phrase, "put him through" all the material part of life; see him

sheltered, warmed, fed, button-mended, and all that, just to be

able to lay on his talk when I liked,--with the privilege of

shutting it off at will.

A Club is the next best thing to this, strung like a harp, with

about a dozen ringing intelligences, each answering to some chord

of the macrocosm. They do well to dine together once in a while.

A dinner-party made up of such elements is the last triumph of

civilization over barbarism. Nature and art combine to charm the

senses; the equatorial zone of the system is soothed by

well-studied artifices; the faculties are off duty, and fall into

their natural attitudes; you see wisdom in slippers and science in a

short jacket.

The whole force of conversation depends on how much you can take

for granted. Vulgar chess-players have to play their game out;

nothing short of the brutality of an actual checkmate satisfies

their dull apprehensions. But look at two masters of that noble

game! White stands well enough, so far as you can see; but Red

says, Mate in six moves;--White looks,--nods;--the game is over.

Just so in talking with first-rate men; especially when they are

good-natured and expansive, as they are apt to be at table. That

blessed clairvoyance which sees into things without opening them,

--that glorious license, which, having shut the door and driven the

reporter from its key-hole, calls upon Truth, majestic virgin! to

get off from her pedestal and drop her academic poses, and take a

festive garland and the vacant place on the medius lectus,--that

carnival-shower of questions and replies and comments, large axioms

bowled over the mahogany like bomb-shells from professional

mortars, and explosive wit dropping its trains of many-colored

fire, and the mischief-making rain of bon-bons pelting everybody

that shows himself,--the picture of a truly intellectual banquet is

one which the old Divinities might well have attempted to reproduce

in their--

--"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the young fellow whom they call John,--"that

is from one of your lectures!"

I know it, I replied,--I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it.

"The trail of the serpent is over them all!"

All lecturers, all professors, all schoolmasters, have ruts and

grooves in their minds into which their conversation is perpetually

sliding. Did you never, in riding through the woods of a still

June evening, suddenly feel that you had passed into a warm stratum

of air, and in a minute or two strike the chill layer of atmosphere

beyond? Did you never, in cleaving the green waters of the Back

Bay,--where the Provincial blue-noses are in the habit of beating

the "Metropolitan" boat-clubs,--find yourself in a tepid streak, a

narrow, local gulf-stream, a gratuitous warm-bath a little

underdone, through which your glistening shoulders soon flashed, to

bring you back to the cold realities of full-sea temperature? Just

so, in talking with any of the characters above referred to, one

not unfrequently finds a sudden change in the style of the

conversation. The lack-lustre eye rayless as a Beacon-Street

door-plate in August, all at once fills with light; the face flings

itself wide open like the church-portals when the bride and

bridegroom enter; the little man grows in stature before your eyes,

like the small prisoner with hair on end, beloved yet dreaded of

early childhood; you were talking with a dwarf and an imbecile,

--you have a giant and a trumpet-tongued angel before you!--Nothing

but a streak out of a fifty-dollar lecture.--As when, at some

unlooked-for moment, the mighty fountain-column springs into the

air before the astonished passer-by,--silver-footed, diamond-

crowned, rainbow-scarfed,--from the bosom of that fair sheet,

sacred to the hymns of quiet batrachians at home, and the epigrams

of a less amiable and less elevated order of reptilia in other

latitudes.

--Who was that person that was so abused some time since for saying

that in the conflict of two races our sympathies naturally go with

the higher? No matter who he was. Now look at what is going on in

India,--a white, superior "Caucasian" race, against a dark-skinned,

inferior, but still "Caucasian" race,--and where are English and

American sympathies? We can't stop to settle all the doubtful

questions; all we know is, that the brute nature is sure to come

out most strongly in the lower race, and it is the general law that

the human side of humanity should treat the brutal side as it does

the same nature in the inferior animals,--tame it or crush it. The

India mail brings stories of women and children outraged and

murdered; the royal stronghold is in the hands of the babe-killers.

England takes down the Map of the World, which she has girdled with

empire, and makes a correction thus: [DELPHI] Dele. The civilized

world says, Amen.

--Do not think, because I talk to you of many subjects briefly,

that I should not find it much lazier work to take each one of them

and dilute it down to an essay. Borrow some of my old college

themes and water my remarks to suit yourselves, as the Homeric

heroes did with their melas oinos,--that black sweet, syrupy wine

(?) which they used to alloy with three parts or more of the

flowing stream. [Could it have been melasses, as Webster and his

provincials spell it,--or Molossa's, as dear old smattering,

chattering, would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in

the "Magnalia"? Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries who make

barn-door-fowl flights of learning in "Notes and Queries!"--ye

Historical Societies, in one of whose venerable triremes I, too,

ascend the stream of time, while other hands tug at the oars!--ye

Amines of parasitical literature, who pick up your grains of

native-grown food with a bodkin, having gorged upon less honest

fare, until, like the great minds Goethe speaks of, you have "made

a Golgotha" of your pages!--ponder thereon!]

--Before you go, this morning, I want to read you a copy of verses.

You will understand by the title that they are written in an

imaginary character. I don't doubt they will fit some family-man

well enough. I send it forth as "Oak Hall" projects a coat, on a

priori grounds of conviction that it will suit somebody. There is

no loftier illustration of faith than this. It believes that a

soul has been clad in flesh; that tender parents have fed and

nurtured it; that its mysterious compages or frame-work has

survived its myriad exposures and reached the stature of maturity;

that the Man, now self-determining, has given in his adhesion to

the traditions and habits of the race in favor of artificial

clothing; that he will, having all the world to choose from, select

the very locality where this audacious generalization has been

acted upon. It builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and

trusts that Nature will model a material shape to fit it. There is

a prophecy in every seam, and its pockets are full of inspiration.

--Now hear the verses.

THE OLD MAN DREAMS.

O for one hour of youthful joy!

Give back my twentieth spring!

I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy

Than reign a gray-beard king!

Off with the wrinkled spoils of age!

Away with learning's crown!

Tear out life's wisdom-written page,

And dash its trophies down!

One moment let my life-blood stream

From boyhood's fount of flame!

Give me one giddy, reeling dream

Of life all love and fame!

--My listening angel heard the prayer,

And calmly smiling, said,

"If I but touch thy silvered hair,

Thy hasty wish hath sped.

"But is there nothing in thy track

To bid thee fondly stay,

While the swift seasons hurry back

To find the wished-for day?"

--Ah, truest soul of womankind!

Without thee, what were life?

One bliss I cannot leave behind:

I'll take--my--precious wife!

--The angel took a sapphire pen

And wrote in rainbow dew,

"The man would be a boy again,

And be a husband too!"

--"And is there nothing yet unsaid

Before the change appears?

Remember, all their gifts have fled

With those dissolving years!"

Why, yes; for memory would recall

My fond paternal joys;

I could not bear to leave them all;

I'll take--my--girl--and--boys!

The smiling angel dropped his pen,--

"Why this will never do;

The man would be a boy again,

And be a father too!"

And so I laughed,--my laughter woke

The household with its noise,--

And wrote my dream, when morning broke,

To please the gray-haired boys.

CHAPTER IV

[I am so well pleased with my boarding-house that I intend to

remain there, perhaps for years. Of course I shall have a great

many conversations to report, and they will necessarily be of

different tone and on different subjects. The talks are like the

breakfasts,--sometimes dipped toast, and sometimes dry. You must

take them as they come. How can I do what all these letters ask me

to? No. 1. want serious and earnest thought. No. 2. (letter

smells of bad cigars) must have more jokes; wants me to tell a

"good storey" which he has copied out for me. (I suppose two

letters before the word "good" refer to some Doctor of Divinity who

told the story.) No. 3. (in female hand)--more poetry. No. 4.

wants something that would be of use to a practical man.

(Prahctical mahn he probably pronounces it.) No. 5. (gilt-edged,

sweet-scented)--"more sentiment,"--"heart's outpourings."--

My dear friends, one and all, I can do nothing but report such

remarks as I happen to have made at our breakfast-table. Their

character will depend on many accidents,--a good deal on the

particular persons in the company to whom they were addressed. It

so happens that those which follow were mainly intended for the

divinity-student and the school-mistress; though others, whom I

need not mention, saw to interfere, with more or less propriety, in

the conversation. This is one of my privileges as a talker; and of

course, if I was not talking for our whole company, I don't expect

all the readers of this periodical to be interested in my notes of

what was said. Still, I think there may be a few that will rather

like this vein,--possibly prefer it to a livelier one,--serious

young men, and young women generally, in life's roseate parenthesis

from--years of age to--inclusive.

Another privilege of talking is to misquote.--Of course it wasn't

Proserpina that actually cut the yellow hair,--but Iris. (As I

have since told you) it was the former lady's regular business, but

Dido had used herself ungenteelly, and Madame d'Enfer stood firm on

the point of etiquette. So the bathycolpian Here--Juno, in Latin

--sent down Iris instead. But I was mightily pleased to see that one

of the gentlemen that do the heavy articles for the celebrated

"Oceanic Miscellany" misquoted Campbell's line without any excuse.

"Waft us HOME the MESSAGE" of course it ought to be. Will he be

duly grateful for the correction?]

--The more we study the body and the mind, the more we find both to

be governed, not by, but ACCORDING TO laws, such as we observe in

the larger universe.--You think you know all about WALKING,--don't

you, now? Well, how do you suppose your lower limbs are held to

your body? They are sucked up by two cupping vessels, ("cotyloid"

--cup-like--cavities,) and held there as long as you live, and

longer. At any rate, you think you move them backward and forward

at such a rate as your will determines, don't you?--On the

contrary, they swing just as any other pendulums swing, at a fixed

rate, determined by their length. You can alter this by muscular

power, as you can take hold of the pendulum of a clock and make it

move faster or slower; but your ordinary gait is timed by the same

mechanism as the movements of the solar system.

[My friend, the Professor, told me all this, referring me to

certain German physiologists by the name of Weber for proof of the

facts, which, however, he said he had often verified. I

appropriated it to my own use; what can one do better than this,

when one has a friend that tells him anything worth remembering?

The Professor seems to think that man and the general powers of the

universe are in partnership. Some one was saying that it had cost

nearly half a million to move the Leviathan only so far as they had

got it already.--Why,--said the Professor,--they might have hired

an EARTHQUAKE for less money!]

Just as we find a mathematical rule at the bottom of many of the

bodily movements, just so thought may be supposed to have its

regular cycles. Such or such a thought comes round periodically,

in its turn. Accidental suggestions, however, so far interfere

with the regular cycles, that we may find them practically beyond

our power of recognition. Take all this for what it is worth, but

at any rate you will agree that there are certain particular

thoughts that do not come up once a day, nor once a week, but that

a year would hardly go round without your having them pass through

your mind. Here is one which comes up at intervals in this way.

Some one speaks of it, and there is an instant and eager smile of

assent in the listener or listeners. Yes, indeed; they have often

been struck by it.

ALL AT ONCE A CONVICTION FLASHES THROUGH US THAT WE HAVE BEEN IN

THE SAME PRECISE CIRCUMSTANCES AS AT THE PRESENT INSTANT, ONCE OR

MANY TIMES BEFORE.

O, dear, yes!--said one of the company,--everybody has had that

feeling.

The landlady didn't know anything about such notions; it was an

idee in folks' heads, she expected.

The schoolmistress said, in a hesitating sort of way, that she knew

the feeling well, and didn't like to experience it; it made her

think she was a ghost, sometimes.

The young fellow whom they call John said he knew all about it; he

had just lighted a cheroot the other day, when a tremendous

conviction all at once came over him that he had done just that

same thing ever so many times before. I looked severely at him,

and his countenance immediately fell--ON THE SIDE TOWARD ME; I

cannot answer for the other, for he can wink and laugh with either

half of his face without the other half's knowing it.

--I have noticed--I went on to say--the following circumstances

connected with these sudden impressions. First, that the condition

which seems to be the duplicate of a former one is often very

trivial,--one that might have presented itself a hundred times.

Secondly, that the impression is very evanescent, and that it is

rarely, if ever, recalled by any voluntary effort, at least after

any time has elapsed. Thirdly, that there is a disinclination to

record the circumstances, and a sense of incapacity to reproduce

the state of mind in words. Fourthly, I have often felt that the

duplicate condition had not only occurred once before, but that it

was familiar and, as it seemed, habitual. Lastly, I have had the

same convictions in my dreams.

How do I account for it?--Why, there are several ways that I can

mention, and you may take your choice. The first is that which the

young lady hinted at;--that these flashes are sudden recollections

of a previous existence. I don't believe that; for I remember a

poor student I used to know told me he had such a conviction one

day when he was blacking his boots, and I can't think he had ever

lived in another world where they use Day and Martin.

Some think that Dr. Wigan's doctrine of the brain's being a double

organ, its hemispheres working together like the two eyes, accounts

for it. One of the hemispheres hangs fire, they suppose, and the

small interval between the perceptions of the nimble and the

sluggish half seems an indefinitely long period, and therefore the

second perception appears to be the copy of another, ever so old.

But even allowing the centre of perception to be double, I can see

no good reason for supposing this indefinite lengthening of the

time, nor any analogy that bears it out. It seems to me most

likely that the coincidence of circumstances is very partial, but

that we take this partial resemblance for identity, as we

occasionally do resemblances of persons. A momentary posture of

circumstances is so far like some preceding one that we accept it

as exactly the same, just as we accost a stranger occasionally,

mistaking him for a friend. The apparent similarity may be owing

perhaps, quite as much to the mental state at the time, as to the

outward circumstances.

--Here is another of these curiously recurring remarks. I have

said it, and heard it many times, and occasionally met with

something like it in books,--somewhere in Bulwer's novels, I think,

and in one of the works of Mr. Olmsted, I know.

MEMORY, IMAGINATION, OLD SENTIMENTS AND ASSOCIATIONS, ARE MORE

READILY REACHED THROUGH THE SENSE OF SMELL THAN BY ALMOST ANY OTHER

CHANNEL.

Of course the particular odors which act upon each person's

susceptibilities differ.--O, yes! I will tell you some of mine.

The smell of PHOSPHORUS is one of them. During a year or two of

adolescence I used to be dabbling in chemistry a good deal, and as

about that time I had my little aspirations and passions like

another, some of these things got mixed up with each other:

orange-colored fumes of nitrous acid, and visions as bright and

transient; reddening litmus-paper, and blushing cheeks;--eheu!

"Soles occidere et redire possunt,"

but there is no reagent that will redden the faded roses of

eighteen hundred and--spare them! But, as I was saying, phosphorus

fires this train of associations in an instant; its luminous vapors

with their penetrating odor throw me into a trance; it comes to me

in a double sense "trailing clouds of glory." Only the confounded

Vienna matches, ohne phosphor-geruch, have worn my sensibilities a

little.

Then there is the MARIGOLD. When I was of smallest dimensions, and

wont to ride impacted between the knees of fond parental pair, we

would sometimes cross the bridge to the next village-town and stop

opposite a low, brown, "gambrel-roofed" cottage. Out of it would

come one Sally, sister of its swarthy tenant, swarthy herself,

shady-lipped, sad-voiced, and, bending over her flower-bed, would

gather a "posy," as she called it, for the little boy. Sally lies

in the churchyard with a slab of blue slate at her head, lichen-

crusted, and leaning a little within the last few years. Cottage,

garden-beds, posies, grenadier-like rows of seedling onions,

--stateliest of vegetables,--all are gone, but the breath of a

marigold brings them all back to me.

Perhaps the herb EVERLASTING, the fragrant immortelle of our autumn

fields, has the most suggestive odor to me of all those that set me

dreaming. I can hardly describe the strange thoughts and emotions

that come to me as I inhale the aroma of its pale, dry, rustling

flowers. A something it has of sepulchral spicery, as if it had

been brought from the core of some great pyramid, where it had lain

on the breast of a mummied Pharaoh. Something, too, of immortality

in the sad, faint sweetness lingering so long in its lifeless

petals. Yet this does not tell why it fills my eyes with tears and

carries me in blissful thought to the banks of asphodel that border

the River of Life.

--I should not have talked so much about these personal

susceptibilities, if I had not a remark to make about them which I

believe is a new one. It is this. There may be a physical reason

for the strange connection between the sense of smell and the mind.

The olfactory nerve--so my friend, the Professor, tells me--is the

only one directly connected with the hemispheres of the brain, the

parts in which, as we have every reason to believe, the

intellectual processes are performed. To speak more truly the

olfactory "nerve" is not a nerve at all, he says, but a part of the

brain, in intimate connection with its anterior lobes. Whether

this anatomical arrangement is at the bottom of the facts I have

mentioned, I will not decide, but it is curious enough to be worth

remembering. Contrast the sense of taste, as a source of

suggestive impressions, with that of smell. Now the Professor

assures me that you will find the nerve of taste has no immediate

connection with the brain proper, but only with the prolongation of

the spinal cord.

[The old gentleman opposite did not pay much attention, I think, to

this hypothesis of mine. But while I was speaking about the sense

of smell he nestled about in his seat, and presently succeeded in

getting out a large red bandanna handkerchief. Then he lurched a

little to the other side, and after much tribulation at last

extricated an ample round snuff-box. I looked as he opened it and

felt for the wonted pugil. Moist rappee, and a Tonka-bean lying

therein. I made the manual sign understood of all mankind that use

the precious dust, and presently my brain, too, responded to the

long unused stimulus--O boys,--that were,--actual papas and

possible grandpapas,--some of you with crowns like billiard-balls,

--some in locks of sable silvered, and some of silver sabled,--do

you remember, as you doze over this, those after-dinners at the

Trois Freres when the Scotch-plaided snuff-box went round, and the

dry Lundy-Foot tickled its way along into our happy sensoria? Then

it was that the Chambertin or the Clos Vougeot came in, slumbering

in its straw cradle. And one among you,--do you remember how he

would have a bit of ice always in his Burgundy, and sit tinkling it

against the sides of the bubble-like glass, saying that he

was hearing the cow-bells as he used to hear them, when the

deep-breathing kine came home at twilight from the huckleberry

pasture, in the old home a thousand leagues towards the sunset?]

Ah me! what strains and strophes of unwritten verse pulsate through

my soul when I open a certain closet in the ancient house where I

was born! On its shelves used to lie bundles of sweet-marjoram and

pennyroyal and lavender and mint and catnip; there apples were

stored until their seeds should grow black, which happy period

there were sharp little milk-teeth always ready to anticipate;

there peaches lay in the dark, thinking of the sunshine they had

lost, until, like the hearts of saints that dream of heaven in

their sorrow, they grew fragrant as the breath of angels. The

odorous echo of a score of dead summers lingers yet in those dim

recesses.

--Do I remember Byron's line about "striking the electric chain"?

--To be sure I do. I sometimes think the less the hint that stirs

the automatic machinery of association, the more easily this moves

us. What can be more trivial than that old story of opening the

folio Shakspeare that used to lie in some ancient English hall and

finding the flakes of Christmas pastry between its leaves, shut up

in them perhaps a hundred years ago? And, lo! as one looks on

these poor relics of a bygone generation, the universe changes in

the twinkling of an eye; old George the Second is back again, and

the elder Pitt is coming into power, and General Wolfe is a fine,

promising young man, and over the Channel they are pulling the

Sieur Damiens to pieces with wild horses, and across the Atlantic

the Indians are tomahawking Hirams and Jonathans and Jonases at

Fort William Henry; all the dead people who have been in the dust

so long--even to the stout-armed cook that made the pastry--are

alive again; the planet unwinds a hundred of its luminous coils,

and the precession of the equinoxes is retraced on the dial of

heaven! And all this for a bit of pie-crust!

--I will thank you for that pie,--said the provoking young fellow

whom I have named repeatedly. He looked at it for a moment, and

put his hands to his eyes as if moved.--I was thinking,--he said

indistinctly--

--How? What is't?--said our landlady.

--I was thinking--said he--who was king of England when this old

pie was baked,--and it made me feel bad to think how long he must

have been dead.

[Our landlady is a decent body, poor, and a widow, of course; cela

va sans dire. She told me her story once; it was as if a grain of

corn that had been ground and bolted had tried to individualize

itself by a special narrative. There was the wooing and the

wedding,--the start in life,--the disappointments,--the children

she had buried,--the struggle against fate,--the dismantling of

life, first of its small luxuries, and then of its comforts,--the

broken spirits,--the altered character of the one on whom she

leaned,--and at last the death that came and drew the black curtain

between her and all her earthly hopes.

I never laughed at my landlady after she had told me her story, but

I often cried,--not those pattering tears that run off the eaves

upon our neighbors' grounds, the stillicidium of self-conscious

sentiment, but those which steal noiselessly through their conduits

until they reach the cisterns lying round about the heart; those

tears that we weep inwardly with unchanging features;--such I did

shed for her often when the imps of the boarding-house Inferno

tugged at her soul with their red-hot pincers.]

Young man,--I said,--the pasty you speak lightly of is not old, but

courtesy to those who labor to serve us, especially if they are of

the weaker sex, is very old, and yet well worth retaining. May I

recommend to you the following caution, as a guide, whenever you

are dealing with a woman, or an artist, or a poet--if you are

handling an editor or politician, it is superfluous advice. I take

it from the back of one of those little French toys which contain

pasteboard figures moved by a small running stream of fine sand;

Benjamin Franklin will translate it for you: "Quoiqu'elle soit

tres solidement montee, il faut ne pas BRUTALISER la machine."--I

will thank you for the pie, if you please.

[I took more of it than was good for me--as much as 85 degrees, I

should think,--and had an indigestion in consequence. While I was

suffering from it, I wrote some sadly desponding poems, and a

theological essay which took a very melancholy view of creation.

When I got better I labelled them all "Pie-crust," and laid them by

as scarecrows and solemn warnings. I have a number of books on my

shelves that I should like to label with some such title; but, as

they have great names on their title-pages,--Doctors of Divinity,

some of them,--it wouldn't do.]

--My friend, the Professor, whom I have mentioned to you once or

twice, told me yesterday that somebody had been abusing him in some

of the journals of his calling. I told him that I didn't doubt he

deserved it; that I hoped he did deserve a little abuse

occasionally, and would for a number of years to come; that nobody

could do anything to make his neighbors wiser or better without

being liable to abuse for it; especially that people hated to have

their little mistakes made fun of, and perhaps he had been doing

something of the kind.--The Professor smiled.--Now, said I, hear

what I am going to say. It will not take many years to bring you

to the period of life when men, at least the majority of writing

and talking men, do nothing but praise. Men, like peaches and

pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay. I

don't know what it is,--whether a spontaneous change, mental or

bodily, or whether it is thorough experience of the thanklessness

of critical honesty,--but it is a fact, that most writers, except

sour and unsuccessful ones, get tired of finding fault at about the

time when they are beginning to grow old. As a general thing, I

would not give a great deal for the fair words of a critic, if he

is himself an author, over fifty years of age. At thirty we are

all trying to cut our names in big letters upon the walls of this

tenement of life; twenty years later we have carved it, or shut up

our jack-knives. Then we are ready to help others, and care less

to hinder any, because nobody's elbows are in our way. So I am

glad you have a little life left; you will be saccharine enough in

a few years.

--Some of the softening effects of advancing age have struck me

very much in what I have heard or seen here and elsewhere. I just

now spoke of the sweetening process that authors undergo. Do you

know that in the gradual passage from maturity to helplessness the

harshest characters sometimes have a period in which they are

gentle and placid as young children? I have heard it said, but I

cannot be sponsor for its truth, that the famous chieftain,

Lochiel, was rocked in a cradle like a baby, in his old age. An

old man, whose studies had been of the severest scholastic kind,

used to love to hear little nursery-stories read over and over to

him. One who saw the Duke of Wellington in his last years

describes him as very gentle in his aspect and demeanor. I

remember a person of singularly stern and lofty bearing who became

remarkably gracious and easy in all his ways in the later period of

his life.

And that leads me to say that men often remind me of pears in their

way of coming to maturity. Some are ripe at twenty, like human

Jargonelles, and must be made the most of, for their day is soon

over. Some come into their perfect condition late, like the autumn

kinds, and they last better than the summer fruit. And some, that,

like the Winter-Nelis, have been hard and uninviting until all the

rest have had their season, get their glow and perfume long after

the frost and snow have done their worst with the orchards. Beware

of rash criticisms; the rough and stringent fruit you condemn may

be an autumn or a winter pear, and that which you picked up beneath

the same bough in August may have been only its worm-eaten

windfalls. Milton was a Saint-Germain with a graft of the roseate

Early-Catherine. Rich, juicy, lively, fragrant, russet skinned old

Chaucer was an Easter-Beurre; the buds of a new summer were

swelling when he ripened.

--There is no power I envy so much--said the divinity-student--as

that of seeing analogies and making comparisons. I don't

understand how it is that some minds are continually coupling

thoughts or objects that seem not in the least related to each

other, until all at once they are put in a certain light, and you

wonder that you did not always see that they were as like as a pair

of twins. It appears to me a sort of miraculous gift.

[He is rather a nice young man, and I think has an appreciation of

the higher mental qualities remarkable for one of his years and

training. I try his head occasionally as housewives try eggs,

--give it an intellectual shake and hold it up to the light, so to

speak, to see if it has life in it, actual or potential, or only

contains lifeless albumen.]

You call it MIRACULOUS,--I replied,--tossing the expression with my

facial eminence, a little smartly, I fear.--Two men are walking by

the polyphloesboean ocean, one of them having a small tin cup with

which he can scoop up a gill of sea-water when he will, and the

other nothing but his hands, which will hardly hold water at all,

--and you call the tin cup a miraculous possession! It is the ocean

that is the miracle, my infant apostle! Nothing is clearer than

that all things are in all things, and that just according to the

intensity and extension of our mental being we shall see the many

in the one and the one in the many. Did Sir Isaac think what he

was saying when he made HIS speech about the ocean,--the child and

the pebbles, you know? Did he mean to speak slightingly of a

pebble? Of a spherical solid which stood sentinel over its

compartment of space before the stone that became the pyramids had

grown solid, and has watched it until now! A body which knows all

the currents of force that traverse the globe; which holds by

invisible threads to the ring of Saturn and the belt of Orion! A

body from the contemplation of which an archangel could infer the

entire inorganic universe as the simplest of corollaries! A throne

of the all-pervading Deity, who has guided its every atom since the

rosary of heaven was strung with beaded stars!

So,--to return to OUR walk by the ocean,--if all that poetry has

dreamed, all that insanity has raved, all that maddening narcotics

have driven through the brains of men, or smothered passion nursed

in the fancies of women,--if the dreams of colleges and convents

and boarding-schools,--if every human feeling that sighs, or

smiles, or curses, or shrieks, or groans, should bring all their

innumerable images, such as come with every hurried heart-beat,

--the epic which held them all, though its letters filled the zodiac,

would be but a cupful from the infinite ocean of similitudes and

analogies that rolls through the universe.

[The divinity-student honored himself by the way in which he

received this. He did not swallow it at once, neither did he

reject it; but he took it as a pickerel takes the bait, and carried

it off with him to his hole (in the fourth story) to deal with at

his leisure.]

--Here is another remark made for his especial benefit.--There is a

natural tendency in many persons to run their adjectives together

in TRIADS, as I have heard them called,--thus: He was honorable,

courteous, and brave; she was graceful, pleasing, and virtuous.

Dr. Johnson is famous for this; I think it was Bulwer who said you

could separate a paper in the "Rambler" into three distinct essays.

Many of our writers show the same tendency,--my friend, the

Professor, especially. Some think it is in humble imitation of

Johnson,--some that it is for the sake of the stately sound only.

I don't think they get to the bottom of it. It is, I suspect, an

instinctive and involuntary effort of the mind to present a thought

or image with the THREE DIMENSIONS that belong to every solid,--an

unconscious handling of an idea as if it had length, breadth, and

thickness. It is a great deal easier to say this than to prove it,

and a great deal easier to dispute it than to disprove it. But

mind this: the more we observe and study, the wider we find the

range of the automatic and instinctive principles in body, mind,

and morals, and the narrower the limits of the self-determining

conscious movement.

--I have often seen piano-forte players and singers make such

strange motions over their instruments or song-books that I wanted

to laugh at them. "Where did our friends pick up all these fine

ecstatic airs?" I would say to myself. Then I would remember My

Lady in "Marriage a la Mode," and amuse myself with thinking how

affectation was the same thing in Hogarth's time and in our own.

But one day I bought me a Canary-bird and hung him up in a cage at

my window. By-and-by he found himself at home, and began to pipe

his little tunes; and there he was, sure enough, swimming and

waving about, with all the droopings and liftings and languishing

side-turnings of the head that I had laughed at. And now I should

like to ask, WHO taught him all this?--and me, through him, that

the foolish head was not the one swinging itself from side to side

and bowing and nodding over the music, but that other which was

passing its shallow and self-satisfied judgment on a creature made

of finer clay than the frame which carried that same head upon its

shoulders?

--Do you want an image of the human will, or the self-determining

principle, as compared with its prearranged and impassable

restrictions? A drop of water, imprisoned in a crystal; you may

see such a one in any mineralogical collection. One little fluid

particle in the crystalline prism of the solid universe!

--Weaken moral obligations?--No, not weaken, but define them. When

I preach that sermon I spoke of the other day, I shall have to lay

down some principles not fully recognized in some of your

text-books.

I should have to begin with one most formidable preliminary. You

saw an article the other day in one of the journals, perhaps, in

which some old Doctor or other said quietly that patients were very

apt to be fools and cowards. But a great many of the clergyman's

patients are not only fools and cowards, but also liars.

[Immense sensation at the table.--Sudden retirement of the angular

female in oxydated bombazine. Movement of adhesion--as they say in

the Chamber of Deputies--on the part of the young fellow they call

John. Falling of the old-gentleman-opposite's lower jaw

--(gravitation is beginning to get the better of him.) Our landlady

to Benjamin Franklin, briskly,--Go to school right off, there's a

good boy! Schoolmistress curious,--takes a quick glance at

divinity-student. Divinity-student slightly flushed draws his

shoulders back a little, as if a big falsehood--or truth--had hit

him in the forehead. Myself calm.]

--I should not make such a speech as that, you know, without having

pretty substantial indorsers to fall back upon, in case my credit

should be disputed. Will you run up stairs, Benjamin Franklin,

(for B. F. had NOT gone right off, of course,) and bring down a

small volume from the left upper corner of the right-hand shelves?

[Look at the precious little black, ribbed backed, clean-typed,

vellum-papered 32mo. "DESIDERII ERASMI COLLOQUIA. Amstelodami.

Typis Ludovici Elzevirii. 1650." Various names written on

title-page. Most conspicuous this: Gul. Cookeson E. Coll. Omn.

Anim. 1725. Oxon.

--O William Cookeson, of All-Souls College, Oxford,--then writing

as I now write,--now in the dust, where I shall lie,--is this line

all that remains to thee of earthly remembrance? Thy name is at

least once more spoken by living men;--is it a pleasure to thee?

Thou shalt share with me my little draught of immortality,--its

week, its month, its year,--whatever it may be,--and then we will

go together into the solemn archives of Oblivion's Uncatalogued

Library!]

--If you think I have used rather strong language, I shall have to

read something to you out of the book of this keen and witty

scholar,--the great Erasmus,--who "laid the egg of the Reformation

which Luther hatched." Oh, you never read his Naufragium, or

"Shipwreck," did you? Of course not; for, if you had, I don't

think you would have given me credit--or discredit--for entire

originality in that speech of mine. That men are cowards in the

contemplation of futurity he illustrates by the extraordinary

antics of many on board the sinking vessel; that they are fools, by

their praying to the sea, and making promises to bits of wood from

the true cross, and all manner of similar nonsense; that they are

fools, cowards, and liars all at once, by this story: I will put

it into rough English for you.--"I couldn't help laughing to hear

one fellow bawling out, so that he might be sure to be heard, a

promise to Saint Christopher of Paris--the monstrous statue in the

great church there--that he would give him a wax taper as big as

himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood

near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if

you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you

donkey!' said the fellow,--but softly, so that Saint Christopher

should not hear him,--'do you think I'm in earnest? If I once get

my foot on dry ground, catch me giving him so much as a tallow

candle!'"

Now, therefore, remembering that those who have been loudest in

their talk about the great subject of which we were speaking have

not necessarily been wise, brave, and true men, but, on the

contrary, have very often been wanting in one or two or all of the

qualities these words imply, I should expect to find a good many

doctrines current in the schools which I should be obliged to call

foolish, cowardly, and false.

--So you would abuse other people's beliefs, Sir, and yet not tell

us your own creed!--said the divinity-student, coloring up with a

spirit for which I liked him all the better.

--I have a creed,--I replied;--none better, and none shorter. It

is told in two words,--the two first of the Paternoster. And when

I say these words I mean them. And when I compared the human will

to a drop in a crystal, and said I meant to DEFINE moral

obligations, and not weaken them, this was what I intended to

express: that the fluent, self-determining power of human beings

is a very strictly limited agency in the universe. The chief

planes of its enclosing solid are, of course, organization,

education, condition. Organization may reduce the power of the

will to nothing, as in some idiots; and from this zero the scale

mounts upwards by slight gradations. Education is only second to

nature. Imagine all the infants born this year in Boston and

Timbuctoo to change places! Condition does less, but "Give me

neither poverty nor riches" was the prayer of Agur, and with good

reason. If there is any improvement in modern theology, it is in

getting out of the region of pure abstractions and taking these

every-day working forces into account. The great theological

question now heaving and throbbing in the minds of Christian men is

this:-

No, I wont talk about these things now. My remarks might be

repeated, and it would give my friends pain to see with what

personal incivilities I should be visited. Besides, what business

has a mere boarder to be talking about such things at a breakfast-

table? Let him make puns. To be sure, he was brought up among the

Christian fathers, and learned his alphabet out of a quarto

"Concilium Tridentinum." He has also heard many thousand

theological lectures by men of various denominations; and it is not

at all to the credit of these teachers, if he is not fit by this

time to express an opinion on theological matters.

I know well enough that there are some of you who had a great deal

rather see me stand on my head than use it for any purpose of

thought. Does not my friend, the Professor, receive at least two

letters a week, requesting him to. . . . ,--on the strength of some

youthful antic of his, which, no doubt, authorizes the intelligent

constituency of autograph-hunters to address him as a harlequin?

--Well, I can't be savage with you for wanting to laugh, and I like

to make you laugh, well enough, when I can. But then observe this:

if the sense of the ridiculous is one side of an impressible

nature, it is very well; but if that is all there is in a man, he

had better have been an ape at once, and so have stood at the head

of his profession. Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels

of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the

other water-power; that is all. I have often heard the Professor

talk about hysterics as being Nature's cleverest illustration of

the reciprocal convertibility of the two states of which these acts

are the manifestations; But you may see it every day in children;

and if you want to choke with stifled tears at sight of the

transition, as it shows itself in older years, go and see Mr. Blake

play JESSE RURAL.

It is a very dangerous thing for a literary man to indulge his love

for the ridiculous. People laugh WITH him just so long as he

amuses them; but if he attempts to be serious, they must still have

their laugh, and so they laugh AT him. There is in addition,

however, a deeper reason for this than would at first appear. Do

you know that you feel a little superior to every man who makes you

laugh, whether by making faces or verses? Are you aware that you

have a pleasant sense of patronizing him, when you condescend so

far as to let him turn somersets, literal or literary, for your

royal delight? Now if a man can only be allowed to stand on a

dais, or raised platform, and look down on his neighbor who is

exerting his talent for him, oh, it is all right!--first-rate

performance!--and all the rest of the fine phrases. But if all at

once the performer asks the gentleman to come upon the floor, and,

stepping upon the platform, begins to talk down at him,--ah, that

wasn't in the programme!

I have never forgotten what happened when Sydney Smith--who, as

everybody knows, was an exceedingly sensible man, and a gentleman,

every inch of him--ventured to preach a sermon on the Duties of

Royalty. The "Quarterly," "so savage and tartarly," came down upon

him in the most contemptuous style, as "a joker of jokes," a

"diner-out of the first water," in one of his own phrases; sneering

at him, insulting him, as nothing but a toady of a court, sneaking

behind the anonymous, would ever have been mean enough to do to a

man of his position and genius, or to any decent person even.--If I

were giving advice to a young fellow of talent, with two or three

facets to his mind, I would tell him by all means to keep his wit

in the background until after he had made a reputation by his more

solid qualities. And so to an actor: Hamlet first, and Bob Logic

afterwards, if you like; but don't think, as they say poor Liston

used to, that people will be ready to allow that you can do

anything great with Macbeth's dagger after flourishing about with

Paul Pry's umbrella. Do you know, too, that the majority of men

look upon all who challenge their attention,--for a while, at

least,--as beggars, and nuisances? They always try to get off as

cheaply as they can; and the cheapest of all things they can give a

literary man--pardon the forlorn pleasantry!--is the FUNNY-bone.

That is all very well so far as it goes, but satisfies no man, and

makes a good many angry, as I told you on a former occasion.

--Oh, indeed, no!--I am not ashamed to make you laugh,

occasionally. I think I could read you something I have in my desk

which would probably make you smile. Perhaps I will read it one of

these days, if you are patient with me when I am sentimental and

reflective; not just now. The ludicrous has its place in the

universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the Divine ideas,

illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys long

before Aristophanes or Shakspeare. How curious it is that we

always consider solemnity and the absence of all gay surprises and

encounter of wits as essential to the idea of the future life of

those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties and then call

BLESSED! There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be

preparing themselves for that smileless eternity to which they look

forward, by banishing all gayety from their hearts and all

joyousness from their countenances. I meet one such in the street

not unfrequently, a person of intelligence and education, but who

gives me (and all that he passes) such a rayless and chilling look

of recognition,--something as if he were one of Heaven's assessors,

come down to "doom" every acquaintance he met,--that I have

sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone home with a violent

cold, dating from that instant. I don't doubt he would cut his

kitten's tail off, if he caught her playing with it. Please tell

me, who taught her to play with it?

No, no!--give me a chance to talk to you, my fellow-boarders, and

you need not be afraid that I shall have any scruples about

entertaining you, if I can do it, as well as giving you some of my

serious thoughts, and perhaps my sadder fancies. I know nothing in

English or any other literature more admirable than that sentiment

of Sir Thomas Browne "EVERY MAN TRULY LIVES, SO LONG AS HE ACTS HIS

NATURE, OR SOME WAY MAKES GOOD THE FACULTIES OF HIMSELF."

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand,

as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven,

we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it,--but

we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. There is one very

sad thing in old friendships, to every mind that is really moving

onward. It is this: that one cannot help using his early friends

as the seaman uses the log, to mark his progress. Every now and

then we throw an old schoolmate over the stern with a string of

thought tied to him, and look--I am afraid with a kind of luxurious

and sanctimonious compassion--to see the rate at which the string

reels off, while he lies there bobbing up and down, poor fellow!

and we are dashing along with the white foam and bright sparkle at

our bows;--the ruffled bosom of prosperity and progress, with a

sprig of diamonds stuck in it! But this is only the sentimental

side of the matter; for grow we must, if we outgrow all that we

love.

Don't misunderstand that metaphor of heaving the log, I beg you.

It is merely a smart way of saying that we cannot avoid measuring

our rate of movement by those with whom we have long been in the

habit of comparing ourselves; and when they once become stationary,

we can get our reckoning from them with painful accuracy. We see

just what we were when they were our peers, and can strike the

balance between that and whatever we may feel ourselves to be now.

No doubt we may sometimes be mistaken. If we change our last

simile to that very old and familiar one of a fleet leaving the

harbor and sailing in company for some distant region, we can get

what we want out of it. There is one of our companions;--her

streamers were torn into rags before she had got into the open sea,

then by and by her sails blew out of the ropes one after another,

the waves swept her deck, and as night came on we left her a

seeming wreck, as we flew under our pyramid of canvas. But lo! at

dawn she is still in sight,--it may be in advance of us. Some deep

ocean-current has been moving her on, strong, but silent,--yes,

stronger than these noisy winds that puff our sails until they are

swollen as the cheeks of jubilant cherubim. And when at last the

black steam-tug with the skeleton arms, which comes out of the mist

sooner or later and takes us all in tow, grapples her and goes off

panting and groaning with her, it is to that harbor where all

wrecks are refitted, and where, alas! we, towering in our pride,

may never come.

So you will not think I mean to speak lightly of old friendships,

because we cannot help instituting comparisons between our present

and former selves by the aid of those who were what we were, but

are not what we are. Nothing strikes one more, in the race of

life, than to see how many give out in the first half of the

course. "Commencement day" always reminds me of the start for the

"Derby," when the beautiful high-bred three-year olds of the season

are brought up for trial. That day is the start, and life is the

race. Here we are at Cambridge, and a class is just "graduating."

Poor Harry! he was to have been there too, but he has paid forfeit;

step out here into the grass back of the church; ah! there it is:-

"HUNC LAPIDEM POSUERUNT

SOCII MOERENTES."

But this is the start, and here they are,--coats bright as silk,

and manes as smooth as eau lustrale can make them. Some of the

best of the colts are pranced round, a few minutes each, to show

their paces. What is that old gentleman crying about? and the old

lady by him, and the three girls, what are they all covering their

eyes for? Oh, that is THEIR colt which has just been trotted up on

the stage. Do they really think those little thin legs can do

anything in such a slashing sweepstakes as is coming off in these

next forty years? Oh, this terrible gift of second-sight that

comes to some of us when we begin to look through the silvered

rings of the arcus senilis!

TEN YEARS GONE. First turn in the race. A few broken down; two or

three bolted. Several show in advance of the ruck. CASSOCK, a

black colt, seems to be ahead of the rest; those black colts

commonly get the start, I have noticed, of the others, in the first

quarter. METEOR has pulled up.

TWENTY YEARS. Second corner turned. CASSOCK has dropped from the

front, and JUDEX, an iron-gray, has the lead. But look! how they

have thinned out! Down flat,--five,--six,--how many? They lie

still enough! they will not get up again in this race, be very

sure! And the rest of them, what a "tailing off"! Anybody can see

who is going to win,--perhaps.

THIRTY YEARS. Third corner turned. DIVES, bright sorrel, ridden

by the fellow in a yellow jacket, begins to make play fast; is

getting to be the favourite with many. But who is that other one

that has been lengthening his stride from the first, and now shows

close up to the front? Don't you remember the quiet brown colt

ASTEROID, with the star in his forehead? That is he; he is one of

the sort that lasts; look out for him! The black "colt," as we

used to call him, is in the background, taking it easily in a

gentle trot. There is one they used to call THE FILLY, on account

of a certain feminine air he had; well up, you see; the Filly is

not to be despised my boy!

FORTY YEARS. More dropping off,--but places much as before.

FIFTY YEARS. Race over. All that are on the course are coming in

at a walk; no more running. Who is ahead? Ahead? What! and the

winning-post a slab of white or gray stone standing out from that

turf where there is no more jockeying or straining for victory!

Well, the world marks their places in its betting-book; but be sure

that these matter very little, if they have run as well as they

knew how!

--Did I not say to you a little while ago that the universe swam in

an ocean of similitudes and analogies? I will not quote Cowley, or

Burns, or Wordsworth, just now, to show you what thoughts were

suggested to them by the simplest natural objects, such as a flower

or a leaf; but I will read you a few lines, if you do not object,

suggested by looking at a section of one of those chambered shells

to which is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. We need not trouble

ourselves about the distinction between this and the Paper

Nautilus, the Argonauta of the ancients. The name applied to both

shows that each has long been compared to a ship, as you may see

more fully in Webster's Dictionary, or the "Encyclopedia," to which

he refers. If you will look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you

will find a figure of one of these shells, and a section of it.

The last will show you the series of enlarging compartments

successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which

is built in a widening spiral. Can you find no lesson in this?

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main,--

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every clambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,--

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:-

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

CHAPTER V

A lyric conception--my friend, the Poet, said--hits me like a

bullet in the forehead. I have often had the blood drop from my

cheeks when it struck, and felt that I turned as white as death.

Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine,

--then a gasp and a great jump of the heart,--then a sudden flush and

a beating in the vessels of the head,--then a long sigh,--and the

poem is written.

It is an impromptu, I suppose, then, if you write it so suddenly,

--I replied.

No,--said he,--far from it. I said written, but I did not say

COPIED. Every such poem has a soul and a body, and it is the body

of it, or the copy, that men read and publishers pay for. The soul

of it is born in an instant in the poet's soul. It comes to him a

thought, tangled in the meshes of a few sweet words,--words that

have loved each other from the cradle of the language, but have

never been wedded until now. Whether it will ever fully embody

itself in a bridal train of a dozen stanzas or not is uncertain;

but it exists potentially from the instant that the poet turns pale

with it. It is enough to stun and scare anybody, to have a hot

thought come crashing into his brain, and ploughing up those

parallel ruts where the wagon trains of common ideas were jogging

along in their regular sequences of association. No wonder the

ancients made the poetical impulse wholly external. [Greek text

which cannot be reproduced]. Goddess,--Muse,--divine afflatus,

--something outside always. _I_ never wrote any verses worth

reading. I can't. I am too stupid. If I ever copied any that

were worth reading, I was only a medium.

[I was talking all this time to our boarders, you understand,

--telling them what this poet told me. The company listened rather

attentively, I thought, considering the literary character of the

remarks.]

The old gentleman opposite all at once asked me if I ever read

anything better than Pope's "Essay on Man"? Had I ever perused

McFingal? He was fond of poetry when he was a boy,--his mother

taught him to say many little pieces,--he remembered one beautiful

hymn;--and the old gentleman began, in a clear, loud voice, for his

years,--

"The spacious firmament on high,

With all the blue ethereal sky,

And spangled heavens,"--

He stopped, as if startled by our silence, and a faint flush ran up

beneath the thin white hairs that fell upon his cheek. As I looked

round, I was reminded of a show I once saw at the Museum,--the

Sleeping Beauty, I think they called it. The old man's sudden

breaking out in this way turned every face towards him, and each

kept his posture as if changed to stone. Our Celtic Bridget, or

Biddy, is not a foolish fat scullion to burst out crying for a

sentiment. She is of the serviceable, red-handed, broad-and-high-

shouldered type; one of those imported female servants who are

known in public by their amorphous style of person, their stoop

forwards, and a headlong and as it were precipitous walk,--the

waist plunging downwards into the rocking pelvis at every heavy

footfall. Bridget, constituted for action, not for emotion, was

about to deposit a plate heaped with something upon the table, when

I saw the coarse arm stretched by my shoulder arrested,--motionless

as the arm of a terra-cotta caryatid; she couldn't set the plate

down while the old gentleman was speaking!

He was quite silent after this, still wearing the slight flush on

his cheek. Don't ever think the poetry is dead in an old man

because his forehead is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him

when his hand trembles! If they ever WERE there, they ARE there

still!

By and by we got talking again.--Does a poet love the verses

written through him, do you think, Sir?--said the divinity-student.

So long as they are warm from his mind, carry any of his animal

heat about them, _I_ KNOW he loves them,--I answered. When they

have had time to cool, he is more indifferent.

A good deal as it is with buckwheat cakes,--said the young fellow

whom they call John.

The last words, only, reached the ear of the economically organized

female in black bombazine .--Buckwheat is skerce and high,--she

remarked. [Must be a poor relation sponging on our landlady,--pays

nothing,--so she must stand by the guns and be ready to repel

boarders.]

I liked the turn the conversation had taken, for I had some things

I wanted to say, and so, after waiting a minute, I began again.--I

don't think the poems I read you sometimes can be fairly

appreciated, given to you as they are in the green state.

--You don't know what I mean by the GREEN STATE? Well, then, I

will tell you. Certain things are good for nothing until they have

been kept a long while; and some are good for nothing until they

have been long kept and USED. Of the first, wine is the

illustrious and immortal example. Of those which must be kept and

used I will name three,--meerschaum pipes, violins, and poems. The

meerschaum is but a poor affair until it has burned a thousand

offerings to the cloud-compelling deities. It comes to us without

complexion or flavor,--born of the sea-foam, like Aphrodite, but

colorless as pallida Mors herself. The fire is lighted in its

central shrine, and gradually the juices which the broad leaves of

the Great Vegetable had sucked up from an acre and curdled into a

drachm are diffused through its thirsting pores. First a

discoloration, then a stain, and at last a rich, glowing, umber

tint spreading over the whole surface. Nature true to her old

brown autumnal hue, you see,--as true in the fire of the meerschaum

as in the sunshine of October! And then the cumulative wealth of

its fragrant reminiscences! he who inhales its vapors takes a

thousand whiffs in a single breath; and one cannot touch it without

awakening the old joys that hang around it as the smell of flowers

clings to the dresses of the daughters of the house of Farina!

[Don't think I use a meerschaum myself, for _I_ DO NOT, though I

have owned a calumet since my childhood, which from a naked Pict

(of the Mohawk species) my grandsire won, together with a tomahawk

and beaded knife-sheath; paying for the lot with a bullet-mark on

his right check. On the maternal side I inherit the loveliest

silver-mounted tobacco-stopper you ever saw. It is a little

box-wood Triton, carved with charming liveliness and truth; I have

often compared it to a figure in Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea."

It came to me in an ancient shagreen case,--how old it is I do not

know,--but it must have been made since Sir Walter Raleigh's time.

If you are curious, you shall see it any day. Neither will I

pretend that I am so unused to the more perishable smoking

contrivance that a few whiffs would make me feel as if I lay in a

ground-swell on the Bay of Biscay. I am not unacquainted with that

fusiform, spiral-wound bundle of chopped stems and miscellaneous

incombustibles, the CIGAR, so called, of the shops,--which to

"draw" asks the suction-power of a nursling infant Hercules, and to

relish, the leathery palate of an old Silenus. I do not advise

you, young man, even if my illustration strike your fancy, to

consecrate the flower of your life to painting the bowl of a pipe,

for, let me assure you, the stain of a reverie-breeding narcotic

may strike deeper than you think for. I have seen the green leaf

of early promise grow brown before its time under such Nicotian

regimen, and thought the umbered meerschaum was dearly bought at

the cost of a brain enfeebled and a will enslaved.]

Violins, too,--the sweet old Amati!--the divine Stradivarius!

Played on by ancient maestros until the bow-hand lost its power and

the flying fingers stiffened. Bequeathed to the passionate, young

enthusiast, who made it whisper his hidden love, and cry his

inarticulate longings, and scream his untold agonies, and wail his

monotonous despair. Passed from his dying hand to the cold

virtuoso, who let it slumber in its case for a generation, till,

when his hoard was broken up, it came forth once more and rode the

stormy symphonies of royal orchestras, beneath the rushing bow of

their lord and leader. Into lonely prisons with improvident

artists; into convents from which arose, day and night, the holy

hymns with which its tones were blended; and back again to orgies

in which it learned to howl and laugh as if a legion of devils were

shut up in it; then again to the gentle dilettante who calmed it

down with easy melodies until it answered him softly as in the days

of the old maestros. And so given into our hands, its pores all

full of music; stained, like the meerschaum, through and through,

with the concentrated hue and sweetness of all the harmonies which

have kindled and faded on its strings.

Now I tell you a poem must be kept AND USED, like a meerschaum, or

a violin. A poem is just as porous as the meerschaum;--the more

porous it is, the better. I mean to say that a genuine poem is

capable of absorbing an indefinite amount of the essence of our own

humanity,--its tenderness, its heroism, its regrets, its

aspirations, so as to be gradually stained through with a divine

secondary color derived from ourselves. So you see it must take

time to bring the sentiment of a poem into harmony with our nature,

by staining ourselves through every thought and image our being can

penetrate.

Then again as to the mere music of a new poem; why, who can expect

anything more from that than from the music of a violin fresh from

the maker's hands? Now you know very well that there are no less

than fifty-eight different pieces in a violin. These pieces are

strangers to each other, and it takes a century, more or less, to

make them thoroughly acquainted. At last they learn to vibrate in

harmony, and the instrument becomes an organic whole, as if it were

a great seed-capsule which had grown from a garden-bed in Cremona,

or elsewhere. Besides, the wood is juicy and full of sap for fifty

years or so, but at the end of fifty or a hundred more gets

tolerably dry and comparatively resonant.

Don't you see that all this is just as true of a poem? Counting

each word as a piece, there are more pieces in an average copy of

verses than in a violin. The poet has forced all these words

together, and fastened them, and they don't understand it at first.

But let the poem be repeated aloud and murmured over in the mind's

muffled whisper often enough, and at length the parts become knit

together in such absolute solidarity that you could not change a

syllable without the whole world's crying out against you for

meddling with the harmonious fabric. Observe, too, how the drying

process takes place in the stuff of a poem just as in that of a

violin. Here is a Tyrolese fiddle that is just coming to its

hundredth birthday,--(Pedro Klauss, Tyroli, fecit, 1760,)--the sap

is pretty well out of it. And here is the song of an old poet whom

Neaera cheated.--

"Nox erat, et coelo fulgebat Luna sereno

Inter minora sidera,

Cum tu magnorum numen laesura deorum

In verba jurabas mea."

Don't you perceive the sonorousness of these old dead Latin

phrases? Now I tell you that, every word fresh from the dictionary

brings with it a certain succulence; and though I cannot expect the

sheets of the "Pactolian," in which, as I told you, I sometimes

print my verses, to get so dry as the crisp papyrus that held those

words of Horatius Flaccus, yet you may be sure, that, while the

sheets are damp, and while the lines hold their sap, you can't

fairly judge of my performances, and that, if made of the true

stuff, they will ring better after a while.

[There was silence for a brief space, after my somewhat elaborate

exposition of these self-evident analogies. Presently A PERSON

turned towards me--I do not choose to designate the individual--and

said that he rather expected my pieces had given pretty good

"sahtisfahction."--I had, up to this moment, considered this

complimentary phrase as sacred to the use of secretaries of

lyceums, and, as it has been usually accompanied by a small

pecuniary testimonial, have acquired a certain relish for this

moderately tepid and unstimulating expression of enthusiasm. But

as a reward for gratuitous services, I confess I thought it a

little below that blood-heat standard which a man's breath ought to

have, whether silent, or vocal and articulate. I waited for a

favorable opportunity, however, before making the remarks which

follow.]

--There are single expressions, as I have told you already, that

fix a man's position for you before you have done shaking hands

with him. Allow me to expand a little. There are several things,

very slight in themselves, yet implying other things not so

unimportant. Thus, your French servant has devalise your premises

and got caught. Excusez, says the sergent-de-ville, as he politely

relieves him of his upper garments and displays his bust in the

full daylight. Good shoulders enough,--a little marked,--traces of

smallpox, perhaps,--but white. . . . . Crac! from the sergent-de-

ville's broad palm on the white shoulder! Now look! Vogue la

galere! Out comes the big red V--mark of the hot iron;--he had

blistered it out pretty nearly,--hadn't he?--the old rascal VOLEUR,

branded in the galleys at Marseilles! [Don't! What if he has got

something like this?--nobody supposes I INVENTED such a story.]

My man John, who used to drive two of those six equine females

which I told you I had owned,--for, look you, my friends, simple

though I stand here, I am one that has been driven in his

"kerridge,"--not using that term, as liberal shepherds do, for any

battered old shabby-genteel go-cart which has more than one wheel,

but meaning thereby a four-wheeled vehicle WITH A POLE,--my man

John, I say, was a retired soldier. He retired unostentatiously,

as many of Her Majesty's modest servants have done before and

since. John told me, that when an officer thinks he recognizes one

of these retiring heroes, and would know if he has really been in

the service, that he may restore him, if possible, to a grateful

country, he comes suddenly upon him, and says, sharply, "Strap!"

If he has ever worn the shoulder-strap, he has learned the

reprimand for its ill adjustment. The old word of command flashes

through his muscles, and his hand goes up in an instant to the

place where the strap used to be.

[I was all the time preparing for my grand coup, you understand;

but I saw they were not quite ready for it, and so continued,

--always in illustration of the general principle I had laid down.]

Yes, odd things come out in ways that nobody thinks of. There was

a legend, that, when the Danish pirates made descents upon the

English coast, they caught a few Tartars occasionally, in the shape

of Saxons, who would not let them go,--on the contrary, insisted on

their staying, and, to make sure of it, treated them as Apollo

treated Marsyas, or an Bartholinus has treated a fellow-creature in

his title-page, and, having divested them of the one essential and

perfectly fitting garment, indispensable in the mildest climates,

nailed the same on the church-door as we do the banns of marriage,

in terrorem.

[There was a laugh at this among some of the young folks; but as I

looked at our landlady, I saw that "the water stood in her eyes,"

as it did in Christiana's when the interpreter asked her about the

spider, and I fancied, but wasn't quite sure that the

schoolmistress blushed, as Mercy did in the same conversation, as

you remember.]

That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story,--said the young fellow whom

they call John. I abstained from making Hamlet's remark to

Horatio, and continued.

Not long since, the church-wardens were repairing and beautifying

an old Saxon church in a certain English village, and among other

things thought the doors should be attended to. One of them

particularly, the front-door, looked very badly, crusted, as it

were, and as if it would be all the better for scraping. There

happened to be a microscopist in the village who had heard the old

pirate story, and he took it into his head to examine the crust on

this door. There was no mistake about it; it was a genuine

historical document, of the Ziska drum-head pattern,--a real cutis

humana, stripped from some old Scandinavian filibuster, and the

legend was true.

My friend, the Professor, settled an important historical and

financial question once by the aid of an exceedingly minute

fragment of a similar document. Behind the pane of plate-glass

which bore his name and title burned a modest lamp, signifying to

the passers-by that at all hours of the night the slightest favors

(or fevers) were welcome. A youth who had freely partaken of the

cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, following a moth-like

impulse very natural under the circumstances, dashed his fist at

the light and quenched the meek luminary,--breaking through the

plate-glass, of course, to reach it. Now I don't want to go into

minutiae at table, you know, but a naked hand can no more go

through a pane of thick glass without leaving some of its cuticle,

to say the least, behind it, than a butterfly can go through a

sausage-machine without looking the worse for it. The Professor

gathered up the fragments of glass, and with them certain very

minute but entirely satisfactory documents which would have

identified and hanged any rogue in Christendom who had parted with

them.--The historical question, WHO DID IT? and the financial

question, WHO PAID FOR IT? were both settled before the new lamp

was lighted the next evening.

You see, my friends, what immense conclusions, touching our lives,

our fortunes, and our sacred honor, may be reached by means of very

insignificant premises. This is eminently true of manners and

forms of speech; a movement or a phrase often tells you all you

want to know about a person. Thus, "How's your health?" (commonly

pronounced haalth)--instead of, How do you do? or, How are you?

Or calling your little dark entry a "hall," and your old rickety

one-horse wagon a "kerridge." Or telling a person who has been trying

to please you that he has given you pretty good "sahtisfahction."

Or saying that you "remember of" such a thing, or that you have

been "stoppin"' at Deacon Somebody's,--and other such expressions.

One of my friends had a little marble statuette of Cupid in the

parlor of his country-house,--bow, arrows, wings, and all complete.

A visitor, indigenous to the region, looking pensively at the

figure, asked the lady of the house "if that was a statoo of her

deceased infant?" What a delicious, though somewhat voluminous

biography, social, educational, and aesthetic in that brief

question!

[Please observe with what Machiavellian astuteness I smuggled in

the particular offence which it was my object to hold up to my

fellow-boarders, without too personal an attack on the individual

at whose door it lay.]

That was an exceedingly dull person who made the remark, Ex pede

Herculem. He might as well have said, "From a peck of apples you

may judge of the barrel." Ex PEDE, to be sure! Read, instead, Ex

ungue minimi digiti pedis, Herculem, ejusque patrem, matrem, avos

et proavos, filios, nepotes et pronepotes! Talk to me about your

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]! Tell me about Cuvier's

getting up a megatherium from a tooth, or Agassiz's drawing a

portrait of an undiscovered fish from a single scale! As the "O"

revealed Giotto,--as the one word "moi" betrayed the Stratford

atte-Bowe-taught Anglais,--so all a man's antecedents and

possibilities are summed up in a single utterance which gives at

once the gauge of his education and his mental organization.

Possibilities, Sir?--said the divinity-student; can't a man who

says Haow? arrive at distinction?

Sir,--I replied,--in a republic all things are possible. But the

man WITH A FUTURE has almost of necessity sense enough to see that

any odious trick of speech or manners must be got rid of. Doesn't

Sydney Smith say that a public man in England never gets over a

false quantity uttered in early life? OUR public men are in little

danger of this fatal misstep, as few of them are in the habit of

introducing Latin into their speeches,--for good and sufficient

reasons. But they are bound to speak decent English,--unless,

indeed, they are rough old campaigners, like General Jackson or

General Taylor; in which case, a few scars on Priscian's head are

pardoned to old fellows who have quite as many on their own, and a

constituency of thirty empires is not at all particular, provided

they do not swear in their Presidential Messages.

However, it is not for me to talk. I have made mistakes enough in

conversation and print. I never find them out until they are

stereotyped, and then I think they rarely escape me. I have no

doubt I shall make half a dozen slips before this breakfast is

over, and remember them all before another. How one does tremble

with rage at his own intense momentary stupidity about things he

knows perfectly well, and to think how he lays himself open to the

impertinences of the captatores verborum, those useful but humble

scavengers of the language, whose business it is to pick up what

might offend or injure, and remove it, hugging and feeding on it as

they go! I don't want to speak too slightingly of these verbal

critics;--how can I, who am so fond of talking about errors and

vulgarisms of speech? Only there is a difference between those

clerical blunders which almost every man commits, knowing better,

and that habitual grossness or meanness of speech which is

unendurable to educated persons, from anybody that wears silk or

broadcloth.

[I write down the above remarks this morning, January 26th, making

this record of the date that nobody may think it was written in

wrath, on account of any particular grievance suffered from the

invasion of any individual scarabaeus grammaticus.]

--I wonder if anybody ever finds fault with anything I say at this

table when it is repeated? I hope they do, I am sure. I should be

very certain that I had said nothing of much significance, if they

did not.

Did you never, in walking in the fields, come across a large flat

stone, which had lain, nobody knows how long, just where you found

it, with the grass forming a little hedge, as it were, all round

it, close to its edges,--and have you not, in obedience to a kind

of feeling that told you it had been lying there long enough,

insinuated your stick or your foot or your fingers under its edge

and turned it over as a housewife turns a cake, when she says to

herself, "It's done brown enough by this time"? What an odd

revelation, and what an unforeseen and unpleasant surprise to a

small community, the very existence of which you had not suspected,

until the sudden dismay and scattering among its members produced

by your turning the old stone over! Blades of grass flattened

down, colorless, matted together, as if they had been bleached and

ironed; hideous crawling creatures, some of them coleopterous or

horny-shelled,--turtle-bugs one wants to call them; some of them

softer, but cunningly spread out and compressed like Lepine

watches; (Nature never loses a crack or a crevice, mind you, or a

joint in a tavern bedstead, but she always has one of her

flat-pattern five timekeepers to slide into it;) black, glossy

crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of

four-horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, young

larvae, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in

the infernal wriggle of maturity! But no sooner is the stone turned

and the wholesome light of day let upon this compressed and blinded

community of creeping things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury

of legs--and some of them have a good many--rush round wildly,

butting each other and everything in their way, and end in a general

stampede for underground retreats from the region poisoned by

sunshine. NEXT YEAR you will find the grass growing tall and green

where the stone lay; the ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle

had his hole; the dandelion and the buttercup are growing there, and

the broad fans of insect-angels open and shut over their golden

disks, as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness pulsate

through their glorified being.

--The young fellow whom they call John saw fit to say, in his very

familiar way,--at which I do not choose to take offence, but which

I sometimes think it necessary to repress,--that I was coming it

rather strong on the butterflies.

No, I replied; there is meaning in each of those images,--the

butterfly as well as the others. The stone is ancient error. The

grass is human nature borne down and bleached of all its colour by

it. The shapes which are found beneath are the crafty beings that

thrive in darkness, and the weaker organisms kept helpless by it.

He who turns the stone over is whosoever puts the staff of truth to

the old lying incubus, no matter whether he do it with a serious

face or a laughing one. The next year stands for the coming time.

Then shall the nature which had lain blanched and broken rise in

its full stature and native hues in the sunshine. Then shall God's

minstrels build their nests in the hearts of a new-born humanity.

Then shall beauty--Divinity taking outlines and color--light upon

the souls of men as the butterfly, image of the beatified spirit

rising from the dust, soars from the shell that held a poor grub,

which would never have found wings, had not the stone been lifted.

You never need think you can turn over any old falsehood without a

terrible squirming and scattering of the horrid little population

that dwells under it.

--Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of

somebody or other. As soon as his breath comes back, he very

probably begins to expend it in hard words. These are the best

evidence a man can have that he has said something it was time to

say. Dr. Johnson was disappointed in the effect of one of his

pamphlets. "I think I have not been attacked enough for it," he

said;--"attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard

unless it rebounds."

--If a fellow attacked my opinions in print would I reply? Not I.

Do you think I don't understand what my friend, the Professor, long

ago called THE HYDROSTATIC PARADOX OF CONTROVERSY?

Don't know what that means?--Well, I will tell you. You know,

that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a

pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would

stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy

equalizes fools and wise men in the same way,--AND THE FOOLS KNOW

IT.

--No, but I often read what they say about other people. There are

about a dozen phrases which all come tumbling along together, like

the tongs, and the shovel, and the poker, and the brush, and the

bellows, in one of those domestic avalanches that everybody knows.

If you get one, you get the whole lot.

What are they?--Oh, that depends a good deal on latitude and

longitude. Epithets follow the isothermal lines pretty accurately.

Grouping them in two families, one finds himself a clever, genial,

witty, wise, brilliant, sparkling, thoughtful, distinguished,

celebrated, illustrious scholar and perfect gentleman, and first

writer of the age; or a dull, foolish, wicked, pert, shallow,

ignorant, insolent, traitorous, black-hearted outcast, and disgrace

to civilization.

What do I think determines the set of phrases a man gets?--Well, I

should say a set of influences something like these:---1st.

Relationships, political, religious, social, domestic. 2d.

Oyster, in the form of suppers given to gentlemen connected with

criticism. I believe in the school, the college, and the clergy;

but my sovereign logic, for regulating public opinion--which means

commonly the opinion of half a dozen of the critical gentry--is the

following MAJOR PROPOSITION. Oysters au naturel. Minor

proposition. The same "scalloped." Conclusion. That--(here

insert entertainer's name) is clever, witty, wise, brilliant,--and

the rest.

--No, it isn't exactly bribery. One man has oysters, and another

epithets. It is an exchange of hospitalities; one gives a "spread"

on linen, and the other on paper,--that is all. Don't you think

you and I should be apt to do just so, if we were in the critical

line? I am sure I couldn't resist the softening influences of

hospitality. I don't like to dine out, you know,--I dine so well

at our own table, [our landlady looked radiant,] and the company is

so pleasant [a rustling movement of satisfaction among the

boarders]; but if I did partake of a man's salt, with such

additions as that article of food requires to make it palatable, I

could never abuse him, and if I had to speak of him, I suppose I

should hang my set of jingling epithets round him like a string of

sleigh-bells. Good feeling helps society to make liars of most of

us,--not absolute liars, but such careless handlers of truth that

its sharp corners get terribly rounded. I love truth as chiefest

among the virtues; I trust it runs in my blood; but I would never

be a critic, because I know I could not always tell it. I might

write a criticism of a book that happened to please me; that is

another matter.

--Listen, Benjamin Franklin! This is for you, and such others of

tender age as you may tell it to.

When we are as yet small children, long before the time when those

two grown ladies offer us the choice of Hercules, there comes up to

us a youthful angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and

in his left spheres like marbles. The cubes are of stainless

ivory, and on each is written in letters of gold--TRUTH. The

spheres are veined and streaked and spotted beneath, with a dark

crimson flush above, where the light falls on them, and in a

certain aspect you can make out upon every one of them the three

letters L, I, E. The child to whom they are offered very probably

clutches at both. The spheres are the most convenient things in

the world; they roll with the least possible impulse just where the

child would have them. The cubes will not roll at all; they have a

great talent for standing still, and always keep right side up.

But very soon the young philosopher finds that things which roll so

easily are very apt to roll into the wrong corner, and to get out

of his way when he most wants them, while he always knows where to

find the others, which stay where they are left. Thus he learns

--thus we learn--to drop the streaked and speckled globes of

falsehood and to hold fast the white angular blocks of truth. But

then comes Timidity, and after her Good-nature, and last of all

Polite-behavior, all insisting that truth must ROLL, or nobody can

do anything with it; and so the first with her coarse rasp, and the

second with her broad file, and the third with her silken sleeve,

do so round off and smooth and polish the snow-white cubes of

truth, that, when they have got a little dingy by use, it becomes

hard to tell them from the rolling spheres of falsehood.

The schoolmistress was polite enough to say that she was pleased

with this, and that she would read it to her little flock the next

day. But she should tell the children, she said, that there were

better reasons for truth than could be found in mere experience of

its convenience and the inconvenience of lying.

Yes,--I said,--but education always begins through the senses, and

works up to the idea of absolute right and wrong. The first thing

the child has to learn about this matter is, that lying is

unprofitable,--afterwards, that it is against the peace and dignity

of the universe.

--Do I think that the particular form of lying often seen in

newspapers, under the title, "From our Foreign Correspondent," does

any harm?--Why, no,--I don't know that it does. I suppose it

doesn't really deceive people any more than the "Arabian Nights" or

"Gulliver's Travels" do. Sometimes the writers compile TOO

carelessly, though, and mix up facts out of geographies, and

stories out of the penny papers, so as to mislead those who are

desirous of information. I cut a piece out of one of the papers,

the other day, which contains a number of improbabilities, and, I

suspect, misstatements. I will send up and get it for you, if you

would like to hear it.--Ah, this is it; it is headed

"OUR SUMATRA CORRESPONDENCE.

"This island is now the property of the Stamford family,--having

been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir--Stamford, during the

stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this

gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions

(unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and

Queries.' This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which

here contains a large amount of saline substance, crystallizing in

cubes remarkable for their symmetry, and frequently displays on its

surface, during calm weather, the rainbow tints of the celebrated

South-Sea bubbles. The summers are oppressively hot, and the

winters very probably cold; but this fact cannot be ascertained

precisely, as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these

latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern regions, and thus the

thermometer is rendered useless in winter.

"The principal vegetable productions of the island are the pepper

tree and the bread-fruit tree. Pepper being very abundantly

produced, a benevolent society was organized in London during the

last century for supplying the natives with vinegar and oysters, as

an addition to that delightful condiment. [Note received from Dr.

D. P.] It is said, however, that, as the oysters were of the kind

called NATIVES in England, the natives of Sumatra, in obedience to

a natural instinct, refused to touch them, and confined themselves

entirely to the crew of the vessel in which they were brought over.

This information was received from one of the oldest inhabitants, a

native himself, and exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is said

also to be very skilful in the CUISINE peculiar to the island.

"During the season of gathering the pepper, the persons employed

are subject to various incommodities, the chief of which is violent

and long-continued sternutation, or sneezing. Such is the

vehemence of these attacks, that the unfortunate subjects of them

are often driven backwards for great distances at immense speed, on

the well-known principle of the aeolipile. Not being able to see

where they are going, these poor creatures dash themselves to

pieces against the rocks or are precipitated over the cliffs and

thus many valuable lives are lost annually. As, during the whole

pepper-harvest, they feed exclusively on this stimulant, they

become exceedingly irritable. The smallest injury is resented with

ungovernable rage. A young man suffering from the PEPPER-FEVER as

it is called, cudgelled another most severely for appropriating a

superannuated relative of trifling value, and was only pacified by

having a present made him of a pig of that peculiar species of

swine called the Peccavi by the Catholic Jews, who, it is well

known, abstain from swine's flesh in imitation of the Mahometan

Buddhists.

"The bread-tree grows abundantly. Its branches are well known to

Europe and America under the familiar name of maccaroni. The

smaller twigs are called vermicelli. They have a decided animal

flavor, as may be observed in the soups containing them.

Maccaroni, being tubular, is the favorite habitat of a very

dangerous insect, which is rendered peculiarly ferocious by being

boiled. The government of the island, therefore, never allows a

stick of it to be exported without being accompanied by a piston

with which its cavity may at any time be thoroughly swept out.

These are commonly lost or stolen before the maccaroni arrives

among us. It therefore always contains many of these insects,

which, however, generally die of old age in the shops, so that

accidents from this source are comparatively rare.

"The fruit of the bread-tree consists principally of hot rolls.

The buttered-muffin variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the

cocoa-nut palm, the cream found on the milk of the cocoa-nut

exuding from the hybrid in the shape of butter, just as the ripe

fruit is splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is

commonly served up with cold"--

--There,--I don't want to read any more of it. You see that many

of these statements are highly improbable.--No, I shall not mention

the paper.--No, neither of them wrote it, though it reminds me of

the style of these popular writers. I think the fellow who wrote

it must have been reading some of their stories, and got them mixed

up with his history and geography. I don't suppose HE lies;--he

sells it to the editor, who knows how many squares off "Sumatra"

is. The editor, who sells it to the public--By the way, the papers

have been very civil haven't they?--to the--the what d'ye call it?

--"Northern Magazine,"--isn't it?--got up by some of those

Come-outers, down East, as an organ for their local peculiarities.

--The Professor has been to see me. Came in, glorious, at about

twelve o'clock, last night. Said he had been with "the boys." On

inquiry, found that "the boys," were certain baldish and grayish

old gentlemen that one sees or hears of in various important

stations of society. The Professor is one of the same set, but he

always talks as if he had been out of college about ten years,

whereas. . . [Each of these dots was a little nod, which the

company understood, as the reader will, no doubt.] He calls them

sometimes "the boys," and sometimes "the old fellows." Call him by

the latter title, and see how he likes it.--Well, he came in last

night glorious, as I was saying. Of course I don't mean vinously

exalted; he drinks little wine on such occasions, and is well known

to all the Peters and Patricks as the gentleman who always has

indefinite quantities of black tea to kill any extra glass of red

claret he may have swallowed. But the Professor says he always

gets tipsy on old memories at these gatherings. He was, I forget

how many years old when he went to the meeting; just turned of

twenty now,--he said. He made various youthful proposals to me,

including a duet under the landlady's daughter's window. He had

just learned a trick, he said, of one of "the boys," of getting a

splendid bass out of a door-panel by rubbing it with the palm of

his hand. Offered to sing "The sky is bright," accompanying

himself on the front-door, if I would go down and help in the

chorus. Said there never was such a set of fellows as the old boys

of the set he has been with. Judges, mayors, Congress-men, Mr.

Speakers, leaders in science, clergymen better than famous, and

famous too, poets by the half-dozen, singers with voices like

angels, financiers, wits, three of the best laughers in the

Commonwealth, engineers, agriculturists,--all forms of talent and

knowledge he pretended were represented in that meeting. Then he

began to quote Byron about Santa Croce, and maintained that he

could "furnish out creation" in all its details from that set of

his. He would like to have the whole boodle of them, (I

remonstrated against this word, but the Professor said it was a

diabolish good word, and he would have no other,) with their wives

and children, shipwrecked on a remote island, just to see how

splendidly they would reorganize society. They could build a

city,--they have done it; make constitutions and laws; establish

churches and lyceums; teach and practise the healing art; instruct

in every department; found observatories; create commerce and

manufactures; write songs and hymns, and sing 'em, and make

instruments to accompany the songs with; lastly, publish a

journal almost as good as the "Northern Magazine," edited by the

Come-outers. There was nothing they were not up to, from a

christening to a hanging; the last, to be sure, could never be called

for, unless some stranger got in among them.

--I let the Professor talk as long as he liked; it didn't make much

difference to me whether it was all truth, or partly made up of

pale Sherry and similar elements. All at once he jumped up and

said,--

Don't you want to hear what I just read to the boys?

I have had questions of a similar character asked me before,

occasionally. A man of iron mould might perhaps say, No! I am not

a man of iron mould, and said that I should be delighted.

The Professor then read--with that slightly sing-song cadence which

is observed to be common in poets reading their own verses--the

following stanzas; holding them at a focal distance of about two

feet and a half, with an occasional movement back or forward for

better adjustment, the appearance of which has been likened by some

impertinent young folks to that of the act of playing on the

trombone. His eyesight was never better; I have his word for it.

MARE RUBRUM.

Flash out a stream of blood-red wine!--

For I would drink to other days;

And brighter shall their memory shine,

Seen flaming through its crimson blaze.

The roses die, the summers fade;

But every ghost of boyhood's dream

By Nature's magic power is laid

To sleep beneath this blood-red stream.

It filled the purple grapes that lay

And drank the splendors of the sun

Where the long summer's cloudless day

Is mirrored in the broad Garonne;

It pictures still the bacchant shapes

That saw their hoarded sunlight shed,--

The maidens dancing on the grapes,--

Their milk-white ankles splashed with red.

Beneath these waves of crimson lie,

In rosy fetters prisoned fast,

Those flitting shapes that never die,

The swift-winged visions of the past.

Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim,

Each shadow rends its flowery chain,

Springs in a bubble from its brim

And walks the chambers of the brain.

Poor Beauty! time and fortune's wrong

No form nor feature may withstand,--

Thy wrecks are scattered all along,

Like emptied sea-shells on the sand;--

Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain,

The dust restores each blooming girl,

As if the sea-shells moved again

Their glistening lips of pink and pearl.

Here lies the home of school-boy life,

With creaking stair and wind-swept hall,

And, scarred by many a truant knife,

Our old initials on the wall;

Here rest--their keen vibrations mute--

The shout of voices known so well,

The ringing laugh, the wailing flute,

The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell.

Here, clad in burning robes, are laid

Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed;

And here those cherished forms have strayed

We miss awhile, and call them dead.

What wizard fills the maddening glass

What soil the enchanted clusters grew?

That buried passions wake and pass

In beaded drops of fiery dew?

Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine,--

Our hearts can boast a warmer grow,

Filled from a vantage more divine,--

Calmed, but not chilled by winter's snow!

To-night the palest wave we sip

Rich as the priceless draught shall be

That wet the bride of Cana's lip,--

The wedding wine of Galilee!

CHAPTER VI

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.

--I think, Sir,--said the divinity-student,--you must intend that

for one of the sayings of the Seven Wise Men of Boston you were

speaking of the other day.

I thank you, my young friend,--was my reply,--but I must say

something better than that, before I could pretend to fill out the

number.

--The schoolmistress wanted to know how many of these sayings there

were on record, and what, and by whom said.

--Why, let us see,--there is that one of Benjamin Franklin, "the

great Bostonian," after whom this lad was named. To be sure, he

said a great many wise things,--and I don't feel sure he didn't

borrow this,--he speaks as if it were old. But then he applied it

so neatly!--

"He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you

another than he whom you yourself have obliged."

Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, uttered by my

friend, the Historian, in one of his flashing moments:-

"Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its

necessaries."

To these must certainly be added that other saying of one of the

wittiest of men:-

"Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris."--

The divinity-student looked grave at this, but said nothing.

The schoolmistress spoke out, and said she didn't think the wit

meant any irreverence. It was only another way of saying, Paris is

a heavenly place after New York or Boston.

A jaunty-looking person, who had come in with the young fellow they

call John,--evidently a stranger,--said there was one more wise

man's saying that he had heard; it was about our place, but he

didn't know who said it.--A civil curiosity was manifested by the

company to hear the fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly

whispering to the young fellow who brought him to dinner, SHALL I

TELL IT? To which the answer was, GO AHEAD!--Well,--he said,--this

was what I heard:-

"Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't

pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation

straightened out for a crowbar."

Sir,--said I,--I am gratified with your remark. It expresses with

pleasing vivacity that which I have sometimes heard uttered with

malignant dulness. The satire of the remark is essentially true of

Boston,--and of all other considerable--and inconsiderable--places

with which I have had the privilege of being acquainted. Cockneys

think London is the only place in the world. Frenchmen--you

remember the line about Paris, the Court, the World, etc.---I

recollect well, by the way, a sign in that city which ran thus:

"Hotel l'Univers et des Etats Unis"; and as Paris IS the universe

to a Frenchman, of course the United States are outside of it.

--"See Naples and then die."--It is quite as bad with smaller places.

I have been about, lecturing, you know, and have found the

following propositions to hold true of all of them.

1. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of

each and every town or city.

2. If more than fifty years have passed since its foundation, it

is affectionately styled by the inhabitants the "GOOD OLD town of"

--(whatever its name may happen to be.)

3. Every collection of its inhabitants that comes together to

listen to a stranger is invariably declared to be a "remarkably

intelligent audience."

4. The climate of the place is particularly favorable to

longevity.

5. It contains several persons of vast talent little known to the

world. (One or two of them, you may perhaps chance to remember,

sent short pieces to the "Pactolian" some time since, which were

"respectfully declined.")

Boston is just like other places of its size;--only perhaps,

considering its excellent fish-market, paid fire-department,

superior monthly publications, and correct habit of spelling the

English language, it has some right to look down on the mob of

cities. I'll tell you, though, if you want to know it, what is the

real offence of Boston. It drains a large water-shed of its

intellect, and will not itself be drained. If it would only send

away its first-rate men, instead of its second-rate ones, (no

offence to the well-known exceptions, of which we are always

proud,) we should be spared such epigrammatic remarks as that which

the gentleman has quoted. There can never be a real metropolis in

this country, until the biggest centre can drain the lesser ones of

their talent and wealth.--I have observed, by the way, that the

people who really live in two great cities are by no means so

jealous of each other, as are those of smaller cities situated

within the intellectual basin, or suction-range, of one large one,

of the pretensions of any other. Don't you see why? Because their

promising young author and rising lawyer and large capitalist have

been drained off to the neighboring big city,--their prettiest girl

has been exported to the same market; all their ambition points

there, and all their thin gilding of glory comes from there. I

hate little toad-eating cities.

--Would I be so good as to specify any particular example?--Oh,--an

example? Did you ever see a bear-trap? Never? Well, shouldn't

you like to see me put my foot into one? With sentiments of the

highest consideration I must beg leave to be excused.

Besides, some of the smaller cities are charming. If they have an

old church or two, a few stately mansions of former grandees, here

and there an old dwelling with the second story projecting, (for

the convenience of shooting the Indians knocking at the front-door

with their tomahawks,)--if they have, scattered about, those mighty

square houses built something more than half a century ago, and

standing like architectural boulders dropped by the former diluvium

of wealth, whose refluent wave has left them as its monument,--if

they have gardens with elbowed apple-trees that push their branches

over the high board-fence and drop their fruit on the side-walk,

--if they have a little grass in the side-streets, enough to betoken

quiet without proclaiming decay,--I think I could go to pieces,

after my life's work were done, in one of those tranquil places, as

sweetly as in any cradle that an old man may be rocked to sleep in.

I visit such spots always with infinite delight. My friend, the

Poet, says, that rapidly growing towns are most unfavorable to the

imaginative and reflective faculties. Let a man live in one of

these old quiet places, he says, and the wine of his soul, which is

kept thick and turbid by the rattle of busy streets, settles, and,

as you hold it up, you may see the sun through it by day and the

stars by night.

--Do I think that the little villages have the conceit of the great

towns?--I don't believe there is much difference. You know how

they read Pope's line in the smallest town in our State of

Massachusetts?--Well, they read it

"All are but parts of one stupendous HULL!"

--Every person's feelings have a front-door and a side-door by

which they may be entered. The front-door is on the street. Some

keep it always open; some keep it latched; some, locked; some,

bolted,--with a chain that will let you peep in, but not get in;

and some nail it up, so that nothing can pass its threshold. This

front-door leads into a passage which opens into an ante-room, and

this into the inferior apartments. The side-door opens at once

into the sacred chambers.

There is almost always at least one key to this side-door. This is

carried for years hidden in a mother's bosom. Fathers, brothers,

sisters, and friends, often, but by no means so universally, have

duplicates of it. The wedding-ring conveys a right to one; alas,

if none is given with it!

If nature or accident has put one of these keys into the hands of a

person who has the torturing instinct, I can only solemnly

pronounce the words that Justice utters over its doomed victim,

--THE LORD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL! You will probably go mad within

a reasonable time,--or, if you are a man, run off and die with your

head on a curb-stone, in Melbourne or San Francisco,--or, if you

are a woman, quarrel and break your heart, or turn into a pale,

jointed petrifaction that moves about as if it were alive, or play

some real life-tragedy or other.

Be very careful to whom you trust one of these keys of the

side-door. The fact of possessing one renders those even who are

dear to you very terrible at times. You can keep the world out from

your front-door, or receive visitors only when you are ready for

them; but those of your own flesh and blood, or of certain grades of

intimacy, can come in at the side-door, if they will, at any hour and

in any mood. Some of them have a scale of your whole nervous system,

and can play all the gamut of your sensibilities in semitones,

--touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his

instrument. I am satisfied that there are as great masters of this

nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of

performance. Married life is the school in which the most

accomplished artists in this department are found. A delicate woman

is the best instrument; she has such a magnificent compass of

sensibilities! From the deep inward moan which follows pressure on

the great nerves of right, to the sharp cry as the filaments of taste

are struck with a crashing sweep, is a range which no other

instrument possesses. A few exercises on it daily at home fit a man

wonderfully for his habitual labors, and refresh him immensely as he

returns from them. No stranger can get a great many notes of torture

out of a human soul; it takes one that knows it well,--parent,

child, brother, sister, intimate. Be very careful to whom you give a

side-door key; too many have them already.

--You remember the old story of the tender-hearted man, who placed

a frozen viper in his bosom, and was stung by it when it became

thawed? If we take a cold-blooded creature into our bosom, better

that it should sting us and we should die than that its chill

should slowly steal into our hearts; warm it we never can! I have

seen faces of women that were fair to look upon, yet one could see

that the icicles were forming round these women's hearts. I knew

what freezing image lay on the white breasts beneath the laces!

A very simple INTELLECTUAL mechanism answers the necessities of

friendship, and even of the most intimate relations of life. If a

watch tells us the hour and the minute, we can be content to carry

it about with us for a life-time, though it has no second-hand and

is not a repeater, nor a musical watch,--though it is not enamelled

nor jewelled,--in short, though it has little beyond the wheels

required for a trustworthy instrument, added to a good face and a

pair of useful hands. The more wheels there are in a watch or a

brain, the more trouble they are to take care of. The movements of

exaltation which belong to genius are egotistic by their very

nature. A calm, clear mind, not subject to the spasms and crises

which are so often met with in creative or intensely perceptive

natures, is the best basis for love or friendship.--Observe, I am

talking about MINDS. I won't say, the more intellect, the less

capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the understanding

and reason;--but, on the other hand, that the brain often runs away

with the heart's best blood, which gives the world a few pages of

wisdom or sentiment or poetry, instead of making one other heart

happy, I have no question.

If one's intimate in love or friendship cannot or does not share

all one's intellectual tastes or pursuits, that is a small matter.

Intellectual companions can be found easily in men and books.

After all, if we think of it, most of the world's loves and

friendships have been between people that could not read nor spell.

But to radiate the heat of the affections into a clod which absorbs

all that is poured into it, but never warms beneath the sunshine of

smiles or the pressure of hand or lip,--this is the great martyrdom

of sensitive beings,--most of all in that perpetual auto da fe

where young womanhood is the sacrifice.

--You noticed, perhaps, what I just said about the loves and

friendships of illiterate persons,--that is, of the human race,

with a few exceptions here and there. I like books,--I was born

and bred among them, and have the easy feeling, when I get into

their presence, that a stable-boy has among horses. I don't think

I undervalue them either as companions or as instructors. But I

can't help remembering that the world's great men have not commonly

been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men. The Hebrew

patriarchs had small libraries, I think, if any; yet they represent

to our imaginations a very complete idea of manhood, and, I think,

if we could ask in Abraham to dine with us men of letters next

Saturday, we should feel honored by his company.

What I wanted to say about books is this: that there are times in

which every active mind feels itself above any and all human books.

--I think a man must have a good opinion of himself, Sir,--said the

divinity-student,--who should feel himself above Shakspeare at any

time.

My young friend,--I replied,--the man who is never conscious of a

state of feeling or of intellectual effort entirely beyond

expression by any form of words whatsoever is a mere creature of

language. I can hardly believe there are any such men. Why, think

for a moment of the power of music. The nerves that make us alive

to it spread out (so the Professor tells me) in the most sensitive

region of the marrow just where it is widening to run upwards into

the hemispheres. It has its seat in the region of sense rather

than of thought. Yet it produces a continuous and, as it were,

logical sequence of emotional and intellectual changes; but how

different from trains of thought proper! how entirely beyond the

reach of symbols!--Think of human passions as compared with all

phrases! Did you ever hear of a man's growing lean by the reading

of "Romeo and Juliet," or blowing his brains out because Desdemona

was maligned? There are a good many symbols, even, that are more

expressive than words. I remember a young wife who had to part

with her husband for a time. She did not write a mournful poem;

indeed, she was a silent person, and perhaps hardly said a word

about it; but she quietly turned of a deep orange color with

jaundice. A great many people in this world have but one form of

rhetoric for their profoundest experiences,--namely, to waste away

and die. When a man can READ, his paroxysm of feeling is passing.

When he can READ, his thought has slackened its hold.--You talk

about reading Shakspeare, using him as an expression for the

highest intellect, and you wonder that any common person should be

so presumptuous as to suppose his thought can rise above the text

which lies before him. But think a moment. A child's reading of

Shakspeare is one thing, and Coleridge's or Schlegel's reading of

him is another. The saturation-point of each mind differs from

that of every other. But I think it is as true for the small mind

which can only take up a little as for the great one which takes up

much, that the suggested trains of thought and feeling ought always

to rise above--not the author, but the reader's mental version of

the author, whoever he may be.

I think most readers of Shakspeare sometimes find themselves thrown

into exalted mental conditions like those produced by music. Then

they may drop the book, to pass at once into the region of thought

without words. We may happen to be very dull folks, you and I, and

probably are, unless there is some particular reason to suppose the

contrary. But we get glimpses now and then of a sphere of

spiritual possibilities, where we, dull as we are now, may sail in

vast circles round the largest compass of earthly intelligences.

--I confess there are times when I feel like the friend I mentioned

to you some time ago,--I hate the very sight of a book. Sometimes

it becomes almost a physical necessity to talk out what is in the

mind, before putting anything else into it. It is very bad to have

thoughts and feelings, which were meant to come out in talk, STRIKE

IN, as they say of some complaints that ought to show outwardly.

I always believed in life rather than in books. I suppose every

day of earth, with its hundred thousand deaths and something more

of births,--with its loves and hates, its triumphs and defeats, its

pangs and blisses, has more of humanity in it than all the books

that were ever written, put together. I believe the flowers

growing at this moment send up more fragrance to heaven than was

ever exhaled from all the essences ever distilled.

--Don't I read up various matters to talk about at this table or

elsewhere?--No, that is the last thing I would do. I will tell you

my rule. Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind,

and listen to what others say about subjects you have studied but

recently. Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used, till they

are seasoned.

--Physiologists and metaphysicians have had their attention turned

a good deal of late to the automatic and involuntary actions of the

mind. Put an idea into your intelligence and leave it there an

hour, a day, a year, without ever having occasion to refer to it.

When, at last, you return to it, you do not find it as it was when

acquired. It has domiciliated itself, so to speak,--become at

home,--entered into relations with your other thoughts, and

integrated itself with the whole fabric of the mind.--Or take a

simple and familiar example; Dr. Carpenter has adduced it. You

forget a name, in conversation,--go on talking, without making any

effort to recall it,--and presently the mind evolves it by its own

involuntary and unconscious action, while you were pursuing another

train of thought, and the name rises of itself to your lips.

There are some curious observations I should like to make about the

mental machinery, but I think we are getting rather didactic.

--I should be gratified, if Benjamin Franklin would let me know

something of his progress in the French language. I rather liked

that exercise he read us the other day, though I must confess I

should hardly dare to translate it, for fear some people in a

remote city where I once lived might think I was drawing their

portraits.

--Yes, Paris is a famous place for societies. I don't know whether

the piece I mentioned from the French author was intended simply as

Natural History, or whether there was not a little malice in his

description. At any rate, when I gave my translation to B. F. to

turn back again into French, one reason was that I thought it would

sound a little bald in English, and some people might think it was

meant to have some local bearing or other,--which the author, of

course, didn't mean, inasmuch as he could not be acquainted with

anything on this side of the water.

[The above remarks were addressed to the school-mistress, to whom

I handed the paper after looking it over. The divinity-student

came and read over her shoulder,--very curious, apparently, but his

eyes wandered, I thought. Fancying that her breathing was somewhat

hurried and high, or thoracic, as my friend, the Professor, calls

it, I watched her a little more closely.--It is none of my

business.--After all, it is the imponderables that move the world,

--heat, electricity, love. Habet?]

This is the piece that Benjamin Franklin made into boarding-school

French, such as you see here; don't expect too much;--the mistakes

give a relish to it, I think.

LES SOCIETES POLYPHYSIOPHILOSOPHIQUES.

Ces Societes la sont une Institution pour suppleer aux besoins

d'esprit et de coeur de ces individus qui ont survecu a leurs

emotions a l'egard du beau sexe, et qui n'ont pas la distraction de

l'habitude de boire.

Pour devenir membre d'une de ces Societes, on doit avoir le moins

de cheveux possible. S'il y en reste plusieurs qui resistent aux

depilatoires naturelles et autres, on doit avoir quelques

connaissances, n'importe dans quel genre. Des le moment qu'on

ouvre la porte de la Societe, on a un grand interet dans toutes les

choses dont on ne sait rien. Ainsi, un microscopiste demontre un

nouveau FLEXOR du TARSE d'un MELOLONTHA VULGARIS. Douze savans

improvises, portans des besicles, et qui ne connaissent rien des

insectes, si ce n'est les morsures du CULEX, se precipitent sur

l'instrument, et voient--une grande bulle d'air, dont ils

s'emerveillent avec effusion. Ce qui est un spectacle plein

d'instruction--pour ceux qui ne sont pas de ladite Societe. Tous

les membres regardent les chimistes en particulier avec un air

d'intelligence parfaite pendant qu'ils prouvent dans un discours

d'une demiheure que O6 N3 H5 C6 etc. font quelque chose qui n'est

bonne a rien, mais qui probablement a une odeur tres desagreable,

selon l'habitude des produits chimiques. Apres cela vient un

mathematicien qui vous bourre avec des a+b et vous rapporte enfin

un x+y, dont vous n'avex pas besoin et qui ne change nullement vos

relations avec la vie. Un naturaliste vous parle des formations

speciales des animaux excessivement inconnus, dont vous n'avez

jamais soupconne l'existence. Ainsi il vous decrit les FOLLICULES

de L'APPENDIX VERMIFORMIS d'un DZIGGUETAI. Vous ne savez pas ce

que c'est qu'un FOLLICULE. Vous ne savez pas ce que c'est qu'un

APPENDIX UERMIFORMIS. Vous n'avez jamais entendu parler du

DZIGGUETAI. Ainsi vous gagnez toutes ces connaisances a la fois,

qui s'attachent a votre esprit comme l'eau adhere aux plumes d'un

canard. On connait toutes les langues EX OFFICIO en devenant

membre d'une de ces Societes. Ainsi quand on entend lire un Essai

sur les dialectes Tchutchiens, on comprend tout cela de suite, et

s'instruit enormement.

Il y a deux especes d'individus qu'on trouve toujours a ces

Societes: 1 (degree) Le membre a questions; 2 (degree) Le membre a

"Bylaws."

La QUESTION est une specialite. Celui qui en fait metier ne fait

jamais des reponses. La question est une maniere tres commode de

dire les choses suivantes: "Me voila! Je ne suis pas fossil,

moi,--je respire encore! J'ai des idees,--voyez mon intelligence!

Vous ne croyiez pas, vous autres, que je savais quelque chose de

cela! Ah, nous avons un peu de sagacite, voyez vous! Nous ne

sommes nullement la bete qu'on pense!"--LE FAISEUR DE QUESTIONS

DONNE PEU D'ATTENTION AUX REPONSES QU'ON FAIT; CE N'EST PAS LA DANS

SA SPECIALITE.

Le membre a "Bylaws" est le bouchon de toutes les emotions

mousseuses et genereuses qui se montrent dans la Societe. C'est un

empereur manque,--un tyran a la troiseme trituration. C'est un

esprit dur, borne, exact, grand dans les petitesses, petit dans les

grandeurs, selon le mot du grand Jefferson. On ne l'aime pas dans

la Societe, mais on le respecte et on le craint. Il n'y a qu'un

mot pour ce membre audessus de "Bylaws." Ce mot est pour lui ce

que l'Om est aux Hundous. C'est sa religion; il n'y a rien audela.

Ce mot la c'est la CONSTITUTION!

Lesdites Societes publient des feuilletons de tems en tems. On les

trouve abandonnes a sa porte, nus comme des enfans nouveaunes,

faute de membrane cutanee, ou meme papyracee. Si on aime la

botanique, on y trouve une memoire sur les coquilles; si on fait

des etudes zoologiques, on square trouve un grand tas de q' [square

root of minus one], ce qui doit etre infiniment plus commode que

les encyclopedies. Ainsi il est clair comme la metaphysique qu'on

doit devenir membre d'une Societe telle que nous decrivons.

Recette pour le Depilatoire Physiophilosophique

Chaux vive lb. ss. Eau bouillante Oj.

Depilez avec. Polissez ensuite.

I told the boy that his translation into French was creditable to

him; and some of the company wishing to hear what there was in the

piece that made me smile, I turned it into English for them, as

well as I could, on the spot.

The landlady's daughter seemed to be much amused by the idea that a

depilatory could take the place of literary and scientific

accomplishments; she wanted me to print the piece, so that she

might send a copy of it to her cousin in Mizzourah; she didn't

think he'd have to do anything to the outside of his head to get

into any of the societies; he had to wear a wig once, when he

played a part in a tabullo.

No,--said I,--I shouldn't think of printing that in English. I'll

tell you why. As soon as you get a few thousand people together in

a town, there is somebody that every sharp thing you say is sure to

hit. What if a thing was written in Paris or in Pekin?--that makes

no difference. Everybody in those cities, or almost everybody, has

his counterpart here, and in all large places.--You never studied

AVERAGES as I have had occasion to.

I'll tell you how I came to know so much about averages. There was

one season when I was lecturing, commonly, five evenings in the

week, through most of the lecturing period. I soon found, as most

speakers do, that it was pleasanter to work one lecture than to

keep several in hand.

--Don't you get sick to death of one lecture?--said the landlady's

daughter,--who had a new dress on that day, and was in spirits for

conversation.

I was going to talk about averages,--I said,--but I have no

objection to telling you about lectures, to begin with.

A new lecture always has a certain excitement connected with its

delivery. One thinks well of it, as of most things fresh from his

mind. After a few deliveries of it, one gets tired and then

disgusted with its repetition. Go on delivering it, and the

disgust passes off, until, after one has repeated it a hundred or a

hundred and fifty times, he rather enjoys the hundred and first or

hundred and fifty-first time, before a new audience. But this is

on one condition,--that he never lays the lecture down and lets it

cool. If he does, there comes on a loathing for it which is

intense, so that the sight of the old battered manuscript is as bad

as sea-sickness.

A new lecture is just like any other new tool. We use it for a

while with pleasure. Then it blisters our hands, and we hate to

touch it. By-and-by our hands get callous, and then we have no

longer any sensitiveness about it. But if we give it up, the

calluses disappear; and if we meddle with it again, we miss the

novelty and get the blisters.--The story is often quoted of

Whitefield, that he said a sermon was good for nothing until it had

been preached forty times. A lecture doesn't begin to be old until

it has passed its hundredth delivery; and some, I think, have

doubled, if not quadrupled, that number. These old lectures are a

man's best, commonly; they improve by age, also,--like the pipes,

fiddles, and poems I told you of the other day. One learns to make

the most of their strong points and to carry off their weak ones,

--to take out the really good things which don't tell on the

audience, and put in cheaper things that do. All this degrades

him, of course, but it improves the lecture for general delivery.

A thoroughly popular lecture ought to have nothing in it which five

hundred people cannot all take in a flash, just as it is uttered.

--No, indeed,--I should be very sorry to say anything disrespectful

of audiences. I have been kindly treated by a great many, and may

occasionally face one hereafter. But I tell you the AVERAGE

intellect of five hundred persons, taken as they come, is not very

high. It may be sound and safe, so far as it goes, but it is not

very rapid or profound. A lecture ought to be something which all

can understand, about something which interests everybody. I

think, that, if any experienced lecturer gives you a different

account from this, it will probably be one of those eloquent or

forcible speakers who hold an audience by the charm of their

manner, whatever they talk about,--even when they don't talk very

well.

But an AVERAGE, which was what I meant to speak about, is one of

the most extraordinary subjects of observation and study. It is

awful in its uniformity, in its automatic necessity of action. Two

communities of ants or bees are exactly alike in all their actions,

so far as we can see. Two lyceum assemblies, of five hundred each,

are so nearly alike, that they are absolutely undistinguishable in

many cases by any definite mark, and there is nothing but the place

and time by which one can tell the "remarkably intelligent

audience" of a town in New York or Ohio from one in any New England

town of similar size. Of course, if any principle of selection has

come in, as in those special associations of young men which are

common in cities, it deranges the uniformity of the assemblage.

But let there be no such interfering circumstances, and one knows

pretty well even the look the audience will have, before he goes

in. Front seats: a few old folk,--shiny-headed,--slant up best

ear towards the speaker,--drop off asleep after a while, when the

air begins to get a little narcotic with carbonic acid. Bright

women's faces, young and middle-aged, a little behind these, but

toward the front--(pick out the best, and lecture mainly to that.)

Here and there a countenance, sharp and scholarlike, and a dozen

pretty female ones sprinkled about. An indefinite number of pairs

of young people,--happy, but not always very attentive. Boys, in

the background, more or less quiet. Dull faces here, there,--in

how many places! I don't say dull PEOPLE, but faces without a ray

of sympathy or a movement of expression. They are what kill the

lecturer. These negative faces with their vacuous eyes and stony

lineaments pump and suck the warm soul out of him;--that is the

chief reason why lecturers grow so pale before the season is over.

They render LATENT any amount of vital caloric; they act on our

minds as those cold-blooded creatures I was talking about act on

our hearts.

Out of all these inevitable elements the audience is generated,--a

great compound vertebrate, as much like fifty others you have seen

as any two mammals of the same species are like each other. Each

audience laughs, and each cries, in just the same places of your

lecture; that is, if you make one laugh or cry, you make all. Even

those little indescribable movements which a lecturer takes

cognizance of, just as a driver notices his horse's cocking his

ears, are sure to come in exactly the same place of your lecture

always. I declare to you, that as the monk said about the picture

in the convent,--that he sometimes thought the living tenants were

the shadows, and the painted figures the realities,--I have

sometimes felt as if I were a wandering spirit, and this great

unchanging multivertebrate which I faced night after night was one

ever-listening animal, which writhed along after me wherever I

fled, and coiled at my feet every evening, turning up to me the

same sleepless eyes which I thought I had closed with my last

drowsy incantation!

--Oh, yes! A thousand kindly and courteous acts,--a thousand faces

that melted individually out of my recollection as the April snow

melts, but only to steal away and find the beds of flowers whose

roots are memory, but which blossom in poetry and dreams. I am not

ungrateful, nor unconscious of all the good feeling and

intelligence everywhere to be met with through the vast parish to

which the lecturer ministers. But when I set forth, leading a

string of my mind's daughters to market, as the country-folk fetch

in their strings of horses--Pardon me, that was a coarse fellow who

sneered at the sympathy wasted on an unhappy lecturer, as if,

because he was decently paid for his services, he had therefore

sold his sensibilities.--Family men get dreadfully homesick. In

the remote and bleak village the heart returns to the red blaze of

the logs in one's fireplace at home.

"There are his young barbarians all at play,"--

if he owns any youthful savages.--No, the world has a million

roosts for a man, but only one nest.

--It is a fine thing to be an oracle to which an appeal is always

made in all discussions. The men of facts wait their turn in grim

silence, with that slight tension about the nostrils which the

consciousness of carrying a "settler" in the form of a fact or a

revolver gives the individual thus armed. When a person is really

full of information, and does not abuse it to crush conversation,

his part is to that of the real talkers what the instrumental

accompaniment is in a trio or quartette of vocalists.

--What do I mean by the real talkers?--Why, the people with fresh

ideas, of course, and plenty of good warm words to dress them in.

Facts always yield the place of honor, in conversation, to thoughts

about facts; but if a false note is uttered, down comes the finger

on the key and the man of facts asserts his true dignity. I have

known three of these men of facts, at least, who were always

formidable,--and one of them was tyrannical.

--Yes, a man sometimes makes a grand appearance on a particular

occasion; but these men knew something about almost everything, and

never made mistakes.--He? Veneers in first-rate style. The

mahogany scales off now and then in spots, and then you see the

cheap light stuff--I found--very fine in conversational

information, the other day when we were in company. The talk ran

upon mountains. He was wonderfully well acquainted with the

leading facts about the Andes, the Apennines, and the Appalachians;

he had nothing in particular to say about Ararat, Ben Nevis, and

various other mountains that were mentioned. By and by some

Revolutionary anecdote came up, and he showed singular familiarity

with the lives of the Adamses, and gave many details relating to

Major Andre. A point of Natural History being suggested, he gave

an excellent account of the air-bladder of fishes. He was very

full upon the subject of agriculture, but retired from the

conversation when horticulture was introduced in the discussion.

So he seemed well acquainted with the geology of anthracite, but

did not pretend to know anything of other kinds of coal. There was

something so odd about the extent and limitations of his knowledge,

that I suspected all at once what might be the meaning of it, and

waited till I got an opportunity.--Have you seen the "New American

Cyclopaedia?" said I.--I have, he replied; I received an early

copy.--How far does it go?--He turned red, and answered,--To

Araguay.--Oh, said I to myself,--not quite so far as Ararat;--that

is the reason he knew nothing about it; but he must have read all

the rest straight through, and, if he can remember what is in this

volume until he has read all those that are to come, he will know

more than I ever thought he would.

Since I had this experience, I hear that somebody else has related

a similar story. I didn't borrow it, for all that.--I made a

comparison at table some time since, which has often been quoted

and received many compliments. It was that of the mind of a bigot

to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it

contracts. The simile is a very obvious, and, I suppose I may now

say, a happy one; for it has just been shown me that it occurs in a

Preface to certain Political Poems of Thomas Moore's published long

before my remark was repeated. When a person of fair character for

literary honesty uses an image, such as another has employed before

him, the presumption is, that he has struck upon it independently,

or unconsciously recalled it, supposing it his own.

It is impossible to tell, in a great many cases, whether a

comparison which suddenly suggests itself is a new conception or a

recollection. I told you the other day that I never wrote a line

of verse that seemed to me comparatively good, but it appeared old

at once, and often as if it had been borrowed. But I confess I

never suspected the above comparison of being old, except from the

fact of its obviousness. It is proper, however, that I proceed by

a formal instrument to relinquish all claim to any property in an

idea given to the world at about the time when I had just joined

the class in which Master Thomas Moore was then a somewhat advanced

scholar.

I, therefore, in full possession of my native honesty, but knowing

the liability of all men to be elected to public office, and for

that reason feeling uncertain how soon I may be in danger of losing

it, do hereby renounce all claim to being considered the FIRST

person who gave utterance to a certain simile or comparison

referred to in the accompanying documents, and relating to the

pupil of the eye on the one part and the mind of the bigot on the

other. I hereby relinquish all glory and profit, and especially

all claims to letters from autograph collectors, founded upon my

supposed property in the above comparison,--knowing well, that,

according to the laws of literature, they who speak first hold the

fee of the thing said. I do also agree that all Editors of

Cyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries, all Publishers of

Reviews and Papers, and all Critics writing therein, shall be at

liberty to retract or qualify any opinion predicated on the

supposition that I was the sole and undisputed author of the above

comparison. But, inasmuch as I do affirm that the comparison

aforesaid was uttered by me in the firm belief that it was new and

wholly my own, and as I have good reason to think that I had never

seen or heard it when first expressed by me, and as it is well

known that different persons may independently utter the same

idea,--as is evinced by that familiar line from Donatus,--

"Pereant illi qui ante nos nostra dixerunt,"--

now, therefore, I do request by this instrument that all

well-disposed persons will abstain from asserting or implying that I

am open to any accusation whatsoever touching the said comparison,

and, if they have so asserted or implied, that they will have the

manliness forthwith to retract the same assertion or insinuation.

I think few persons have a greater disgust for plagiarism than

myself. If I had even suspected that the idea in question was

borrowed, I should have disclaimed originality, or mentioned the

coincidence, as I once did in a case where I had happened to hit on

an idea of Swift's.--But what shall I do about these verses I was

going to read you? I am afraid that half mankind would accuse me

of stealing their thoughts, if I printed them. I am convinced that

several of you, especially if you are getting a little on in life,

will recognize some of these sentiments as having passed through

your consciousness at some time. I can't help it,--it is too late

now. The verses are written, and you must have them. Listen,

then, and you shall hear

WHAT WE ALL THINK.

That age was older once than now,

In spite of locks untimely shed,

Or silvered on the youthful brow;

That babes make love and children wed.

That sunshine had a heavenly glow,

Which faded with those "good old days,"

When winters came with deeper snow,

And autumns with a softer haze.

That--mother, sister, wife, or child--

The "best of women" each has known.

Were schoolboys ever half so wild?

How young the grandpapas have grown,

That BUT FOR THIS our souls were free,

And BUT FOR THAT our lives were blest;

That in some season yet to be

Our cares will leave us time to rest.

Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,

Some common ailment of the race,--

Though doctors think the matter plain,--

That ours is "a peculiar case."

That when like babes with fingers burned

We count one bitter maxim more,

Our lesson all the world has learned,

And men are wiser than before.

That when we sob o'er fancied woes,

The angels hovering overhead

Count every pitying drop that flows

And love us for the tears we shed.

That when we stand with tearless eye

And turn the beggar from our door,

They still approve us when we sigh,

"Ah, had I but ONE THOUSAND MORE!"

That weakness smoothed the path of sin,

In half the slips our youth has known;

And whatsoe'er its blame has been,

That Mercy flowers on faults outgrown.

Though temples crowd the crumbled brink

O'erhanging truth's eternal flow,

Their tablets bold with WHAT WE THINK,

Their echoes dumb to WHAT WE KNOW;

That one unquestioned text we read,

All doubt beyond, all fear above,

Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed

Can burn or blot it: GOD IS LOVE!

CHAPTER VII

[This particular record is noteworthy principally for containing a

paper by my friend, the Professor, with a poem or two annexed or

intercalated. I would suggest to young persons that they should

pass over it for the present, and read, instead of it, that story

about the young man who was in love with the young lady, and in

great trouble for something like nine pages, but happily married on

the tenth page or thereabouts, which, I take it for granted, will

be contained in the periodical where this is found, unless it

differ from all other publications of the kind. Perhaps, if such

young people will lay the number aside, and take it up ten years,

or a little more, from the present time, they may find something in

it for their advantage. They can't possibly understand it all

now.]

My friend, the Professor, began talking with me one day in a dreary

sort of way. I couldn't get at the difficulty for a good while,

but at last it turned out that somebody had been calling him an old

man.--He didn't mind his students calling him THE old man, he said.

That was a technical expression, and he thought that he remembered

hearing it applied to himself when he was about twenty-five. It

may be considered as a familiar and sometimes endearing

appellation. An Irishwoman calls her husband "the old man," and he

returns the caressing expression by speaking of her as "the old

woman." But now, said he, just suppose a case like one of these.

A young stranger is overheard talking of you as a very nice old

gentleman. A friendly and genial critic speaks of your green old

age as illustrating the truth of some axiom you had uttered with

reference to that period of life. What _I_ call an old man is a

person with a smooth, shining crown and a fringe of scattered white

hairs, seen in the streets on sunshiny days, stooping as he walks,

bearing a cane, moving cautiously and slowly; telling old stories,

smiling at present follies, living in a narrow world of dry habits;

one that remains waking when others have dropped asleep, and keeps

a little night-lamp-flame of life burning year after year, if the

lamp is not upset, and there is only a careful hand held round it

to prevent the puffs of wind from blowing the flame out. That's

what I call an old man.

Now, said the Professor, you don't mean to tell me that I have got

to that yet? Why, bless you, I am several years short of the time

when--[I knew what was coming, and could hardly keep from laughing;

twenty years ago he used to quote it as one of those absurd

speeches men of genius will make, and now he is going to argue from

it]--several years short of the time when Balzac says that men are

--most--you know--dangerous to--the hearts of--in short, most to be

dreaded by duennas that have charge of susceptible females.--What

age is that? said I, statistically.--Fifty-two years, answered the

Professor.--Balzac ought to know, said I, if it is true that Goethe

said of him that each of his stories must have been dug out of a

woman's heart. But fifty-two is a high figure.

Stand in the light of the window, Professor, said I.---The

Professor took up the desired position.--You have white hairs, I

said.--Had 'em any time these twenty years, said the Professor.

--And the crow's-foot,--pes anserinus, rather.--The Professor smiled,

as I wanted him to, and the folds radiated like the ridges of a

half-opened fan, from the outer corner of the eyes to the temples.

--And the calipers said I.--What are the calipers? he asked,

curiously.--Why, the parenthesis, said I.--Parenthesis? said the

Professor; what's that?--Why, look in the glass when you are

disposed to laugh, and see if your mouth isn't framed in a couple

of crescent lines,--so, my boy ( ).--It's all nonsense, said the

Professor; just look at my BICEPS;--and he began pulling off his

coat to show me his arm. Be careful, said I; you can't bear

exposure to the air, at your time of life, as you could once.--I

will box with you, said the Professor, row with you, walk with you,

ride with you, swim with you, or sit at table with you, for fifty

dollars a side.--Pluck survives stamina, I answered.

The Professor went off a little out of humor. A few weeks

afterwards he came in, looking very good-natured, and brought me a

paper, which I have here, and from which I shall read you some

portions, if you don't object. He had been thinking the matter

over, he said,--had read Cicero "De Senectute," and made up his

mind to meet old age half way. These were some of his reflections

that he had written down; so here you have.

THE PROFESSOR'S PAPER.

There is no doubt when old age begins. The human body is a furnace

which keeps in blast three-score years and ten, more or less. It

burns about three hundred pounds of carbon a year, (besides other

fuel,) when in fair working order, according to a great chemist's

estimate. When the fire slackens, life declines; when it goes out,

we are dead.

It has been shown by some noted French experimenters, that the

amount of combustion increases up to about the thirtieth year,

remains stationary to about forty-five, and then diminishes. This

last is the point where old age starts from. The great fact of

physical life is the perpetual commerce with the elements, and the

fire is the measure of it.

About this time of life, if food is plenty where you live,--for

that, you know, regulates matrimony,--you may be expecting to find

yourself a grandfather some fine morning; a kind of domestic

felicity that gives one a cool shiver of delight to think of, as

among the not remotely possible events.

I don't mind much those slipshod lines Dr. Johnson wrote to Thrale,

telling her about life's declining from THIRTY-FIVE; the furnace is

in full blast for ten years longer, as I have said. The Romans

came very near the mark; their age of enlistment reached from

seventeen to forty-six years.

What is the use of fighting against the seasons, or the tides, or

the movements of the planetary bodies, or this ebb in the wave of

life that flows through us? We are old fellows from the moment the

fire begins to go out. Let us always behave like gentlemen when we

are introduced to new acquaintance.

Incipit Allegoria Senectutis.

Old Age, this is Mr. Professor; Mr. Professor, this is Old Age.

Old Age.--Mr. Professor, I hope to see you well. I have known you

for some time, though I think you did not know me. Shall we walk

down the street together?

Professor (drawing back a little).--We can talk more quietly,

perhaps, in my study. Will you tell me how it is you seem to be

acquainted with everybody you are introduced to, though he

evidently considers you an entire stranger?

Old Age.--I make it a rule never to force myself upon a person's

recognition until I have known him at least FIVE YEARS.

Professor.--Do you mean to say that you have known me so long as

that?

Old Age. I do. I left my card on you longer ago than that, but I

am afraid you never read it; yet I see you have it with you.

Professor.--Where?

Old Age.--There, between your eyebrows,--three straight lines

running up and down; all the probate courts know that token,--"Old

Age, his mark." Put your forefinger on the inner end of one

eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other

eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my

sign-manual; that's the way you used to look before I left my card

on you.

Professor.--What message do people generally send back when you

first call on them?

Old Age.--Not at home. Then I leave a card and go. Next year I

call; get the same answer; leave another card. So for five or

six,--sometimes ten years or more. At last, if they don't let me

in, I break in through the front door or the windows.

We talked together in this way some time. Then Old Age said

again,--Come, let us walk down the street together,--and offered me

a cane, an eyeglass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes.--No, much

obliged to you, said I. I don't want those things, and I had a

little rather talk with you here, privately, in my study. So I

dressed myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone;--got a

fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a lumbago, and had time to

think over this whole matter.

Explicit Allegoria Senectutis.

We have settled when old age begins. Like all Nature's processes,

it is gentle and gradual in its approaches, strewed with illusions,

and all its little griefs soothed by natural sedatives. But the

iron hand is not less irresistible because it wears the velvet

glove. The button-wood throws off its bark in large flakes, which

one may find lying at its foot, pushed out, and at last pushed off,

by that tranquil movement from beneath, which is too slow to be

seen, but too powerful to be arrested. One finds them always, but

one rarely sees them fall. So it is our youth drops from us,

--scales off, sapless and lifeless, and lays bare the tender and

immature fresh growth of old age. Looked at collectively, the

changes of old age appear as a series of personal insults and

indignities, terminating at last in death, which Sir Thomas Browne

has called "the very disgrace and ignominy of our nature."

My lady's cheek can boast no more

The cranberry white and pink it wore;

And where her shining locks divide,

The parting line is all too wide--

No, no,--this will never do. Talk about men, if you will, but

spare the poor women.

We have a brief description of seven stages of life by a remarkably

good observer. It is very presumptuous to attempt to add to it,

yet I have been struck with the fact that life admits of a natural

analysis into no less than fifteen distinct periods. Taking the

five primary divisions, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old

age, each of these has its own three periods of immaturity,

complete development, and decline. I recognize on OLD baby at

once,--with its "pipe and mug," (a stick of candy and a

porringer,)--so does everybody; and an old child shedding its

milk-teeth is only a little prototype of the old man shedding his

permanent ones. Fifty or thereabouts is only the childhood, as it

were, of old age; the graybeard youngster must be weaned from his

late suppers now. So you will see that you have to make fifteen

stages at any rate, and that it would not be hard to make

twenty-five; five primary, each with five secondary divisions.

The infancy and childhood of commencing old age have the same

ingenuous simplicity and delightful unconsciousness about them as

the first stage of the earlier periods of life shows. The great

delusion of mankind is in supposing that to be individual and

exceptional which is universal and according to law. A person is

always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man

for the first time.

Nature gets us out of youth into manhood, as sailors are hurried on

board of vessels,--in a state of intoxication. We are hustled into

maturity reeling with our passions and imaginations, and we have

drifted far away from port before we awake out of our illusions.

But to carry us out of maturity into old age, without our knowing

where we are going, she drugs us with strong opiates, and so we

stagger along with wide open eyes that see nothing until snow

enough has fallen on our heads to rouse our comatose brains out of

their stupid trances.

There is one mark of age that strikes me more than any of the

physical ones;--I mean the formation of Habits. An old man who

shrinks into himself falls into ways that become as positive and as

much beyond the reach of outside influences as if they were

governed by clock-work. The ANIMAL functions, as the physiologists

call them, in distinction from the ORGANIC, tend, in the process of

deterioration to which age and neglect united gradually lead them,

to assume the periodical or rhythmical type of movement. Every

man's HEART (this organ belongs, you know, to the organic system)

has a regular mode of action; but I know a great many men whose

BRAINS, and all their voluntary existence flowing from their

brains, have a systole and diastole as regular as that of the heart

itself. Habit is the approximation of the animal system to the

organic. It is a confession of failure in the highest function of

being, which involves a perpetual self-determination, in full view

of all existing circumstances. But habit, you see, is an action in

present circumstances from past motives. It is substituting a vis

a tergo for the evolution of living force.

When a man, instead of burning up three hundred pounds of carbon a

year, has got down to two hundred and fifty, it is plain enough he

must economize force somewhere. Now habit is a labor-saving

invention which enables a man to get along with less fuel,--that is

all; for fuel is force, you know, just as much in the page I am

writing for you as in the locomotive or the legs that carry it to

you. Carbon is the same thing, whether you call it wood, or coal,

or bread and cheese. A reverend gentleman demurred to this

statement,--as if, because combustion is asserted to be the sine

qua non of thought, therefore thought is alleged to be a purely

chemical process. Facts of chemistry are one thing, I told him,

and facts of consciousness another. It can be proved to him, by a

very simple analysis of some of his spare elements, that every

Sunday, when he does his duty faithfully, he uses up more

phosphorus out of his brain and nerves than on ordinary days. But

then he had his choice whether to do his duty, or to neglect it,

and save his phosphorus and other combustibles.

It follows from all this that THE FORMATION OF HABITS ought

naturally to be, as it is, the special characteristic of age. As

for the muscular powers, they pass their maximum long before the

time when the true decline of life begins, if we may judge by the

experience of the ring. A man is "stale," I think, in their

language, soon after thirty,--often, no doubt, much earlier, as

gentlemen of the pugilistic profession are exceedingly apt to keep

their vital fire burning WITH THE BLOWER UP.

--So far without Tully. But in the mean time I have been reading

the treatise, "De Senectute." It is not long, but a leisurely

performance. The old gentleman was sixty-three years of age when

he addressed it to his friend T. Pomponius Atticus, Eq., a person

of distinction, some two or three years older. We read it when we

are schoolboys, forget all about it for thirty years, and then take

it up again by a natural instinct,--provided always that we read

Latin as we drink water, without stopping to taste it, as all of us

who ever learned it at school or college ought to do.

Cato is the chief speaker in the dialogue. A good deal of it is

what would be called in vulgar phrase "slow." It unpacks and

unfolds incidental illustrations which a modern writer would look

at the back of, and toss each to its pigeon-hole. I think ancient

classics and ancient people are alike in the tendency to this kind

of expansion.

An old doctor came to me once (this is literal fact) with some

contrivance or other for people with broken kneepans. As the

patient would be confined for a good while, he might find it dull

work to sit with his hands in his lap. Reading, the ingenious

inventor suggested, would be an agreeable mode of passing the time.

He mentioned, in his written account of his contrivance, various

works that might amuse the weary hour. I remember only three,--Don

Quixote, Tom Jones, and WATTS ON THE MIND.

It is not generally understood that Cicero's essay was delivered as

a lyceum lecture, (concio popularis,) at the Temple of Mercury.

The journals (papyri) of the day ("Tempora Quotidiana,"--"Tribuinus

Quirinalis,"--"Praeco Romanus," and the rest) gave abstracts of it,

one of which I have translated and modernized, as being a

substitute for the analysis I intended to make.

IV. Kal. Mart. . . . .

The lecture at the Temple of Mercury, last evening, was well

attended by the elite of our great city. Two hundred thousand

sestertia were thought to have been represented in the house. The

doors were besieged by a mob of shabby fellows, (illotum vulgus,)

who were at length quieted after two or three had been somewhat

roughly handled (gladio jugulati). The speaker was the well-known

Mark Tully, Eq.,--the subject Old Age. Mr. T. has a lean and

scraggy person, with a very unpleasant excrescence upon his nasal

feature, from which his nickname of CHICK-PEA (Cicero) is said by

some to be derived. As a lecturer is public property, we may

remark, that his outer garment (toga) was of cheap stuff and

somewhat worn, and that his general style and appearance of dress

and manner (habitus, vestitusque) were somewhat provincial.

The lecture consisted of an imaginary dialogue between Cato and

Laelius. We found the first portion rather heavy, and retired a

few moments for refreshment (pocula quaedam vini).--All want to

reach old age, says Cato, and grumble when they get it; therefore

they are donkeys.--The lecturer will allow us to say that he is the

donkey; we know we shall grumble at old age, but we want to live

through youth and manhood, IN SPITE of the troubles we shall groan

over.--There was considerable prosing as to what old age can do and

can't.--True, but not new. Certainly, old folks can't jump,--break

the necks of their thigh-bones, (femorum cervices,) if they do;

can't crack nuts with their teeth; can't climb a greased pole

(malum inunctum scandere non possunt); but they can tell old

stories and give you good advice; if they know what you have made

up your mind to do when you ask them.--All this is well enough, but

won't set the Tiber on fire (Tiberim accendere nequaquam potest.)

There were some clever things enough, (dicta hand inepta,) a few of

which are worth reporting.--Old people are accused of being

forgetful; but they never forget where they have put their money.

--Nobody is so old he doesn't think he can live a year.--The lecturer

quoted an ancient maxim,--Grow old early, if you would be old

long,--but disputed it.--Authority, he thought, was the chief

privilege of age.--It is not great to have money, but fine to

govern those that have it.--Old age begins at FORTY-SIX years,

according to the common opinion.--It is not every kind of old age

or of wine that grows sour with time.--Some excellent remarks were

made on immortality, but mainly borrowed from and credited to

Plato.--Several pleasing anecdotes were told.--Old Milo, champion

of the heavy weights in his day, looked at his arms and whimpered,

"They are dead." Not so dead as you, you old fool,--says Cato;

--you never were good for anything but for your shoulders and

flanks.--Pisistratus asked Solon what made him dare to be so

obstinate. Old age, said Solon.

The lecture was on the whole acceptable, and a credit to our

culture and civilization.--The reporter goes on to state that there

will be no lecture next week, on account of the expected combat

between the bear and the barbarian. Betting (sponsio) two to one

(duo ad unum) on the bear.

--After all, the most encouraging things I find in the treatise,

"De Senectute," are the stories of men who have found new

occupations when growing old, or kept up their common pursuits in

the extreme period of life. Cato learned Greek when he was old,

and speaks of wishing to learn the fiddle, or some such instrument,

(fidibus,) after the example of Socrates. Solon learned something

new, every day, in his old age, as he gloried to proclaim. Cyrus

pointed out with pride and pleasure the trees he had planted with

his own hand. [I remember a pillar on the Duke of Northumberland's

estate at Alnwick, with an inscription in similar words, if not the

same. That, like other country pleasures, never wears out. None

is too rich, none too poor, none too young, none too old to enjoy

it.] There is a New England story I have heard more to the point,

however, than any of Cicero's. A young farmer was urged to set out

some apple-trees.--No, said he, they are too long growing, and I

don't want to plant for other people. The young farmer's father

was spoken to about it, but he, with better reason, alleged that

apple-trees were slow and life was fleeting. At last some one

mentioned it to the old grandfather of the young farmer. He had

nothing else to do,--so he stuck in some trees. He lived long

enough to drink barrels of cider made from the apples that grew on

those trees.

As for myself, after visiting a friend lately,--[Do remember all

the time that this is the Professor's paper.]--I satisfied myself

that I had better concede the fact that--my contemporaries are not

so young as they have been,--and that,--awkward as it is,--science

and history agree in telling me that I can claim the immunities and

must own the humiliations of the early stage of senility. Ah! but

we have all gone down the hill together. The dandies of my time

have split their waistbands and taken to high-low shoes. The

beauties of my recollections--where are they? They have run the

gantlet of the years as well as I. First the years pelted them

with red roses till their cheeks were all on fire. By and by they

began throwing white roses, and that morning flush passed away. At

last one of the years threw a snow-ball, and after that no year let

the poor girls pass without throwing snow-balls. And then came

rougher missiles,--ice and stones; and from time to time an arrow

whistled, and down went one of the poor girls. So there are but

few left; and we don't call those few GIRLS, but--

Ah, me! Here am I groaning just as the old Greek sighed Ai, ai!

and the old Roman, Eheu! I have no doubt we should die of shame

and grief at the indignities offered us by age, if it were not that

we see so many others as badly or worse off than ourselves. We

always compare ourselves with our contemporaries.

[I was interrupted in my reading just here. Before I began at the

next breakfast, I read them these verses;--I hope you will like

them, and get a useful lesson from them.]

THE LAST BLOSSOM.

Though young no more, we still would dream

Of beauty's dear deluding wiles;

The leagues of life to graybeards seem

Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles.

Who knows a woman's wild caprice?

It played with Goethe's silvered hair,

And many a Holy Father's "niece"

Has softly smoothed the papal chair.

When sixty bids us sigh in vain

To melt the heart of sweet sixteen,

We think upon those ladies twain

Who loved so well the tough old Dean.

We see the Patriarch's wintry face,

The maid of Egypt's dusky glow,

And dream that Youth and Age embrace,

As April violets fill with snow.

Tranced in her Lord's Olympian smile

His lotus-loving Memphian lies,--

The musky daughter of the Nile

With plaited hair and almond eyes.

Might we but share one wild caress

Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall,

And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress

The long cold kiss that waits us all!

My bosom heaves, remembering yet

The morning of that blissful day

When Rose, the flower of spring, I met,

And gave my raptured soul away.

Flung from her eyes of purest blue,

A lasso, with its leaping chain

Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew

O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain.

Thou com'st to cheer my waning age,

Sweet vision, waited for so long!

Dove that would seek the poet's cage

Lured by the magic breath of song!

She blushes! Ah, reluctant maid,

Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told!

O'er girlhood's yielding barricade

Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold!

Come to my arms!--love heeds not years

No frost the bud of passion knows.--

Ha! what is this my frenzy hears?

A voice behind me uttered,--Rose!

Sweet was her smile,--but not for me;

Alas, when woman looks TOO kind,

Just turn your foolish head and see,--

Some youth is walking close behind!

As to GIVING UP because the almanac or the Family-Bible says that

it is about time to do it, I have no intention of doing any such

thing. I grant you that I burn less carbon than some years ago. I

see people of my standing really good for nothing, decrepit,

effete, la levre inferieure deja pendante, with what little life

they have left mainly concentrated in their epigastrium. But as

the disease of old age is epidemic, endemic, and sporadic, and

everybody that lives long enough is sure to catch it, I am going to

say, for the encouragement of such as need it, how I treat the

malady in my own case.

First. As I feel, that, when I have anything to do, there is less

time for it than when I was younger, I find that I give my

attention more thoroughly, and use my time more economically than

ever before; so that I can learn anything twice as easily as in my

earlier days. I am not, therefore, afraid to attack a new study.

I took up a difficult language a very few years ago with good

success, and think of mathematics and metaphysics by-and-by.

Secondly. I have opened my eyes to a good many neglected

privileges and pleasures within my reach, and requiring only a

little courage to enjoy them. You may well suppose it pleased me

to find that old Cato was thinking of learning to play the fiddle,

when I had deliberately taken it up in my old age, and satisfied

myself that I could get much comfort, if not much music, out of it.

Thirdly. I have found that some of those active exercises, which

are commonly thought to belong to young folks only, may be enjoyed

at a much later period.

A young friend has lately written an admirable article in one of

the journals, entitled, "Saints and their Bodies." Approving of

his general doctrines, and grateful for his records of personal

experience, I cannot refuse to add my own experimental confirmation

of his eulogy of one particular form of active exercise and

amusement, namely, BOATING. For the past nine years, I have rowed

about, during a good part of the summer, on fresh or salt water.

My present fleet on the river Charles consists of three row-boats.

1. A small flat-bottomed skiff of the shape of a flat-iron, kept

mainly to lend to boys. 2. A fancy "dory" for two pairs of sculls,

in which I sometimes go out with my young folks. 3. My own

particular water-sulky, a "skeleton" or "shell" race-boat,

twenty-two feet long, with huge outriggers, which boat I pull with

ten-foot sculls,--alone, of course, as it holds but one, and tips him

out, if he doesn't mind what he is about. In this I glide around

the Back Bay, down the stream, up the Charles to Cambridge and

Watertown, up the Mystic, round the wharves, in the wake of

steamboats which leave a swell after them delightful to rock upon;

I linger under the bridges,--those "caterpillar bridges," as my

brother professor so happily called them; rub against the black

sides of old wood-schooners; cool down under the overhanging stern

of some tall Indiaman; stretch across to the Navy-Yard, where the

sentinel warns me off from the Ohio,--just as if I should hurt her

by lying in her shadow; then strike out into the harbor, where the

water gets clear and the air smells of the ocean,--till all at once

I remember, that, if a west wind blows up of a sudden, I shall

drift along past the islands, out of sight of the dear old

State-house,--plate, tumbler, knife and fork all waiting at home,

but no chair drawn up at the table,--all the dear people waiting,

waiting, waiting, while the boat is sliding, sliding, sliding into

the great desert, where there is no tree and no fountain. As I don't

want my wreck to be washed up on one of the beaches in company with

devil's-aprons, bladder-weeds, dead horse-shoes, and bleached

crab-shells, I turn about and flap my long narrow wings for home.

When the tide is running out swiftly, I have a splendid fight to get

through the bridges, but always make it a rule to beat,--though I

have been jammed up into pretty tight places at times, and was caught

once between a vessel swinging round and the pier, until our bones

(the boat's, that is) cracked as if we had been in the jaws of

Behemoth. Then back to my moorings at the foot of the Common, off

with the rowing-dress, dash under the green translucent wave, return

to the garb of civilization, walk through my Garden, take a look at

my elms on the Common, and, reaching my habitat, in consideration of

my advanced period of life, indulge in the Elysian abandonment of a

huge recumbent chair.

When I have established a pair of well-pronounced feathering-

calluses on my thumbs, when I am in training so that I can do my

fifteen miles at a stretch without coming to grief in any way, when

I can perform my mile in eight minutes or a little less, then I

feel as if I had old Time's head in chancery, and could give it to

him at my leisure.

I do not deny the attraction of walking. I have bored this ancient

city through and through in my daily travels, until I know it as an

old inhabitant of a Cheshire knows his cheese. Why, it was I who,

in the course of these rambles, discovered that remarkable avenue

called Myrtle Street, stretching in one long line from east of the

Reservoir to a precipitous and rudely paved cliff which looks down

on the grim abode of Science, and beyond it to the far hills; a

promenade so delicious in its repose, so cheerfully varied with

glimpses down the northern slope into busy Cambridge Street with

its iron river of the horse-railroad, and wheeled barges gliding

back and forward over it,--so delightfully closing at its western

extremity in sunny courts and passages where I know peace, and

beauty, and virtue, and serene old age must be perpetual tenants,

--so alluring to all who desire to take their daily stroll, in the

words of Dr. Watts,--

"Alike unknowing and unknown,"--

that nothing but a sense of duty would have prompted me to reveal

the secret of its existence. I concede, therefore, that walking is

an immeasurably fine invention, of which old age ought constantly

to avail itself.

Saddle-leather is in some respects even preferable to sole-leather.

The principal objection to it is of a financial character. But you

may be sure that Bacon and Sydenham did not recommend it for

nothing. One's hepar, or, in vulgar language, liver,--a ponderous

organ, weighing some three or four pounds,--goes up and down like

the dasher of a churn in the midst of the other vital arrangements,

at every step of a trotting horse. The brains also are shaken up

like coppers in a money-box. Riding is good, for those that are

born with a silver-mounted bridle in their hand, and can ride as

much and as often as they like, without thinking all the time they

hear that steady grinding sound as the horse's jaws triturate with

calm lateral movement the bank-bills and promises to pay upon which

it is notorious that the profligate animal in question feeds day

and night.

Instead, however, of considering these kinds of exercise in this

empirical way, I will devote a brief space to an examination of

them in a more scientific form.

The pleasure of exercise is due first to a purely physical

impression, and secondly to a sense of power in action. The first

source of pleasure varies of course with our condition and the

state of the surrounding circumstances; the second with the amount

and kind of power, and the extent and kind of action. In all forms

of active exercise there are three powers simultaneously in

action,--the will, the muscles, and the intellect. Each of these

predominates in different kinds of exercise. In walking, the will

and muscles are so accustomed to work together and perform their

task with so little expenditure of force, that the intellect is

left comparatively free. The mental pleasure in walking, as such,

is in the sense of power over all our moving machinery. But in

riding, I have the additional pleasure of governing another will,

and my muscles extend to the tips of the animal's ears and to his

four hoofs, instead of stopping at my hands and feet. Now in this

extension of my volition and my physical frame into another animal,

my tyrannical instincts and my desire for heroic strength are at

once gratified. When the horse ceases to have a will of his own

and his muscles require no special attention on your part, then you

may live on horseback as Wesley did, and write sermons or take

naps, as you like. But you will observe, that, in riding on

horseback, you always have a feeling, that, after all, it is not

you that do the work, but the animal, and this prevents the

satisfaction from being complete.

Now let us look at the conditions of rowing. I won't suppose you

to be disgracing yourself in one of those miserable tubs, tugging

in which is to rowing the true boat what riding a cow is to

bestriding an Arab. You know the Esquimaux kayak, (if that is the

name of it,) don't you? Look at that model of one over my door.

Sharp, rather?--On the contrary, it is a lubber to the one you and

I must have; a Dutch fish-wife to Psyche, contrasted with what I

will tell you about.--Our boat, then, is something of the shape of

a pickerel, as you look down upon his back, he lying in the

sunshine just where the sharp edge of the water cuts in among the

lily-pads. It is a kind of a giant pod, as one may say,--tight

everywhere, except in a little place in the middle, where you sit.

Its length is from seven to ten yards, and as it is only from

sixteen to thirty inches wide in its widest part, you understand

why you want those "outriggers," or projecting iron frames with the

rowlocks in which the oars play. My rowlocks are five feet apart;

double the greatest width of the boat.

Here you are, then, afloat with a body a rod and a half long, with

arms, or wings, as you may choose to call them, stretching more

than twenty feet from tip to tip; every volition of yours extending

as perfectly into them as if your spinal cord ran down the centre

strip of your boat, and the nerves of your arms tingled as far as

the broad blades of your oars,--oars of spruce, balanced,

leathered, and ringed under your own special direction. This, in

sober earnest, is the nearest approach to flying that man has ever

made or perhaps ever will make. As the hawk sails without flapping

his pinions, so you drift with the tide when you will, in the most

luxurious form of locomotion indulged to an embodied spirit. But

if your blood wants rousing, turn round that stake in the river,

which you see a mile from here; and when you come in in sixteen

minutes, (if you do, for we are old boys, and not champion

scullers, you remember,) then say if you begin to feel a little

warmed up or not! You can row easily and gently all day, and you

can row yourself blind and black in the face in ten minutes, just

as you like. It has been long agreed that there is no way in which

a man can accomplish so much labor with his muscles as in rowing.

It is in the boat, then, that man finds the largest extension of

his volitional and muscular existence; and yet he may tax both of

them so slightly, in that most delicious of exercises, that he

shall mentally write his sermon, or his poem, or recall the remarks

he has made in company and put them in form for the public, as well

as in his easy-chair.

I dare not publicly name the rare joys, the infinite delights, that

intoxicate me on some sweet June morning, when the river and bay

are smooth as a sheet of beryl-green silk, and I run along ripping

it up with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the rent closing after

me like those wounds of angels which Milton tells of, but the seam

still shining for many a long rood behind me. To lie still over

the Flats, where the waters are shallow, and see the crabs crawling

and the sculpins gliding busily and silently beneath the boat,--to

rustle in through the long harsh grass that leads up some tranquil

creek,--to take shelter from the sunbeams under one of the

thousand-footed bridges, and look down its interminable colonnades,

crusted with green and oozy growths, studded with minute barnacles,

and belted with rings of dark muscles, while overhead streams and

thunders that other river whose every wave is a human soul flowing

to eternity as the river below flows to the ocean,--lying there

moored unseen, in loneliness so profound that the columns of Tadmor

in the Desert could not seem more remote from life,--the cool

breeze on one's forehead, the stream whispering against the

half-sunken pillars,--why should I tell of these things, that I

should live to see my beloved haunts invaded and the waves blackened

with boats as with a swarm of water-beetles? What a city of idiots

we must be not to have covered this glorious bay with gondolas and

wherries, as we have just learned to cover the ice in winter with

skaters!

I am satisfied that such a set of black-coated, stiff-jointed,

soft-muscled, paste-complexioned youth as we can boast in our

Atlantic cities never before sprang from loins of Anglo-Saxon

lineage. Of the females that are the mates of these males I do not

here speak. I preached my sermon from the lay-pulpit on this

matter a good while ago. Of course, if you heard it, you know my

belief is that the total climatic influences here are getting up a

number of new patterns of humanity, some of which are not an

improvement on the old model. Clipper-built, sharp in the bows,

long in the spars, slender to look at, and fast to go, the ship,

which is the great organ of our national life of relation, is but a

reproduction of the typical form which the elements impress upon

its builder. All this we cannot help; but we can make the best of

these influences, such as they are. We have a few good boatmen,

--no good horsemen that I hear of,--I cannot speak for cricketing,

--but as for any great athletic feat performed by a gentleman in

these latitudes, society would drop a man who should run round the

Common in five minutes. Some of our amateur fencers, single-stick

players, and boxers, we have no reason to be ashamed of. Boxing is

rough play, but not too rough for a hearty young fellow. Anything

is better than this white-blooded degeneration to which we all

tend.

I dropped into a gentlemen's sparring exhibition only last evening.

It did my heart good to see that there were a few young and

youngish youths left who could take care of their own heads in case

of emergency. It is a fine sight, that of a gentleman resolving

himself into the primitive constituents of his humanity. Here is a

delicate young man now, with an intellectual countenance, a slight

figure, a sub-pallid complexion, a most unassuming deportment, a

mild adolescent in fact, that any Hiram or Jonathan from between

the ploughtails would of course expect to handle with perfect ease.

Oh, he is taking off his gold-bowed spectacles! Ah, he is

divesting himself of his cravat! Why, he is stripping off his

coat! Well, here he is, sure enough, in a tight silk shirt, and

with two things that look like batter puddings in the place of his

fists. Now see that other fellow with another pair of batter

puddings,--the big one with the broad shoulders; he will certainly

knock the little man's head off, if he strikes him. Feinting,

dodging, stopping, hitting, countering,--little man's head not off

yet. You might as well try to jump upon your own shadow as to hit

the little man's intellectual features. He needn't have taken off

the gold-bowed spectacles at all. Quick, cautious, shifty, nimble,

cool, he catches all the fierce lunges or gets out of their reach,

till his turn comes, and then, whack goes one of the batter

puddings against the big one's ribs, and bang goes the other into

the big one's face, and, staggering, shuffling, slipping, tripping,

collapsing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a miscellaneous

bundle.--If my young friend, whose excellent article I have

referred to, could only introduce the manly art of self-defence

among the clergy, I am satisfied that we should have better sermons

and an infinitely less quarrelsome church-militant. A bout with

the gloves would let off the ill-nature, and cure the indigestion,

which, united, have embroiled their subject in a bitter

controversy. We should then often hear that a point of difference

between an infallible and a heretic, instead of being vehemently

discussed in a series of newspaper articles, had been settled by a

friendly contest in several rounds, at the close of which the

parties shook hands and appeared cordially reconciled.

But boxing you and I are too old for, I am afraid. I was for a

moment tempted, by the contagion of muscular electricity last

evening, to try the gloves with the Benicia Boy, who looked in as a

friend to the noble art; but remembering that he had twice my

weight and half my age, besides the advantage of his training, I

sat still and said nothing.

There is one other delicate point I wish to speak of with reference

to old age. I refer to the use of dioptric media which correct the

diminished refracting power of the humors of the eye,--in other

words, spectacles. I don't use them. All I ask is a large, fair

type, a strong daylight or gas-light, and one yard of focal

distance, and my eyes are as good as ever. But if YOUR eyes fail,

I can tell you something encouraging. There is now living in New

York State an old gentleman who, perceiving his sight to fail,

immediately took to exercising it on the finest print, and in this

way fairly bullied Nature out of her foolish habit of taking

liberties at five-and-forty, or thereabout. And now this old

gentleman performs the most extraordinary feats with his pen,

showing that his eyes must be a pair of microscopes. I should be

afraid to say to you how much he writes in the compass of a

half-dime,--whether the Psalms or the Gospels, or the Psalms

AND the Gospels, I won't be positive.

But now let rue tell you this. If the time comes when you must lay

down the fiddle and the bow, because your fingers are too stiff,

and drop the ten-foot sculls, because your arms are too weak, and,

after dallying awhile with eye-glasses, come at last to the

undisguised reality of spectacles,--if the time comes when that

fire of life we spoke of has burned so low that where its flames

reverberated there is only the sombre stain of regret, and where

its coals glowed, only the white ashes that cover the embers of

memory,--don't let your heart grow cold, and you may carry

cheerfulness and love with you into the teens of your second

century, if you can last so long. As our friend, the Poet, once

said, in some of those old-fashioned heroics of his which he keeps

for his private reading,--

Call him not old, whose visionary brain

Holds o'er the past its undivided reign.

For him in vain the envious seasons roll

Who bears eternal summer in his soul.

If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay,

Spring with her birds, or children with their play,

Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art

Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart,--

Turn to the record where his years are told,--

Count his gray hairs,--they cannot make him old!

End of the Professor's paper.

[The above essay was not read at one time, but in several

instalments, and accompanied by various comments from different

persons at the table. The company were in the main attentive, with

the exception of a little somnolence on the part of the old

gentleman opposite at times, and a few sly, malicious questions

about the "old boys" on the part of that forward young fellow who

has figured occasionally, not always to his advantage, in these

reports.

On Sunday mornings, in obedience to a feeling I am not ashamed of,

I have always tried to give a more appropriate character to our

conversation. I have never read them my sermon yet, and I don't

know that I shall, as some of them might take my convictions as a

personal indignity to themselves. But having read our company so

much of the Professor's talk about age and other subjects connected

with physical life, I took the next Sunday morning to repeat to

them the following poem of his, which I have had by me some time.

He calls it--I suppose, for his professional friends--THE

ANATOMIST'S HYMN, but I shall name it--]

THE LIVING TEMPLE.

Not in the world of light alone,

Where God has built his blazing throne,

Nor yet alone in earth below,

With belted seas that come and go,

And endless isles of sunlit green,

Is all thy Maker's glory seen:

Look in upon thy wondrous frame,--

Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves

Flows murmuring through its hidden caves

Whose streams of brightening purple rush

Fired with a new and livelier blush,

While all their burden of decay

The ebbing current steals away,

And red with Nature's flame they start

From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,

Forever quivering o'er his task,

While far and wide a crimson jet

Leaps forth to fill the woven net

Which in unnumbered crossing tides

The flood of burning life divides,

Then kindling each decaying part

Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that uchanging flame

Behold the outward moving frame,

Its living marbles jointed strong

With glistening band and silvery thong,

And linked to reason's guiding reins

By myriad rings in trembling chains,

Each graven with the threaded zone

Which claims it as the master's own.

See how yon beam of seeming white

Is braided out of seven-hued light,

Yet in those lucid globes no ray

By any chance shall break astray.

Hark how the rolling surge of sound,

Arches and spirals circling round,

Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear

With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds

All thought in its mysterious folds,

That feels sensation's faintest thrill

And flashes forth the sovereign will;

Think on the stormy world that dwells

Locked in its dim and clustering cells!

The lightning gleams of power it sheds

Along its hollow glassy threads!

O Father! grant thy love divine

To make these mystic temples thine!

When wasting age and wearying strife

Have sapped the leaning walls of life,

When darkness gathers over all,

And the last tottering pillars fall,

Take the poor dust thy mercy warms

And mould it into heavenly forms!

CHAPTER VIII

[Spring has come. You will find some verses to that effect at the

end of these notes. If you are an impatient reader, skip to them

at once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and

seventh verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and,

unless your audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse

them. Many people can ride on horseback who find it hard to get on

and to get off without assistance. One has to dismount from an

idea, and get into the saddle again, at every parenthesis.]

--The old gentleman who sits opposite, finding that spring had

fairly come, mounted a white hat one day, and walked into the

street. It seems to have been a premature or otherwise

exceptionable exhibition, not unlike that commemorated by the late

Mr. Bayly. When the old gentleman came home, he looked very red in

the face, and complained that he had been "made sport of." By

sympathizing questions, I learned from him that a boy had called

him "old daddy," and asked him when he had his hat whitewashed.

This incident led me to make some observations at table the next

morning, which I here repeat for the benefit of the readers of this

record.

--The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial integument. I

learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of

Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were

usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native

town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was met by

a "Port-chuck," as we used to call the young gentlemen of that

locality, and the following dialogue ensued.

The Port-chuck. Hullo, You-sir, joo know th' wuz gon-to be a race

to-morrah?

Myself. No. Who's gon-to run, 'n' wher's't gon-to be?

The Port-chuck. Squire Mico 'n' Doctor Wiliams, round the brim o'

your hat.

These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at

that time, and the alleged race-course being out of the question,

the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his

cheek, I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has

been to make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of

dress ever since. Here is an axiom or two relating to it.

A hat which has been POPPED, or exploded by being sat down upon, is

never itself again afterwards.

It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the

contrary.

Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There

is always an unnatural calmness about its nap, and an unwholesome

gloss, suggestive of a wet brush.

The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing its

dilapidated castor. The hat is the ULTIMUM MORIENS of

"respectability."

--The old gentleman took all these remarks and maxims very

pleasantly, saying, however, that he had forgotten most of his

French except the word for potatoes,--pummies de tare.---Ultimum

moriens, I told him, is old Italian, and signifies LAST THING TO

DIE. With this explanation he was well contented, and looked quite

calm when I saw him afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his

head and the white one in his hand.

--I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor for

my intimates. We are so much together, that we no doubt think and

talk a good deal alike; yet our points of view are in many respects

individual and peculiar. You know me well enough by this time. I

have not talked with you so long for nothing and therefore I don't

think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But let me say a word

or two about my friends.

The Professor considers himself, and I consider him, a very useful

and worthy kind of drudge. I think he has a pride in his small

technicalities. I know that he has a great idea of fidelity; and

though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times at the grand

airs "Science" puts on, as she stands marking time, but not getting

on, while the trumpets are blowing and the big drums beating,--yet

I am sure he has a liking for his specially, and a respect for its

cultivators.

But I'll tell you what the Professor said to the Poet the other

day.--My boy, said he, I can work a great deal cheaper than you,

because I keep all my goods in the lower story. You have to hoist

yours into the upper chambers of the brain, and let them down again

to your customers. I take mine in at the level of the ground, and

send them off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I tell you,

the higher a man has to carry the raw material of thought before he

works it up, the more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle.

Coleridge knew all this very well when he advised every literary

man to have a profession.

--Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, and sometimes with the

other. After a while I get tired of both. When a fit of

intellectual disgust comes over me, I will tell you what I have

found admirable as a diversion, in addition to boating and other

amusements which I have spoken of,--that is, working at my

carpenter's-bench. Some mechanical employment is the greatest

possible relief, after the purely intellectual faculties begin to

tire. When I was quarantined once at Marseilles, I got to work

immediately at carving a wooden wonder of loose rings on a stick,

and got so interested in it, that when we were set loose, I

"regained my freedom with a sigh," because my toy was unfinished.

There are long seasons when I talk only with the Professor, and

others when I give myself wholly up to the Poet. Now that my

winter's work is over and spring is with us, I feel naturally drawn

to the Poet's company. I don't know anybody more alive to life

than he is. The passion of poetry seizes on him every spring, he

says,--yet oftentimes he complains, that, when he feels most, he

can sing least.

Then a fit of despondency comes over him.--I feel ashamed,

sometimes,--said he, the other day,--to think how far my worst

songs fall below my best. It sometimes seems to me, as I know it

does to others who have told me so, that they ought to be ALL

BEST,--if not in actual execution, at least in plan and motive. I

am grateful--he continued--for all such criticisms. A man is

always pleased to have his most serious efforts praised, and the

highest aspect of his nature get the most sunshine.

Yet I am sure, that, in the nature of things, many minds must

change their key now and then, on penalty of getting out of tune or

losing their voices. You know, I suppose,--he said,--what is meant

by complementary colors? You know the effect, too, which the

prolonged impression of any one color has on the retina. If you

close your eyes after looking steadily at a RED object, you see a

GREEN image.

It is so with many minds,--I will not say with all. After looking

at one aspect of external nature, or of any form of beauty or

truth, when they turn away, the COMPLEMENTARY aspect of the same

object stamps itself irresistibly and automatically upon the mind.

Shall they give expression to this secondary mental state, or not?

When I contemplate--said my friend, the Poet--the infinite

largeness of comprehension belonging to the Central Intelligence,

how remote the creative conception is from all scholastic and

ethical formulae, I am led to think that a healthy mind ought to

change its mood from time to time, and come down from its noblest

condition,--never, of course, to degrade itself by dwelling upon

what is itself debasing, but to let its lower faculties have a

chance to air and exercise themselves. After the first and second

floor have been out in the bright street dressed in all their

splendors, shall not our humble friends in the basement have their

holiday, and the cotton velvet and the thin-skinned jewelry--simple

adornments, but befitting the station of those who wear them--show

themselves to the crowd, who think them beautiful, as they ought

to, though the people up stairs know that they are cheap and

perishable?

--I don't know that I may not bring the Poet here, some day or

other, and let him speak for himself. Still I think I can tell you

what he says quite as well as he could do it.--Oh,--he said to me,

one day,--I am but a hand-organ man,--say rather, a hand-organ.

Life turns the winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. I

come under your windows, some fine spring morning, and play you one

of my adagio movements, and some of you say,--This is good,--play

us so always. But, dear friends, if I did not change the stop

sometimes, the machine would wear out in one part and rust in

another. How easily this or that tune flows!--you say,--there must

be no end of just such melodies in him.--I will open the poor

machine for you one moment, and you shall look.--Ah! Every note

marks where a spur of steel has been driven in. It is easy to

grind out the song, but to plant these bristling points which make

it was the painful task of time.

I don't like to say it,--he continued,--but poets commonly have no

larger stock of tunes than hand-organs; and when you hear them

piping up under your window, you know pretty well what to expect.

The more stops, the better. Do let them all be pulled out in their

turn!

So spoke my friend, the Poet, and read me one of his stateliest

songs, and after it a gay chanson, and then a string of epigrams.

All true,--he said,--all flowers of his soul; only one with the

corolla spread, and another with its disk half opened, and the

third with the heart-leaves covered up and only a petal or two

showing its tip through the calyx. The water-lily is the type of

the poet's soul,--he told me.

--What do you think, Sir,--said the divinity-student,--opens the

souls of poets most fully?

Why, there must be the internal force and the external stimulus.

Neither is enough by itself. A rose will not flower in the dark,

and a fern will not flower anywhere.

What do I think is the true sunshine that opens the poet's

corolla?--I don't like to say. They spoil a good many, I am

afraid; or at least they shine on a good many that never come to

anything.

Who are THEY?--said the schoolmistress.

Women. Their love first inspires the poet, and their praise is his

best reward.

The schoolmistress reddened a little, but looked pleased.--Did I

really think so?--I do think so; I never feel safe until I have

pleased them; I don't think they are the first to see one's

defects, but they are the first to catch the color and fragrance of

a true poem. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a

bow-string,--to a woman and it is a harp-string. She is vibratile and

resonant all over, so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings of

the air about her.--Ah, me!--said my friend, the Poet, to me, the

other day,--what color would it not have given to my thoughts, and

what thrice-washed whiteness to my words, had I been fed on women's

praises! I should have grown like Marvell's fawn,--

"Lilies without; roses within!"

But then,--he added,--we all think, IF so and so, we should have

been this or that, as you were saying the other day, in those

rhymes of yours.

--I don't think there are many poets in the sense of creators; but

of those sensitive natures which reflect themselves naturally in

soft and melodious words, pleading for sympathy with their joys and

sorrows, every literature is full. Nature carves with her own

hands the brain which holds the creative imagination, but she casts

the over-sensitive creatures in scores from the same mould.

There are two kinds of poets, just as there are two kinds of

blondes. [Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table.--Please

to tell us about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why,

there are blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring

matter,--NEGATIVE or WASHED blondes, arrested by Nature on the way

to become albinesses. There are others that are shot through with

golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree,

--POSITIVE or STAINED blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as

unlike in their mode of being to the others as an orange is unlike

a snowball. The albino-style carries with it a wide pupil and a

sensitive retina. The other, or the leonine blonde, has an opaline

fire in her clear eye, which the brunette can hardly match with her

quick glittering glances.

Just so we have the great sun-kindled, constructive imaginations,

and a far more numerous class of poets who have a certain kind of

moonlight-genius given them to compensate for their imperfection of

nature. Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them sensitive

to those impressions which stronger minds neglect or never feel at

all. Many of them die young, and all of them are tinged with

melancholy. There is no more beautiful illustration of the

principle of compensation which marks the Divine benevolence than

the fact that some of the holiest lives and some of the sweetest

songs are the growth of the infirmity which unfits its subject for

the rougher duties of life. When one reads the life of Cowper, or

of Keats, or of Lucretia and Margaret Davidson,--of so many gentle,

sweet natures, born to weakness, and mostly dying before their

time,--one cannot help thinking that the human race dies out

singing, like the swan in the old story. The French poet, Gilbert,

who died at the Hotel Dieu, at the age of twenty-nine,--(killed by

a key in his throat, which he had swallowed when delirious in

consequence of a fall,)--this poor fellow was a very good example

of the poet by excess of sensibility. I found, the other day, that

some of my literary friends had never heard of him, though I

suppose few educated Frenchmen do not know the lines which he

wrote, a week before his death, upon a mean bed in the great

hospital of Paris.

"Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive,

J'apparus un jour, et je meurs;

Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, ou lentement j'arrive,

Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs."

At life's gay banquet placed, a poor unhappy guest,

One day I pass, then disappear;

I die, and on the tomb where I at length shall rest

No friend shall come to shed a tear.

You remember the same thing in other words some where in Kirke

White's poems. It is the burden of the plaintive songs of all

these sweet albino-poets. "I shall die and be forgotten, and the

world will go on just as if I had never been;--and yet how I have

loved! how I have longed! how I have aspired!" And so singing,

their eyes grow brighter and brighter, and their features thinner

and thinner, until at last the veil of flesh is threadbare, and,

still singing, they drop it and pass onward.

--Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them

up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the

hand of the Angel of the Resurrection.

Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop

them; they cannot stop themselves, sleep cannot still them; madness

only makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case,

and, seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart,

silence at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have

carried so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads.

If we could only get at them, as we lie on our pillows and count

the dead beats of thought after thought and image after image

jarring through the overtired organ! Will nobody block those

wheels, uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds those

weights, blow up the infernal machine with gunpowder? What a

passion comes over us sometimes for silence and rest!--that this

dreadful mechanism, unwinding the endless tapestry of time,

embroidered with spectral figures of life and death, could have but

one brief holiday! Who can wonder that men swing themselves off

from beams in hempen lassos?--that they jump off from parapets into

the swift and gurgling waters beneath?--that they take counsel of

the grim friend who has but to utter his one peremptory

monosyllable and the restless machine is shivered as a vase that is

dashed upon a marble floor? Under that building which we pass

every day there are strong dungeons, where neither hook, nor bar,

nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which a sharp fragment may

be shattered, shall by any chance be seen. There is nothing for

it, when the brain is on fire with the whirling of its wheels, but

to spring against the stone wall and silence them with one crash.

Ah, they remembered that,--the kind city fathers,--and the walls

are nicely padded, so that one can take such exercise as he likes

without damaging himself on the very plain and serviceable

upholstery. If anybody would only contrive some kind of a lever

that one could thrust in among the works of this horrid automaton

and check them, or alter their rate of going, what would the world

give for the discovery?

--From half a dime to a dime, according to the style of the place

and the quality of the liquor,--said the young fellow whom they

call John.

You speak trivially, but not unwisely,--I said. Unless the will

maintain a certain control over these movements, which it cannot

stop, but can to some extent regulate, men are very apt to try to

get at the machine by some indirect system of leverage or other.

They clap on the brakes by means of opium; they change the

maddening monotony of the rhythm by means of fermented liquors. It

is because the brain is locked up and we cannot touch its movement

directly, that we thrust these coarse tools in through any crevice,

by which they may reach the interior, and so alter its rate of

going for a while, and at last spoil the machine.

Men who exercise chiefly those faculties of the mind which work

independently of the will,--poets and artists, for instance, who

follow their imagination in their creative moments, instead of

keeping it in hand as your logicians and practical men do with

their reasoning faculty,--such men are too apt to call in the

mechanical appliances to help them govern their intellects.

--He means they get drunk,--said the young fellow already alluded

to by name.

Do you think men of true genius are apt to indulge in the use of

inebriating fluids? said the divinity-student.

If you think you are strong enough to bear what I am going to say,

--I replied,--I will talk to you about this. But mind, now, these

are the things that some foolish people call DANGEROUS subjects,

--as if these vices which burrow into people's souls, as the

Guinea-worm burrows into the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would

be more mischievous when seen than out of sight. Now the true way to

deal with those obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, some

of them, and no bigger than a horse hair, is to get a piece of silk

round their HEADS, and pull them out very cautiously. If you only

break them off, they grow worse than ever, and sometimes kill the

person who has the misfortune to harbor one of them. Whence it is

plain that the first thing to do is to find out where the head lies.

Just so of all the vices, and particularly of this vice of

intemperance. What is the head of it, and where does it lie? For

you may depend upon it, there is not one of these vices that has

not a head of its own,--an intelligence,--a meaning,--a certain

virtue, I was going to say,--but that might, perhaps, sound

paradoxical. I have heard an immense number of moral physicians

lay down the treatment of moral Guinea-worms, and the vast majority

of them would always insist that the creature had no head at all,

but was all body and tail. So I have found a very common result of

their method to be that the string slipped, or that a piece only of

the creature was broken off, and the worm soon grew again, as bad

as ever. The truth is, if the Devil could only appear in church by

attorney, and make the best statement that the facts would bear him

out in doing on behalf of his special virtues, (what we commonly

call vices,) the influence of good teachers would be much greater

than it is. For the arguments by which the Devil prevails are

precisely the ones that the Devil-queller most rarely answers. The

way to argue down a vice is not to tell lies about it,--to say that

it has no attractions, when everybody knows that it has,--but

rather to let it make out its case just as it certainly will in the

moment of temptation, and then meet it with the weapons furnished

by the Divine armory. Ithuriel did not spit the toad on his spear,

you remember, but touched him with it, and the blasted angel took

the sad glories of his true shape. If he had shown fight then, the

fair spirits would have known how to deal with him.

That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is not perfectly

clear. Men get fairly intoxicated with music, with poetry, with

religious excitement, oftenest with love. Ninon de l'Enclos said

she was so easily excited that her soup intoxicated her, and

convalescents have been made tipsy by a beef-steak.

There are forms and stages of alcoholic exaltation which, in

themselves, and without regard to their consequences, might be

considered as positive improvements of the persons affected. When

the sluggish intellect is roused, the slow speech quickened, the

cold nature warmed, the latent sympathy developed, the flagging

spirit kindled,--before the trains of thought become confused or

the will perverted, or the muscles relaxed,--just at the moment

when the whole human zoophyte flowers out like a full-blown rose,

and is ripe for the subscription-paper or the contribution-box,--it

would be hard to say that a man was, at that very time, worse, or

less to be loved, than when driving a hard bargain with all his

meaner wits about him. The difficulty is, that the alcoholic

virtues don't wash; but until the water takes their colors out, the

tints are very much like those of the true celestial stuff.

[Here I was interrupted by a question which I am very unwilling to

report, but have confidence enough in those friends who examine

these records to commit to their candor.

A PERSON at table asked me whether I "went in for rum as a steady

drink?"--His manner made the question highly offensive, but I

restrained myself, and answered thus:-]

Rum I take to be the name which unwashed moralists apply alike to

the product distilled from molasses and the noblest juices of the

vineyard. Burgundy "in all its sunset glow" is rum. Champagne,

"the foaming wine of Eastern France," in rum. Hock, which our

friend, the Poet, speaks of as

"The Rhine's breastmilk, gushing cold and bright,

Pale as the moon, and maddening as her light,"

is rum. Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism as an insult to

the first miracle wrought by the Founder of our religion! I

address myself to the company.--I believe in temperance, nay,

almost in abstinence, as a rule for healthy people. I trust that I

practice both. But let me tell you, there are companies of men of

genius into which I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect

and sentiment is so much more stimulating than alcohol, that, if I

thought fit to take wine, it would be to keep me sober.

Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, if any, were ruined by

drinking. My few drunken acquaintances were generally ruined

before they became drunkards. The habit of drinking is often a

vice, no doubt,--sometimes a misfortune,--as when an almost

irresistible hereditary propensity exists to indulge in it,--but

oftenest of all a PUNISHMENT.

Empty heads,--heads without ideas in wholesome variety and

sufficient number to furnish food for the mental clockwork,

--ill-regulated heads, where the faculties are not under the control

of the will,--these are the ones that hold the brains which their

owners are so apt to tamper with, by introducing the appliances we

have been talking about. Now, when a gentleman's brain is empty or

ill-regulated, it is, to a great extent, his own fault; and so it

is simple retribution, that, while he lies slothfully sleeping or

aimlessly dreaming, the fatal habit settles on him like a vampyre,

and sucks his blood, fanning him all the while with its hot wings

into deeper slumber or idler dreams! I am not such a hard-souled

being as to apply this to the neglected poor, who have had no

chance to fill their heads with wholesome ideas, and to be taught

the lesson of self-government. I trust the tariff of Heaven has an

ad valorem scale for them--and all of us.

But to come back to poets and artists;--if they really are more

prone to the abuse of stimulants,--and I fear that this is true,

--the reason of it is only too clear. A man abandons himself to a

fine frenzy, and the power which flows through him, as I once

explained to you, makes him the medium of a great poem or a great

picture. The creative action is not voluntary at all, but

automatic; we can only put the mind into the proper attitude, and

wait for the wind, that blows where it listeth, to breathe over it.

Thus the true state of creative genius is allied to reverie, or

dreaming. If mind and body were both healthy and had food enough

and fair play, I doubt whether any men would be more temperate than

the imaginative classes. But body and mind often flag,--perhaps

they are ill-made to begin with, underfed with bread or ideas,

overworked, or abused in some way. The automatic action, by which

genius wrought its wonders, fails. There is only one thing which

can rouse the machine; not will,--that cannot reach it; nothing but

a ruinous agent, which hurries the wheels awhile and soon eats out

the heart of the mechanism. The dreaming faculties are always the

dangerous ones, because their mode of action can be imitated by

artificial excitement; the reasoning ones are safe, because they

imply continued voluntary effort.

I think you will find it true, that, before any vice can fasten on

a man, body, mind, or moral nature must be debilitated. The mosses

and fungi gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones; and the odious

parasites which fasten on the human frame choose that which is

already enfeebled. Mr. Walker, the hygeian humorist, declared that

he had such a healthy skin it was impossible for any impurity to

stick to it, and maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a face

which was of necessity always clean. I don't know how much fancy

there was in this; but there is no fancy in saying that the

lassitude of tired-out operatives, and the languor of imaginative

natures in their periods of collapse, and the vacuity of minds

untrained to labor and discipline, fit the soul and body for the

germination of the seeds of intemperance.

Whenever the wandering demon of Drunkenness finds a ship adrift,

--no steady wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its

course,--he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight for

the maelstrom.

--I wonder if you know the TERRIBLE SMILE? [The young fellow whom

they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the

sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word

SMILE. The company was curious to know what I meant.]

There are persons--I said--who no sooner come within sight of you

than they begin to smile, with an uncertain movement of the mouth,

which conveys the idea that they are thinking about themselves, and

thinking, too, that you are thinking they are thinking about

themselves,--and so look at you with a wretched mixture of

self-consciousness, awkwardness, and attempts to carry off both,

which are betrayed by the cowardly behaviour of the eye and the

tell-tale weakness of the lips that characterize these unfortunate

beings.

--Why do you call them unfortunate, Sir?--asked the divinity-

student.

Because it is evident that the consciousness of some imbecility or

other is at the bottom of this extraordinary expression. I don't

think, however, that these persons are commonly fools. I have

known a number, and all of them were intelligent. I think nothing

conveys the idea of UNDERBREEDING more than this self-betraying

smile. Yet I think this peculiar habit as well as that of

MEANINGLESS BLUSHING may be fallen into by very good people who met

often, or sit opposite each other at table. A true gentleman's

face is infinitely removed from all such paltriness,--calm-eyed,

firm-mouthed. I think Titian understood the look of a gentleman as

well as anybody that ever lived. The portrait of a young man

holding a glove in his hand, in the Gallery of the Louvre, if any

of you have seen that collection, will remind you of what I mean.

--Do I think these people know the peculiar look they have?--I

cannot say; I hope not; I am afraid they would never forgive me, if

they did. The worst of it is, the trick is catching; when one

meets one of these fellows, he feels a tendency to the same

manifestation. The Professor tells me there is a muscular slip, a

dependence of the platysma myoides, which is called the risorius

Santorini.

--Say that once more,--exclaimed the young fellow mentioned above.

The Professor says there is a little fleshy slip called Santorini's

laughing muscle. I would have it cut out of my face, if I were

born with one of those constitutional grins upon it. Perhaps I am

uncharitable in my judgment of those sour-looking people I told you

of the other day, and of these smiling folks. It may be that they

are born with these looks, as other people are with more generally

recognized deformities. Both are bad enough, but I had rather meet

three of the scowlers than one of the smilers.

--There is another unfortunate way of looking, which is peculiar to

that amiable sex we do not like to find fault with. There are some

very pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't

understand the law of the road with regard to handsome faces.

Nature and custom would, no doubt, agree in conceding to all males

the right of at least two distinct looks at every comely female

countenance, without any infraction of the rules of courtesy or the

sentiment of respect. The first look is necessary to define the

person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing.

Any unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient

apology for a second,--not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but

an appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may

inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is astonishing how

morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest

demonstration of this kind. When a lady walks the streets, she

leaves her virtuous-indignation countenance at home; she knows well

enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where pretty faces

framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a

right to see them.

--When we observe how the same features and style of person and

character descend from generation to generation, we can believe

that some inherited weakness may account for these peculiarities.

Little snapping-turtles snap--so the great naturalist tells us

--before they are out of the egg-shell. I am satisfied, that, much

higher up in the scale of life, character is distinctly shown at

the age of--2 or--3 months.

--My friend, the Professor, has been full of eggs lately. [This

remark excited a burst of hilarity which I did not allow to

interrupt the course of my observations.] He has been reading the

great book where he found the fact about the little snapping-

turtles mentioned above. Some of the things he has told me have

suggested several odd analogies enough.

There are half a dozen men, or so, who carry in their brains the

OVARIAN EGGS of the next generation's or century's civilization.

These eggs are not ready to be laid in the form of books as yet;

some of them are hardly ready to be put into the form of talk. But

as rudimentary ideas or inchoate tendencies, there they are; and

these are what must form the future. A man's general notions are

not good for much, unless he has a crop of these intellectual

ovarian eggs in his own brain, or knows them as they exist in the

minds of others. One must be in the HABIT of talking with such

persons to get at these rudimentary germs of thought; for their

development is necessarily imperfect, and they are moulded on new

patterns, which must be long and closely studied. But these are

the men to talk with. No fresh truth ever gets into a book.

--A good many fresh lies get in, anyhow,--said one of the company.

I proceeded in spite of the interruption.--All uttered thought, my

friend, the Professor, says, is of the nature of an excretion. Its

materials have been taken in, and have acted upon the system, and

been reacted on by it; it has circulated and done its office in one

mind before it is given out for the benefit of others. It may be

milk or venom to other minds; but, in either case, it is something

which the producer has had the use of and can part with. A man

instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or in

print so soon as it is matured; but it is hard to get at it as it

lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ of a germ, in his

intellect.

--Where are the brains that are fullest of these ovarian eggs of

thought?--I decline mentioning individuals. The producers of

thought, who are few, the "jobbers" of thought, who are many, and

the retailers of thought, who are numberless, are so mixed up in

the popular apprehension, that it would be hopeless to try to

separate them before opinion has had time to settle. Follow the

course of opinion on the great subjects of human interest for a few

generations or centuries, get its parallax, map out a small arc of

its movement, see where it tends, and then see who is in advance of

it or even with it; the world calls him hard names, probably; but

if you would find the ova of the future, you must look into the

folds of his cerebral convolutions.

[The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at this suggestion,

as if he did not see exactly where he was to come out, if he

computed his arc too nicely. I think it possible it might cut off

a few corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr-

burning and witch-hanging;--but time will show,--time will show, as

the old gentleman opposite says.]

--Oh,--here is that copy of verses I told you about.

SPRING HAS COME.

Intra Muros.

The sunbeams, lost for half a year,

Slant through my pane their morning rays

For dry Northwesters cold and clear,

The East blows in its thin blue haze.

And first the snowdrop's bells are seen,

Then close against the sheltering wall

The tulip's horn of dusky green,

The peony's dark unfolding ball.

The golden-chaliced crocus burns;

The long narcissus-blades appear;

The cone-beaked hyacinth returns,

And lights her blue-flamed chandelier.

The willow's whistling lashes, wrung

By the wild winds of gusty March,

With sallow leaflets lightly strung,

Are swaying by the tufted larch.

The elms have robed their slender spray

With full-blown flower and embryo leaf;

Wide o'er the clasping arch of day

Soars like a cloud their hoary chief.

--[See the proud tulip's flaunting cup,

That flames in glory for an hour,--

Behold it withering,--then look up,--

How meek the forest-monarch's flower!--

When wake the violets, Winter dies;

When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near;

When lilacs blossom, Summer cries,

"Bud, little roses! Spring is here!"]

The windows blush with fresh bouquets,

Cut with the May-dew on their lips;

The radish all its bloom displays,

Pink as Aurora's finger-tips.

Nor less the flood of light that showers

On beauty's changed corolla-shades,--

The walks are gay as bridal bowers

With rows of many-petalled maids.

The scarlet shell-fish click and clash

In the blue barrow where they slide;

The horseman, proud of streak and splash,

Creeps homeward from his morning ride.

Here comes the dealer's awkward string,

With neck in rope and tail in knot,--

Rough colts, with careless country-swing,

In lazy walk or slouching trot.

--Wild filly from the mountain-side,

Doomed to the close and chafing thills,

Lend me thy long, untiring stride

To seek with thee thy western hills!

I hear the whispering voice of Spring,

The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry,

Like some poor bird with prisoned wing

That sits and sings, but longs to fly.

Oh for one spot of living green,--

One little spot where leaves can grow,--

To love unblamed, to walk unseen,

To dream above, to sleep below!

CHAPTER IX

[Aqui esta encerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro Garcias.

If I should ever make a little book out of these papers, which I

hope you are not getting tired of, I suppose I ought to save the

above sentence for a motto on the title-page. But I want it now,

and must use it. I need not say to you that the words are Spanish,

nor that they are to be found in the short Introduction to "Gil

Blas," nor that they mean, "Here lies buried the soul of the

licentiate Pedro Garcias."

I warned all young people off the premises when I began my notes

referring to old age. I must be equally fair with old people now.

They are earnestly requested to leave this paper to young persons

from the age of twelve to that of fourscore years and ten, at which

latter period of life I am sure that I shall have at least one

youthful reader. You know well enough what I mean by youth and

age;--something in the soul, which has no more to do with the color

of the hair than the vein of gold in a rock has to do with the

grass a thousand feet above it.

I am growing bolder as I write. I think it requires not only

youth, but genius, to read this paper. I don't mean to imply that

it required any whatsoever to talk what I have here written down.

It did demand a certain amount of memory, and such command of the

English tongue as is given by a common school education. So much I

do claim. But here I have related, at length, a string of

trivialities. You must have the imagination of a poet to

transfigure them. These little colored patches are stains upon the

windows of a human soul; stand on the outside, they are but dull

and meaningless spots of color; seen from within, they are

glorified shapes with empurpled wings and sunbright aureoles.

My hand trembles when I offer you this. Many times I have come

bearing flowers such as my garden grew; but now I offer you this

poor, brown, homely growth, you may cast it away as worthless.

And yet--and yet--it is something better than flowers; it is a

SEED-CAPSULE. Many a gardener will cut you a bouquet of his choicest

blossoms for small fee, but he does not love to let the seeds of

his rarest varieties go out of his own hands.

It is by little things that we know ourselves; a soul would very

probably mistake itself for another, when once disembodied, were it

not for individual experiences which differ from those of others

only in details seemingly trifling. All of us have been thirsty

thousands of times, and felt, with Pindar, that water was the best

of things. I alone, as I think, of all mankind, remember one

particular pailful of water, flavored with the white-pine of which

the pail was made, and the brown mug out of which one Edmund, a

red-faced and curly-haired boy, was averred to have bitten a

fragment in his haste to drink; it being then high summer, and

little full-blooded boys feeling very warm and porous in the

low-"studded" school-room where Dame Prentiss, dead and gone, ruled

over young children, many of whom are old ghosts now, and have

known Abraham for twenty or thirty years of our mortal time.

Thirst belongs to humanity, everywhere, in all ages; but that

white-pine pail, and that brown mug belong to me in particular; and

just so of my special relationships with other things and with my

rice. One could never remember himself in eternity by the mere

fact of having loved or hated any more than by that of having

thirsted; love and hate have no more individuality in them than

single waves in the ocean;--but the accidents or trivial marks

which distinguished those whom we loved or hated make their memory

our own forever, and with it that of our own personality also.

Therefore, my aged friend of five-and-twenty, or thereabouts, pause

at the threshold of this particular record, and ask yourself

seriously whether you are fit to read such revelations as are to

follow. For observe, you have here no splendid array of petals

such as poets offer you,--nothing but a dry shell, containing, if

you will get out what is in it, a few small seeds of poems. You

may laugh at them, if you like. I shall never tell you what I

think of you for so doing. But if you can read into the heart of

these things, in the light of other memories as slight, yet as dear

to your soul, then you are neither more nor less than a POET, and

can afford to write no more verses during the rest of your natural

life,--which abstinence I take to be one of the surest marks of

your meriting the divine name I have just bestowed upon you.

May I beg of you who have begun this paper nobly trusting to your

own imagination and sensibilities to give it the significance which

it does not lay claim to without your kind assistance,--may I beg

of you, I say, to pay particular attention to the BRACKETS which

enclose certain paragraphs? I want my "asides," you see, to

whisper loud to you who read my notes, and sometimes I talk a page

or two to you without pretending that I said a word of it to our

boarders. You will find a very long "aside" to you almost as soon

as you begin to read. And so, dear young friend, fall to at once,

taking such things as I have provided for you; and if you turn

them, by the aid of your powerful imagination, into a fair banquet,

why, then, peace be with you, and a summer by the still waters of

some quiet river, or by some yellow beach, where, as my friend the

Professor, says, you can sit with Nature's wrist in your hand and

count her ocean-pulses.]

I should like to make a few intimate revelations relating

especially to my early life, if I thought you would like to hear

them.

[The schoolmistress turned a little in her chair, and sat with her

face directed partly towards me.--Half-mourning now;--purple

ribbon. That breastpin she wears has GRAY hair in it; her

mother's, no doubt;--I remember our landlady's daughter telling me,

soon after the schoolmistress came to board with us, that she had

lately "buried a payrent." That's what made her look so pale,

--kept the poor dying thing alive with her own blood. Ah! long

illness is the real vampyrism; think of living a year or two after

one is dead, by sucking the life-blood out of a frail young

creature at one's bedside! Well, souls grow white, as well as

cheeks, in these holy duties one that goes in a nurse may come out

an angel.--God bless all good women!--to their soft hands and

pitying hearts we must all come at last!--The schoolmistress has a

better color than when she came.--Too late! "It might have been."

--Amen!--How many thoughts go to a dozen heart-beats, sometimes!

There was no long pause after my remark addressed to the company,

but in that time I had the train of ideas and feelings I have just

given flash through my consciousness sudden and sharp as the

crooked red streak that springs out of its black sheath like the

creese of a Malay in his death-race, and stabs the earth right and

left in its blind rage.

I don't deny that there was a pang in it,--yes, a stab; but there

was a prayer, too,--the "Amen" belonged to that.--Also, a vision of

a four-story brick house, nicely furnished,--I actually saw many

specific articles,--curtains, sofas, tables, and others, and could

draw the patterns of them at this moment,--a brick house, I say,

looking out on the water, with a fair parlor, and books and busts

and pots of flowers and bird-cages, all complete; and at the

window, looking on the water, two of us.--"Male and female created

He them."--These two were standing at the window, when a smaller

shape that was playing near them looked up at me with such a look

that I----poured out a glass of water, drank it all down, and then

continued.]

I said I should like to tell you some things, such as people

commonly never tell, about my early recollections. Should you like

to hear them?

Should we LIKE to hear them?--said the schoolmistress;--no, but we

should love to.

[The voice was a sweet one, naturally, and had something very

pleasant in its tone, just then.--The four-story brick house, which

had gone out like a transparency when the light behind it is

quenched, glimmered again for a moment; parlor, books, busts,

flower-pots, bird-cages, all complete,--and the figures as before.]

We are waiting with eagerness, Sir,--said the divinity-student.

[The transparency went out as if a flash of black lightning had

struck it.]

If you want to hear my confessions, the next thing--I said--is to

know whether I can trust you with them. It is only fair to say

that there are a great many people in the world that laugh at such

things. _I_ think they are fools, but perhaps you don't all agree

with me.

Here are children of tender age talked to as if they were capable

of understanding Calvin's "Institutes," and nobody has honesty or

sense enough to tell the plain truth about the little wretches:

that they are as superstitious as naked savages, and such miserable

spiritual cowards--that is, if they have any imagination--that they

will believe anything which is taught them, and a great deal more

which they teach themselves.

I was born and bred, as I have told you twenty times, among books

and those who knew what was in books. I was carefully instructed

in things temporal and spiritual. But up to a considerable

maturity of childhood I believed Raphael and Michael Angelo to have

been superhuman beings. The central doctrine of the prevalent

religious faith of Christendom was utterly confused and neutralized

in my mind for years by one of those too common stories of actual

life, which I overheard repeated in a whisper.--Why did I not ask?

you will say.--You don't remember the rosy pudency of sensitive

children. The first instinctive movement of the little creatures

is to make a cache, and bury in it beliefs, doubts, dreams, hopes,

and terrors. I am uncovering one of these CACHES. Do you think I

was necessarily a greater fool and coward than another?

I was afraid of ships. Why, I could never tell. The masts looked

frightfully tall,--but they were not so tall as the steeple of our

old yellow meeting-house. At any rate I used to hide my eyes from

the sloops and schooners that were wont to lie at the end of the

bridge, and I confess that traces of this undefined terror lasted

very long.--One other source of alarm had a still more fearful

significance. There was a great wooden HAND,--a glove-maker's

sign, which used to swing and creak in the blast, as it hung from a

pillar before a certain shop a mile or two outside of the city.

Oh, the dreadful hand! Always hanging there ready to catch up a

little boy, who would come home to supper no more, nor yet to bed,

--whose porringer would be laid away empty thenceforth, and his

half-worn shoes wait until his small brother grew to fit them.

As for all manner of superstitious observances, I used once to

think I must have been peculiar in having such a list of them, but

I now believe that half the children of the same age go through the

same experiences. No Roman soothsayer ever had such a catalogue of

OMENS as I found in the Sibylline leaves of my childhood. That

trick of throwing a stone at a tree and attaching some mighty issue

to hitting or missing, which you will find mentioned in one or more

biographies, I well remember. Stepping on or over certain

particular things or spots--Dr. Johnson's especial weakness I got

the habit of at a very early age.--I won't swear that I have not

some tendency to these not wise practices even at this present

date. [How many of you that read these notes can say the same

thing!]

With these follies mingled sweet delusions, which I loved so well I

would not outgrow them, even when it required a voluntary effort to

put a momentary trust in them. Here is one which I cannot help

telling you.

The firing of the great guns at the Navy-yard is easily heard at

the place where I was born and lived. "There is a ship of war come

in," they used to say, when they heard them. Of course, I supposed

that such vessels came in unexpectedly, after indefinite years of

absence,--suddenly as falling stones; and that the great guns

roared in their astonishment and delight at the sight of the old

war-ship splitting the bay with her cutwater. Now, the sloop-of-

war the Wasp, Captain Blakely, after gloriously capturing the

Reindeer and the Avon, had disappeared from the face of the ocean,

and was supposed to be lost. But there was no proof of it, and, of

course, for a time, hopes were entertained that she might be heard

from. Long after the last real chance had utterly vanished, I

pleased myself with the fond illusion that somewhere on the waste

of waters she was still floating, and there were YEARS during which

I never heard the sound of the great guns booming inland from the

Navy-yard without saying to myself, "The Wasp has come!" and almost

thinking I could see her, as she rolled in, crumpling the water

before her, weather-beaten, barnacled, with shattered spars and

threadbare canvas, welcomed by the shouts and tears of thousands.

This was one of those dreams that I nursed and never told. Let me

make a clean breast of it now, and say, that, so late as to have

outgrown childhood, perhaps to have got far on towards manhood,

when the roar of the cannon has struck suddenly on my ear, I have

started with a thrill of vague expectation and tremulous delight,

and the long-unspoken words have articulated themselves in the

mind's dumb whisper, THE WASP HAS COME!

--Yes, children believe plenty of queer things. I suppose all of

you have had the pocket-book fever when you were little?--What do I

mean? Why, ripping up old pocket-books in the firm belief that

bank-bills to an immense amount were hidden in them.--So, too, you

must all remember some splendid unfulfilled promise of somebody or

other, which fed you with hopes perhaps for years, and which left a

blank in your life which nothing has ever filled up.--O. T. quitted

our household carrying with him the passionate regrets of the more

youthful members. He was an ingenious youngster; wrote wonderful

copies, and carved the two initials given above with great skill on

all available surfaces. I thought, by the way, they were all gone;

but the other day I found them on a certain door which I will show

you some time. How it surprised me to find them so near the

ground! I had thought the boy of no trivial dimensions. Well, O.

T., when he went, made a solemn promise to two of us. I was to

have a ship, and the other a marTIN-house (last syllable pronounced

as in the word TIN). Neither ever came; but, oh, how many and many

a time I have stolen to the corner,--the cars pass close by it at

this time,--and looked up that long avenue, thinking that he must

be coming now, almost sure, as I turned to look northward, that

there he would be, trudging toward me, the ship in one hand and the

marTIN-house in the other!

[You must not suppose that all I am going to say, as well as all I

have said, was told to the whole company. The young fellow whom

they call John was in the yard, sitting on a barrel and smoking a

cheroot, the fumes of which came in, not ungrateful, through the

open window. The divinity-student disappeared in the midst of our

talk. The poor relation in black bombazine, who looked and moved

as if all her articulations were elbow-joints, had gone off to her

chamber, after waiting with a look of soul-subduing decorum at the

foot of the stairs until one of the male sort had passed her and

ascended into the upper regions. This is a famous point of

etiquette in our boarding-house; in fact, between ourselves, they

make such an awful fuss about it, that I, for one, had a great deal

rather have them simple enough not to think of such matters at all.

Our landlady's daughter said, the other evening, that she was going

to "retire"; whereupon the young fellow called John took up a lamp

and insisted on lighting her to the foot of the staircase. Nothing

would induce her to pass by him, until the schoolmistress, saying

in good plain English that it was her bed-time, walked straight by

them both, not seeming to trouble herself about either of them.

I have been led away from what I meant the portion included in

these brackets to inform my readers about. I say, then, most of

the boarders had left the table about the time when I began telling

some of these secrets of mine,--all of them, in fact, but the old

gentleman opposite and the schoolmistress. I understand why a

young woman should like to hear these simple but genuine

experiences of early life, which are, as I have said, the little

brown seeds of what may yet grow to be poems with leaves of azure

and gold; but when the old gentleman pushed up his chair nearer to

me, and slanted round his best ear, and once, when I was speaking

of some trifling, tender reminiscence, drew a long breath, with

such a tremor in it that a little more and it would have been a

sob, why, then I felt there must be something of nature in them

which redeemed their seeming insignificance. Tell me, man or woman

with whom I am whispering, have you not a small store of

recollections, such as these I am uncovering, buried beneath the

dead leaves of many summers, perhaps under the unmelting snows of

fast-returning winters,--a few such recollections, which, if you

should write them all out, would be swept into some careless

editor's drawer, and might cost a scanty half-hour's lazy reading

to his subscribers,--and yet, if Death should cheat you of them,

you would not know yourself in eternity?]

--I made three acquaintances at a very early period of life, my

introduction to whom was never forgotten. The first unequivocal

act of wrong that has left its trace in my memory was this:

refusing a small favor asked of me,--nothing more than telling what

had happened at school one morning. No matter who asked it; but

there were circumstances which saddened and awed me. I had no

heart to speak;--I faltered some miserable, perhaps petulant

excuse, stole away, and the first battle of life was lost. What

remorse followed I need not tell. Then and there, to the best of

my knowledge, I first consciously took Sin by the hand and turned

my back on Duty. Time has led me to look upon my offence more

leniently; I do not believe it or any other childish wrong is

infinite, as some have pretended, but infinitely finite. Yet, oh

if I had but won that battle!

The great Destroyer, whose awful shadow it was that had silenced

me, came near me,--but never, so as to be distinctly seen and

remembered, during my tender years. There flits dimly before me

the image of a little girl, whose name even I have forgotten, a

schoolmate, whom we missed one day, and were told that she had

died. But what death was I never had any very distinct idea, until

one day I climbed the low stone wall of the old burial-ground and

mingled with a group that were looking into a very deep, long,

narrow hole, dug down through the green sod, down through the brown

loam, down through the yellow gravel, and there at the bottom was

an oblong red box, and a still, sharp, white face of a young man

seen through an opening at one end of it. When the lid was closed,

and the gravel and stones rattled down pell-mell, and the woman in

black, who was crying and wringing her hands, went off with the

other mourners, and left him, then I felt that I had seen Death,

and should never forget him.

One other acquaintance I made at an earlier period of life than the

habit of romancers authorizes.--Love, of course.--She was a famous

beauty afterwards.--I am satisfied that many children rehearse

their parts in the drama of life before they have shed all their

milk-teeth.--I think I won't tell the story of the golden blonde.

--I suppose everybody has had his childish fancies; but sometimes

they are passionate impulses, which anticipate all the tremulous

emotions belonging to a later period. Most children remember

seeing and adoring an angel before they were a dozen years old.

[The old gentleman had left his chair opposite and taken a seat by

the schoolmistress and myself, a little way from the table.--It's

true, it's true,--said the old gentleman.--He took hold of a steel

watch-chain, which carried a large, square gold key at one end and

was supposed to have some kind of time-keeper at the other. With

some trouble he dragged up an ancient-looking, thick, silver,

bull's-eye watch. He looked at it for a moment,--hesitated,

--touched the inner corner of his right eye with the pulp of his

middle finger,--looked at the face of the watch,--said it was

getting into the forenoon,--then opened the watch and handed me the

loose outside case without a word.--The watch-paper had been pink

once, and had a faint tinge still, as if all its tender life had

not yet quite faded out. Two little birds, a flower, and, in small

school-girl letters, a date,--17 . .--no matter.--Before I was

thirteen years old,--said the old gentleman.--I don't know what was

in that young schoolmistress's head, nor why she should have done

it; but she took out the watch-paper and put it softly to her lips,

as if she were kissing the poor thing that made it so long ago.

The old gentleman took the watch-paper carefully from her, replaced

it, turned away and walked out, holding the watch in his hand. I

saw him pass the window a moment after with that foolish white hat

on his head; he couldn't have been thinking what he was about when

he put it on. So the schoolmistress and I were left alone. I drew

my chair a shade nearer to her, and continued.]

And since I am talking of early recollections, I don't know why I

shouldn't mention some others that still cling to me,--not that you

will attach any very particular meaning to these same images so

full of significance to me, but that you will find something

parallel to them in your own memory. You remember, perhaps, what I

said one day about smells. There were certain SOUNDS also which

had a mysterious suggestiveness to me,--not so intense, perhaps, as

that connected with the other sense, but yet peculiar, and never to

be forgotten.

The first was the creaking of the wood-sleds, bringing their loads

of oak and walnut from the country, as the slow-swinging oxen

trailed them along over the complaining snow, in the cold, brown

light of early morning. Lying in bed and listening to their dreary

music had a pleasure in it akin to the Lucretian luxury, or that

which Byron speaks of as to be enjoyed in looking on at a battle by

one "who hath no friend, no brother there."

There was another sound, in itself so sweet, and so connected with

one of those simple and curious superstitions of childhood of which

I have spoken, that I can never cease to cherish a sad sort of love

for it.--Let me tell the superstitious fancy first. The Puritan

"Sabbath," as everybody knows, began at "sundown" on Saturday

evening. To such observance of it I was born and bred. As the

large, round disk of day declined, a stillness, a solemnity, a

somewhat melancholy hush came over us all. It was time for work to

cease, and for playthings to be put away. The world of active life

passed into the shadow of an eclipse, not to emerge until the sun

should sink again beneath the horizon.

It was in this stillness of the world without and of the soul

within that the pulsating lullaby of the evening crickets used to

make itself most distinctly heard,--so that I well remember I used

to think that the purring of these little creatures, which mingled

with the batrachian hymns from the neighboring swamp, WAS PECULIAR

TO SATURDAY EVENINGS. I don't know that anything could give a

clearer idea of the quieting and subduing effect of the old habit

of observance of what was considered holy time, than this strange,

childish fancy.

Yes, and there was still another sound which mingled its solemn

cadences with the waking and sleeping dreams of my boyhood. It was

heard only at times,--a deep, muffled roar, which rose and fell,

not loud, but vast,--a whistling boy would have drowned it for his

next neighbor, but it must have been heard over the space of a

hundred square miles. I used to wonder what this might be. Could

it be the roar of the thousand wheels and the ten thousand

footsteps jarring and trampling along the stones of the neighboring

city? That would be continuous; but this, as I have said, rose and

fell in regular rhythm. I remember being told, and I suppose this

to have been the true solution, that it was the sound of the waves,

after a high wind, breaking on the long beaches many miles distant.

I should really like to know whether any observing people living

ten miles, more or less, inland from long beaches,--in such a town,

for instance, as Cantabridge, in the eastern part of the Territory

of the Massachusetts,--have ever observed any such sound, and

whether it was rightly accounted for as above.

Mingling with these inarticulate sounds in the low murmur of

memory, are the echoes of certain voices I have heard at rare

intervals. I grieve to say it, but our people, I think, have not

generally agreeable voices. The marrowy organisms, with skins that

shed water like the backs of ducks, with smooth surfaces neatly

padded beneath, and velvet linings to their singing-pipes, are not

so common among us as that other pattern of humanity with angular

outlines and plane surfaces, and integuments, hair like the fibrous

covering of a cocoa-nut in gloss and suppleness as well as color,

and voices at once thin and strenuous,--acidulous enough to produce

effervescence with alkalis, and stridulous enough to sing duets

with the katydids. I think our conversational soprano, as

sometimes overheard in the cars, arising from a group of young

persons, who may have taken the train at one of our great

industrial centres, for instance,--young persons of the female sex,

we will say, who have bustled in full-dressed, engaged in loud

strident speech, and who, after free discussion, have fixed on two

or more double seats, which having secured, they proceed to eat

apples and hand round daguerreotypes,--I say, I think the

conversational soprano, heard under these circumstances, would not

be among the allurements the old Enemy would put in requisition,

were he getting up a new temptation of St. Anthony.

There are sweet voices among us, we all know, and voices not

musical, it may be, to those who hear them for the first time, yet

sweeter to us than any we shall hear until we listen to some

warbling angel in the overture to that eternity of blissful

harmonies we hope to enjoy.--But why should I tell lies? If my

friends love me, it is because I try to tell the truth. I never

heard but two voices in my life that frightened me by their

sweetness.

--Frightened you?--said the schoolmistress.--Yes, frightened me.

They made me feel as if there might be constituted a creature with

such a chord in her voice to some string in another's soul, that,

if she but spoke, he would leave all and follow her, though it were

into the jaws of Erebus. Our only chance to keep our wits is, that

there are so few natural chords between others' voices and this

string in our souls, and that those which at first may have jarred

a little by and by come into harmony with it.--But I tell you this

is no fiction. You may call the story of Ulysses and the Sirens a

fable, but what will you say to Mario and the poor lady who

followed him?

--Whose were those two voices that bewitches me so?--They both

belonged to German women. One was a chambermaid, not otherwise

fascinating. The key of my room at a certain great hotel was

missing, and this Teutonic maiden was summoned to give information

respecting it. The simple soul was evidently not long from her

mother-land, and spoke with sweet uncertainty of dialect. But to

hear her wonder and lament and suggest, with soft, liquid

inflexions, and low, sad murmurs, in tones as full of serious

tenderness for the fate of the lost key as if it had been a child

that had strayed from its mother, was so winning, that, had her

features and figure been as delicious as her accents,--if she had

looked like the marble Clytie, for instance,--why, all can say is--

[The schoolmistress opened her eyes so wide, that I stopped short.]

I was only going to say that I should have drowned myself. For

Lake Erie was close by, and it is so much better to accept

asphyxia, which takes only three minutes by the watch, than a

mesalliance, that lasts fifty years to begin with, and then passes

along down the line of descent, (breaking out in all manner of

boorish manifestations of feature and manner, which, if men were

only as short-lived as horses, could be readily traced back through

the square-roots and the cube-roots of the family stem on which you

have hung the armorial bearings of the De Champignons or the De la

Morues, until one came to beings that ate with knives and said

"Haow?") that no person of right feeling could have hesitated for a

single moment.

The second of the ravishing voices I have heard was, as I have

said, that of another German woman.--I suppose I shall ruin myself

by saying that such a voice could not have come from any

Americanized human being.

--What was there in it?--said the schoolmistress,--and, upon my

word, her tones were so very musical, that I almost wished I had

said three voices instead of two, and not made the unpatriotic

remark above reported.--Oh, I said, it had so much WOMAN in it,

--MULIEBRITY, as well as FEMINEITY;--no self-assertion, such as free

suffrage introduces into every word and movement; large, vigorous

nature, running back to those huge-limbed Germans of Tacitus, but

subdued by the reverential training and tuned by the kindly culture

of fifty generations. Sharp business habits, a lean soil,

independence, enterprise, and east winds, are not the best things

for the larynx. Still, you hear noble voices among us,--I have

known families famous for them,--but ask the first person you meet

a question, and ten to one there is a hard, sharp, metallic,

matter-of-business clink in the accents of the answer, that

produces the effect of one of those bells which small trades-people

connect with their shop-doors, and which spring upon your ear with

such vivacity, as you enter, that your first impulse is to retire

at once from the precincts.

--Ah, but I must not forget that dear little child I saw and heard

in a French hospital. Between two and three years old. Fell out

of her chair and snapped both thigh-bones. Lying in bed, patient,

gentle. Rough students round her, some in white aprons, looking

fearfully business-like; but the child placid, perfectly still. I

spoke to her, and the blessed little creature answered me in a

voice of such heavenly sweetness, with that reedy thrill in it

which you have heard in the thrush's even-song, that I hear it at

this moment, while I am writing, so many, many years afterwards.

--C'est tout comme un serin, said the French student at my side.

These are the voices which struck the key-note of my conceptions as

to what the sounds we are to hear in heaven will be, if we shall

enter through one of the twelve gates of pearl. There must be

other things besides aerolites that wander from their own spheres

to ours; and when we speak of celestial sweetness or beauty, we may

be nearer the literal truth than we dream. If mankind generally

are the shipwrecked survivors of some pre-Adamitic cataclysm, set

adrift in these little open boats of humanity to make one more

trial to reach the shore,--as some grave theologians have

maintained,--if, in plain English, men are the ghosts of dead

devils who have "died into life," (to borrow an expression from

Keats,) and walk the earth in a suit of living rags which lasts

three or four score summers,--why, there must have been a few good

spirits sent to keep them company, and these sweet voices I speak

of must belong to them.

--I wish you could once hear my sister's voice,--said the

schoolmistress.

If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one,--said I.

I never thought mine was anything,--said the schoolmistress.

How should you know?--said I.--People never hear their own voices,

--any more than they see their own faces. There is not even a

looking-glass for the voice. Of course, there is something audible

to us when we speak; but that something is not our own voice as it

is known to all our acquaintances. I think, if an image spoke to

us in our own tones, we should not know them in the least.--How

pleasant it would be, if in another state of being we could have

shapes like our former selves for playthings,--we standing outside

or inside of them, as we liked, and they being to us just what we

used to be to others!

--I wonder if there will be nothing like what we call "play," after

our earthly toys are broken,--said the schoolmistress.

Hush,--said I,--what will the divinity-student say?

[I thought she was hit, that time;--but the shot must have gone

over her, or on one side of her; she did not flinch.]

Oh,--said the schoolmistress,--he must look out for my sister's

heresies; I am afraid he will be too busy with them to take care of

mine.

Do you mean to say,--said I,--that it is YOUR SISTER whom that

student--

[The young fellow commonly known as John, who had been sitting on

the barrel, smoking, jumped off just then, kicked over the barrel,

gave it a push with his foot that set it rolling, and stuck his

saucy-looking face in at the window so as to cut my question off in

the middle; and the schoolmistress leaving the room a few minutes

afterwards, I did not have a chance to finish it.

The young fellow came in and sat down in a chair, putting his heels

on the top of another.

Pooty girl,--said he.

A fine young lady,--I replied.

Keeps a first-rate school, according to accounts,--said he,

--teaches all sorts of things,--Latin and Italian and music. Folks

rich once,--smashed up. She went right ahead as smart as if she'd

been born to work. That's the kind o' girl I go for. I'd marry

her, only two or three other girls would drown themselves, if I

did.

I think the above is the longest speech of this young fellow's

which I have put on record. I do not like to change his peculiar

expressions, for this is one of those cases in which the style is

the man, as M. de Buffon says. The fact is, the young fellow is a

good-hearted creature enough, only too fond of his jokes,--and if

it were not for those heat-lightning winks on one side of his face,

I should not mind his fun much.]

[Some days after this, when the company were together again, I

talked a little.]

--I don't think I have a genuine hatred for anybody. I am well

aware that I differ herein from the sturdy English moralist and the

stout American tragedian. I don't deny that I hate THE SIGHT of

certain people; but the qualities which make me tend to hate the

man himself are such as I am so much disposed to pity, that, except

under immediate aggravation, I feel kindly enough to the worst of

them. It is such a sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow, so much

worse than to inherit a hump-back or a couple of club-feet, that I

sometimes feel as if we ought to love the crippled souls, if I may

use this expression, with a certain tenderness which we need not

waste on noble natures. One who is born with such congenital

incapacity that nothing can make a gentleman of him is entitled,

not to our wrath, but to our profoundest sympathy. But as we

cannot help hating the sight of these people, just as we do that of

physical deformities, we gradually eliminate them from our

society,--we love them, but open the window and let them go. By

the time decent people reach middle age they have weeded their

circle pretty well of these unfortunates, unless they have a taste

for such animals; in which case, no matter what their position may

be, there is something, you may be sure, in their natures akin to

that of their wretched parasites.

--The divinity-student wished to know what I thought of affinities,

as well as of antipathies; did I believe in love at first sight?

Sir,--said I,--all men love all women. That is the prima-facie

aspect of the case. The Court of Nature assumes the law to be,

that all men do so; and the individual man is bound to show cause

why he does not love any particular woman. A man, says one of my

old black-letter law-books, may show divers good reasons, as thus:

He hath not seen the person named in the indictment; she is of

tender age, or the reverse of that; she hath certain personal

disqualifications,--as, for instance, she is a blackamoor, or hath

an ill-favored countenance; or, his capacity of loving being

limited, his affections are engrossed by a previous comer; and so

of other conditions. Not the less is it true that he is bound by

duty and inclined by nature to love each and every woman.

Therefore it is that each woman virtually summons every man to show

cause why he doth not love her. This is not by written document,

or direct speech, for the most part, but by certain signs of silk,

gold, and other materials, which say to all men,--Look on me and

love, as in duty bound. Then the man pleadeth his special

incapacity, whatsoever that may be,--as, for instance,

impecuniosity, or that he hath one or many wives in his household,

or that he is of mean figure, or small capacity; of which reasons

it may be noted, that the first is, according to late decisions, of

chiefest authority.--So far the old law-book. But there is a note

from an older authority, saying that every woman doth also love

each and every man, except there be some good reason to the

contrary; and a very observing friend of mine, a young unmarried

clergyman, tells me, that, so far as his experience goes, he has

reason to think the ancient author had fact to justify his

statement.

I'll tell you how it is with the pictures of women we fall in love

with at first sight.

--We a'n't talking about pictures,--said the landlady's daughter,

--we're talking about women.

I understood that we were speaking of love at sight,--I remarked,

mildly.--Now, as all a man knows about a woman whom he looks at is

just what a picture as big as a copper, or a "nickel," rather, at

the bottom of his eye can teach him, I think I am right in saying

we are talking about the pictures of women.--Well, now, the reason

why a man is not desperately in love with ten thousand women at

once is just that which prevents all our portraits being distinctly

seen upon that wall. They all ARE painted there by reflection from

our faces, but because ALL of them are painted on each spot, and

each on the same surface, and many other objects at the same time,

no one is seen as a picture. But darken a chamber and let a single

pencil of rays in through a key-hole, then you have a picture on

the wall. We never fall in love with a woman in distinction from

women, until we can get an image of her through a pin-hole; and

then we can see nothing else, and nobody but ourselves can see the

image in our mental camera-obscura.

--My friend, the Poet, tells me he has to leave town whenever the

anniversaries come round.

What's the difficulty?--Why, they all want him to get up and make

speeches, or songs, or toasts; which is just the very thing he

doesn't want to do. He is an old story, he says, and hates to show

on these occasions. But they tease him, and coax him, and can't do

without him, and feel all over his poor weak head until they get

their fingers on the fontanelle, (the Professor will tell you what

this means,--he says the one at the top of the head always remains

open in poets,) until, by gentle pressure on that soft pulsating

spot, they stupefy him to the point of acquiescence.

There are times, though, he says, when it is a pleasure, before

going to some agreeable meeting, to rush out into one's garden and

clutch up a handful of what grows there,--weeds and violets

together,--not cutting them off, but pulling them up by the roots

with the brown earth they grow in sticking to them. That's his

idea of a post-prandial performance. Look here, now. These verses

I am going to read you, he tells me, were pulled up by the roots

just in that way, the other day.--Beautiful entertainment,--names

there on the plates that flow from all English-speaking tongues as

familiarly as AND or THE; entertainers known wherever good poetry

and fair title-pages are held in esteem; guest a kind-hearted,

modest, genial, hopeful poet, who sings to the hearts of his

countrymen, the British people, the songs of good cheer which the

better days to come, as all honest souls trust and believe, will

turn into the prose of common life. My friend, the Poet, says you

must not read such a string of verses too literally. If he trimmed

it nicely below, you wouldn't see the roots, he says, and he likes

to keep them, and a little of the soil clinging to them.

This is the farewell my friend, the Poet, read to his and our

friend, the Poet:-

A GOOD TIME GOING!

Brave singer of the coming time,

Sweet minstrel of the joyous present,

Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme,

The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant,

Good-bye! Good-bye!--Our hearts and hands,

Our lips in honest Saxon phrases,

Cry, God be with him, till he stands

His feet among the English daisies!

'Tis here we part;--for other eyes

The busy deck, the flattering streamer,

The dripping arms that plunge and rise,

The waves in foam, the ship in tremor,

The kerchiefs waving from the pier,

The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him,

The deep blue desert, lone and drear,

With heaven above and home before him!

His home!--the Western giant smiles,

And twirls the spotty globe to find it;--

This little speck the British Isles?

'Tis but a freckle,--never mind it!--

He laughs, and all his prairies roll,

Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles,

And ridges stretched from pole to pole

Heave till they crack their iron knuckles!

But memory blushes at the sneer,

And Honor turns with frown defiant,

And Freedom, leaning on her spear,

Laughs louder than the laughing giant:-

"An islet is a world," she said,

"When glory with its dust has blended,

And Britain kept her noble dead

Till earth and seas and skies are rended!"

Beneath each swinging forest-bough

Some arm as stout in death reposes,--

From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow

Her valor's life-blood runs in roses;

Nay, let our brothers of the West

Write smiling in their florid pages,

One-half her soil has walked the rest

In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!

Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp,

From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather,

The British oak with rooted grasp

Her slender handful holds together;--

With cliffs of white and bowers of green,

And Ocean narrowing to caress her,

And hills and threaded streams between,--

Our little mother isle, God bless her!

In earth's broad temple where we stand,

Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us,

We hold the missal in our hand,

Bright with the lines our Mother taught us;

Where'er its blazoned page betrays

The glistening links of gilded fetters,

Behold, the half-turned leaf displays

Her rubric stained in crimson letters!

Enough! To speed a parting friend

'Tis vain alike to speak and listen;--

Yet stay,--these feeble accents blend

With rays of light from eyes that glisten.

Good-bye! once more,--and kindly tell

In words of peace the young world's story,--

And say, besides,--we love too well

Our mother's soil, our father's glory!

When my friend, the Professor, found that my friend, the Poet, had

been coming out in this full-blown style, he got a little excited,

as you may have seen a canary, sometimes, when another strikes up.

The Professor says he knows he can lecture, and thinks he can write

verses. At any rate, he has often tried, and now he was determined

to try again. So when some professional friends of his called him

up, one day, after a feast of reason and a regular "freshet" of

soul which had lasted two or three hours, he read them these

verses. He introduced them with a few remarks, he told me, of

which the only one he remembered was this: that he had rather

write a single line which one among them should think worth

remembering than set them all laughing with a string of epigrams.

It was all right, I don't doubt; at any rate, that was his fancy

then, and perhaps another time he may be obstinately hilarious;

however, it may be that he is growing graver, for time is a fact so

long as clocks and watches continue to go, and a cat can't be a

kitten always, as the old gentleman opposite said the other day.

You must listen to this seriously, for I think the Professor was

very much in earnest when he wrote it.

THE TWO ARMIES.

As Life's unending column pours,

Two marshalled hosts are seen,--

Two armies on the trampled shores

That Death flows black between.

One marches to the drum-beat's roll,

The wide-mouthed clarion's bray,

And bears upon a crimson scroll,

"Our glory is to slay."

One moves in silence by the stream,

With sad, yet watchful eyes,

Calm as the patient planet's gleam

That walks the clouded skies.

Along its front no sabres shine,

No blood-red pennons wave;

Its banner bears the single line,

"Our duty is to save."

For those no death-bed's lingering shade;

At Honor's trumpet-call,

With knitted brow and lifted blade

In Glory's arms they fall.

For these no clashing falchions bright,

No stirring battle-cry;

The bloodless stabber calls by night,--

Each answers, "Here am I!"

For those the sculptor's laurelled bust,

The builder's marble piles,

The anthems pealing o'er their dust

Through long cathedral aisles.

For these the blossom-sprinkled turf

That floods the lonely graves,

When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf

In flowery-foaming waves.

Two paths lead upward from below,

And angels wait above,

Who count each burning life-drop's flow,

Each falling tear of Love.

Though from the Hero's bleeding breast

Her pulses Freedom drew,

Though the white lilies in her crest

Sprang from that scarlet dew,--

While Valor's haughty champions wait

Till all their scars are shown,

Love walks unchallenged through the gate,

To sit beside the Throne!

CHAPTER X

[The schoolmistress came down with a rose in her hair,--a fresh

June rose. She has been walking early; she has brought back two

others,--one on each cheek.

I told her so, in some such pretty phrase as I could muster for the

occasion. Those two blush-roses I just spoke of turned into a

couple of damasks. I suppose all this went through my mind, for

this was what I went on to say:-]

I love the damask rose best of all. The flowers our mothers and

sisters used to love and cherish, those which grow beneath our

eaves and by our doorstep, are the ones we always love best. If

the Houyhnhnms should ever catch me, and, finding me particularly

vicious and unmanageable, send a man-tamer to Rareyfy me, I'll tell

you what drugs he would have to take and how he would have to use

them. Imagine yourself reading a number of the Houyhnhnm Gazette,

giving an account of such an experiment.

"MAN-TAMING EXTRAORDINARY.

"THE soft-hoofed semi-quadruped recently captured was subjected to

the art of our distinguished man-tamer in presence of a numerous

assembly. The animal was led in by two stout ponies, closely

confined by straps to prevent his sudden and dangerous tricks of

shoulder-hitting and foot-striking. His countenance expressed the

utmost degree of ferocity and cunning.

"The operator took a handful of BUDDING LILAC-LEAVES, and crushing

them slightly between his hoofs, so as to bring out their peculiar

fragrance, fastened them to the end of a long pole and held them

towards the creature. Its expression changed in an instant,--it

drew in their fragrance eagerly, and attempted to seize them with

its soft split hoofs. Having thus quieted his suspicious subject,

the operator proceeded to tie a BLUE HYACINTH to the end of the

pole and held it out towards the wild animal. The effect was

magical. Its eyes filled as if with raindrops, and its lips

trembled as it pressed them to the flower. After this it was

perfectly quiet, and brought a measure of corn to the man-tamer,

without showing the least disposition to strike with the feet or

hit from the shoulder."

That will do for the Houyhnhnm Gazette.--Do you ever wonder why

poets talk so much about flowers? Did you ever hear of a poet who

did not talk about them? Don't you think a poem, which, for the

sake of being original, should leave them out, would be like those

verses where the letter A or E or some other is omitted? No,--they

will bloom over and over again in poems as in the summer fields, to

the end of time, always old and always new. Why should we be more

shy of repeating ourselves than the spring be tired of blossoms or

the night of stars? Look at Nature. She never wearies of saying

over her floral pater-noster. In the crevices of Cyclopean walls,

--in the dust where men lie, dust also,--on the mounds that bury

huge cities, the wreck of Nineveh and the Babel-heap,--still that

same sweet prayer and benediction. The Amen! of Nature is always a

flower.

Are you tired of my trivial personalities,--those splashes and

streaks of sentiment, sometimes perhaps of sentimentality, which

you may see when I show you my heart's corolla as if it were a

tulip? Pray, do not give yourself the trouble to fancy me an idiot

whose conceit it is to treat himself as an exceptional being. It

is because you are just like me that I talk and know that you will

listen. We are all splashed and streaked with sentiments,--not

with precisely the same tints, or in exactly the same patterns, but

by the same hand and from the same palette.

I don't believe any of you happen to have just the same passion for

the blue hyacinth which I have,--very certainly not for the crushed

lilac-leaf-buds; many of you do not know how sweet they are. You

love the smell of the sweet-fern and the bayberry-leaves, I don't

doubt; but I hardly think that the last bewitches you with young

memories as it does me. For the same reason I come back to damask

roses, after having raised a good many of the rarer varieties. I

like to go to operas and concerts, but there are queer little old

homely sounds that are better than music to me. However, I suppose

it's foolish to tell such things.

--It is pleasant to be foolish at the right time,--said the

divinity-student;--saying it, however, in one of the dead

languages, which I think are unpopular for summer-reading, and

therefore do not bear quotation as such.

Well, now,--said I,--suppose a good, clean, wholesome-looking

countryman's cart stops opposite my door.--Do I want any

huckleberries?--If I do not, there are those that do. Thereupon my

soft-voiced handmaid bears out a large tin pan, and then the

wholesome countryman, heaping the peck-measure, spreads his broad

hands around its lower arc to confine the wild and frisky berries,

and so they run nimbly along the narrowing channel until they

tumble rustling down in a black cascade and tinkle on the

resounding metal beneath.--I won't say that this rushing

huckleberry hail-storm has not more music for me than the "Anvil

Chorus."

--I wonder how my great trees are coming on this summer.

--Where are your great trees, Sir?--said the divinity-student.

Oh, all round about New England. I call all trees mine that I have

put my wedding-ring on, and I have as many tree-wives as Brigham

Young has human ones.

--One set's as green as the other,--exclaimed a boarder, who has

never been identified.

They're all Bloomers,--said the young fellow called John.

[I should have rebuked this trifling with language, if our

landlady's daughter had not asked me just then what I meant by

putting my wedding-ring on a tree.]

Why, measuring it with my thirty-foot tape, my dear,--said I,--I

have worn a tape almost out on the rough barks of our old New

England elms and other big trees.--Don't you want to hear me talk

trees a little now? That is one of my specialities.

[So they all agreed that they should like to hear me talk about

trees.]

I want you to understand, in the first place, that I have a most

intense, passionate fondness for trees in general, and have had

several romantic attachments to certain trees in particular. Now,

if you expect me to hold forth in a "scientific" way about my

tree-loves,--to talk, for instance, of the Ulmus Americana, and

describe the ciliated edges of its samara, and all that,--you are an

anserine individual, and I must refer you to a dull friend who will

discourse to you of such matters. What should you think of a lover

who should describe the idol of his heart in the language of

science, thus: Class, Mammalia; Order, Primates; Genus, Homo;

Species, Europeus; Variety, Brown; Individual, Ann Eliza; Dental

Formula

2-2 1-1 2-2 3-3

i---c---p---m---

2-2 1-1 2-2 3-3'

and so on?

No, my friends, I shall speak of trees as we see them, love them,

adore them in the fields, where they are alive, holding their green

sun-shades over our heads, talking to us with their hundred

thousand whispering tongues, looking down on us with that sweet

meekness which belongs to huge, but limited organisms,--which one

sees in the brown eyes of oxen, but most in the patient posture,

the outstretched arms, and the heavy-drooping robes of these vast

beings endowed with life, but not with soul,--which outgrow us and

outlive us, but stand helpless,--poor things!--while Nature dresses

and undresses them, like so many full-sized, but under-witted

children.

Did you ever read old Daddy Gilpin? Slowest of men, even of

English men; yet delicious in his slowness, as is the light of a

sleepy eye in woman. I always supposed "Dr. Syntax" was written to

make fun of him. I have a whole set of his works, and am very

proud of it, with its gray paper, and open type, and long ff, and

orange-juice landscapes. The Pere Gilpin had the kind of science I

like in the study of Nature,--a little less observation than White

of Selborne, but a little more poetry.--Just think of applying the

Linnaean system to an elm! Who cares how many stamens or pistils

that little brown flower, which comes out before the leaf, may have

to classify it by? What we want is the meaning, the character, the

expression of a tree, as a kind and as an individual.

There is a mother-idea in each particular kind of tree, which, if

well marked, is probably embodied in the poetry of every language.

Take the oak, for instance, and we find it always standing as a

type of strength and endurance. I wonder if you ever thought of

the single mark of supremacy which distinguishes this tree from all

our other forest-trees? All the rest of them shirk the work of

resisting gravity; the oak alone defies it. It chooses the

horizontal direction for its limbs, so that their whole weight may

tell,--and then stretches them out fifty or sixty feet, so that the

strain may be mighty enough to be worth resisting. You will find,

that, in passing from the extreme downward droop of the branches of

the weeping-willow to the extreme upward inclination of those of

the poplar, they sweep nearly half a circle. At 90 degrees the oak

stops short; to slant upward another degree would mark infirmity of

purpose; to bend downwards, weakness of organization. The American

elm betrays something of both; yet sometimes, as we shall see, puts

on a certain resemblance to its sturdier neighbor.

It won't do to be exclusive in our taste about trees. There is

hardly one of them which has not peculiar beauties in some fitting

place for it. I remember a tall poplar of monumental proportions

and aspect, a vast pillar of glossy green, placed on the summit of

a lofty hill, and a beacon to all the country round. A native of

that region saw fit to build his house very near it, and, having a

fancy that it might blow down some time or other, and exterminate

himself and any incidental relatives who might be "stopping" or

"tarrying" with him,--also laboring under the delusion that human

life is under all circumstances to be preferred to vegetable

existence,--had the great poplar cut down. It is so easy to say,

"It is only a poplar!" and so much harder to replace its living

cone than to build a granite obelisk!

I must tell you about some of my tree-wives. I was at one period

of my life much devoted to the young lady-population of Rhode

Island, a small, but delightful State in the neighborhood of

Pawtucket. The number of inhabitants being not very large, I had

leisure, during my visits to the Providence Plantations, to inspect

the face of the country in the intervals of more fascinating

studies of physiognomy. I heard some talk of a great elm a short

distance from the locality just mentioned. "Let us see the great

elm,"--I said, and proceeded to find it,--knowing that it was on a

certain farm in a place called Johnston, if I remember rightly. I

shall never forget my ride and my introduction to the great

Johnston elm.

I always tremble for a celebrated tree when I approach it for the

first time. Provincialism has no SCALE of excellence in man or

vegetable; it never knows a first-rate article of either kind when

it has it, and is constantly taking second and third rate ones for

Nature's best. I have often fancied the tree was afraid of me, and

that a sort of shiver came over it as over a betrothed maiden when

she first stands before the unknown to whom she has been plighted.

Before the measuring-tape the proudest tree of them all quails and

shrinks into itself. All those stories of four or five men

stretching their arms around it and not touching each other's

fingers, if one's pacing the shadow at noon and making it so many

hundred feet, die upon its leafy lips in the presence of the awful

ribbon which has strangled so many false pretensions.

As I rode along the pleasant way, watching eagerly for the object

of my journey, the rounded tops of the elms rose from time to time

at the road-side. Wherever one looked taller and fuller than the

rest, I asked myself,--"Is this it?" But as I drew nearer, they

grew smaller,--or it proved, perhaps, that two standing in a line

had looked like one, and so deceived me. At last, all at once,

when I was not thinking of it,--I declare to you it makes my flesh

creep when I think of it now,--all at once I saw a great, green

cloud swelling in the horizon, so vast, so symmetrical, of such

Olympian majesty and imperial supremacy among the lesser

forest-growths, that my heart stopped short, then jumped at my ribs

as a hunter springs at a five-barred gate, and I felt all through me,

without need of uttering the words,--"This is it!"

You will find this tree described, with many others, in the

excellent Report upon the Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts. The

author has given my friend the Professor credit for some of his

measurements, but measured this tree himself, carefully. It is a

grand elm for size of trunk, spread of limbs, and muscular

development,--one of the first, perhaps the first, of the first

class of New England elms.

The largest actual girth I have ever found at five feet from the

ground is in the great elm lying a stone's throw or two north of

the main road (if my points of compass are right) in Springfield.

But this has much the appearance of having been formed by the union

of two trunks growing side by side.

The West-Springfield elm and one upon Northampton meadows, belong

also to the first class of trees.

There is a noble old wreck of an elm at Hatfield, which used to

spread its claws out over a circumference of thirty-five feet or

more before they covered the foot of its bole up with earth. This

is the American elm most like an oak of any I have ever seen.

The Sheffield elm is equally remarkable for size and perfection of

form. I have seen nothing that comes near it in Berkshire County,

and few to compare with it anywhere. I am not sure that I remember

any other first-class elms in New England, but there may be many.

--What makes a first-class elm?--Why, size, in the first place, and

chiefly. Anything over twenty feet of clear girth, five feet above

the ground, and with a spread of branches a hundred feet across,

may claim that title, according to my scale. All of them, with the

questionable exception of the Springfield tree above referred to,

stop, so far as my experience goes, at about twenty-two or

twenty-three feet of girth and a hundred and twenty of spread.

Elms of the second class, generally ranging from fourteen to

eighteen feet, are comparatively common. The queen of them all is

that glorious tree near one of the churches in Springfield.

Beautiful and stately she is beyond all praise. The "great tree"

on Boston Common comes in the second rank, as does the one at

Cohasset, which used to have, and probably has still, a head as

round as an apple-tree, and that at Newburyport, with scores of

others which might be mentioned. These last two have perhaps been

over-celebrated. Both, however, are pleasing vegetables. The poor

old Pittsfield elm lives on its past reputation. A wig of false

leaves is indispensable to make it presentable.

[I don't doubt there may be some monster-elm or other, vegetating

green, but inglorious, in some remote New England village, which

only wants a sacred singer to make it celebrated. Send us your

measurements,--(certified by the postmaster, to avoid possible

imposition,)--circumference five feet from soil, length of line

from bough-end to bough-end, and we will see what can be done for

you.]

--I wish somebody would get us up the following work:-

SYLVA NOVANGLICA.

Photographs of New England Elms and other Trees, taken upon the

Same Scale of Magnitude. With Letter-Press Descriptions, by a

Distinguished Literary Gentleman. Boston & Co. 185..

The same camera should be used,--so far as possible,--at a fixed

distance. Our friend, who has given us so many interesting figures

in his "Trees of America," must not think this Prospectus invades

his province; a dozen portraits, with lively descriptions, would be

a pretty complement to his large work, which, so far as published,

I find excellent. If my plan were carried out, and another series

of a dozen English trees photographed on the same scale the

comparison would be charming.

It has always been a favorite idea of mine to bring the life of the

Old and the New World face to face, by an accurate comparison of

their various types of organization. We should begin with man, of

course; institute a large and exact comparison between the

development of la pianta umana, as Alfieri called it, in different

sections of each country, in the different callings, at different

ages, estimating height, weigh, force by the dynamometer and the

spirometer, and finishing off with a series of typical photographs,

giving the principal national physiognomies. Mr. Hutchinson has

given us some excellent English data to begin with.

Then I would follow this up by contrasting the various parallel

forms of life in the two continents. Our naturalists have often

referred to this incidentally or expressly; but the animus of

Nature in the two half globes of the planet is so momentous a point

of interest to our race, that it should be made a subject of

express and elaborate study. Go out with me into that walk which

we call THE MALL, and look at the English and American elms. The

American elm is tall, graceful, slender-sprayed, and drooping as if

from languor. The English elm is compact, robust, holds its

branches up, and carries its leaves for weeks longer than our own

native tree.

Is this typical of the creative force on the two sides of the

ocean, or not? Nothing but a careful comparison through the whole

realm of life can answer this question.

There is a parallelism without identity in the animal and vegetable

life of the two continents, which favors the task of comparison in

an extraordinary manner. Just as we have two trees alike in many

ways, yet not the same, both elms, yet easily distinguishable, just

so we have a complete flora and a fauna, which, parting from the

same ideal, embody it with various modifications. Inventive power

is the only quality of which the Creative Intelligence seems to be

economical; just as with our largest human minds, that is the

divinest of faculties, and the one that most exhausts the mind

which exercises it. As the same patterns have very commonly been

followed, we can see which is worked out in the largest spirit, and

determine the exact limitations under which the Creator places the

movement of life in all its manifestations in either locality. We

should find ourselves in a very false position, if it should prove

that Anglo-Saxons can't live here, but die out, if not kept up by

fresh supplies, as Dr. Knox and other more or less wise persons

have maintained. It may turn out the other way, as I have heard

one of our literary celebrities argue,--and though I took the other

side, I liked his best,--that the American is the Englishman

reinforced.

--Will you walk out and look at those elms with me after

breakfast?--I said to the schoolmistress.

[I am not going to tell lies about it, and say that she blushed,

--as I suppose she ought to have done, at such a tremendous piece of

gallantry as that was for our boarding-house. On the contrary, she

turned a little pale,--but smiled brightly and said,--Yes, with

pleasure, but she must walk towards her school.--She went for her

bonnet.--The old gentleman opposite followed her with his eyes, and

said he wished he was a young fellow. Presently she came down,

looking very pretty in her half-mourning bonnet, and carrying a

school-book in her hand.]

MY FIRST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS.

This is the shortest way,--she said, as we came to a corner.--Then

we won't take it,--said I.--The schoolmistress laughed a little,

and said she was ten minutes early, so she could go round.

We walked under Mr. Paddock's row of English elms. The gray

squirrels were out looking for their breakfasts, and one of them

came toward us in light, soft, intermittent leaps, until he was

close to the rail of the burial-ground. He was on a grave with a

broad blue-slate-stone at its head, and a shrub growing on it. The

stone said this was the grave of a young man who was the son of an

Honorable gentleman, and who died a hundred years ago and more.

--Oh, yes, DIED,--with a small triangular mark in one breast, and

another smaller opposite, in his back, where another young man's

rapier had slid through his body; and so he lay down out there on

the Common, and was found cold the next morning, with the

night-dews and the death-dews mingled on his forehead.

Let us have one look at poor Benjamin's grave,--said I.--His bones

lie where his body was laid so long ago, and where the stone says

they lie,--which is more than can be said of most of the tenants of

this and several other burial-grounds.

[The most accursed act of Vandalism ever committed within my

knowledge was the uprooting of the ancient gravestones in three at

least of our city burialgrounds, and one at least just outside the

city, and planting them in rows to suit the taste for symmetry of

the perpetrators. Many years ago, when this disgraceful process

was going on under my eyes, I addressed an indignant remonstrance

to a leading journal. I suppose it was deficient in literary

elegance, or too warm in its language; for no notice was taken of

it, and the hyena-horror was allowed to complete itself in the face

of daylight. I have never got over it. The bones of my own

ancestors, being entombed, lie beneath their own tablet; but the

upright stones have been shuffled about like chessmen, and nothing

short of the Day of Judgment will tell whose dust lies beneath any

of those records, meant by affection to mark one small spot as

sacred to some cherished memory. Shame! shame! shame!--that is all

I can say. It was on public thoroughfares, under the eye of

authority, that this infamy was enacted. The red Indians would

have known better; the selectmen of an African kraal-village would

have had more respect for their ancestors. I should like to see

the gravestones which have been disturbed all removed, and the

ground levelled, leaving the flat tombstones; epitaphs were never

famous for truth, but the old reproach of "Here LIES" never had

such a wholesale illustration as in these outraged burial-places,

where the stone does lie above, and the bones do not lie beneath.]

Stop before we turn away, and breathe a woman's sigh over poor

Benjamin's dust. Love killed him, I think. Twenty years old, and

out there fighting another young fellow on the Common, in the cool

of that old July evening;--yes, there must have been love at the

bottom of it.

The schoolmistress dropped a rosebud she had in her hand, through

the rails, upon the grave of Benjamin Woodbridge. That was all her

comment upon what I told her.--How women love Love! said I;--but

she did not speak.

We came opposite the head of a place or court running eastward from

the main street.--Look down there,--I said,--My friend the

Professor lived in that house at the left hand, next the further

corner, for years and years. He died out of it, the other day.

--Died?--said the schoolmistress.--Certainly,--said I.--We die out of

houses, just as we die out of our bodies. A commercial smash kills

a hundred men's houses for them, as a railroad crash kills their

mortal frames and drives out the immortal tenants. Men sicken of

houses until at last they quit them, as the soul leaves its body

when it is tired of its infirmities. The body has been called "the

house we live in"; the house is quite as much the body we live in.

Shall I tell you some things the Professor said the other day?

--Do!--said the schoolmistress.

A man's body,--said the Professor,--is whatever is occupied by his

will and his sensibility. The small room down there, where I wrote

those papers you remember reading, was much more a portion of my

body than a paralytic's senseless and motionless arm or leg is of

his.

The soul of a man has a series of concentric envelopes round it,

like the core of an onion, or the innermost of a nest of boxes.

First, he has his natural garment of flesh and blood. Then, his

artificial integuments, with their true skin of solid stuffs, their

cuticle of lighter tissues, and their variously-tinted pigments.

Thirdly, his domicile, be it a single chamber or a stately mansion.

And then, the whole visible world, in which Time buttons him up as

in a loose outside wrapper.

You shall observe,--the Professor said,--for, like Mr. John Hunter

and other great men, he brings in that SHALL with great effect

sometimes,--you shall observe that a man's clothing or series of

envelopes does after a certain time mould itself upon his

individual nature. We know this of our hats, and are always

reminded of it when we happen to put them on wrong side foremost.

We soon find that the beaver is a hollow cast of the skull, with

all its irregular bumps and depressions. Just so all that clothes

a man, even to the blue sky which caps his head,--a little

loosely,--shapes itself to fit each particular being beneath it.

Farmers, sailors, astronomers, poets, lovers, condemned criminals,

all find it different, according to the eyes with which they

severally look.

But our houses shape themselves palpably on our inner and outer

natures. See a householder breaking up and you will be sure of it.

There is a shell-fish which builds all manner of smaller shells

into the walls of its own. A house is never a home until we have

crusted it with the spoils of a hundred lives besides those of our

own past. See what these are and you can tell what the occupant

is.

I had no idea,--said the Professor,--until I pulled up my domestic

establishment the other day, what an enormous quantity of roots I

had been making during the years I was planted there. Why, there

wasn't a nook or a corner that some fibre had not worked its way

into; and when I gave the last wrench, each of them seemed to

shriek like a mandrake, as it broke its hold and came away.

There is nothing that happens, you know, which must not inevitably,

and which does not actually, photograph itself in every conceivable

aspect and in all dimensions. The infinite galleries of the Past

await but one brief process and all their pictures will be called

out and fixed forever. We had a curious illustration of the great

fact on a very humble scale. When a certain bookcase, long

standing in one place, for which it was built, was removed, there

was the exact image on the wall of the whole, and of many of its

portions. But in the midst of this picture was another,--the

precise outline of a map which had hung on the wall before the

bookcase was built. We had all forgotten everything about the map

until we saw its photograph on the wall. Then we remembered it, as

some day or other we may remember a sin which has been built over

and covered up, when this lower universe is pulled away from before

the wall of Infinity, where the wrong-doing stands self-recorded.

The Professor lived in that house a long time,--not twenty years,

but pretty near it. When he entered that door, two shadows glided

over the threshold; five lingered in the doorway when he passed

through it for the last time,--and one of the shadows was claimed

by its owner to be longer than his own. What changes he saw in

that quiet place! Death rained through every roof but his;

children came into life, grew to maturity, wedded, faded away,

threw themselves away; the whole drama of life was played in that

stock-company's theatre of a dozen houses, one of which was his,

and no deep sorrow or severe calamity ever entered his dwelling.

Peace be to those walls, forever,--the Professor said,--for the

many pleasant years he has passed within them!

The Professor has a friend, now living at a distance, who has been

with him in many of his changes of place, and who follows him in

imagination with tender interest wherever he goes.--In that little

court, where he lived in gay loneliness so long,--

--in his autumnal sojourn by the Connecticut, where it comes

loitering down from its mountain fastnesses like a great lord,

swallowing up the small proprietary rivulets very quietly as it

goes, until it gets proud and swollen and wantons in huge luxurious

oxbows about the fair Northampton meadows, and at last overflows

the oldest inhabitant's memory in profligate freshets at Hartford

and all along its lower shores,--up in that caravansary on the

banks of the stream where Ledyard launched his log canoe, and the

jovial old Colonel used to lead the Commencement processions,

--where blue Ascutney looked down from the far distance, and the

hills of Beulah, as the Professor always called them, rolled up the

opposite horizon in soft climbing masses, so suggestive of the

Pilgrim's Heavenward Path that he used to look through his old

"Dollond" to see if the Shining Ones were not within range of

sight,--sweet visions, sweetest in those Sunday walks which carried

them by the peaceful common, through the solemn village lying in

cataleptic stillness under the shadow of the rod of Moses, to the

terminus of their harmless stroll,--the patulous fage, in the

Professor's classic dialect,--the spreading beech, in more familiar

phrase,--[stop and breathe here a moment, for the sentence is not

done yet, and we have another long journey before us,]--

--and again once more up among those other hills that shut in the

amber-flowing Housatonic,--dark stream, but clear, like the lucid

orbs that shine beneath the lids of auburn-haired, sherry-wine-eyed

demi-blondes,--in the home overlooking the winding stream and the

smooth, flat meadow; looked down upon by wild hills, where the

tracks of bears and catamounts may yet sometimes be seen upon the

winter snow; facing the twin summits which rise in the far North,

the highest waves of the great land-storm in all this billowy

region,--suggestive to mad fancies of the breasts of a half-buried

Titaness, stretched out by a stray thunderbolt, and hastily hidden

away beneath the leaves of the forest,--in that home where seven

blessed summers were passed, which stand in memory like the seven

golden candlesticks in the beatific vision of the holy dreamer,--

--in that modest dwelling we were just looking at, not glorious,

yet not unlovely in the youth of its drab and mahogany,--full of

great and little boys' playthings from top to bottom,--in all these

summer or winter nests he was always at home and always welcome.

This long articulated sigh of reminiscences,--this calenture which

shows me the maple-shadowed plains of Berkshire and the mountain-

circled green of Grafton beneath the salt waves which come feeling

their way along the wall at my feet, restless and soft-touching as

blind men's busy fingers,--is for that friend of mine who looks

into the waters of the Patapsco and sees beneath them the same

visions which paint themselves for me in the green depths of the

Charles.

--Did I talk all this off to the schoolmistress?--Why, no,--of

course not. I have been talking with you, the reader, for the last

ten minutes. You don't think I should expect any woman to listen

to such a sentence as that long one, without giving her a chance to

put in a word?

--What did I say to the schoolmistress?--Permit me one moment. I

don't doubt your delicacy and good-breeding; but in this particular

case, as I was allowed the privilege of walking alone with a very

interesting young woman, you must allow me to remark, in the

classic version of a familiar phrase, used by our Master Benjamin

Franklin, it is nullum tui negotii.

When the schoolmistress and I reached the school-room door, the

damask roses I spoke of were so much heightened in color by

exercise that I felt sure it would be useful to her to take a

stroll like this every morning, and made up my mind I would ask her

to let me join her again.

EXTRACT FROM MY PRIVATE JOURNAL.

(To be burned unread.)

I am afraid I have been a fool; for I have told as much of myself

to this young person as if she were of that ripe and discreet age

which invites confidence and expansive utterance. I have been

low-spirited and listless, lately,--it is coffee, I think,

--(I observe that which is bought READY-GROUND never affects the

head,)--and I notice that I tell my secrets too easily when I am

downhearted.

There are inscriptions on our hearts, which, like that on Dighton

Rock, are never to be seen except at dead-low tide.

There is a woman's footstep on the sand at the side of my deepest

ocean-buried inscription!

--Oh, no, no, no! a thousand times, no!--Yet what is this which has

been shaping itself in my soul?--Is it a thought?--is it a dream?

--is it a PASSION?--Then I know what comes next.

--The Asylum stands on a bright and breezy hill; those glazed

corridors are pleasant to walk in, in bad weather. But there are

iron bars to all the windows. When it is fair, some of us can

stroll outside that very high fence. But I never see much life in

those groups I sometimes meet;--and then the careful man watches

them so closely! How I remember that sad company I used to pass on

fine mornings, when I was a schoolboy!--B., with his arms full of

yellow weeds,--ore from the gold mines which he discovered long

before we heard of California,--Y., born to millions, crazed by too

much plum-cake, (the boys said,) dogged, explosive,--made a

Polyphemus of my weak-eyed schoolmaster, by a vicious flirt with a

stick,--(the multi-millonnaires sent him a trifle, it was said, to

buy another eye with; but boys are jealous of rich folks, and I

don't doubt the good people made him easy for life,)--how I

remember them all!

I recollect, as all do, the story of the Hall of Eblis, in

"Vathek," and how each shape, as it lifted its hand from its

breast, showed its heart,--a burning coal. The real Hall of Eblis

stands on yonder summit. Go there on the next visiting-day, and

ask that figure crouched in the corner, huddled up like those

Indian mummies and skeletons found buried in the sitting posture,

to lift its hand,--look upon its heart, and behold, not fire, but

ashes.--No, I must not think of such an ending! Dying would be a

much more gentlemanly way of meeting the difficulty. Make a will

and leave her a house or two and some stocks, and other little

financial conveniences, to take away her necessity for keeping

school.--I wonder what nice young man's feet would be in my French

slippers before six months were over! Well, what then? If a man

really loves a woman, of course he wouldn't marry her for the

world, if he were not quite sure that he was the best person she

could by any possibility marry.

--It is odd enough to read over what I have just been writing.--It

is the merest fancy that ever was in the world. I shall never be

married. She will; and if she is as pleasant as she has been so

far, I will give her a silver tea-set, and go and take tea with her

and her husband, sometimes. No coffee, I hope, though,--it

depresses me sadly. I feel very miserably;--they must have been

grinding it at home.--Another morning walk will be good for me, and

I don't doubt the schoolmistress will be glad of a little fresh air

before school.

--The throbbing flushes of the poetical intermittent have been

coming over me from time to time of late. Did you ever see that

electrical experiment which consists in passing a flash through

letters of gold-leaf in a darkened room, whereupon some name or

legend springs out of the darkness in characters of fire?

There are songs all written out in my soul, which I could read, if

the flash might pass through them,--but the fire must come down

from heaven. Ah! but what if the stormy nimbus of youthful passion

has blown by, and one asks for lightning from the ragged cirrus of

dissolving aspirations, or the silvered cumulus of sluggish

satiety? I will call on her whom the dead poets believed in, whom

living ones no longer worship,--the immortal maid, who, name her

what you will,--Goddess, Muse, Spirit of Beauty,--sits by the

pillow of every youthful poet, and bends over his pale forehead

until her tresses lie upon his cheek and rain their gold into his

dreams.

MUSA.

O my lost Beauty!--hast thou folded quite

Thy wings of morning light

Beyond those iron gates

Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates,

And Age upon his mound of ashes waits

To chill our fiery dreams,

Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?

Leave me not fading in these weeds of care,

Whose flowers are silvered hair!--

Have I not loved thee long,

Though my young lips have often done thee wrong

And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song?

Ah, wilt thou yet return,

Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?

Come to me!--I will flood thy silent shine

With my soul's sacred wine,

And heap thy marble floors

As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores

In leafy islands walled with madrepores

And lapped in Orient seas,

When all their feathery palm toss, plume-like, in the breeze.

Come to me!--thou shalt feed on honied words,

Sweeter than song of birds;--

No wailing bulbul's throat,

No melting dulcimer's melodious note,

When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float,

Thy ravished sense might soothe

With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth.

Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen,

Sought in those bowers of green

Where loop the clustered vines

And the close-clinging dulcamara twines,--

Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines,

And Summer's fruited gems,

And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems.

Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves,--

Or stretched by grass-grown graves,

Whose gray, high-shouldered stones,

Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns,

Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones

Still slumbering where they lay

While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away.

Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing!

Still let me dream and sing,--

Dream of that winding shore

Where scarlet cardinals bloom,--for me no more,--

The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor,

And clustering nenuphars

Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!

Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed!--

Come while the rose is red,--

While blue-eyed Summer smiles

On the green ripples round you sunken piles

Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles,

And on the sultry air

The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!

Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain

With thrills of wild sweet pain!--

On life's autumnal blast,

Like shrivelled leaves, youth's, passion-flowers are cast,--

Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!--

Behold thy new-decked shrine,

And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!"

CHAPTER XI

[The company looked a little flustered one morning when I came in,

--so much so, that I inquired of my neighbor, the divinity-student,)

what had been going on. It appears that the young fellow whom they

call John had taken advantage of my being a little late (I having

been rather longer than usual dressing that morning) to circulate

several questions involving a quibble or play upon words,--in

short, containing that indignity to the human understanding,

condemned in the passages from the distinguished moralist of the

last century and the illustrious historian of the present, which I

cited on a former occasion, and known as a PUN. After breakfast,

one of the boarders handed me a small roll of paper containing some

of the questions and their answers. I subjoin two or three of

them, to show what a tendency there is to frivolity and meaningless

talk in young persons of a certain sort, when not restrained by the

presence of more reflective natures.--It was asked, "Why tertian

and quartan fevers were like certain short-lived insects." Some

interesting physiological relation would be naturally suggested.

The inquirer blushes to find that the answer is in the paltry

equivocation, that they SKIP a day or two.--"Why an Englishman must

go to the Continent to weaken his grog or punch." The answer

proves to have no relation whatever to the temperance-movement, as

no better reason is given than that island--(or, as it is absurdly

written, ILE AND) water won't mix.--But when I came to the next

question and its answer, I felt that patience ceased to be a

virtue. "Why an onion is like a piano" is a query that a person of

sensibility would be slow to propose; but that in an educated

community an individual could be found to answer it in these

words,--"Because it smell odious," quasi, it's melodious,--is not

credible, but too true. I can show you the paper.

Dear reader, I beg your pardon for repeating such things. I know

most conversations reported in books are altogether above such

trivial details, but folly will come up at every table as surely as

purslain and chickweed and sorrel will come up in gardens. This

young fellow ought to have talked philosophy, I know perfectly

well; but he didn't,--he made jokes.]

I am willing,--I said,--to exercise your ingenuity in a rational

and contemplative manner.--No, I do not proscribe certain forms of

philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd

or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio

of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations,

"De Sancto Matrimonio." I will therefore turn this levity of yours

to profit by reading you a rhymed problem, wrought out by my friend

the Professor.

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE:

OR THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS-SHAY."

A LOGICAL STORY.

Have you heard of the wonderful one-shay,

That was built in such a logical way

It ran a hundred years to a day,

And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay,

I'll tell you what happened without delay,

Scaring the parson into fits,

Frightening people out of their wits,--

Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.

Georgius Secundus was then alive,--

Snuffy old drone from the German hive.

That was the year when Lisbon-town

Saw the earth open and gulp her down,

And Braddock's army was done so brown,

Left without a scalp to its crown.

It was on the terrible Earthquake-day

That the Deacon finished the one-hoss-shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,

There is always SOMEWHERE a weakest spot,--

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,

In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,

In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still

Find it somewhere you must and will,--

Above or below, or within or without,--

And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,

A chaise BREASTS DOWN, but doesn't WEAR OUT.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,

With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell YEOU,")

He would build one shay to beat the taown

'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';

It should be so built that it COULDN' break daown--

--"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain

Thut the weakes' place mus' stan the strain;

'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,

Is only jest

T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk

Where he could find the strongest oak,

That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,--

That was for spokes and floor and sills;

He sent for lancewood to make the thills;

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;

The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,

But lasts like iron for things like these;

The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"--

Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em,

Never an axe had seen their chips,

And the wedges flew from between their lips,

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;

Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,

Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,

Steel of the finest, bright and blue;

Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide

Found in the pit when the tanner died.

That was the way he "put her through."--

"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew."

Do! I tell you, I father guess

She was a wonder, and nothing less!

Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,

Deacon and deaconess dropped away,

Children and grand-children--where were they?

But there stood the stout old one-hoss-shay

As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--it came and found

The Deacon's Masterpiece strong and sound.

Eighteen hundred increased by ten;--

"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.

Eighteen hundred and twenty came;--

Running as usual; much the same.

Thirty and forty at last arrive,

And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year

Without both feeling and looking queer.

In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,

So far as I know, but a tree and truth.

(This is a moral that runs at large;

Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day.--

There are traces of age in the one-hoss-shay.

A general flavor of mild decay,

But nothing local, as one may say.

There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art

Had made it so like in every part

That there wasn't a chance for one to start.

For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,

And the floor was just as strong as the sills,

And the panels just as strong as the floor,

And the whippletree neither less nor more,

And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,

And spring and axle and hub encore.

And yet, AS A WHOLE, it is past a doubt

In another hour it will be WORN OUT!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!

This morning the parson takes a drive.

Now, small boys, get out of the way!

Here comes the wonderful one-horse-shay,

Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.

"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they.

The parson was working his Sunday's text,--

Had got to FIFTHLY, and stopped perplexed

At what the--Moses--was coming next.

All at once the horse stood still,

Close by the meet'n-house on the hill.

--First a shiver, and then a thrill,

Then something decidedly like a spill,--

And the parson was sitting upon a rock,

At half-past nine by the meet'n-house clock,--

Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

--What do you think the parson found,

When he got up and stared around?

The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,

As if it had been to the mill and ground!

You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,

How it went to pieces all at once,--

All at once, and nothing first,--

Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss-shay.

Logic is logic. That's all I say.

--I think there is one habit,--I said to our company a day or two

afterwards--worse than that of punning. It is the gradual

substitution of cant or flash terms for words which truly

characterize their objects. I have known several very genteel

idiots whose whole vocabulary had deliquesced into some half dozen

expressions. All things fell into one of two great categories,

--FAST or SLOW. Man's chief end was to be a BRICK. When the great

calamities of life overtook their friends, these last were spoken

of as being a GOOD DEAL CUT UP. Nine-tenths of human existence

were summed up in the single word, BORE. These expressions come to

be the algebraic symbols of minds which have grown too weak or

indolent to discriminate. They are the blank checks of

intellectual bankruptcy;--you may fill them up with what idea you

like; it makes no difference, for there are no funds in the

treasury upon which they are drawn. Colleges and good-for-nothing

smoking-clubs are the places where these conversational fungi

spring up most luxuriantly. Don't think I undervalue the proper

use and application of a cant word or phrase. It adds piquancy to

conversation, as a mushroom does to a sauce. But it is no better

than a toadstool, odious to the sense and poisonous to the

intellect, when it spawns itself all over the talk of men and

youths capable of talking, as it sometimes does. As we hear flash

phraseology, it is commonly the dishwater from the washings of

English dandyism, school-boy or full-grown, wrung out of a

three-volume novel which had sopped it up, or decanted from the

pictured urn of Mr. Verdant Green, and diluted to suit the provincial

climate.

--The young fellow called John spoke up sharply and said, it was

"rum" to hear me "pitchin' into fellers" for "goin' it in the slang

line," when I used all the flash words myself just when I pleased.

--I replied with my usual forbearance.--Certainly, to give up the

algebraic symbol, because A or B is often a cover for ideal

nihility, would be unwise. I have heard a child laboring to

express a certain condition, involving a hitherto undescribed

sensation (as it supposed,) all of which could have been

sufficiently explained by the participle--BORED. I have seen a

country-clergyman, with a one-story intellect and a one-horse

vocabulary, who has consumed his valuable time (and mine) freely,

in developing an opinion of a brother-minister's discourse which

would have been abundantly characterized by a peach-down-lipped

sophomore in the one word--SLOW. Let us discriminate, and be shy

of absolute proscription. I am omniverbivorous by nature and

training. Passing by such words as are poisonous, I can swallow

most others, and chew such as I cannot swallow.

Dandies are not good for much, but they are good for something.

They invent or keep in circulation those conversational blank

checks or counters just spoken of, which intellectual capitalists

may sometimes find it worth their while to borrow of them. They

are useful, too, in keeping up the standard of dress, which, but

for them, would deteriorate, and become, what some old fools would

have it, a matter of convenience, and not of taste and art. Yes, I

like dandies well enough,--on one condition.

--What is that, Sir?--said the divinity-student.

--That they have pluck. I find that lies at the bottom of all true

dandyism. A little boy dressed up very fine, who puts his finger

in his mouth and takes to crying, if other boys make fun of him,

looks very silly. But if he turns red in the face and knotty in

the fists, and makes an example of the biggest of his assailants,

throwing off his fine Leghorn and his thickly-buttoned jacket, if

necessary, to consummate the act of justice, his small toggery

takes on the splendors of the crested helmet that frightened

Astyanax. You remember that the Duke said his dandy officers were

his best officers. The "Sunday blood," the super-superb sartorial

equestrian of our annual Fast-day, is not imposing or dangerous.

But such fellows as Brummel and D'Orsay and Byron are not to be

snubbed quite so easily. Look out for "la main de fer sous le gant

de velours," (which I printed in English the other day without

quotation-marks, thinking whether any scarabaeus criticus would add

this to his globe and roll in glory with it into the newspapers,

--which he didn't do it, in the charming pleonasm of the London

language, and therefore I claim the sole merit of exposing the

same.) A good many powerful and dangerous people have had a

decided dash of dandyism about them. There was Alcibiades, the

"curled son of Clinias," an accomplished young man, but what would

be called a "swell" in these days. There was Aristoteles, a very

distinguished writer, of whom you have heard,--a philosopher, in

short, whom it took centuries to learn, centuries to unlearn, and

is now going to take a generation or more to learn over again.

Regular dandy, he was. So was Marcus Antonius; and though he lost

his game, he played for big stakes, and it wasn't his dandyism that

spoiled his chance. Petrarca was not to be despised as a scholar

or a poet, but he was one of the same sort. So was Sir Humphrey

Davy; so was Lord Palmerston, formerly, if I am not forgetful.

Yes,--a dandy is good for something as such; and dandies such as I

was just speaking of have rocked this planet like a cradle,--aye,

and left it swinging to this day.--Still, if I were you, I wouldn't

go to the tailor's, on the strength of these remarks, and run up a

long bill which will render pockets a superfluity in your next

suit. Elegans "nascitur, non fit." A man is born a dandy, as he

is born a poet. There are heads that can't wear hats; there are

necks that can't fit cravats; there are jaws that can't fill out

collars--(Willis touched this last point in one of his earlier

ambrotypes, if I remember rightly); there are tournures nothing can

humanize, and movements nothing can subdue to the gracious suavity

or elegant languor or stately serenity which belong to different

styles of dandyism.

We are forming an aristocracy, as you may observe, in this

country,--not a gratia-Dei, nor a juredivino one,--but a de-facto

upper stratum of being, which floats over the turbid waves of

common life like the iridescent film you may have seen spreading

over the water about our wharves,--very splendid, though its origin

may have been tar, tallow, train-oil, or other such unctuous

commodities. I say, then, we are forming an aristocracy; and,

transitory as its individual life often is, it maintains itself

tolerably, as a whole. Of course, money is its corner-stone. But

now observe this. Money kept for two or three generations

transforms a race,--I don't mean merely in manners and hereditary

culture, but in blood and bone. Money buys air and sunshine, in

which children grow up more kindly, of course, than in close, back

streets; it buys country-places to give them happy and healthy

summers, good nursing, good doctoring, and the best cuts of beef

and mutton. When the spring-chickens come to market--I beg your

pardon,--that is not what I was going to speak of. As the young

females of each successive season come on, the finest specimens

among them, other things being equal, are apt to attract those who

can afford the expensive luxury of beauty. The physical character

of the next generation rises in consequence. It is plain that

certain families have in this way acquired an elevated type of face

and figure, and that in a small circle of city-connections one may

sometimes find models of both sexes which one of the rural counties

would find it hard to match from all its townships put together.

Because there is a good deal of running down, of degeneration and

waste of life, among the richer classes, you must not overlook the

equally obvious fact I have just spoken of,--which in one or two

generations more will be, I think, much more patent than just now.

The weak point in our chryso-aristocracy is the same I have alluded

to in connection with cheap dandyism. Its thorough manhood, its

high-caste gallantry, are not so manifest as the plate-glass of

its windows and the more or less legitimate heraldry of its

coach-panels. It is very curious to observe of how small account

military folks are held among our Northern people. Our young men

must gild their spurs, but they need not win them. The equal

division of property keeps the younger sons of rich people above

the necessity of military service. Thus the army loses an element

of refinement, and the moneyed upper class forgets what it is to

count heroism among its virtues. Still I don't believe in any

aristocracy without pluck as its backbone. Ours may show it when

the time comes, if it ever does come.

--These United States furnish the greatest market for intellectual

GREEN FRUIT of all the places in the world. I think so, at any

rate. The demand for intellectual labor is so enormous and the

market so far from nice, that young talent is apt to fare like

unripe gooseberries,--get plucked to make a fool of. Think of a

country which buys eighty thousand copies of the "Proverbial

Philosophy," while the author's admiring countrymen have been

buying twelve thousand! How can one let his fruit hang in the sun

until it gets fully ripe, while there are eighty thousand such

hungry mouths ready to swallow it and proclaim its praises?

Consequently, there never was such a collection of crude pippins

and half-grown windfalls as our native literature displays among

its fruits. There are literary green-groceries at every corner,

which will buy anything, from a button-pear to a pine-apple. It

takes a long apprenticeship to train a whole people to reading and

writing. The temptation of money and fame is too great for young

people. Do I not remember that glorious moment when the late Mr.----

we won't say who,--editor of the--we won't say what, offered me the

sum of fifty cents per double-columned quarto page for shaking my

young boughs over his foolscap apron? Was it not an intoxicating

vision of gold and glory? I should doubtless have revelled in its

wealth and splendor, but for learning that the FIFTY CENTS was to

be considered a rhetorical embellishment, and by no means a literal

expression of past fact or present intention.

--Beware of making your moral staple consist of the negative

virtues. It is good to abstain, and teach others to abstain, from

all that is sinful or hurtful. But making a business of it leads

to emaciation of character, unless one feeds largely also on the

more nutritious diet of active sympathetic benevolence.

--I don't believe one word of what you are saying,--spoke up the

angular female in black bombazine.

I am sorry you disbelieve it, Madam,--I said, and added softly to

my next neighbor,--but you prove it.

The young fellow sitting near me winked; and the divinity-student

said, in an undertone,--Optime dictum.

Your talking Latin,--said I,--reminds me of an odd trick of one of

my old tutors. He read so much of that language, that his English

half turned into it. He got caught in town, one hot summer, in

pretty close quarters, and wrote, or began to write, a series of

city pastorals. Eclogues he called them, and meant to have

published them by subscription. I remember some of his verses, if

you want to hear them.--You, Sir, (addressing myself to the

divinity-student,) and all such as have been through college, or,

what is the same thing, received an honorary degree, will

understand them without a dictionary. The old man had a great deal

to say about "aestivation," as he called it, in opposition, as one

might say, to hibernation. Intramural aestivation, or town-life in

summer, he would say, is a peculiar form of suspended existence, or

semi-asphyxia. One wakes up from it about the beginning of the

last week in September. This is what I remember of his poem:-

AESTIVATION.

An Unpublished Poem, by my late Latin Tutor

In candent ire the solar splendor flames;

The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames;

His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,

And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes,

Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,

Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,

And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!

To me, alas! no verdurous visions come,

Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum,--

No concave vast repeats the tender hue

That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue!

Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades

Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!

Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,--

Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump!

--I have lived by the sea-shore and by the mountains.--No, I am not

going to say which is best. The one where your place is is the

best for you. But this difference there is: you can domesticate

mountains, but the sea is ferae naturae. You may have a hut, or

know the owner of one, on the mountain-side; you see a light

half-way up its ascent in the evening, and you know there is a home,

and you might share it. You have noted certain trees, perhaps; you

know the particular zone where the hemlocks look so black in

October, when the maples and beeches have faded. All its reliefs

and intaglios have electrotyped themselves in the medallions that

hang round the walls of your memory's chamber.--The sea remembers

nothing. It is feline. It licks your feet,--its huge flanks purr

very pleasantly for you; but it will crack your bones and eat you,

for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if

nothing had happened. The mountains give their lost children

berries and water; the sea mocks their thirst and lets them die.

The mountains have a grand, stupid, lovable tranquillity; the sea

has a fascinating, treacherous intelligence. The mountains lie

about like huge ruminants, their broad backs awful to look upon,

but safe to handle. The sea smooths its silver scales until you

cannot see their joints,--but their shining is that of a snake's

belly, after all.--In deeper suggestiveness I find as great a

difference. The mountains dwarf mankind and foreshorten the

procession of its long generations. The sea drowns out humanity

and time; it has no sympathy with either; for it belongs to

eternity, and of that it sings its monotonous song forever and

ever.

Yet I should love to have a little box by the seashore. I should

love to gaze out on the wild feline element from a front window of

my own, just as I should love to look on a caged panther, and see

it, stretch its shining length, and then curl over and lap its

smooth sides, and by-and-by begin to lash itself into rage and show

its white teeth and spring at its bars, and howl the cry of its

mad, but, to me, harmless fury.--And then,--to look at it with that

inward eye,--who does not love to shuffle off time and its

concerns, at intervals,--to forget who is President and who is

Governor, what race he belongs to, what language he speaks, which

golden-headed nail of the firmament his particular planetary system

is hung upon, and listen to the great liquid metronome as it beats

its solemn measure, steadily swinging when the solo or duet of

human life began, and to swing just as steadily after the human

chorus has died out and man is a fossil on its shores?

--What should decide one, in choosing a summer residence?

--Constitution, first of all. How much snow could you melt in an

hour, if you were planted in a hogshead of it? Comfort is

essential to enjoyment. All sensitive people should remember that

persons in easy circumstances suffer much more cold in summer--that

is, the warm half of the year--than in winter, or the other half.

You must cut your climate to your constitution, as much as your

clothing to your shape. After this, consult your taste and

convenient. But if you would be happy in Berkshire, you must carry

mountains in your brain; and if you would enjoy Nahant, you must

have an ocean in your soul. Nature plays at dominos with you; you

must match her piece, or she will never give it up to you.

--The schoolmistress said, in a rather mischievous way, that she

was afraid some minds or souls would be a little crowded, if they

took in the Rocky Mountains or the Atlantic.

Have you ever read the little book called "The Stars and the

Earth?"--said I.--Have you seen the Declaration of Independence

photographed in a surface that a fly's foot would cover? The forms

or conditions of Time and Space, as Kant will tell you, are nothing

in themselves,--only our way of looking at things. You are right,

I think, however, in recognizing the category of Space as being

quite as applicable to minds as to the outer world. Every man of

reflection is vaguely conscious of an imperfectly-defined circle

which is drawn about his intellect. He has a perfectly clear sense

that the fragments of his intellectual circle include the curves of

many other minds of which he is cognizant. He often recognizes

these as manifestly concentric with his own, but of less radius.

On the other hand, when we find a portion of an are on the outside

of our own, we say it INTERSECTS ours, but are very slow to confess

or to see that it CIRCUMSCRIBES it. Every now and then a man's

mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks

back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt

that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of its

elasticity, and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I

had to spread these to fit it.

--If I thought I should ever see the Alps!--said the

schoolmistress.

Perhaps you will, some time or other,--I said.

It is not very likely,--she answered.--I have had one or two

opportunities, but I had rather be anything than governess in a

rich family.

[Proud, too, you little soft-voiced woman! Well, I can't say I

like you any the worse for it. How long will school-keeping take

to kill you? Is it possible the poor thing works with her needle,

too? I don't like those marks on the side of her forefinger.

Tableau. Chamouni. Mont Blanc in full view. Figures in the

foreground; two of them standing apart; one of them a gentleman

of--oh,--ah,--yes! the other a lady in a white cashmere, leaning on

his shoulder.--The ingenuous reader will understand that this was

an internal, private, personal, subjective diorama, seen for one

instant on the background of my own consciousness, and abolished

into black nonentity by the first question which recalled me to

actual life, as suddenly as if one of those iron shop-blinds (which

I always pass at dusk with a shiver, expecting to stumble over some

poor but honest shop-boy's head, just taken off by its sudden and

unexpected descent, and left outside upon the sidewalk) had come

down in front of it "by the run."]

--Should you like to hear what moderate wishes life brings one to

at last? I used to be very ambitious,--wasteful, extravagant, and

luxurious in all my fancies. Read too much in the "Arabian

Nights." Must have the lamp,--couldn't do without the ring.

Exercise every morning on the brazen horse. Plump down into

castles as full of little milk-white princesses as a nest is of

young sparrows. All love me dearly at once.--Charming idea of

life, but too high-colored for the reality. I have outgrown all

this; my tastes have become exceedingly primitive,--almost,

perhaps, ascetic. We carry happiness into our condition, but must

not hope to find it there. I think you will be willing to hear

some lines which embody the subdued and limited desires of my

maturity.

CONTENTMENT.

"Man wants but little here below."

Little I ask, my wants are few;

I only wish a hut of stone,

(A VERY PLAIN brown stone will do,)

That I may call my own;--

And close at hand is such a one,

In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;

Three courses are as good as ten;--

If Nature can subsist on three,

Thank heaven for three. Amen!

I always thought cold victual nice;--

My CHOICE would be vanilla-ice.

I care not much for gold or land;--

Give me a mortgage here and there,--

Some good bank-stock,--some note of hand,

Or trifling railroad share;--

I only ask that Fortune send

A LITTLE more than I shall spend.

Honors are silly toys, I know,

And titles are but empty names;--

I would, PERHAPS, be Plenipo,--

But only near St. James;--

I'm very sure I should not care

To fill our Gubernator's chair.

Jewels are baubles; 'tis a sin

To care for such unfruitful things;--

One good-sized diamond in a pin,--

Some, NOT SO LARGE, in rings,--

A ruby and a pearl, or so,

Will do for me;--I laugh at show.

My dame should dress in cheap attire;

(Good, heavy silks are never dear;)--

I own perhaps I MIGHT desire

Some shawls of true cashmere,--

Some marrowy crapes of China silk,

Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.

I would not have the horse I drive

So fast that folks must stop and stare

An easy gait--two, forty-five--

Suits me; I do not care;--

Perhaps, for just a SINGLE SPURT,

Some seconds less would do no hurt.

Of pictures, I should like to own

Titians and Raphaels three or four,--

I love so much their style and tone,--

One Turner, and no more,--

(A landscape,--foreground golden dirt

The sunshine painted with a squirt.)

Of books but few,--some fifty score

For daily use, and bound for wear;

The rest upon an upper floor;--

Some LITTLE luxury THERE

Of red morocco's gilded gleam,

And vellum rich as country cream.

Busts, cameos, gems,--such things as these,

Which others often show for pride,

_I_ value for their power to please,

And selfish churls deride;--

ONE Stradivarius, I confess,

TWO Meerschaums, I would fain possess.

Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn,

Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;--

Shall not carved tables serve my turn,

But ALL must be of buhl?

Give grasping pomp its double share,--

I ask but ONE recumbent chair.

Thus humble let me live and die,

Nor long for Midas' golden touch,

If Heaven more generous gifts deny,

I shall not miss them MUCH,--

Too grateful for the blessing lent

Of simple tastes and mind content!

MY LAST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS.

(A Parenthesis.)

I can't say just how many walks she and I had taken together before

this one. I found the effect of going out every morning was

decidedly favorable on her health. Two pleasing dimples, the

places for which were just marked when she came, played, shadowy,

in her freshening cheeks when she smiled and nodded good-morning to

me from the school-house-steps.

I am afraid I did the greater part of the talking. At any rate, if

I should try to report all that I said during the first half-dozen

walks we took together, I fear that I might receive a gentle hint

from my friends the publishers, that a separate volume, at my own

risk and expense, would be the proper method of bringing them

before the public.

--I would have a woman as true as Death. At the first real lie

which works from the heart outward, she should be tenderly

chloroformed into a better world, where she can have an angel for a

governess, and feed on strange fruits which will make her all over

again, even to her bones and marrow.--Whether gifted with the

accident of beauty or not, she should have been moulded in the

rose-red clay of Love, before the breath of life made a moving

mortal of her. Love-capacity is a congenital endowment; and I

think, after a while, one gets to know the warm-hued natures it

belongs to from the pretty pipe-clay counterfeits of them.--Proud

she may be, in the sense of respecting herself; but pride in the

sense of contemning others less gifted than herself, deserves the

two lowest circles of a vulgar woman's Inferno, where the

punishments are Smallpox and Bankruptcy.--She who nips off the end

of a brittle courtesy, as one breaks the tip of an icicle, to

bestow upon those whom she ought cordially and kindly to recognize,

proclaims the fact that she comes not merely of low blood, but of

bad blood. Consciousness of unquestioned position makes people

gracious in proper measure to all; but if a woman puts on airs with

her real equals, she has something about herself or her family she

is ashamed of, or ought to be. Middle, and more than middle-aged

people, who know family histories, generally see through it. An

official of standing was rude to me once. Oh, that is the maternal

grandfather,--said a wise old friend to me,--he was a boor.--Better

too few words, from the woman we love, than too many: while she is

silent, Nature is working for her; while she talks, she is working

for herself.--Love is sparingly soluble in the words of men;

therefore they speak much of it; but one syllable of woman's speech

can dissolve more of it than a man's heart can hold.

--Whether I said any or all of these things to the schoolmistress,

or not,--whether I stole them out of Lord Bacon,--whether I cribbed

them from Balzac,--whether I dipped them from the ocean of

Tupperian wisdom,--or whether I have just found them in my head,

laid there by that solemn fowl, Experience, (who, according to my

observation, cackles oftener than she drops real live eggs,) I

cannot say. Wise men have said more foolish things,--and foolish

men, I don't doubt, have said as wise things. Anyhow, the

schoolmistress and I had pleasant walks and long talks, all of

which I do not feel bound to report.

--You are a stranger to me, Ma'am.--I don't doubt you would like to

know all I said to the schoolmistress.--I sha'n't do it;--I had

rather get the publishers to return the money you have invested in

this. Besides, I have forgotten a good deal of it. I shall tell

only what I like of what I remember.

--My idea was, in the first place, to search out the picturesque

spots which the city affords a sight of, to those who have eyes. I

know a good many, and it was a pleasure to look at them in company

with my young friend. There were the shrubs and flowers in the

Franklin-Place front-yards or borders; Commerce is just putting his

granite foot upon them. Then there are certain small seraglio-

gardens, into which one can get a peep through the crevices of high

fences,--one in Myrtle Street, or backing on it,--here and there

one at the North and South Ends. Then the great elms in Essex

Street. Then the stately horse-chestnuts in that vacant lot in

Chambers Street, which hold their outspread hands over your head,

(as I said in my poem the other day,) and look as if they were

whispering, "May grace, mercy, and peace be with you!"--and the

rest of that benediction. Nay, there are certain patches of

ground, which, having lain neglected for a time, Nature, who always

has her pockets full of seeds, and holes in all her pockets, has

covered with hungry plebeian growths, which fight for life with

each other, until some of them get broad-leaved and succulent, and

you have a coarse vegetable tapestry which Raphael would not have

disdained to spread over the foreground of his masterpiece. The

Professor pretends that he found such a one in Charles Street,

which, in its dare-devil impudence of rough-and-tumble vegetation,

beat the pretty-behaved flower-beds of the Public Garden as

ignominiously as a group of young tatterdemalions playing

pitch-and-toss beats a row of Sunday-school-boys with their

teacher at their head.

But then the Professor has one of his burrows in that region, and

puts everything in high colors relating to it. That is his way

about everything. I hold any man cheap,--he said,--of whom nothing

stronger can be uttered than that all his geese are swans.--How is

that, Professor?--said I;--I should have set you down for one of

that sort.--Sir,--said he,--I am proud to say, that Nature has so

far enriched me, that I cannot own so much as a duck without seeing

in it as pretty a swan as ever swam the basin in the garden of the

Luxembourg. And the Professor showed the whites of his eyes

devoutly, like one returning thanks after a dinner of many courses.

I don't know anything sweeter than this leaking in of Nature

through all the cracks in the walls and floors of cities. You heap

up a million tons of hewn rocks on a square mile or two of earth

which was green once. The trees look down from the hill-sides and

ask each other, as they stand on tiptoe,--"What are these people

about?" And the small herbs at their feet look up and whisper

back,--"We will go and see." So the small herbs pack themselves up

in the least possible bundles, and wait until the wind steals to

them at night and whispers, "Come with me." Then they go softly

with it into the great city,--one to a cleft in the pavement, one

to a spout on the roof, one to a seam in the marbles over a rich

gentleman's bones, and one to the grave without a stone where

nothing but a man is buried,--and there they grow, looking down on

the generations of men from mouldy roofs, looking up from between

the less-trodden pavements, looking out through iron cemetery-

railings. Listen to them, when there is only a light breath

stirring, and you will hear them saying to each other,--"Wait

awhile!" The words run along the telegraph of those narrow green

lines that border the roads leading from the city, until they reach

the slope of the hills, and the trees repeat in low murmurs to each

other,--"Wait awhile!" By-and-by the flow of life in the streets

ebbs, and the old leafy inhabitants--the smaller tribes always in

front--saunter in, one by one, very careless seemingly, but very

tenacious, until they swarm so that the great stones gape from each

other with the crowding of their roots, and the feldspar begins to

be picked out of the granite to find them food. At last the trees

take up their solemn line of march, and never rest until they have

encamped in the market-place. Wait long enough and you will find

an old doting oak hugging a huge worn block in its yellow

underground arms; that was the cornerstone of the State-House. Oh,

so patient she is, this imperturbable Nature!

--Let us cry!--

But all this has nothing to do with my walks and talks with the

schoolmistress. I did not say that I would not tell you something

about them. Let me alone, and I shall talk to you more than I

ought to, probably. We never tell our secrets to people that pump

for them.

Books we talked about, and education. It was her duty to know

something of these, and of course she did. Perhaps I was somewhat

more learned than she, but I found that the difference between her

reading and mine was like that of a man's and a woman's dusting a

library. The man flaps about with a bunch of feathers; the woman

goes to work softly with a cloth. She does not raise half the

dust, nor fill her own eyes and mouth with it,--but she goes into

all the corners, and attends to the leaves as much as the covers.

--Books are the NEGATIVE pictures of thought, and the more sensitive

the mind that receives their images, the more nicely the finest

lines are reproduced. A woman, (of the right kind,) reading after

a man, follows him as Ruth followed the reapers of Boaz, and her

gleanings are often the finest of the wheat.

But it was in talking of Life that we came most clearly together.

I thought I knew something about that,--that I could speak or write

about it somewhat to the purpose.

To take up this fluid earthly being of ours as a sponge sucks up

water,--to be steeped and soaked in its realities as a hide fills

its pores lying seven years in a tan-pit,--to have winnowed every

wave of it as a mill-wheel works up the stream that runs through

the flume upon its float-boards,--to have curled up in the keenest

spasms and flattened out in the laxest languors of this breathing-

sickness, which keeps certain parcels of matter uneasy for three or

four score years,--to have fought all the devils and clasped all

the angels of its delirium,--and then, just at the point when the

white-hot passions have cooled down to cherry-red, plunge our

experience into the ice-cold stream of some human language or

other, one might think would end in a rhapsody with something of

spring and temper in it. All this I thought my power and province.

The schoolmistress had tried life, too. Once in a while one meets

with a single soul greater than all the living pageant which passes

before it. As the pale astronomer sits in his study with sunken

eyes and thin fingers, and weighs Uranus or Neptune as in a

balance, so there are meek, slight women who have weighed all which

this planetary life can offer, and hold it like a bauble in the

palm of their slender hands. This was one of them. Fortune had

left her, sorrow had baptized her; the routine of labor and the

loneliness of almost friendless city-life were before her. Yet, as

I looked upon her tranquil face, gradually regaining a cheerfulness

which was often sprightly, as she became interested in the various

matters we talked about and places we visited, I saw that eye and

lip and every shifting lineament were made for love,--unconscious

of their sweet office as yet, and meeting the cold aspect of Duty

with the natural graces which were meant for the reward of nothing

less than the Great Passion.

--I never addressed one word of love to the schoolmistress in the

course of these pleasant walks. It seemed to me that we talked of

everything but love on that particular morning. There was,

perhaps, a little more timidity and hesitancy on my part than I

have commonly shown among our people at the boarding-house. In

fact, I considered myself the master at the breakfast-table; but,

somehow, I could not command myself just then so well as usual.

The truth is, I had secured a passage to Liverpool in the steamer

which was to leave at noon,--with the condition, however, of being

released in case circumstances occurred to detain me. The

schoolmistress knew nothing about all this, of course, as yet.

It was on the Common that we were walking. The MALL, or boulevard

of our Common, you know, has various branches leading from it in

different directions. One of these runs down from opposite Joy

Street southward across the whole length of the Common to Boylston

Street. We called it the long path, and were fond of it.

I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably robust habit) as we

came opposite the head of this path on that morning. I think I

tried to speak twice without making myself distinctly audible. At

last I got out the question,--Will you take the long path with me?

--Certainly,--said the schoolmistress,--with much pleasure.--Think,

--I said,--before you answer; if you take the long path with

me now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more!--The

schoolmistress stepped back with a sudden movement, as if an arrow

had struck her.

One of the long granite blocks used as seats was hard by,--the one

you may still see close by the Gingko-tree.--Pray, sit down,--I

said.--No, no, she answered, softly,--I will walk the LONG PATH

with you!

--The old gentleman who sits opposite met us walking, arm in arm,

about the middle of the long path, and said, very charmingly,

--"Good morning, my dears!"

CHAPTER XII

[I did not think it probable that I should have a great many more

talks with our company, and therefore I was anxious to get as much

as I could into every conversation. That is the reason why you

will find some odd, miscellaneous facts here, which I wished to

tell at least once, as I should not have a chance to tell them

habitually at our breakfast-table.--We're very free and easy, you

know; we don't read what we don't like. Our parish is so large,

one can't pretend to preach to all the pews at once. One can't be

all the time trying to do the best of one's best if a company works

a steam fire-engine, the firemen needn't be straining themselves

all day to squirt over the top of the flagstaff. Let them wash

some of those lower-story windows a little. Besides, there is no

use in our quarrelling now, as you will find out when you get

through this paper.]

--Travel, according to my experience, does not exactly correspond

to the idea one gets of it out of most books of travels. I am

thinking of travel as it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially

in Italy. Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes

it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it

without sticking. I can prove some facts about travelling by a

story or two. There are certain principles to be assumed,--such

as these:--He who is carried by horses must deal with rogues.

--To-day's dinner subtends a larger visual angle than yesterday's

revolution. A mote in my eye is bigger to me than the biggest of

Dr. Gould's private planets.--Every traveller is a self-taught

entomologist.--Old jokes are dynamometers of mental tension; an old

joke tells better among friends travelling than at home,--which

shows that their minds are in a state of diminished, rather than

increased vitality. There was a story about "strahps to your

pahnts," which was vastly funny to us fellows--on the road from

Milan to Venice.--Caelum, non animum,--travellers change their

guineas, but not their characters. The bore is the same, eating

dates under the cedars of Lebanon, as over a plate of baked beans

in Beacon Street.--Parties of travellers have a morbid instinct for

"establishing raws" upon each other.--A man shall sit down with his

friend at the foot of the Great Pyramid and they will take up the

question they had been talking about under "the great elm," and

forget all about Egypt. When I was crossing the Po, we were all

fighting about the propriety of one fellow's telling another that

his argument was absurd; one maintaining it to be a perfectly

admissible logical term, as proved by the phrase "reductio ad

absurdum;" the rest badgering him as a conversational bully.

Mighty little we troubled ourselves for Padus, the Po, "a river

broader and more rapid than the Rhone," and the times when Hannibal

led his grim Africans to its banks, and his elephants thrust their

trunks into the yellow waters over which that pendulum ferry-boat

was swinging back and forward every ten minutes!

--Here are some of those reminiscences, with morals prefixed, or

annexed, or implied.

Lively emotions very commonly do not strike us full in front, but

obliquely from the side; a scene or incident in UNDRESS often

affects us more than one in full costume.

"Is this the mighty ocean?--is this all?"

says the Princess in Gebir. The rush that should have flooded my

soul in the Coliseum did not come. But walking one day in the

fields about the city, I stumbled over a fragment of broken

masonry, and lo! the World's Mistress in her stone girdle--alta

maenia Romae--rose before me and whitened my cheek with her pale

shadow as never before or since.

I used very often, when coming home from my morning's work at one

of the public institutions of Paris, to stop in at the dear old

church of St. Etienne du Mont. The tomb of St. Genevieve,

surrounded by burning candles and votive tablets, was there; the

mural tablet of Jacobus Benignus Winslow was there; there was a

noble organ with carved figures; the pulpit was borne on the oaken

shoulders of a stooping Samson; and there was a marvellous

staircase like a coil of lace. These things I mention from memory,

but not all of them together impressed me so much as an inscription

on a small slab of marble fixed in one of the walls. It told how

this church of St. Stephen was repaired and beautified in the year

16**, and how, during the celebration of its reopening, two girls

of the parish (filles de la paroisse) fell from the gallery,

carrying a part of the balustrade with them, to the pavement, but

by a miracle escaped uninjured. Two young girls, nameless, but

real presences to my imagination, as much as when they came

fluttering down on the tiles with a cry that outscreamed the

sharpest treble in the Te Deum. (Look at Carlyle's article on

Boswell, and see how he speaks of the poor young woman Johnson

talked with in the streets one evening.) All the crowd gone but

these two "filles de la paroisse,"--gone as utterly as the dresses

they wore, as the shoes that were on their feet, as the bread and

meat that were in the market on that day.

Not the great historical events, but the personal incidents that

call up single sharp pictures of some human being in its pang or

struggle, reach us most nearly. I remember the platform at Berne,

over the parapet of which Theobald Weinzapfli's restive horse

sprung with him and landed him more than a hundred feet beneath in

the lower town, not dead, but sorely broken, and no longer a wild

youth, but God's servant from that day forward. I have forgotten

the famous bears, and all else.--I remember the Percy lion on the

bridge over the little river at Alnwick,--the leaden lion with his

tail stretched out straight like a pump-handle,--and why? Because

of the story of the village boy who must fain bestride the leaden

tail, standing out over the water,--which breaking, he dropped into

the stream far below, and was taken out an idiot for the rest of

his life.

Arrow-heads must be brought to a sharp point, and the guillotine-

axe must have a slanting edge. Something intensely human, narrow,

and definate pierces to the seat of our sensibilities more readily

than huge occurrences and catastrophes. A nail will pick a lock

that defies hatchet and hammer. "The Royal George" went down with

all her crew, and Cowper wrote an exquisitely simple poem about it;

but the leaf which holds it is smooth, while that which bears the

lines on his mother's portrait is blistered with tears.

My telling these recollections sets me thinking of others of the

same kind which strike the imagination, especially when one is

still young. You remember the monument in Devizes market to the

woman struck dead with a lie in her mouth. I never saw that, but

it is in the books. Here is one I never heard mentioned;--if any

of the "Note and Query" tribe can tell the story, I hope they will.

Where is this monument? I was riding on an English stage-coach

when we passed a handsome marble column (as I remember it) of

considerable size and pretensions.--What is that?--I said.--That,

--answered the coachman,--is THE HANGMAN'S PILLAR. Then he told me

how a man went out one night, many years ago, to steal sheep. He

caught one, tied its legs together, passed the rope over his head,

and started for home. In climbing a fence, the rope slipped,

caught him by the neck, and strangled him. Next morning he was

found hanging dead on one side of the fence and the sheep on the

other; in memory whereof the lord of the manor caused this monument

to be erected as a warning to all who love mutton better than

virtue. I will send a copy of this record to him or her who shall

first set me right about this column and its locality.

And telling over these old stories reminds me that I have something

which may interest architects and perhaps some other persons. I

once ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the

highest, I think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filigree-work,

frightfully open, so that the guide puts his arms behind you to

keep you from falling. To climb it is a noonday nightmare, and to

think of having climbed it crisps all the fifty-six joints of one's

twenty digits. While I was on it, "pinnacled dim in the intense

inane," a strong wind was blowing, and I felt sure that the spire

was rocking. It swayed back and forward like a stalk of rye or a

cat-o'nine-tails (bulrush) with a bobolink on it. I mentioned it

to the guide, and he said that the spire did really swing back and

forward,--I think he said some feet.

Keep any line of knowledge ten years and some other line will

intersect it. Long afterwards I was hunting out a paper of

Dumeril's in an old journal,--the "Magazin Encyclopedique" for l'an

troisieme, (1795,) when I stumbled upon a brief article on the

vibrations of the spire of Strasburg Cathedral. A man can shake it

so that the movement shall be shown in a vessel of water nearly

seventy feet below the summit, and higher up the vibration is like

that of an earthquake. I have seen one of those wretched wooden

spires with which we very shabbily finish some of our stone

churches (thinking that the lidless blue eye of heaven cannot tell

the counterfeit we try to pass on it,) swinging like a reed, in a

wind, but one would hardly think of such a thing's happening in a

stone spire. Does the Bunker-Hill Monument bend in the blast like

a blade of grass? I suppose so.

You see, of course, that I am talking in a cheap way;--perhaps we

will have some philosophy by and by;--let me work out this thin

mechanical vein.--I have something more to say about trees. I have

brought down this slice of hemlock to show you. Tree blew down in

my woods (that were) in 1852. Twelve feet and a half round, fair

girth;--nine feet, where I got my section, higher up. This is a

wedge, going to the centre, of the general shape of a slice of

apple-pie in a large and not opulent family. Length, about

eighteen inches. I have studied the growth of this tree by its

rings, and it is curious. Three hundred and forty-two rings.

Started, therefore, about 1510. The thickness of the rings tells

the rate at which it grew. For five or six years the rate was

slow,--then rapid for twenty years. A little before the year 1550

it began to grow very slowly, and so continued for about seventy

years. In 1620 it took a new start and grew fast until 1714 then

for the most part slowly until 1786, when it started again and grew

pretty well and uniformly until within the last dozen years, when

it seems to have got on sluggishly.

Look here. Here are some human lives laid down against the periods

of its growth, to which they corresponded. This is Shakspeare's.

The tree was seven inches in diameter when he was born; ten inches

when he died. A little less than ten inches when Milton was born;

seventeen when he died. Then comes a long interval, and this

thread marks out Johnson's life, during which the tree increased

from twenty-two to twenty-nine inches in diameter. Here is the

span of Napoleon's career;--the tree doesn't seem to have minded

it.

I never saw the man yet who was not startled at looking on this

section. I have seen many wooden preachers,--never one like this.

How much more striking would be the calendar counted on the rings

of one of those awful trees which were standing when Christ was on

earth, and where that brief mortal life is chronicled with the

stolid apathy of vegetable being, which remembers all human history

as a thing of yesterday in its own dateless existence!

I have something more to say about elms. A relative tells me there

is one of great glory in Andover, near Bradford. I have some

recollections of the former place, pleasant and other. [I wonder

if the old Seminary clock strikes as slowly as it used to. My

room-mate thought, when he first came, it was the bell tolling

deaths, and people's ages, as they do in the country. He swore

--(ministers' sons get so familiar with good words that they are apt

to handle them carelessly)--that the children were dying by the

dozen, of all ages, from one to twelve, and ran off next day in

recess, when it began to strike eleven, but was caught before the

clock got through striking.] At the foot of "the hill," down in

town, is, or was, a tidy old elm, which was said to have been

hooped with iron to protect it from Indian tomahawks, (Credat

Hahnemannus,) and to have grown round its hoops and buried them in

its wood. Of course, this is not the tree my relative means.

Also, I have a very pretty letter from Norwich, in Connecticut,

telling me of two noble elms which are to be seen in that town.

One hundred and twenty-seven feet from bough-end to bough-end!

What do you say to that? And gentle ladies beneath it, that love

it and celebrate its praises! And that in a town of such supreme,

audacious, Alpine loveliness as Norwich!--Only the dear people

there must learn to call it Norridge, and not be misled by the mere

accident of spelling.

NorWICH.

PorCHmouth.

CincinnatAH.

What a sad picture of our civilization!

I did not speak to you of the great tree on what used to be the

Colman farm, in Deerfield, simply because I had not seen it for

many years, and did not like to trust my recollection. But I had

it in memory, and even noted down, as one of the finest trees in

symmetry and beauty I had ever seen. I have received a document,

signed by two citizens of a neighboring town, certified by the

postmaster and a selectman, and these again corroborated,

reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that extraordinary

college-class to which it is the good fortune of my friend the

Professor to belong, who, though he has FORMERLY been a member of

Congress, is, I believe, fully worthy of confidence. The tree

"girts" eighteen and a half feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is

a real beauty. I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet; if we

don't have "youth at the prow," we will have "pleasure at the 'elm."

And just now, again, I have got a letter about some grand willows

in Maine, and another about an elm in Wayland, but too late for

anything but thanks.

[And this leads me to say, that I have received a great many

communications, in prose and verse since I began printing these

notes. The last came this very morning, in the shape of a neat and

brief poem, from New Orleans. I could not make any of them public,

though sometimes requested to do so. Some of them have given me

great pleasure, and encouraged me to believe I had friends whose

faces I had never seen. If you are pleased with anything a writer

says, and doubt whether to tell him of it, do not hesitate; a

pleasant word is a cordial to one, who perhaps thinks he is tiring

you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr very loud over a good,

honest letter that says pretty things to me.]

--Sometimes very young persons send communications which they want

forwarded to editors; and these young persons do not always seem to

have right conceptions of these same editors, and of the public,

and of themselves. Here is a letter I wrote to one of these young

folks, but, on the whole, thought it best not to send. It is not

fair to single out one for such sharp advice, where there are

hundreds that are in need of it.

Dear Sir,--You seem to be somewhat, but not a great deal, wiser

than I was at your age. I don't wish to be understood as saying

too much, for I think, without committing myself to any opinion on

my present state, that I was not a Solomon at that stage of

development.

You long to "leap at a single bound into celebrity." Nothing is so

common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Fame usually comes to

those who are thinking about something else,--very rarely to those

who say to themselves, "Go to, now, let us be a celebrated

individual!" The struggle for fame, as such, commonly ends in

notoriety;--that ladder is easy to climb, but it leads to the

pillory which is crowded with fools who could not hold their

tongues and rogues who could not hide their tricks.

If you have the consciousness of genius, do something to show it.

The world is pretty quick, nowadays, to catch the flavor of true

originality; if you write anything remarkable, the magazines and

newspapers will find you out, as the school-boys find out where the

ripe apples and pears are. Produce anything really good, and an

intelligent editor will jump at it. Don't flatter yourself that

any article of yours is rejected because you are unknown to fame.

Nothing pleases an editor more than to get anything worth having

from a new hand. There is always a dearth of really fine articles

for a first-rate journal; for, of a hundred pieces received, ninety

are at or below the sea-level; some have water enough, but no head;

some head enough, but no water; only two or three are from full

reservoirs, high up that hill which is so hard to climb.

You may have genius. The contrary is of course probable, but it is

not demonstrated. If you have, the world wants you more than you

want it. It has not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark

of genius that shows itself among us; there is not a bull-calf in

our national pasture that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one,

among his friends, and no takers, that he is the real, genuine,

no-mistake Osiris.

Qu'est ce qu'il a fait? What has he done? That was Napoleon's

test. What have you done? Turn up the faces of your picture-

cards, my boy! You need not make mouths at the public because it

has not accepted you at your own fancy-valuation. Do the prettiest

thing you can and wait your time.

For the verses you send me, I will not say they are hopeless, and I

dare not affirm that they show promise. I am not an editor, but I

know the standard of some editors. You must not expect to "leap

with a single bound" into the society of those whom it is not

flattery to call your betters. When "The Pactolian" has paid you

for a copy of verses,--(I can furnish you a list of alliterative

signatures, beginning with Annie Aureole and ending with Zoe

Zenith,)--when "The Rag-bag" has stolen your piece, after carefully

scratching your name out,--when "The Nut-cracker" has thought you

worth shelling, and strung the kernel of your cleverest poem,

--then, and not till then, you may consider the presumption against

you, from the fact of your rhyming tendency, as called in question,

and let our friends hear from you, if you think it worth while.

You may possibly think me too candid, and even accuse me of

incivility; but let me assure you that I am not half so

plain-spoken as Nature, nor half so rude as Time. If you prefer the

long jolting of public opinion to the gentle touch of friendship, try

it like a man. Only remember this,--that, if a bushel of potatoes is

shaken in a market-cart without springs to it, the small potatoes

always get to the bottom. Believe me, etc., etc.

I always think of verse-writers, when I am in this vein; for these

are by far the most exacting, eager, self-weighing, restless,

querulous, unreasonable literary persons one is like to meet with.

Is a young man in the habit of writing verses? Then the

presumption is that he is an inferior person. For, look you, there

are at least nine chances in ten that he writes POOR verses. Now