CHAPTER I.

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. II.--JULY, 1858.--NO. IX.

THE CATACOMBS OF ROME.

[Concluded.]

--fessoque Sacrandum

Supponato capiti lapidem, Curistoque quiescam.

PAULINUS OF NOLL

Et factus est in pace locus ejus et halitatio in Sion.

Ps. LXXV. 2

V.

Rome is preëminently the city of monuments and inscriptions, and the

lapidary style is the one most familiar to her. The Republic, the Empire,

the Papacy, the Heathens, and the Christians have written their record

upon marble. But gravestones are proverbially dull reading, and

inscriptions are often as cold as the stone upon which they are engraved.

The long gallery of the Vatican, through which one passes to enter the

famous library, and which leads to the collection of statues, is lined on

one side with heathen inscriptions, of miscellaneous character, on the

other with Christian inscriptions, derived chiefly from the catacombs, but

arranged with little order. The comparison thus exhibited to the eye is an

impressive one. The contrast of one class with the other is visible even

in external characteristics. The old Roman lines are cut with precision

and evenness; the letters are well formed, the words are rightly spelt,

the construction of the sentences is grammatical. But the Christian

inscriptions bear for the most part the marks of ignorance, poverty, and

want of skill. Their lines are uneven, the letters of various sizes, the

words ill-spelt, the syntax often incorrect. Not seldom a mixture of Greek

and Latin in the same sentence betrays the corrupt speech of the lower

classes, and the Latin itself is that of the common people. But defects of

style and faults of engraving are insufficient to hide the feeling that

underlies them.

Besides this great collection of the Vatican, there is another collection

now being formed in the _loggia_ of the Lateran Palace, in immediate

connection with the Christian Museum. Arranged as the inscriptions will

here be in historic sequence and with careful classification, it will be

chiefly to this collection that the student of Christian antiquity will

hereafter resort. It in in the charge of the Cavaliere de Rossi, who is

engaged in editing the Christian inscriptions of the first six centuries,

and whose extraordinary learning and marvellous sagacity in deciphering

and determining the slightest remains of ancient stone-cutting give him

unexampled fitness for the work. Of these inscriptions, about eleven

thousand are now known, and of late some forty or fifty have been added

each year to the number previously recorded. But a very small proportion

of the eleven thousand remain _in situ_ in the catacombs, and besides the

great collections of the Vatican and the Lateran, there are many smaller

ones in Rome and in other Italian cities, and many inscriptions originally

found in the subterranean cemeteries are now scattered in the porticos or

on the pavements of churches in Rome, Ravenna, Milan, and elsewhere. From

the first period of the desecration of the catacombs, the engraved tablets

that had closed the graves were almost as much an object of the greed of

pious or superstitious marauders as the more immediate relics of the

saints. Hence came their dispersion through Italy, and hence, too, it has

happened that many very important and interesting inscriptions belonging

to Rome are now found scattered through the Continent.

It has been, indeed, sometimes the custom of the Roman Church to enhance

the value of a gift of relics by adding to it the gift of the inscription

on the grave from which they were taken. A curious instance of this kind,

connected with the making of a very popular saint, occurred not many years

since. In the year 1802 a grave was found in the Cemetery of St.

Priscilla, by which were the remains of a glass vase that had held blood,

the indication of the burial-place of a martyr. The grave was closed by

three tiles, on which were the following words painted in red letters:

LVMENA PAXTE CVMFL. There were also rudely painted on the tiles two

anchors, three darts, a torch, and a palm-branch. The bones found within

the grave, together with the tiles bearing the inscription, were placed in

the Treasury of Relics at the Lateran.

On the return of Pius VII., one of the deputation of Neapolitan clergy

sent to congratulate him sought and received from the Pope these relics

and the tiles as a gift for his church. The inscription had been read by

placing the first tile after the two others, thus,--PAX TECUM FILUMENA,

_Peace be with thee, Filumena_; and Filumena was adopted as a new saint in

the long list of those to whom the Roman Church has given this title. It

was supposed, that, in the haste of closing the grave, the tiles had been

thus misplaced.

Very soon after the gift, a priest, who desired not to be named _on

account of his great humility_, had a vision at noonday, in which the

beautiful virgin with the beautiful name appeared to him and revealed to

him that she had suffered death rather than yield her chastity to the will

of the Emperor, who desired to make her his wife. Thereupon a young

artist, whose name is also suppressed, likewise had a vision of St.

Filomena, who told him that the emperor was Diocletian; but as history

stands somewhat opposed to this statement, it has been suggested that the

artist mistook the name, and that the Saint said Maximian. However this

may be, the day of her martyrdom was fixed on the 10th of August, 303. Her

relics were carried to Naples with great reverence; they were inclosed,

after the Neapolitan fashion, in a wooden doll of the size of life,

dressed in a white satin skirt and a red tunic, with a garland of flowers

on its head, and a lily and a dart in its hand. This doll, with the red-

lettered tiles, was soon transferred to its place in the church of

Mugnano, a small town not far from Naples. Many miracles were wrought on

the way, and many have since been wrought in the church itself. The fame

of the virgin spread through Italy, and chapels were dedicated to her

honor in many distant churches; from Italy it reached Germany and France,

and it has even crossed the Atlantic to America. Thus a new saint, a new

story, and a new exhibition of credulity had their rise not long ago from

a grave and three words in the catacombs.

One of the first differences which are obvious, in comparing the Christian

with the heathen mortuary inscriptions, is the introduction in the former

of some new words, expressive of the new ideas that prevailed among them.

Thus, in place of the old formula which had been in most common use upon

gravestones, D.M., or, in Greek, [Greek: TH.K.], standing for _Dis

Manibus_, or [Greek: _Theois karachthoniois_], a dedication of the stone

to the gods of death, we find constantly the words _In pace_. The exact

meaning of these words varies on different inscriptions, but their general

significance is simple and clear. When standing alone, they seem to mean

that the dead rests in the peace of God; sometimes they are preceded by

_Requiescat_, "May he rest in peace"; sometimes there is the affirmation,

_Dormit in pace_, "He sleeps in peace"; sometimes a person is said

_recessisse in pace_, "to have departed in peace." Still other forms are

found, as, for instance, _Vivas in pace_, "Live in peace," or _Suscipiatur

in pace_, "May he be received into peace,"--all being only variations of

the expression of the Psalmist's trust, "I will lay me down in peace and

sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." It is a curious

fact, however, that on some of the Christian tablets the same letters

which were used by the heathens have been found. One inscription exists

beginning with the words _Dis Manibus_, and ending with the words _in

pace_. But there is no need of finding a difficulty in this fact, or of

seeking far for an explanation of it. As we have before remarked, in

speaking of works of Art, the presence of some heathen imagery and ideas

in the multitude of the paintings and inscriptions in the catacombs is not

so strange as the comparatively entire absence of them. Many professing

Christians must have had during the early ages but an imperfect conception

of the truth, and can have separated themselves only partially from their

previous opinions, and from the conceptions that prevailed around them in

the world. To some the letters of the heathen gravestones, and the words

which they stood for, probably appeared little more than a form expressive

of the fact of death, and, with the imperfect understanding natural to

uneducated minds, they used them with little thought of their absolute

significance.[1]

[Footnote 1: It is probable that most of the gravestones upon which this

heathen formula is found are not of an earlier date than the middle of the

fourth century. At this time Christianity became the formal religion of

many who were still heathen in character and thought, and cared little

about the expression of a faith which they had adopted more from the

influence of external motives than from principle or conviction.]

Another difference in words which is very noticeable, running through the

inscriptions, is that of _depositus_, used by the Christians to signify

the _laying away_ in the grave, in place of the heathen words _situs,

positus, sepultus, conditus_. The very name of _coemeterium_, adopted by

the Christians for their burial-places, a name unknown to the ancient

Romans, bore a reference to the great doctrine of the Resurrection. Their

burial-ground was a _cemetery_, that is, a _sleeping-place_; they regarded

the dead as put there to await the awakening; the body was _depositus_,

that is, _intrusted to_ the grave, while the heathen was _situs_ or

_sepultus, interred_ or _buried_,--the words implying a final and

definitive position. And as the Christian _dormit_ or _quiescit, sleeps_

or _rests_ in death, so the heathen is described as _abreptus_, or

_defunctus, snatched away_ or _departed_ from life.

Again, the contrast between the inscriptions is marked, and in a sadder

way, by the difference of the expressions of mourning and grief. No one

who has read many of the ancient gravestones but remembers the bitter

words that are often found on them,--words of indignation against the

gods, of weariness of life, of despair and unconsoled melancholy. Here is

one out of many:--

PROCOPE MANVS LEBO CONTRA

DEVM QVI ME INNOCENTEM SVS

TVLIT QVAE VIXI ANNOS XX.

POS. PROCLVS.

I, Procope, who lived twenty years, lift up

my hands against God, who took me away innocent.

Proclus set up this.

But among the Christian inscriptions of the first centuries there is not

one of this sort. Most of them contain no reference to grief; they are the

very short and simple words of love, remembrance, and faith,--as in the

following from the Lateran:--

ADEODATE DIGNAE ET MERITAE VIRGINI

ETQVIESCE HIC IN PACE IVBENTE XPO EJUS

To Adeodata, a worthy and deserving Virgin,

and rests here in peace, her Christ commanding.

On a few the word _dolens_ is found, simply telling of grief. On one to

the memory of a sweetest daughter the word _irreparable_ is used, _Filiae

dulcissimae inreparabili_. Another is, "To Dalmatius, sweetest son, whom

his _unhappy_ father was not permitted to enjoy for even seven years."

Another inscription, in which something of the feeling that was unchecked

among the heathens finds expression in Christian words, is this: "Sweet

soul. To the incomparable child, who lived seventeen years, and

_undeserving_ [of death] gave up life in the peace of the Lord." Neither

the name of the child nor of the parents is on the stone, and the word

_immeritus_, which is used here, and which is common in heathen use, is

found, we believe, on only one other Christian grave. One inscription,

which has been interpreted as being an expression of unresigned sorrow, is

open to a very different signification. It is this:--

INNOCENTISSISSIMÆ ETATIS

DVLCISSIMO FILIO

JOVIANO QVI VIXIT ANN· VII

ET MENSES VI NON MERENTES

THEOCTISTVS ET THALLVSA PARENTES

To their sweetest boy Jovian, of the most

innocent age, who lived seven years and six

months, his undeserving [or unlamenting] parents

Theoctistus and Thallusa.

Here, without forcing the meaning, _non merentes_ might be supposed to

refer to the parents' not esteeming themselves worthy to be left in

possession of such a treasure; but the probability is that _merentes_ is

only a misspelling of _maerentes_ for otherwise _immerentes_ would have

been the natural word.

But it is thus that the Christian inscriptions must be sifted, to find

expressions at variance with their usual tenor, their general composure

and trust. The simplicity and brevity of the greater number of them are,

indeed, striking evidence of the condition of feeling among those who set

them upon the graves. Their recollections of the dead feared no fading,

and Christ, whose coming was so near at hand, would know and reunite his

own. Continually we read only a name with _in pace_, without date, age, or

title, but often with some symbol of love or faith hastily carved or

painted on the stone or tiles. Such inscriptions as the following are

common:--

FELICISSIMVS DVLCIS,--GAVDENTIA IN PACE,

--SEVERA IN DEO VIVAS,--

or, with a little more fulness of expression,--

DVLCISSIMO FILIO ENDELECIO

BENEMERENTI QVI VIXIT

ANNOS II MENSE VNV

DIES XX IN PACE

To the sweetest son Endelechius, the well-

deserving, who lived two years, one month,

twenty days. In peace.

The word _benemerenti_ is of constant recurrence. It is used both of the

young and the old; and it seems to have been employed, with comprehensive

meaning, as an expression of affectionate and grateful remembrance.

Here is another short and beautiful epitaph. The two words with which it

begins are often found.

ANIMA DVLCIS AVFENIA VIRGO

BENEDICTA QVE VIXIT ANN: XXX

DORMIT IN PACE

Sweet Soul. The Blessed Virgin Aufenia,

who lived thirty years. She sleeps in peace.

But the force and tenderness of such epitaphs as these is hardly to be

recognized in single examples. There is a cumulative pathos in them, as

one reads, one after another, such as these that follow:--

ANGELICE BENE IN PACE

To Angelica well in peace.

CVRRENTIO SERVO DEI DEP. D. XVI. KAL

NOVEM.

To Currentius, the servant of God, laid in

the grave on the sixteenth of the Kalends of

November.

MAXIMINVS QVI VIXIT ANNOS XXIII

AMICVS OMNIVM

Maximin, who lived twenty-three years, the

friend of all.

SEPTIMVS MARCIANE

IN PACE QUE BICSIT MECV

ANNOS XVII. DORMIT IN PACE

Septimus to Marciana in peace. Who lived

with me seventeen years. She sleeps in peace.

GAVDENTIA

PAVSAT DVLCIS

SPIRITVS ANNORVM II

MENSORVM TRES.

Gaudentia rests. Sweet spirit of two years

and three months.

Here is a gravestone with the single word VIATOR; here one that tells only

that Mary placed it for her daughter; here one that tells of the light of

the house,--[Greek: To phos thaes Oikias].

Nor is it only in these domestic and intimate inscriptions that the

habitual temper and feeling of the Christians is shown, but even still

more in those that were placed over the graves of such members of the

household of faith as had made public profession of their belief, and

shared in the sufferings of their Lord. There is no parade of words on the

gravestones of the martyrs. Their death needed no other record than the

little jar of blood placed in the mortar, and the fewest words were enough

where this was present. Here is an inscription in the rudest letters from

a martyr's grave:--

SABATIVS BENEMERENTI QVI VIXIT ANNOS XL

To the well-deserving Sabatias, who lived

forty years.

And here another:--

PROSPERO INNOCENTI ANIMAE IN PACE.

To Prosperus, innocent soul, in peace.

And here a third, to a child who had died as one of the Innocents:--

MIRAE INNOCENTIAE ANIMA DULCIS AEMILEANVS

QVI VIXIT ANNO VNO, MENS. VIII D. XXVIII

DORMIT IN PACE

Aemilian, sweet soul of marvellous innocence,

who lived one year, eight months, twenty-eight

days. He sleeps in peace.

At this grave was found the vase of blood, and on the gravestone was the

figure of a dove.

Another inscription, which preserves the name of one of those who suffered

in the most severe persecution to which the ancient Church was exposed,

and which, if genuine, is, so far as known, the only monument of the kind,

is marked by the same simplicity of style:--

LANNVS XPI MA

RTIR HC*[Hic?] REQVIESC

IT SVR [E-P-S] DIOCLITI ANO PASSVS

Lannus Martyr of Christ here rests. He

suffered under Diocletian.

The three letters EPS have been interpreted as standing for the words _et

posteris suis_, and as meaning that the grave was also for his successors.

Not yet, then, had future saints begun to sanctify their graves, and to

claim the exclusive possession of them.

But there is another point of contrast between the inscriptions of the un-

Christianized and the Christian Romans, which illustrates forcibly the

difference in the regard which they paid to the dead. To the one the dead

were still of this world, and the greatness of life, the distinctions of

class, the titles of honor still clung to them; to the other the past life

was as nothing to that which had now begun. The heathen epitaphs are

loaded with titles of honor, and with the names of the offices which the

dead had borne, and, like the modern Christian (?) epitaphs whose style

has been borrowed from them, the vanity of this world holds its place

above the grave. But among the early Christian inscriptions of Rome

nothing of this kind is known. Scarcely a title of rank or a name of

office is to be found among them. A military title, or the name of priest

or deacon, or of some other officer in the Church, now and then is met

with; but even these, for the most part, would seem to belong to the

fourth century, and never contain any expression of boastfulness or

flattery.

FL. OLIVS PATERNVS

CENTVRIO CHOR. X VRB.

QVI VIXIT AH XXVII

IN PACE

Flavius Olius Paternus, Centurion of the

Tenth Urban Cohort, who lived twenty-seven

years. In peace.

It is true, no doubt, that among the first Christians there were very few

of the rich and great. The words of St. Paul to the Corinthians were as

true of the Romans as of those to whom they were specially addressed: "For

ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh,

not many mighty, not many noble are called." Still there is evidence

enough that even in the first two centuries some of the mighty and some of

the noble at Rome were among those called, but that evidence is not to be

gathered from the gravestones of the catacombs. We have seen, in a former

article, that even the grave of one of the early bishops,--the highest

officer of the Church,--and one who had borne witness to the truth in his

death, was marked by the words,

CORNELIVS MARTYR

EP.

The Martyr Cornelius, Bishop.

Compare this with the epitaphs of the later popes, as they are found on

their monuments in St. Peter's,--"flattering, false insculptions on a

tomb, and in men's hearts reproach,"--epitaphs overweighted with

superlatives, ridiculous, were it not for their impiety, and full of the

lies and vanities of man in the very house of God.

With this absence of boastfulness and of titles of rank on the early

Christian graves two other characteristics of the inscriptions are closely

connected, which bear even yet more intimate and expressive relation to

the change wrought by Christianity in the very centre of the heathen

world.

"One cannot study a dozen monuments of pagan Rome," says Mr. Northcote, in

his little volume on the catacombs, "without reading something of _servus_

or _libertus, libertis libertabusque posterisque eorum_; and I believe the

proportion in which they are found is about three out of every four. Yet,

in a number of Christian inscriptions exceeding eleven thousand, and all

belonging to the first six centuries of our era, scarcely six have been

found containing any allusion whatever--and even two or three of these are

doubtful--to this fundamental division of ancient Roman society.

"No one, we think, will be rash enough to maintain, either that this

omission is the result of mere accident, or that no individual slave or

freedman was ever buried in the catacombs. Rather, these two cognate

facts, the absence from ancient Christian epitaphs of all titles of rank

and honor on the one hand, or of disgrace and servitude on the other, can

only be adequately explained by an appeal to the religion of those who

made them. The children of the primitive Church did not record upon their

monuments titles of earthly dignity, because they knew that with the God

whom they served 'there was no respect of persons'; neither did they care

to mention the fact of their bondage, or of their deliverance from

bondage, to some earthly master, because they thought only of that higher

and more perfect liberty wherewith Christ had set them free; remembering

that 'he that was called, being a bondman, was yet the freeman of the

Lord, and likewise he that was called, being free, was still the bondman

of Christ.'

"And this conclusion is still further confirmed by another remarkable fact

which should be mentioned, namely, that there are not wanting in the

catacombs numerous examples of another class of persons, sometimes ranked

among slaves, but the mention of whose servitude, such as it was, served

rather to record an act of Christian charity than any social degradation;

I allude to the alumni, or foundlings, as they may be called. The laws of

pagan Rome assigned these victims of their parents' crimes or poverty to

be the absolute property of any one who would take charge of them. As

nothing, however, but compassion could move a man to do this, children

thus acquired were not called _servi_, as though they were slaves who had

been bought with money, nor _vernae_, as though they had been the children

of slaves born in the house, but _alumni_, a name simply implying that

they had been brought up (_ab alendo_) by their owners. Now it is a very

singular fact, that there are actually more instances of _alumni_ among

the sepulchral inscriptions of Christians than among the infinitely more

numerous inscriptions of pagans, showing clearly that this was an act of

charity to which the early Christians were much addicted; and the

_alumni_, when their foster-parents died, very properly and naturally

recorded upon their tombs this act of charity, to which they were

themselves so deeply indebted."

So far Mr. Northcote. It is still further to be noted, as an expression of

the Christian temper, as displayed in this kind of charity, that it never

appears in the inscriptions as furnishing a claim for praise, or as being

regarded as a peculiar merit. There is no departure from the usual

simplicity of the gravestones in those of this class.

[Greek:

PETROS

THREPTOS

RAUKUTA

TOS EN THEO]

Peter, sweetest foster-child, in God.

And a dove is engraved at either side of

this short epitaph.

VITALIANO ALVMNO KARO

EVTROPIVS FECIT.

Eutropius made this for the dear foster-child

Vitalian.

ANTONIVS DISCOLIVS FILIVS ET BIBIVS

FELLICISSIMVS ALVMNVS VALERIE CRESTENI

MATRI BIDVE ANORVM XVIII INTET SANCTOS

Antonius Discolius her son, and Bibius Felicissimus

her foster-child, to Valeria Crestina

their mother, a widow for eighteen years.

[Her grave is] among the holy.[2]

[Footnote 2: This inscription is not of earlier date than the fourth

century, as is shown by the words, _Inter sancios_,--referring, as we

heretofore stated, to the grave being made near that of some person

esteemed a saint.]

These inscriptions lead us by a natural transition to such as contain some

reference to the habits of life or to the domestic occupations and

feelings of the early Christians. Unfortunately for the gratification of

the desire to learn of these things, this class of inscriptions is far

from numerous,--and the common conciseness is rarely, in the first

centuries, amplified by details. But here is one that tells a little story

in itself:--

DOMNINAE

INNOCENTISSINAE ET DVLCISSIMAE COIVGI

QVAE VIXIT ANN XVI M. IIII ET FVIT

IMARITATA ANN. DVOBVS M. IIII D. VIIII

CVM QVA SON LICVIT FVISSE PROPTER

CAVSAS PEREGRINATIONIS

NISI MENEIE VI

QVO TEMPORE VT EGO SENSI ET EXHBVI

AMOREM MEVM

NVLLI SV ALII SIC DILEXERVNT

DEPOSIT XV KAL. IVN.

To Domnina, my most innocent and sweetest

wife; who lived sixteen years and four

months, and was married two years, four

months, and nine days; with whom, on account

of my journeys, I was permitted to be

only six months; in which time, as I felt, so

I showed my love. No others have so loved

one another. Placed in the grave the 15th

of the Kalends of June.

Who was this husband whose far-off journeys had so separated him from his

lately married wife? Who were they who so loved as no others had loved?

The tombstone gives only the name of Domnina. But in naming her, and in

the expression of her husband's love, it gives evidence, which is

confirmed by many other tokens in the catacombs, of the change introduced

by Christianity in the position of women, and in the regard paid to them.

Marriage was invested with a sanctity which redeemed it from sensuality,

and Christianity became the means of uniting man and woman in the bonds of

an immortal love.

Here is an inscription which, spite of the rudeness of its style,

preserves the pleasant memory of a Roman child:--

ISPIRITO SANTO BONO

FLORENTIO QVI VIXIT ANIS XIII

QVAM SI FILIVM SVVM ET COTDEVS

MATER FILIO BENEMERETI FECERVNT.

To the good and holy spirit Florentius, who

lived thirteen years, Coritus, his master, who

loved him more than if he were his own son,

and Cotdeus, his mother, have made this for

her well-deserving son.[3]

[Footnote 3: Compare an inscription from a heathen tomb:--

C. JVLIVS MAXIMVS

ANN. II. M. V.

ATROX O FORTVNA TRVCI QVAE FVNERR GAVDES

QVID MIHI TAM SVBITO MAXIMVS ERIPITVR

QVI MODO JVCVNDVS GREMIO SVPERESSE SOLEBAT

HIC LAPIS TN TVMVLO NVNC JACET ECCE MATER

C. Julius Maximus,

Two years, five months old.

Harsh Fortune, that in cruel death finds't joy,

Why is my Maximus thus sudden reft,

So late the pleasant burden of my breast?

Now in the grave this stone lies: lo, his mother!]

And Coritus, his master, and Cotdeus, his mother, might have rejoiced in

knowing that their poor, rough tablet would keep the memory of her boy

alive for so many centuries; and that long after they had gone to the

grave, the good spirit of Florentius should still, through these few

words, remain to work good upon the earth.--Note in this inscription (as

in many others) the Italianizing of the old Latin,--the _ispirito_, and

the _santo_; note also the mother's strange name, reminding one of Puritan

appellations,--Cotdeus being the abbreviation of _Quod vult Deus_, "What

God wills."[4]

[Footnote 4: Other names of this kind were _Deogratias_, _Habetdeum_, and

_Adeodatus_.]

Here is an inscription set up by a husband to his wife, Dignitas, who was

a woman of great goodness and entire purity of life:--

QUE SINE LESIONE ANIMI MEI VIXI MECVM

ANNOS XV FILIOS AVTEM PROCREAVIT VII

EX QVIBVS SECV ABET AD DOMINVM IIII

Who, without ever wounding my soul, lived

with me for fifteen years, and bore seven

children, four of whom she has with her in

the Lord.

We have already referred to the inscriptions which bear the name of some

officer of the early Church; but there is still another class, which

exhibits in clear letters others of the designations and customs familiar

to the first Christians. Thus, those who had not yet been baptized and

received into the fold, but were being instructed in Christian doctrine

for that end, were called _catechumens_; those who were recently baptized

were called _neophytes_; and baptism itself appears sometimes to have

been designated by the word _illuminatio_. Of the use of these names the

inscriptions give not infrequent examples. It was the custom also among

the Christians to afford support to the poor and to the widows of their

body. Thus we read such inscriptions as the following:--

RIGINE VENEMEREMTI FILIA SVA FECIT

VENERIGINE MATRI VIDVAE QVE SE

DIT VIDVA ANNOS LX ET ECLESA

VIXIT ANNOS LXXX MESIS V

DIES XXVI

Her daughter Reneregina made this for her

well-deserving mother Regina, a widow, who

sat a widow sixty years, and never burdened

the church, the wife of one husband, who lived

eighty years, five months, twenty-six days.

The words of this inscription recall to mind those of St. Paul, in his

First Epistle to Timothy, (v. 3-16,) and especially the verse, "If any man

or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not

the church be charged."

Some of the inscriptions preserve a record of the occupation or trade of

the dead, sometimes in words, more often by the representation of the

implements of labor. Here, for instance, is one which seems like the

advertisement of a surviving partner:--

DE BIANOBA

POLLECLA QVE ORDEV BENDET DE

BIANOBA

From New Street. Pollecla, who sold barley

on New Street.

Others often bear a figure which refers to the name of the deceased, an

_armoirie parlante_ as it were, which might be read by those too ignorant

to read the letters on the stone. Thus, a lion is scratched on the grave

of a man named Leo; a little pig on the grave of the little child

Porcella, who had lived not quite four years; on the tomb of Dracontius is

a dragon; and by the side of the following charming inscription is found

the figure of a ship:--

NABIRA IN PACE ANIMA DULCIS

QVI BIXIT ANOS XVI M V

ANIMA MELEIEA

TITVLV FACTV

APARENTES SIGNVM NABE

Navira in peace. Sweet soul, who lived sixteen

years, five months. Soul honey-sweet.

This inscription made by her parents. The

sign a ship.

The figures that are most frequent upon the sepulchral slabs are, however,

not such as bear relation to a name or profession, but the commonly

adopted symbols of the faith, similar in design and character to those

exhibited in the paintings of the catacombs. The Good Shepherd is thus

often rudely represented; the figure of Jonah is naturally, from its

reference to the Resurrection, also frequently found; and the figure of a

man or woman with arms outstretched, in the attitude of prayer, occurs on

many of the sepulchral slabs. The anchor, the palm, the crown, and the

dove, as being simpler in character and more easily represented, are still

more frequently found. The varying use of symbols at different periods has

been one of the means which have assisted in determining approximate dates

for the inscriptions upon which they are met with. It is a matter of

importance, in many instances, to fix a date to an inscription. Historical

and theological controversies hang on such trifles. Most of the early

gravestones bear no date; and it was not till the fourth century, that,

with many other changes, the custom of carving a date upon them became

general. The century to which an inscription belongs may generally be

determined with some confidence, either by the style of expression and the

nature of the language, or by the engraved character, or some other

external indications. Among these latter are the symbols. It has, for

instance, been recently satisfactorily proved by the Cavaliere de Rossi

that the use of the emblem of the fish in the catacombs extended only to

the fourth century, so that the monuments upon which it is found may, with

scarcely an exception, be referred to the preceding period. As this emblem

went out of use, owing perhaps to the fact that the Christians were no

longer forced to seek concealment for their name and profession, the

famous monogram of Christ, [Symbol] the hieroglyphic, not only of his

name, but of his cross, succeeded to it, and came, indeed, into far more

general use than that which the fish had ever attained. The monogram is

hardly to be found before the time of Constantine, and, as it is very

frequently met with in the inscriptions from the catacombs, it affords an

easy means, in the absence of a more specific date, for determining a

period earlier than which any special inscription bearing it cannot have

originated. Its use spread rapidly during the fourth century. It "became,"

says Gibbon, with one of his amusing sneers, "extremely fashionable in the

Christian world." The story of the vision of Constantine was connected

with it, and the Labarum displayed its form in the front of the imperial

army. It was thus not merely the emblem of Christ, but that also of the

conversion of the Emperor and of the fatal victory of the Church.

It is a remarkable fact, and one which none of the recent Romanist

authorities attempt to controvert, that the undoubted earlier inscriptions

afford no evidence of any of the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Church.

There is no reference to the doctrine of the Trinity to be found among

them; nothing is to be derived from them in support of the worship of the

Virgin; her name even is not met with on any monument of the first three

centuries; and none of the inscriptions of this period give any sign of

the prevalence of the worship of saints. There is no support of the claim

of the Roman Church to supremacy, and no reference to the claim of the

Popes to be the Vicars of Christ. As the third century advances to its

close, we find the simple and crude beginning of that change in Christian

faith which developed afterward into the broad idea of the intercessory

power of the saints. Among the earlier inscriptions prayers to God or to

Christ are sometimes met with, generally in short exclamatory expressions

concerning the dead. Thus we find at first such words as these:--

AMERIMNVS

RVFINAE COIV

GI CARISSIME

BENEMEREN

TI SPIRITVM

TVVM DEVS

REFRIGERET

Amerimnus to his dearest wife Rufina well-

deserving. May God refresh thy spirit!

And, in still further development,--

[Greek: AUR. AIANOS PAPHLAGON THEOU

DOULOS PISTOS

EKOIMNON EN EIPNIN MINSON

AUTOU

O THEOS EIS TOUS AIONAS]

Aurelius Aelianus, a Paphlagonian, faithful

servant of God. He sleeps in peace. Remember

him, O God, forever!

Again, two sons ask for their mother,--

DOMINE NE QVANDO

ADVMBRETVR SPIRITVS

VENERES

O Lord, let not the spirit of Venus be shadowed

at any time!

From such petitions as these we come by a natural transition to such as

are addressed to the dead themselves, as being members of the same

communion with the living, and uniting in prayers with those they had left

on earth and for their sake.

VIBAS IN PACE ET PETE PRO NOBIS

Mayst thou live in peace and ask for us!

Or, as in another instance,--

PETE PRO PARENTES TVOS

MATRONATA MATRONA

QVE VIXIT AN. I. DI. LII.

Pray for thy parents, Matronata Matrona!

Who lived one year, fifty-two days.

And as we have seen how in the fourth century the desire arose of being

buried near the graves of those reputed holy, so by a similar process we

find this simple and affectionate petition to the dead passing into a

prayer for the dead to those under whose protection it was hoped that they

might be. In the multitude of epitaphs, however, these form but a small

number. Here is one that begins with a heathen formula:--

SOMNO HETERNALI

AVRELIVS GEMELLVS QVI BIXIT AN--

ET MESES VIII DIES XVIII MATER FILIO

CARISSIMO BENAEMERENTI FECIT IN PA--

[C]ONMANDO BASSILA INNOCENTIA GEMELLI

In Eternal Sleep. Aurelius Gemellus, who

lived --- years, and eight months, eighteen

days. His mother made this for her dearest

well-deserving son in peace. I commend to

Basilla the innocence of Gemellus.

Basilla was one of the famous martyrs of the time of Valerian and

Gallienus.

Here again is another inscription of a curious character, as interposing a

saint between the dead and his Saviour. The monogram marks its date.

RVTA OMNIBVS SVBDITA ET ATFABI

LIS BIBET IN NOMINE PETRI

IN PACE

Ruta, subject and affable to all, shall live in

the name of Peter, in the peace of Christ.

But it would seem from other inscriptions as if the new practice of

calling upon the saints were not adopted without protest. Thus we read, in

contrast to the last epitaph, this simple one:--

ZOSIME VIVAS IN NOMINE XTI

O Zosimus, mayst thou live in the name of Christ!

And again, in the strongest and most direct words:--

SOLVS DEVS ANIMAM TVAM

DEFENDAD ALEXANDRE

May God alone protect thy spirit, Alexander!

One more inscription and we have done; it well closes the long list:--

QVI LEGERIT VIVAT IN CHRISTO

Whoever shall read this, may he live in Christ!

As the fourth century advanced, the character of the inscriptions

underwent great change. They become less simple; they exhibit less faith,

and more worldliness; superlatives abound in them; and the want of feeling

displays itself in the abundance of words.

We end here our examinations of the testimony of the catacombs regarding

the doctrine, the faith, and the lives of the Christians of Rome in the

first three centuries. The evidence is harmonious and complete. It leaves

no room for skepticism or doubt. There are no contradictions in it. From

every point of view, theologic, historic, artistic, the results coincide

and afford mutual support. The construction of the catacombs, the works of

painting found within them, the inscriptions on the graves, all unite in

bearing witness to the simplicity of the faith, the purity of the

doctrine, the strength of the feeling, the change in the lives of the vast

mass of the members of the early church of Christ. A light had come into

the world, and the dark passages of the underground cemeteries were

illuminated by it, and manifest its brightness. Wherever it reached, the

world was humanized and purified. To the merely outward eye it might at

first have seemed faint and dim, but "the kingdom of God cometh not with

observation."

THREE OF US.

Such a spring day as it was!--the sky all one mild blue, hazy on the

hills, warm with sunshine overhead; a soft south-wind, expressive, and

full of new impulses, blowing up from the sea, and spreading the news of

life all over our brown pastures and leaf-strewn woods. The crocuses in

Friend Allis's garden-bed shot up cups of gold and sapphire from the dark

mould; slight long buds nestled under the yellow-green leafage of the

violet-patch; white and sturdy points bristled on the corner that in May

was thick with lilies-of-the-valley, crisp, cool, and fragrant; and in a

knotty old apricot-tree two bluebirds and a robin did heralds' duty,

singing of summer's procession to come; and we made ready to receive it

both in our hearts and garments.

Josephine Boyle, Letty Allis, and I, Sarah Anderson, three cousins as we

were, sat at the long window of Friend Allis's parlor, pretending to sew,

really talking. Mr. Stepel, a German artist, had just left us; and a

little trait of Miss Josephine's, that had occurred during his call,

brought out this observation from Cousin Letty:--

"Jo, how could thee let down thy hair so before that man?"

Jo laughed. "Thee is a little innocent, Letty, with your pretty dialect!

Why did I let my hair down? For Mr. Stepel to see it, of course."

"That is very evident," interposed I; "but Letty is not so innocent or so

wise as to have done wondering at your caprices, Jo; expound, if you

please, for her edification."

"I do not pretend to be wise or simple, Sarah; but I didn't think Cousin

Josephine had so much vanity."

"You certainly shall have a preacher-bonnet, Letty. How do you know it was

vanity, my dear? I saw you show Mr. Stepel your embroidery with the

serenest satisfaction; now you made your crewel cherries, and I didn't

make my hair; which was vain?"

Letty was astounded. "Thee has a gift of speech, certainly, Jo."

"I have a gift of honesty, you mean. My hair is very handsome, and I knew

Mr. Stepel would admire it with real pleasure, for it is a rare color. I

took down those curls with quite as simple an intention as you brought him

that little picture of Cole's to see."

Josephine was right,--partly, at least. Her hair was perfect; its tint the

exact hue of a new chestnut-skin, with golden lights, and shadows of deep

brown; not a tinge of red libelled it as auburn; and the light broke on

its glittering waves as it does on the sea, tipping the undulations with

sunshine, and scattering rays of gold through the long, loose curls, and

across the curve of the massive coil, that seemed almost too heavy for her

proud and delicate head to bear. Mr. Stepel was excusably enthusiastic

about its beauty, and Jo as cool as if it had been a wig. Sometimes I

thought this peculiar hair was an expression of her own peculiar

character.

Letty said truly that Jo had a gift of speech; and she, having said her

say about the hair, dismissed the matter, with no uneasy recurring to it,

and took up a book from the table, declaring she was tired of her seam;--

she always was tired of sewing! Presently she laughed.

"What is it, Jo?" said I.

"Why, it is 'Jane Eyre,' with Letty Allis's name on the blank leaf. That

is what I call an anachronism, spiritually. What do you think about the

book, Letty?" said she, turning her lithe figure round in the great chair

toward the little Quakeress, whose pretty red head and apple-blossom of a

face bloomed out of her gray attire and prim collar with a certain

fascinating contrast.

"I think it has a very good moral tendency, Cousin Jo."

The clear, hazel eyes flashed a most amused comment at me.

"Well, what do you call the moral, Letty?"

"Why,--I should think,--I do not quite know that the moral is stated,

Josephine,--but I think thee will allow it was a great triumph of

principle for Jane Eyre to leave Mr. Rochester when she discovered that he

was married."

Jo flung herself back impatiently in the chair, and began an harangue.

"That is a true world's judgment! And you, you innocent little Quaker

girl! think it is the height of virtue not to elope with a married man,

who has entirely and deliberately deceived you, and adds to the wrong of

deceit the insult of proposing an elopement! Triumph of principle! I

should call it the result of common decency, rather,--a thing that the

instinct of any woman would compel her to do. My only wonder is how Jane

Eyre could continue to love him."

"My dear young friend," said I, rather grimly, "when a woman loves a man,

it is apt, I regret to say, to become a fact, not a theory; and facts are

stubborn things, you know. It is not easy to set aside a real affection."

"I know that, ma'am," retorted Jo, in a slightly sarcastic tone; "it is a

painful truth; still, I do think a deliberate deceit practised on me by

any man would decapitate any love I had for him, quite inevitably."

"So it might, in your case," replied I; "for you never will love a man,

only your idea of one. You will go on enjoying your mighty theories and

dreams till suddenly the juice of that 'little western flower' drips on

your eyelids, and then I shall have the pleasure of seeing you caress 'the

fair large ears' of some donkey, and hang rapturously upon its bray, till

you perhaps discover that he has pretended, on your account solely, to

like roses, when he has a natural proclivity to thistles; and then,

pitiable child! you will discover what you have been caressing, and--I

spare you conclusions; only, for my part, I pity the animal! Now Jane Eyre

was a highly practical person; she knew the man she loved was only a man,

and rather a bad specimen at that; she was properly indignant at this

further development of his nature, but reflecting in cool blood,

afterward, that it was only his nature, and finding it proper and legal to

marry him, she did so, to the great satisfaction of herself and the

public. _You_ would have made a new ideal of St. John Rivers, who was

infinitely the best material of the two, and possibly gone on to your

dying day in the belief that his cold and hard soul was only the adamant

of the seraph, encouraged in that belief by his real and high principle,--

a thing that went for sounding brass with that worldly-wise little

philosopher, Jane, because it did not act more practically on his inborn

traits."

"Bah!" said Josephine, "when did you turn gypsy, Sally? You ought to sell

_dukkeripen_, and make your fortune. Why don't you unfold Letty's fate?"

"No," said I, laughing. "Don't you know that the afflatus always exhausts

the priestess? You may tell Letty's fortune, or mine, if you will; but my

power is gone."

"I can tell yours easily, O Sibyl!" replied she. "You will never marry,

neither for real nor ideal. You should have fallen in love in the orthodox

way, when you were seventeen. You are adaptive enough to have moulded

yourself into any nature that you loved, and constant enough to have clung

to it through good and evil. You would have been a model wife, and a

blessed mother. But now--you are too old, my dear; you have seen too

much; you have not hardened yourself, but you have learned to see too

keenly into other people. You don't respect men, 'except exceptions'; and

you have seen so much matrimony that is harsh and unlovable, that you

dread it; and yet--Don't look at me that way, Sarah! I shall cry!--My

dear! my darling! I did not mean to hurt you.--I am a perfect fool!--Do

please look at me with your old sweet eyes again!--How could I!"----

"Look at Letty," said I, succeeding at last in a laugh. And really Letty

was comical to look at; she was regarding Josephine and me with her eyes

wide open like two blue larkspur flowers, her little red lips apart, and

her whole pretty surface face quite full of astonishment.

"Wasn't that a nice little tableau, Letty?" said Josephine, with

preternatural coolness. "You looked so sleepy, I thought I'd wake you up

with a bit of a scene from 'Lara Aboukir, the Pirate Chief'; you know we

have a great deal of private theatricals at Baltimore; you should see me

in that play as Flashmoria, the Bandit's Bride."

Letty rubbed her left eye a little, as if to see whether she was sleepy or

not, and looked grave; for me, the laugh came easily enough now. Jo saw

she had not quite succeeded, so she turned the current another way.

"Shall I tell your fortune now, Letty? Are you quite waked up?" said she.

"No, thee needn't, Cousin Jo; thee don't tell very good ones, I think."

"No, Letty, she shall not vex your head with nonsense. I think your fate

is patent; you will grow on a little longer like a pink china-aster, safe

in the garden, and in due time marry some good Friend,--Thomas Dugdale,

very possibly,--and live a tranquil life here in Slepington till you

arrive at a preacher-bonnet, and speak in meeting, as dear Aunt Allis did

before you."

Letty turned pale with rage. I did not think her blonde temperament held

such passion.

"I won't! I won't! I never will!" she cried out. "I hate Thomas Dugdale,

Sarah! Thee ought to know better about me! thee knows I cannot endure him,

the old thing!"

This climax was too much for Jo. With raised brows and a round mouth, she

had been on the point of whistling ever since Letty began; it was an old,

naughty trick of hers; but now she laughed outright.

"No sort of inspiration left, Sally! I must patch up Letty's fate myself.

Flatter not yourself that she is going to be a good girl and marry in

meeting; not she! If there's a wild, scatter-brained, handsome,

dissipated, godless youth in all Slepington, it is on him that testy

little heart will fix,--and think him not only a hero, but a prodigy of

genius. Friend Allis will break her heart over Letty; but I'd bet you a

pack of gloves, that in three years you'll see that juvenile Quakeress in

a scarlet satin hat and feather, with a blue shawl, and green dress, on

the arm of a fast young man with black hair, and a cigar in his mouth."

"Why! where _did_ thee ever see him, Josey?" exclaimed Letty, now rosy

with quick blushes.

The question was irresistible. Jo and I burst into a peal of laughter that

woke Friend Allis from her nap, and, bringing her into the parlor, forced

us to recover our gravity; and presently Jo and I took leave.

Letty was an orphan, and lived with her cousin, Friend Allis. I, too, was

alone; but I kept a tiny house in Slepington, part of which I rented, and

Jo was visiting me.

As we walked home, along the quiet street overhung with willows and

sycamores, I said to her, "Jo, how came you to know Letty's secret?"

"My dear, I did not know it any more than you; but I drew the inference of

her tastes from her character. She is excitable,--even passionate; but her

formal training has allowed no scope for either trait, and suppression has

but concentrated them. She really pines for some excitement;--what, then,

could be more natural than that her fancy should light upon some person

utterly diverse from what she is used to see? That is simple enough. I hit

upon the black hair on the same principle, 'like in difference.' The cigar

seemed wonderful to the half-frightened, all-amazed child; but who ever

sees a fast young man without a cigar?"

"I am afraid it is Henry Malden," said I, meditatively; "he is all you

describe, but he is also radically bad; besides, having been in the

Mexican war, he will have the prestige of a hero to Letty. How can the

poor girl be undeceived before it is quite too late?"

"What do you want to undeceive her for, Sally? Do you suppose that will

prevent her marrying Mr. Malden?"

"I should think so, most certainly!"

"Not in the least. If you want Letty to marry him, just judiciously oppose

it. Go to her, and say you come as a friend to tell her Mr. Malden's

faults, and the result will be, she will hate you, and be deeper in love

with him than ever."

"You don't give her credit for common sense, Jo."

"Just as much as any girl of her age has in love. Did you ever know a

woman who gave up a man she loved because she was warned against him?--or

even if she knew his character well, herself? I don't know but there are

women who could do it, from sheer religious principle. I believe you

might, Sarah. It would be a hard struggle, and wear you to a shadow in

mind and body; but you have a conscience, and, for a woman with a heart as

soft as pudding, the most thoroughly rigid streak of duty in you; none of

which Letty has to depend on. No; if you want to save her, take her away

from Slepington; take her to Saratoga, to Newport, to Washington; turn her

small head with gayety: she is pretty enough to have a dozen lovers at any

watering-place; it is only propinquity that favors Mr. Malden here."

"I can't do that, Josephine. I have not the means, and Miss Allis would

not have the will, even if she believed in your prescription."

"Then Letty must stay here and bide her time. You believe in a special

Providence, Sarah, don't you?"

"Yes, of course I do."

"Then cannot you leave her to that care? Circumstances do not work for

you. Perhaps it is best that she should marry him, suffer, live, love, and

be refined by fire."

My heart sunk at the prospect of these possibilities. Josephine put her

arm round me. "Sally," said she, in her softest tone, "I grieved you,

dear, this afternoon. I did not mean to. I grieved myself most. Please

forgive me!"

"I haven't anything to forgive, Jo," said I. "What you said to me was

true, painfully true,--and, being so, for a moment pained me. I should

have been much happier to be married, I know; but now I daren't think of

it. I have lost a great deal. I have

"--'lost _my_ place,

_My_ sweet, safe corner by the household fire,

Behind the heads of children';

"and yet I do not know that I have not gained a little. It is something,

Jo, to know that I am not in the power of a bad, or even an ill-tempered

man. I can sit by my fire and know that no one will come home to fret at

me,--that I shall encounter no cold looks, no sneers, no bursts of anger,

no snarl of stinginess, no contempt of my opinion and advice. I know that

now men treat me with respect and attention, such as their wives rarely,

if ever, receive from them. Sensitive and fastidious as I am, I do not

know whether my gain is not, to me, greater than my loss. I know it ought

not to be so,--that it argues a vicious, an unchristian, almost an

uncivilized state of society; but that does not affect the facts."

"You frighten me, Sarah. I cannot believe this is always true of men and

their wives."

"Neither is it. Some men are good and kind and gentle, gentle-men, even in

their families; and every woman believes the man she is to marry is that

exception. Jo,--bend your ear down closer,--I thought once I knew such a

man,--and,--dear,--I loved him."

"My darling!--but, Sarah, why"--

"Because, as you said, Josey, I was too old; I had seen too much; I would

not give way to an impulse. I bent my soul to know him; I rang the metal

on more than one stone, and every time it rang false. I knew, if I married

him, I should live and die a wretched woman. Was it not better to live

alone?"

"But, Sarah,--if he loved you?"

"He did not,--not enough to hurt himself; he could not love anything so

much better than his ease as to suffer, Josey: he was safe. He thought, or

said, he loved me; but he was mistaken."

"Safe, indeed! He ought to have been shot!"

"Hush, dear!"

There was a long pause. It was as when you lift a wreck from the tranquil

sea and let it fall again to the depths, useless to wave or shore; the

black and ghastly hulk is covered; it is seen no more; but the water

palpitates with circling rings, trembles above the grave, dashes quick and

apprehensive billows upon the sand, and is long in regaining its quiet

surface.

"I wonder if there ever was a perfect man," said Jo, at length, drawing a

deep sigh.

"You an American girl, Jo, and don't think at once of Washington?"

"My dear, I am bored to death with Washington _à l'Américain_. A man!--

how dare you call him a man?--don't you know he is a myth, an abstraction,

a plaster-of-Paris cast? Did you ever hear any human trait of his noticed?

Weren't you brought up to regard him as a species of special seraph, a

sublime and stainless figure, inseparable from a grand manner and a

scroll? Did you ever dare suppose he ate, or drank, or kissed his wife?

You started then at the idea: I saw you!"

"You are absurd, Jo. It is true that he is exactly, among us, what

demigods were to the Greeks,--only less human than they. But when I once

get my neck out of the school-yoke, I do not start at such suggestions as

yours; I believe he did comport himself as a man of like passions with

others, and was as far from being a hero to his _valet-de-chambre_ as

anybody."

By this time we were at home, and Jo flung her parasol on the bench in the

porch, and sat down beside it with a gesture of weariness and disgust

mingled.

"Why will you, of all people, Sarah, quote that tinkling, superficial

trash of a proverb, so palpably French, when the true reason why a man is

not a hero to his lackey is only because he is seen with a lackey's eyes,

--the sight of a low, convention-ridden, narrow, uneducated mind, unable

to take a broad enough view to see that a man is a hero because he is a

man, because he overleaps the level of his life, and is greater than his

race, being one of them? If he were of the heroic race, what virtue in

being heroic? it is the assertion of his trivial life that makes his

speciality evident,--the shadow that throws out the bas-relief. We chatter

endlessly about the immense good of Washington's example: I believe its

good would be more than doubled, could we be made, nationally, to see him

as a human being, living on 'human nature's daily food,' having mortal and

natural wants, tastes, and infirmities, but building with and over all, by

the help of God and a good will, the noble and lofty edifice of a patriot

manhood, a pure life of duty and devotion, sublime for its very strength

and simpleness, heroic because manly and human."

The day had waned, and the sunset lit Josephine's excited eyes with fire:

she was not beautiful, but now, if ever, beauty visited her with a

transient caress. She looked up and met my eyes fixed on her.

"What is it, Sally?--what do I look like?"

"Very pretty, just now, Jo; your eyes are bright and your cheek flushed:

the sunshine suits you. I admire you tonight."

"I am glad," said she, naively. "I often wish to be pretty."

"A waste wish, Jo!--and yet I have entertained it myself."

"It's not so much matter for you, Sarah; for people love you. And besides,

you have a certain kind of beauty: your eyes are beautiful,--rather too

sad, perhaps, but fine in shape and tint; and you have a good head, and a

delicately outlined face. Moreover, you are picturesque: people look at

you, and then look again,--and, any way, love you, don't they?"

"People are very good to me, Jo."

"Oh, yes! we all know that people as a mass are kindly, considerate, and

unselfish; that they are given to loving and admiring disagreeable and

ugly people; in short, that the millennium has come. Sally, my dear, you

are a small hypocrite,--or else--But I think we won't establish a mutual-

admiration society to-night, as there are only two of us; besides, I am

hungry: let us have tea."

The next day, Josephine left me. As we walked together toward the landing

of the steamer, Letty Allis emerged from a green lane to say good-bye, and

down its vista I discerned the handsome, lazy person of Henry Malden, but

I did not inform Letty of my discovery.

A year passed away,--to me with the old monotonous routine; full of work,

not wanting in solace; barren, indeed, of household enjoyments and

vicissitudes; solitary, sometimes desolate, yet peaceful even in monotony.

But this new spring had not come with such serene neglect to the other two

of us three. Against advice, remonstrance, and entreaty from her good

friends, Letty Allis had married Henry Malden, and, in attire more

tasteful, but quite as far from Quakerism as Josephine had predicted,

beamed upon the inhabitants of Slepington from the bow-window, or open

door, of a cottage very _ornée_ indeed; while the odor of a tolerable

cigar served as Mr. Malden's exponent, wherever he abode. And to Josephine

had come a loss no annual resurrection should repair: her mother was dead;

she, too, was orphaned,--for she had never known her father; her only

sister was married far away; and I kept an old promise in going to her for

a year's stay at least.

Aunt Boyle's property had consisted chiefly in large cotton mills owned by

herself and her twin brother,--who, dying before her, left her all his own

share in them. These mills were on a noisy little river in the western

part of Massachusetts,--in a valley, narrow, but picturesque, and so far

above the level of the sea that the air was keen and pure as among

mountains. Mrs. Boyle had removed here from Baltimore, a few years before

her own death, that she might be with her brother through his long and

fatal illness; and, finding her health improved by change of air, had

occupied his house ever since, until one of those typhoid fevers that

infest such river-gorges at certain seasons of the year entered the

village about the mills, when, in visiting the sick, she took the epidemic

herself and died. Josephine still retained the house endeared to her by

sad and glad recollections; and it was there I found her, when, after

renting the whole of my little tenement at Slepington, I betook myself to

Valley Mills at her request.

The cottage where she lived was capacious enough for her wants, and though

plain, even to an air of superciliousness, without, was most luxurious

within,--made to use and live in; for Mr. Brown, her uncle, was an

Englishman, and had never arrived at that height of Transatlantic _ton_

which consists in shrouding and darkening all the pleasant rooms in the

house, and skulking through life in the basement and attic. Sunshine,

cushions, and flowers were Mr. Brown's personal tastes; and plenty of

these characterized the cottage. A green terrace between hill and river

spread out before the door for lawn and garden, and a tiny conservatory

abutted upon the brink of the terrace slope, from a bay-window in the

library, that opened sidewise into this winter-garden.

I found Jo more changed than I had expected: this last year of country

life had given strength and elasticity to the tall and slender figure; a

steady rose of health burned on either cheek; and sorrow had subdued and

calmed her quick spirits.

I was at home directly, and a sweeter summer never glowed and blushed over

earth than that which installed me in the Nook Cottage. Out of doors the

whole country was beautiful, and attainable; within, I had continual

resources in my usual work and in Jo's society: for she was one of those

persons who never are uninteresting, never fatiguing; a certain salient

charm pervaded her conversation, and a simplicity quite original startled

you continually in her manner and ways. I liked to watch her about the

house; dainty and fastidious in the extreme about some things, utterly

careless about others, you never knew where or when either trait would

show itself next. She was scrupulous as to the serving of meals, for

instance,--almost to a fault; no carelessness, no slight neglect, was

admitted here, and always on the spotless damask laid with quaint china

stood a tapered vase of white Venice glass, with one, or two, or three

blossoms, sometimes a cluster of leaves, the spray of a wild vine, or the

tasselled branch of a larch-tree jewelled with rose-red cones, arranged

therein with an artist's taste and skill: but perhaps, while she sharply

rebuked the maid for a dim spot on her chocolate-pitcher or a grain of

sugar spilt on the salver, her white India shawl lay trailed over the

divan half upon the floor, and her gloves fluttered on the doorstep till

the wind carried them off to find her parasol hanging in the honeysuckle

boughs.

But, happily, it is not one's duty to make other people uncomfortable by

perpetually tinkering at that trait in them which most offends our own

nature; and I thought it more for my good and hers to learn patience

myself than undertake to beat her into order; the result of which was

peace and good-will that vindicated my wisdom to myself; and I found her,

faults and all, sufficiently fascinating and lovable.

A year passed away serenely; and when spring came again, Josephine refused

to let me leave her. Our life was quiet enough, but, with such beautiful

Nature, and plenty to do, we were not lonely,--less so because Jo's hands

were as open as her heart, and to her all the sick and poor looked, not

only for help, but for the rarer consolations of living sympathy and

counsel. Her shrewd common sense, her practical capacity, her kindly,

cheerful face, her power of appreciating a position of want and perplexity

and seeing the best way out of it, and, above all, her deep and fervent

religious feeling, made her an invaluable friend to just that class who

most needed her.

In the course of this spring we gained an addition to our society, in the

person of Mr. Waring, the son of the gentleman who had bought the mills at

Mrs. Boyle's death, but who had hitherto conducted them by an overseer. He

had recently bought a little island in the middle of the river, just below

the dam, and proposed erecting a new mill upon it; but as the Tunxis (the

Indian name of our river) was liable to rapid and destructive freshets,

the mill required a deep and secure foundation and a lower story of stone.

This implied some skilful engineering, and Mr. Arthur Waring, having

studied this subject fully abroad, came on from Boston, and took up his

abode in Valley Mills village. Of course, we being his only hope of

society in the place, he made our acquaintance early. I rather liked him;

his manner was good, his perceptions acute, his tastes refined, and he had

a certain strength of will that gave force to a character otherwise

common-place. Josephine liked him at once; she laid his shyness and

_brusquerie_, which were only the expression of a dominant self-

consciousness, to genuine modesty. He was depressed and moody, because he

was bored for want of acquaintance, and missed the adulation and caresses

that he received at home as an only child; but Jo's swift imagination

painted this as the trait of a reflective and melancholy nature disgusted

with the world, and pitied him accordingly; a mild way of misanthropic

speech, that is apt to infest young men, added to this delusion; and, with

all the energy of her sweet, earnest disposition, Josephine undertook his

education,--undertook to teach him faith and hope and charity, to set

right his wayward soul, to renovate his bitter opinions, to make him a

better and a happier man.

It is a well-known fact in the philosophy of the human mind, that it is

apt to gain more by imparting than by receiving; and since philosophy,

where it becomes fact, does not mercifully adjust its results to

circumstance, but rushes on in implacable grooves, and clears its own

track of whatever lies thereon by the summary process of crushing it to

dust, it did not pause now for the pure intentions and tender heart which,

in teaching another love to men, taught herself love to a man, and learnt

far better than her pupil.

Mr. Waring was but a man; he did not love Josephine,--he admired her; he

loved nothing but himself, his quiet, his pleasure; and while she

ministered to either, he regarded her with a species of affection that put

on the mask of a diviner passion and used its language. A thousand little

things showed the man fully to me, a cool spectator; but she who needed

most the discerning eye regarded this gay bubble as if it had been a

jewel.

Perhaps I blame him too severely, for it was against the very heart of my

heart that he sinned; possibly I do not allow for the temptation it was to

a young man, quite alone in a country village, without resources, and

accustomed to the flattery and caresses of a devoted mother, to find

himself agreeable in the eyes of a noble and lovable woman. Possibly, in

his place, a better man might have sought her society, drawn her out of

her reserve for his own delectation, confided in her, worked upon her

pity, claimed her care, played on her simplicity and ignorance of the

world, crept into her heart and won its strength of emotion and its

generous affection,--in short, made love to her, without saying so,

honestly and openly. Yet there are some men who would not have done it;

and even yet, while I try to regard Arthur Waring with Christian charity,

I feel that I cannot trust him, that I do not respect him,--that, if I

dared despise anything God has made, my first contempt would light on him.

In the autumn, while all this was going on, I received a painful and

wretched letter from Letty Malden, begging me to come to her. I could not

resist such an appeal; and one of Josephine's little nieces having come to

spend the winter with her, I hurried to Slepington,--not, I am sure, in

the least regretted by Mr. Waring, who had begun to look at me with uneasy

and sometimes defiant eyes.

I found a miserable household here. Mr. Malden had in no way reformed.

When did marriage ever reform a bad man? On the contrary, he was more

dissipated than ever; and whenever he came home, the welcome that waited

for him was one little calculated to make home pleasant; for Letty's quick

temper blazed up in reproach and reviling that drew out worse

recrimination; and even the little, wailing, feeble baby, that filled

Letty's arms and consoled her in his absence, was only further cause of

strife between her and her husband. Often, as I came down the street and

saw the pretty outside of the cottage, waving with creepers, and hedged

about with thorns, whose gay berries decked it as if for a festival, I

thought of what a good old preacher among the Friends once said to me:

"Sarah, thee will live to find shows are often seems; thee sees many a

quiet house, with gay windows, that is hell inside."

I soon found that I must stay all winter at Slepington. I had a hard task

before me,--to try and teach Letty that she had no right to neglect her

own duties because her husband ignored his. But six months of continual

dropping seemed to wear a tiny channel of perception; and my presence, as

well as the efforts we made together to preserve order, if not serenity,

in the house, restored a certain dim hope to Letty's mind, and I began to

see that the "purification by fire" was doing its work, in slow pain, but

to a sure end.

Selfish as it was, I cannot say that I felt sorry to return to Jo, who

wrote for me in April, urging me to come as soon as I could, for Mr.

Waring had fallen from the mill-wall and broken his leg, and the workmen,

in their confusion, had carried him to her house, and she wanted me to

help her. I learned, on reaching Valley Mills, that the new building on

the island had not been completed far enough to resist a heavy freshet,

that had swept away part of the first story, where the mortar was not yet

hardened; and it was in traversing these wet stones to ascertain the

extent of the damage that Mr. Waring had slipped, and, unable to recover

his footing, fallen on a heap of stones and received his injury.

My first question to Josephine was, "Where is Mr. Waring's mother?"

"He would not send for her, Sally," said she, "because she is not well,

and he feared to startle her."

"H'm!" said I, very curtly.

Josephine looked at me with innocent, grave eyes,--dear, simple child!--

and yet, for anybody but herself she would have been sufficiently

discerning. This love seemed to have remodelled her nature, to have taken

from her all the serpent's wisdom, to have destroyed her common sense, and

distorted her view of everything in which Arthur Waring was concerned. She

had certainly got on very fast in my absence. I had returned too late.

I had little to do with the care of the invalid; that devolved on Jo; my

offers of service were kindly received, but always declined. Nobody could

read to him so well as Miss Boyle. Nobody else understood his moods, his

humors, his whims; she knew his tastes with ominous exactness. It was she

who arranged his meals on the salver with such care and grace, nay, even

cooked them at times; for Jo believed, like a rational woman, that

intellect and cultivation increase one's capacity for every office,--that

a woman of intelligence should be able to excel an ignorant servant in

every household duty, by just so much as she excels her in mind. In fact,

this was a pleasant life to two persons, but harassing enough for me. Had

I been confident of Arthur Waring's integrity, I should have regarded him

with friendly and cordial interest; but I had every reason to distrust

him. I perceived he had so far insinuated himself into Jo's confidence,

that his whole artillery of expressive looks, broken sentences, even

caresses, were received by her with entire good faith; but when I asked

her seriously if I was to regard Mr. Waring as her lover, she burst into

indignant denial, colored scarlet, and was half inclined to be angry with

me,--though a certain tremulous key, into which her usually sweet and

steady voice broke while she declared he had never spoken to her of love,

it was only friendship, witnessed against her that she was apprehensive,

sad, perhaps visited with a tinge of that causeless shame which even in a

pure and good woman conventionality constrains, when she has loved a man

before he says in plain English, "I love you," though every act and look

and tone of his may have carried that significance unmistakably for years.

Thank God, there is a day of sure judgment coming, when conventions and

shields of usage will save no man from the due vengeance of truth upon

falsehood, justice upon smooth and plausible duplicity!

In due time Mr. Waring recovered. If there was any change in his manner to

Jo, it was too slight to be seen, though it was felt, and was, after all,

the carelessness of a person certain of his foothold in her good graces,

rather than the evident withdrawal of attention,--which I could have

pardoned even then, had it been the result of honest regret for past

carelessness, and stern resolution to repair that past. Whatever it was,

Jo perceived that her ideal man was become a real man; but, with a

tenacity of nature, for which in my fate-telling I had not given her

credit, she was as constant to the substance as she had been to the dream;

and while she lost both health and spirits in the contemplation of Arthur

Waring's fitful and heedless manner toward her, and was evidently pained

by the discovery of his selfish and politic traits,--to call them by no

harsher name,--it was inexpressibly touching to hear the excuses she made

for him, to see the all-shielding love with which she veiled his faults,

and kept him as a mother would keep her graceless, yet dearest child from

animadversion and reproach.

In the mean time I heard often from Letty,--no good news of her husband,

but that her child grew more and more a comfort, that her friends were

very kind, and always in a tiny postscript some such phrase as this: "I

try to be patient, Sarah," or "I don't scold Harry so much as I did,

dear." I hoped for Letty, for she persevered.

That summer we saw less than ever of Mr. Waring; he was very busy at the

mill in order that it might be far enough advanced to resist the

inevitable spring freshets; and besides, we were absent from the Valley

some weeks, endeavoring to recruit Jo's failing health at the sea-side.

But this was a vain endeavor; that which sapped the springs of her life

was past outward cure. She inherited her father's delicate and unreliable

constitution, and a nervous organization, whose worst disease is ever the

preying of doubt, anxiety, or regret. As winter drew on, she grew no

better; a dim, dreamy abstraction brooded over her. She said to me often,

with a vague alarm, "Sally, how far off you seem! Do come nearer!" She

ceased to talk when we were alone, her step grew languid, her eye deeper,

--and its bright expression, when you roused her, was longer in shooting

back into the clouded sphere than ever before. She sat for hours by the

window, her lovely head resting on its casement, looking out, always out

and away, beyond the hills, into the deep spaces of blue air, past cloud

and vapor, to the stars. Sudden noises startled her to an extreme degree;

a quick step flushed her cheek with fire and fluttered her breath. How I

longed for spring! I hoped all from the delicate ministrations of Nature;

though the physician we called gave me no hope of her final recovery. Mr.

Waring himself seemed struck with her aspect, and many little signs of

friendly interest came from him. As often as he could, he returned to his

old haunts; and while the pleasure of his presence and the excitement of

his undisguised anxiety wrought on her, Jo became almost her old self for

the moment, gay, cheerful, blooming,--alas! with the bloom of feverishness

and vain hope.

So spring drew near. The mill was nearly finished. One day in March a warm

south-wind "quieted the earth" after a long rain, the river began to stir,

its mail of ice to crack and heave under the sun's rays. I persuaded Jo to

take a little drive, and once in the carriage the air reanimated her; she

rested against me and talked more than I had known her for weeks.

"What a lovely day!" said she; "how balmy the air is! there is such an

expression of rest without despair, such calm expectation! I always think

of heaven such days, Sally!--they are like the long sob with which a child

finishes weeping. Only to think of never more knowing tears!--that is life

indeed!"

A keen pang pierced me at the vibration of her voice as she spoke. I

thought to soothe her a little, and said, "Heaven can be no more than

love, Jo, and we have a great deal of that on earth."

"Do we?" answered she, in a tone of grief just tipped with irony,--and

then went on: "I believe you love me, Sally. I would trust you with--my

heart, if need were. I think you love me better than any one on earth

does."

"I love you enough, dear," said I; more words would have choked me in the

utterance.

Soon we turned homeward.

"Tell John to drive down by the river," said Josephine,--"I want to see

the new mill."

"But you cannot see it from the road, Jo; the hemlocks stand between."

"Never mind, Sally; I shall just walk through them; don't deny me! I want

to see it all again; and perhaps the arbutus is in bloom."

"Not yet, Jo."

"I can get some buds, then; I want to have some just once."

We left the carriage, and on my arm Jo strolled through the little thicket

of hemlock-trees, green and fragrant. She seemed unusually strong. I began

to hope. After much searching, we found the budded flowers; she loved most

of all wild blossoms; no scent breathed from the closed petals; they were

not yet kissed by the odor-giving south-wind into life and expression; but

Jo looked at them with sad, far-reaching eyes. I think she silently said

good-bye to them.

Presently we came out on the steep bank of the river, directly opposite

the mill. A heavy timber was thrown across from the shore to the island,

on which the workmen from the west side had passed and repassed; it was

firm enough for its purpose, but now, wet with the morning's rain, and

high above the grinding ice, it seemed a hazardous bridge. As we stood

looking over at the new mill, listening to the slight stir within it,

apparently the setting to rights by some lingering workman of such odds

and ends as remain after finishing the great whole of such a building,

suddenly the cool wind, which had shifted to the north, brought on its

waft a most portentous roar. We stood still to listen. Nearer and nearer

it swelled, crashing and hissing as it approached. Josephine grasped my

arm with convulsive energy, and at that instant we perceived Mr. Waring's

plaid cap pass an open casement. She turned upon me like a wild creature

driven to bay. I looked up-stream;--the ice had gathered in one high

barrier mixed with flood-wood and timber, and, bearing above all the

uprooted trunk of a huge sycamore, was coming down upon the dam like a

battering-ram. Jo gasped. "The river is broken up and Arthur is on the

island," said she, in a fearfully suppressed tone, and, swifter than I

could think or guess her meaning, she had reached the timber, she was on

it,--and with light, untrembling steps half across, when both she and I

simultaneously caught sight of Mr. Waring running for dear life to the

other and stronger bridge. Jo turned to come back; but the excitement was

past that had sustained her; she trembled, she tottered. I ran to meet and

aid her. Just then the roots of the great sycamore thundered against the

dam; the already heavily pressed structure gave way; with the freed roar

of a hurricane, the barrier, the dam, the foot-bridge swept down toward

us. She had all but reached the end of the timber,--I stood there to grasp

her hand,--when the old tree, whirled down by the torrent, struck the

other end of the beam and threw Josephine forward to the bank, dashing her

throbbing, panting breast, with all the force of her fall, against the

hard ground. I lifted her in my arms. She was white with pain. Presently

she opened her eyes and looked up, a flush of rapture glowed all over her

face, and then the awful mist of death, gray and rigid, veiled it. Her

head dropped on my shoulder; a sharp cry and a rush of scarlet blood

passed her lips together; the head lay more heavily,--she was dead. But

Arthur Waring never knew how or for what she died!

Five years have passed since that day. Still I live at Nook Cottage; but

not alone. Of us three, Josephine is in heaven. Letty is still troubled

upon earth; her husband tests her patience and her temper every hour, but

both temper and patience are in good training; and if ever Henry Malden is

reclaimed, as I begin to see reasons to hope he will be, he will owe it to

the continual example and gentle goodness of his wife, who has grown from

a petulant, thoughtless girl into a lovely, unselfish, religious woman, a

devoted mother and wife, "refined by fire." For me, the last,--whenever

now I say, as I used to say, "Three of us," I mean a new three,--Paul,

baby, and me; for Jo was not a prophet. Four years ago, while my heart-

ache for her was fresh and torturing, a new pastor came to the little

village church of Valley Mills. Mr. Lyman was very good; I have seen other

men with as fine natural traits, but I have never seen a man or woman so

entirely good. He came to me to console me; for he, too, had just lost a

sister, and in listening to his story I for a moment forgot my own, as he

meant I should. But I did not love him,--no, not till I discovered, months

afterward, that he suffered incessantly from ill-health, and was all alone

in the world. I was too much a woman to resist such a plea. I pitied him;

I tried to take care of him; and when he asked me if I liked the office of

sick-nurse, I told him I liked it well enough to wish it were for life;

and now, when he wants to light my eyes out of that dreamy expression that

tells him I am re-living the past, and thinking of the dead, he tells me,

for the sake of the flash that follows, that I offered myself to him!

Perhaps I did. But he is well now; the air of the Tunxis hills, and the

rest of a quiet life, partly, I hope, good care also, have restored to him

his lost health. And I am what Jo said I should have been,--a blessed

mother, as well as a happy wife. The baby that lies across my lap has

traits that endear her to me doubly,--traits of each of us three cousins:

Josephine's hair on her little nestling head, Letty's apple-blossom

complexion, and my eyes, except that they are serene when they are not

smiling. I ask only of the love that has given me all this unexpected joy,

that my little Jo may have one better trait,--her father's heart; a

stronger, tenderer, and purer heart than belonged to any one among "Three

of us!"

WHAT A WRETCHED WOMAN SAID TO ME.

All the broad East was laced with tender rings

Of widening light; the Daybreak shone afar;

Deep in the hollow, 'twixt her fiery wings,

Fluttered the morning star.

A cloud, that through the time of darkness went

With wanton winds, now, heavy-hearted, came

And fell upon the sunshine, penitent,

And burning up with shame.

The grass was wet with dew; the sheep-fields lay

Lapping together far as eye could see;

And the great harvest hung the golden way

Of Nature's charity.

My house was full of comfort; I was propped

With life's delights, all sweet as they could be,

When at my door a wretched woman stopped,

And, weeping, said to me,--

"Its rose-root in youth's seasonable hours

Love in thy bosom set, so blest wert thou;

Hence all the pretty little red-mouthed flowers

That climb and kiss thee now!

"_I_ loved, but _I_ must stifle Nature's cries

With old dry blood, else perish, I was told;

Hence the young light shrunk up within my eyes,

And left them blank and bold.

"I take my deeds, all, bad as they have been,--

The way was dark, the awful pitfall bare;--

In my weak hands, up through the fires of sin,

I hold them for my prayer."

"The thick, tough husk of evil grows about

Each soul that lives," I mused, "but doth it kill?

When the tree rots, the imprisoned wedge falls out,

Rusted, but iron still.

"Shall He who to the daisy has access,

Reaching it down its little lamp of dew

To light it up through earth, do any less,

Last and best work, for you?"

SONGS OF THE SEA.

Not Dibdin's; not Barry Cornwall's; not Tom Campbell's; not any of the

"Pirate's Serenades" and "I'm afloats!" which appear in the music-shop-

windows, illustrated by lithographic vignettes of impossible ships in

impracticable positions. These are sung by landsmen yachting in still

waters and in sight of green fields, by romantic young ladies in

comfortable and unmoving drawing-rooms to the tinkling of Chickering's

pianos. What are the songs the sailor sings to the accompaniment of the

thrilling shrouds, the booming double-bass of the hollow topsails, and the

multitudinous chorus of Ocean? What does the coaster, in his brief walk

"three steps and overboard," hum to himself, as he tramps up and down his

little deck through the swathing mists of a Bank fog? What sings the cook

at the galley-fire in doleful unison with the bubble of his coppers?

Surely not songs that exult in the life of the sea. Certainly not, my

amateur friend, anything that breathes of mastery over the elements. The

sea is a real thing to him. He never is familiar with it, or thinks of it

or speaks of it as his slave. It is "a steed that knows his rider," and,

like many another steed which the men of the forecastle have mounted,

knows that it can throw its rider at pleasure, and the riders know it too.

Now and then a sailor will utter some fierce imprecation upon wind or sea,

but it is in the impotence of despair, and not in the conscious, boastful

mastery which the land-songs attribute to him. What, then, does the sailor

sing?--and does he sing at all?

Certainly the sailor sings. Did you ever walk through Ann Street, Boston,

or haunt the purlieus of the Fulton Market? and when there did you never

espy a huckster's board covered with little slips of printed paper of the

size and shape of the bills-of-fare at the Commonwealth Hotel? They are

printed on much coarser paper, and are by no means as typographically

exact as the aforesaid _carte_, or as this page of the "Atlantic Monthly,"

but they are what the sailor sings. I know they are there, for I once

spent a long summer's day in the former place, searching those files for a

copy of the delightful ballad sung (or attempted to be sung) by Dick

Fletcher in Scott's "Pirate,"--the ballad beginning

"It was a ship, and a ship of fame,

Launched off the stocks, bound for the main."

I did not find my ballad, and to this day remain in ignorance of what fate

befell the "hundred and fifty brisk young men" therein commemorated. But I

found what the sailor does sing. It was a miscellaneous collection of

sentimental songs, the worn-out rags of the stage and the parlor, or

ditties of highwaymen, or ballad narratives of young women who ran away

from a rich "parient" with "silvier and gold" to follow the sea. The truth

of the story was generally established by the expedient of putting the

damsel's name in the last verse,--delicately suppressing all but the

initial and final letters. The only sea-songs that I remember were other

ballads descriptive of piracies, of murders by cruel captains, and of

mutinies, with a sprinkling of sea-fights dating from the last war with

England.

The point of remark is, that all of these depend for their interest upon a

human association. Not one of them professes any concern with the sea or

ships for their own sake. The sea is a sad, solemn reality, the theatre

upon which the seaman acts his life's tragedy. It has no more of

enchantment to him than the "magic fairy palace" of the ballet has to a

scene-shifter.

But other songs the sailor sings. The Mediterranean sailor is popularly

supposed to chant snatches of opera over his fishing-nets; but, after all,

his is only a larger sort of lake, with water of a questionable saltness.

It can furnish dangerous enough storms upon occasion, and, far worse than

storms, the terrible white-squall which lies ambushed under sunny skies,

and leaps unawares upon the doomed vessel. But the Mediterranean is not

the deep sea, nor has it produced the best and boldest navigators.

Therefore, although we still seek the sources of our maritime law amid the

rock-poised huts (once palaces) of Amalfi, we must go elsewhere for our

true sea-songs.

The sailor does not lack for singing. He sings at certain parts of his

work;--indeed, he must sing, if he would work. On vessels of war, the drum

and fife or boatswain's whistle furnish the necessary movement-regulator.

There, where the strength of one or two hundred men can be applied to one

and the same effort, the labor is not intermittent, but continuous. The

men form on either side of the rope to be hauled, and walk away with it

like firemen marching with their engine. When the headmost pair bring up

at the stern or bow, they part, and the two streams flow back to the

starting-point, outside the following files. Thus in this perpetual

"follow-my-leader" way the work is done, with more precision and

steadiness than in the merchant-service. Merchant-men are invariably

manned with the least possible number, and often go to sea shorthanded,

even according to the parsimonious calculations of their owners. The only

way the heavier work can be done at all is by each man doing his utmost at

the same moment. This is regulated by the song. And here is the true

singing of the deep sea. It is not recreation; it is an essential part of

the work. It mastheads the topsail-yards, on making sail; it starts the

anchor from the domestic or foreign mud; it "rides down the main tack with

a will"; it breaks out and takes on board cargo; it keeps the pumps (the

ship's,--not the sailor's) going. A good voice and a new and stirring

chorus are worth an extra man. And there is plenty of need of both.

I remember well one black night in the mid-Atlantic, when we were beating

up against a stiff breeze, coming on deck near midnight, just as the ship

was put about. When a ship is tacking, the tacks and sheets (ropes which

confine the clews or lower corners of the sails) are let run, in order

that the yards may be swung round to meet the altered position of the

ship. They must then be hauled taut again, and belayed, or secured, in

order to keep the sails in their place and to prevent them from shaking.

When the ship's head comes up in the wind, the sail is for a moment or two

edgewise to it, and then is the nice moment, as soon as the head-sails

fairly fill, when the main-yard and the yards above it can be swung

readily, and the tacks and sheets hauled in. If the crew are too few in

number, or too slow at their work, and the sails get fairly filled on the

new tack, it is a fatiguing piece of work enough to "board" the tacks and

sheets, as it is called. You are pulling at one end of the rope, but the

gale is tugging at the other. The advantages of lungs are all against you,

and perhaps the only thing to be done is to put the helm down a little,

and set the sails shaking again before they can be trimmed properly.--It

was just at such a time that I came on deck, as above mentioned. Being

near eight bells, the watch on deck had been not over spry; and the

consequence was that our big main-course was slatting and flying out

overhead with a might that shook the ship from stem to stern. The flaps of

the mad canvas were like successive thumps of a giant's fist upon a mighty

drum. The sheets were jerking at the belaying-pins, the blocks rattling in

sharp snappings like castanets. You could hear the hiss and seething of

the sea alongside, and see it flash by in sudden white patches of

phosphorescent foam, while all overhead was black with the flying scud.

The English second-mate was stamping with vexation, and, with all his

ills misplaced, storming at the men:--"'An'somely the weather main-

brace,--'an'somely, I tell you!--'Alf a dozen of you clap on to the main

sheet here,--down with 'im!--D'y'see 'ere's hall like a midshipman's

bag,--heverythink huppermost and nothing 'andy.--'Aul 'im in, Hi say!"

--But the sail wouldn't come, though. All the most forcible expressions of

the Commination-Service were liberally bestowed on the watch. "Give us

the song, men!" sang out the mate, at last,--"pull with a will!

--together, men!--haltogether now!"--And then a cracked, melancholy voice

struck up this chant:

"Oh, the bowline, bully bully bowline,

Oh, the bowline, bowline, HAUL!"

At the last word every man threw his whole strength into the pull,--all

singing it in chorus, with a quick, explosive sound. And so, jump by jump,

the sheet was at last hauled taut.--I dare say this will seem very much

spun out to a seafarer, but landsmen like to hear of the sea and its ways;

and as more landsmen than seamen, probably, read the "Atlantic Monthly," I

have told them of one genuine sea-song, and its time and place.

Then there are pumping-songs. "The dismal sound of the pumps is heard,"

says Mr. Webster's Plymouth-Rock Oration; but being a part of the daily

morning duty of a well-disciplined merchant-vessel,--just a few minutes'

spell to keep the vessel free and cargo unharmed by bilge-water,--it is

not a dismal sound at all, but rather a lively one. It was a favorite

amusement with us passengers on board the ---- to go forward about

pumping-time to the break of the deck and listen. Any quick tune to which

you might work a fire-engine will serve for the music, and the words were

varied with every fancy. "Pay me the money down," was one favorite chorus,

and the verse ran thus:--

_Solo._ Your money, young man, is no object to me.

_Chorus._ Pay me the money down!

_Solo._ Half a crown's no great amount.

_Chorus._ Pay me the money down!

_Solo and Chorus. (Bis)_ Money down, money down, pay me the money down!

Not much sense in all this, but it served to man and move the brakes

merrily. Then there were other choruses, which were heard from time to

time,--"And the young gals goes a-weepin',"--"O long storm, storm along

stormy"; but the favorite tune was "Money down," at least with our crew.

They were not an avaricious set, either; for their parting ceremony, on

embarking, was to pitch the last half-dollars of their advance on to the

wharf, to be scrambled for by the land-sharks. But "Money down" was the

standing chorus. I once heard, though not on board that ship, the lively

chorus of "Off she goes, and off she must go,"--

"Highland day and off she goes,

Off she goes with a flying fore-topsail,

Highland day and off she goes."

It is one of the most spirited things imaginable, when well sung, and,

when applied to the topsail-halyards, brings the yards up in grand style.

These are some of the working-songs of the sea. They are not chosen for

their sense, but for their sound. They must contain good mouth-filling

words, with the vowels in the right place, and the rhythmic ictus at

proper distances for chest and hand to keep true time. And this is why the

seaman beats the wind in a trial of strength. The wind may whistle, but it

cannot sing. The sailor does not whistle, on shipboard at least, but does

sing.

Besides the working-day songs, there are others for the forecastle and

dog-watches, which have been already described. But they are seldom of the

parlor pattern. I remember one lovely moonlight evening, off the Irish

coast, when our ship was slipping along before a light westerly air,--just

enough of it for everything to draw, and the ship as steady as Ailsa Crag,

so that everybody got on deck, even the chronically sea-sick passengers of

the steerage. There was a boy on board, a steerage passenger, who had been

back and forth several times on this Liverpool line of packets. He was set

to singing, and his sweet, clear voice rang out with song after song,--

almost all of them sad ones. At last one of the crew called on him for a

song which he made some demur at singing. I remember the refrain well (for

he _did_ sing it at last); it ran thus:--

"My crew are tried, my bark's my pride,

I'm the Pirate of the Isles."

It was no rose-water piracy that the boy sang of; it was the genuine

pirate of the Isle of Pines,--the gentleman who before the days of

California and steamers was the terror of the Spanish Main. He was

depicted as falling in deadly combat with a naval cruiser, after many

desperate deeds. What was most striking to us of the cabin was, that the

sympathy of the song, and evidently of the hearers, was all on the side of

the defier of law and order. There was no nonsense in it about "islands on

the face of the deep where the winds never blow and the skies never weep,"

which to the parlor pirate are the indications of a capital station for

wood and water, and for spending his honeymoon. It was downright cutting

of throats and scuttling of ships that our youngster sang of, and the grim

faces looked and listened approvingly, as you might fancy Ulysses's

veterans hearkening to a tale of Troy.

There is another class of songs, half of the sea, half of the shore, which

the fishermen and coasters croon in their lonely watches. Such is the

rhyme of "Uncle Peleg," or "Pillick," as it is pronounced,--probably an

historical ballad concerning some departed worthy of the Folger family of

Nantucket. It begins--

"Old Uncle Pillick he built him a boat

On the ba-a-ck side of Nantucket P'int;

He rolled up his trowsers and set her afloat

From the ba-a-ck side of Nantucket P'int."

Like "Christabel," this remains a fragment. Not so the legend of "Captain

Cottington," (or Coddington,) which perhaps is still traditionally known

to the young gentlemen at Harvard. It is marked by a bold and ingenious

metrical novelty.

"Captain Cottington he went to sea,

Captain Cottington he went to sea,

Captain Cottington he went to sea-e-e,

Captain Cottington he went to sea."

The third verse of the next stanza announces that he didn't go to sea in a

schoo-oo-ooner,--of the next that he went to sea in a bri-i-ig,--and so

on. We learn that he got wrecked on the "Ba-ha-ha-hamys," that he swam

ashore with the papers in his hat, and, I believe, entered his protest at

the nearest "Counsel's" (_Anglicé_. Consul's) dwelling.

For the amateur of genuine ballad verse, here is a field quite as fertile

as that which was reaped by Scott and Ritson amid the border peels and

farmhouses of Liddesdale. It is not unlikely that some treasures may thus

be brought to light. The genuine expression of popular feeling is always

forcible, not seldom poetic. And at any rate, these wild bits of verse are

redolent of the freshness of the sea-breeze, the damps of the clinging

fog, the strange odors of the caboose-cookery, of the curing of cod, and

of many another "ancient and fish-like smell." Who will tell us of these

songs, not indeed of the deep sea, but of soundings? What were the stanzas

which Luckie Mucklebackit sang along the Portanferry Sands? What is the

dredging-song which the oyster "come of a gentle kind" is said to love?

These random thoughts may serve to indicate to the true seeker new and

unworked mines of rhythmic ore. We are crying continually, that we have no

national literature, that we are a nation of imitators and plagiarists.

Why will not some one take the trouble to learn what we have? This does

not mean that amateurs should endeavor to write such ballad fragments and

popular songs,--because that cannot be done; such things grow,--they are

not made. If the sea wants songs, it will have them. It is only suggested

here that we look about us and ascertain of what lyric blessings we may

now be the unconscious possessors. Can it be that oars have risen and

fallen, sails flapped, waves broken in thunder upon our shores in vain?

that no whistle of the winds, or moan of the storm-foreboding seas has

waked a responsive chord in the heart of pilot or fisherman? If we are so

poor, let us know our poverty.

And now to bring these desultory remarks to a practical conclusion. I have

written these seemingly trifling fragments with a serious purpose. It is

to show that the seaman has little or no art or part in the poetry of the

seas. I have put down facts, have given what experience I have had of some

of the idiosyncrasies of the forecastle. The poetry of the sea has been

written on shore and by landsmen. Falconer's "Shipwreck" is a clever

nautical tract, written in verse,--or if it be anything more, it is but

the solitary exception which proves and enforces the rule. Midshipmen have

written ambitious verses about the sea; but by the time the young

gentlemen were promoted to the ward-room they have dropped the habit or

found other themes for their stanzas. In truth, the stern manliness of his

calling forbids the seaman to write poetry. He acts it. His is a

profession which leaves no room for any assumed feeling or for any

reflective tendencies. His instincts are developed, rather than his

reason. He has no time to speculate. He must be prepared to lay his hand

on the right rope, let the night be the darkest that ever came down upon

the waves. He obeys orders, heedless of consequences; he issues commands

amid the uproar and tumult of pressing emergencies. There is no chance for

quackery in his work. The wind and the wave are infallible tests of all

his knots and splices. He cannot cheat them. The gale and the lee-shore

are not pictures, but fierce realities, with which he has to grapple for

life or death. The soldier and the fireman may pass for heroes upon an

assumed stock of courage; but the seaman must be a brave man in his

calling, or Nature steps in and brands him coward. Therefore he cares

little about the romance of his duties. If you would win his interest and

regard, it must be on the side of his personal and human sensibilities.

Cut off during his whole active life from any but the most partial

sympathy with his kind, he yearns for the life of the shore, its social

pleasures and its friendly greetings. Captains, whose vessels have been

made hells-afloat by their tyranny, have found abundant testimony in the

courts of law to their gentle and humane deportment on land. Therefore,

when you would address seamen effectively, either in acts or words, let it

be by no shallow mimicry of what you fancy to be their life afloat. It

will be at best but "shop" to them, and we all know how distasteful that

is in the mouth of a stranger to our pursuits. They laugh at your clumsy

imitations, or are puzzled by your strange misconceptions. It is painful

to see the forlorn attempts which are made to raise the condition of this

noble race of men, to read the sad nonsense that is perpetrated for their

benefit. If you wish really to benefit them, it must be by raising their

characters as men; and to do this, you must address them as such,

irrespectively of the technicalities of their calling.

THE KINLOCH ESTATE, AND HOW IT WAS SETTLED.

CHAPTER I.

"Mildred, my daughter, I am faint. Run and get me a glass of cordial from

the buffet."

The girl looked at her father as he sat in his bamboo chair on the piazza,

his pipe just let fall on the floor, and his face covered with a deadly

pallor. She ran for the cordial, and poured it out with a trembling hand.

"Shan't I go for the doctor, father?" she asked.

"No, my dear, the spasm will pass off presently." But his face grew more

ashy pale, and his jaw drooped.

"Dear father," said the frightened girl, "what shall I do for you? Oh,

dear, if mother were only at home, or Hugh, to run for the doctor!"

"Mildred, my daughter," he gasped with difficulty, "the blacksmith,--send

for Ralph Hardwick,--quick! In the ebony cabinet, middle drawer, you will

find----Oh! oh!--God bless you, my daughter!--God bless"----

The angels, only, heard the conclusion of the sentence; for the speaker,

Walter Kinloch, was dead, summoned to the invisible world without a

warning and with hardly a struggle.

But Mildred thought he had fainted, and, raising the window, called loudly

for Lucy Ransom, the only female domestic then in the house.

Lucy, frightened out of her wits at the sudden call, came rushing to the

piazza, flat-iron in hand, and stood riveted to the spot where she first

saw the features on which the awful shadow of death had settled.

"Rub his hands, Lucy!" said Mildred. "Run for some water! Get me the

smelling-salts!"

Lucy attempted to obey all three orders at once, and therefore did

nothing.

Mildred held the unresisting hand. "It is warm," she said. "But the

pulse,--I can't find it."

"Deary, no," said Lucy, "you won't find it."

"Why, you don't mean"----

"Yes, Mildred, he's dead!" And she let fall her flat-iron, and covered her

face with her apron.

But Mildred kept chafing her father's temples and hands,--calling

piteously, in hopes to get an answer from the motionless lips. Then she

sank down at his feet, and clasped his knees in an agony of grief.

A carriage stopped at the door, and a hasty step came up the walk.

"Lucy Ransom," said Mrs. Kinloch, (for it was she, just returned from her

drive,) "Lucy Ransom, what are you blubbering about? Here on the piazza,

and with your flat-iron! What is the matter?"

"Matter enough!" said Lucy. "See!--see Mr."----But the sobs were too

frequent. She became choked, and fell into an hysterical paroxysm.

By this time Mrs. Kinloch had stepped upon the piazza, and saw the

drooping head, the dangling arms, and the changed face of her husband.

"Dead! dead!" she exclaimed. "My God! what has happened? Mildred, who was

with him? Was the doctor sent for? or Squire Clamp? or Mr. Rook? What did

he say to you, dear?" And she tried to lift up the sobbing child, who

still clung to the stiffening knees where she had so often climbed for a

kiss.

"Oh, mother! _is_ he dead?--no life left?"

"Calm yourself, my dear child," said Mrs. Kinloch. "Tell me, did he say

anything?"

Mildred replied, "He was faint, and before I could give him the cordial he

asked for he was almost gone. 'The blacksmith,' he said, 'send for Ralph

Hardwick'; then he said something of the ebony cabinet, but could not

speak the words which were on his lips." She could say no more, but gave

way to uncontrollable tears and sobs.

By this time, Mrs. Kinloch's son, Hugh Branning, who had been to the

stable with the horse and carriage, came whistling through the yard, and

cutting off weeds or twigs along the path with sharp cuts of his whip.

"Which way is the wind now?" said he, as he approached; "the governor

asleep, Mildred crying, and you scolding, mother?" In a moment, however,

the sight of the ghastly face transfixed the thoughtless youth, as it had

done his mother; and, dropping his whip, he stood silent, awe-struck, in

the presence of the dead.

"Hugh," said Mrs. Kinloch, speaking in a very quiet tone, "go and tell

Squire Clamp to come over here."

In a few minutes the dead body was carried into the house by George, the

Asiatic servant, aided by a villager who happened to pass by. Squire

Clamp, the lawyer of the town, came and had a conference with Mrs. Kinloch

respecting the funeral. Neighbors came to offer sympathy, and aid, if need

should be. Then the house was put in order, and crape hung on the door-

handle. The family were alone with their dead.

On the village green the boys were playing a grand game of "round ball,"

for it was a half-holiday. The clear, silvery tones of the bell were

heard, and we stopped to listen. Was it a fire? No, the ringing was not

vehement enough. A meeting of the church? In a moment we should know. As

the bell ceased, we looked up to the white taper spire to catch the next

sound. One stroke. It was a death, then,--and of a man. We listened for

the age tolled from the belfry. Fifty-five. Who had departed? The sexton

crossed the green on his way to the shop to make the coffin, and informed

us. Our bats and balls had lost their interest for us; we did not even ask

our tally-man, who cut notches for us on a stick, how the game stood. For

Squire Walter Kinloch was the most considerable man in our village of

Innisfield. Without being highly educated, he was a man of reading and

intelligence. In early life he had amassed a fortune in the China trade,

and with it he had brought back a deeply bronzed complexion, a scar from

the creese of a Malay pirate, and the easy manners which travel always

gives to observant and sensible men. But his rather stately carriage

produced no envy or ill-will among his humbler neighbors, for his

superiority was never questioned. Men bowed to him with honest good-will,

and boys, who had been flogged at school for confounding Congo and

Coromandel, and putting Borneo in the Bight of Benin, made an awkward

obeisance and stared wonderingly, as they met the man who had actually

sailed round the world, and had, in his own person, illustrated the

experiment of walking with his head downwards among the antipodes. His

house had no rival in the country round, and his garden was considered a

miracle of art, having, in popular belief, all the fruits, flowers, and

shrubs that had been known from the days of Solomon to those of Linnaeus.

Prodigious stories were told of his hoard of gold, and some of the less

enlightened thought that even the outlandish ornaments of the balustrade

over the portico were carven silver. Curious vases adorned the hall and

side-board; and numberless quaint trinkets, whose use the villagers could

not even imagine, gave to the richly-furnished rooms an air of Oriental

magnificence. Tropical birds sang or chattered in cages, and a learned but

lawless parrot talked, swore, or made mischief, as he chose. The tawny

servant George, brought by Mr. Kinloch from one of the islands of the

Pacific, completed his claims upon the admiration of the untravelled.

He was just ready to enjoy the evening of life, when the night of death

closed upon him with tropic suddenness. He left one child only, his

daughter Mildred, then just turned of eighteen; and as Mrs. Kinloch had

only one son to claim her affection, the motherless girl would seem to be

well provided for. Mildred was sweet-tempered, and her step-mother had

hitherto been discreet and kind.

The funeral was over, and the townspeople recovered from the shock which

the sudden death had caused. Administration was granted to the widow

conjointly with Squire Clamp, the lawyer, and the latter was appointed

guardian for Mildred during her minority.

Squire Clamp was an ill-favored man, heavy-browed and bald, and with a

look which, in a person of less consequence, would have been called "hang-

dog,"--owing partly, no doubt, to the tribulation he had suffered from his

vixen spouse, whose tongue was now happily silenced. He was the town's

only lawyer, (a fortunate circumstance,) so that he could frequently

manage to receive fees for advice from both parties in a controversy. He

made all the wills, deeds, and contracts, and settled all the estates he

could get hold of. But no such prize as the Kinloch property had ever

before come into his hands.

If Squire Clamp's reputation for shrewdness had belonged to an irreligious

man, it would have been of questionable character; but as he was a zealous

member of the church, he was protected from assaults upon his integrity.

If there were suspicions, they were kept close, not bruited abroad.

He was now an almost daily visitor at the widow Kinloch's. What was the

intricate business that required the constant attention of a legal

adviser? The settlement of the estate, so far as the world knew, was an

easy matter. The property consisted of the dwelling-house, a small tract

of land near the village, a manufactory at the dam, by the side of Ralph

Hardwick's blacksmith's shop, and money, plate, furniture, and stocks.

There were no debts. There was but one child, and, after the assignment of

the widow's dower, the estate was Mildred's. Nothing, therefore, could be

simpler for the administrators. The girl trusted to the good faith of her

stepmother and the justice of the lawyer, who now stood to her in the

place of a father. She was an orphan, and her innocence and childlike

dependence would doubtless be a sufficient spur to the consciences of her

protectors. So the girl thought, if she thought at all,--and so all

charitable people were bound to think.

How wearily the days passed during the month after the funeral! The shadow

of death seemed to darken everything. Doors creaked dismally when they

were opened. The room where the body had been laid seemed to have grown a

century older than the other parts of the once bright and cheerful house,

--its atmosphere was so stagnant and full of mould. The family spoke only

in suppressed tones; their countenances were as sad as their garments. All

this was terrible to the impressible, imaginative, and naturally buoyant

temper of Mildred. It was like dwelling in a tomb, and her heart cried out

for very loneliness. She must do something to take her mind out of the

sunless vault,--she must resume her relations with the dwellers in the

upper air. All at once she thought of her father's last words,--of Ralph

Hardwick, and the ebony cabinet. It was in the next room. She opened the

door, half expecting to see some bodiless presence in the silent space.

She could hear her own heart beat between the tickings of the great Dutch

clock, as she stepped across the floor. How still was everything! The air

tingled in her ears as though now disturbed for the first time.

She opened the cabinet, which was not locked, and pulled out the middle

drawer. She found nothing but a dried rose-bud and a lock of sunny hair

wrapped in a piece of yellowed paper. Was it her mother's hair? As

Mildred remembered her mother, the color of her hair was dark, not golden.

Still it might have been cut in youth, before its hue had deepened. And

what a world of mystery, of feeling, of associations there was in that

scentless and withered rose-bud! What fair hand had first plucked it? What

pledge did it carry? Was the subtile aroma of love ever blended with its

fragrance? Had her father borne it with him in his wanderings? The secret

was in his coffin. The struggling lips could not utter it before they were

stiffened into marble. Yet she could not believe that these relics were

the sole things to which he had referred. There must have been something

that more nearly concerned her,--something in which the blacksmith or his

nephew was interested.