Mary Ellen was gone six weeks. We were all glad when she came back, the
house had seemed so like a tomb. I'm not sure about Miss Joey. No doubt
she looked upon her with an evil eye, as being the upsetter of all her
plans. But then there was nothing Miss Joey dreaded more than a lonely
house. She wanted company.
And what better company, pray, can there be than a fair young face? Who
would ask for better entertainment than to watch the lighting-up of
bright eyes, and the parting of rosy lips, or the thousand other
bewitchments of youth and beauty?
And she looked more beautiful than ever,--I suppose, because she came in
a dull time: just as flowers seem lovelier and more precious in the
winter. I fancied she was very sad, very thoughtful. Perhaps 'twas
David's going away that caused this. Perhaps she was sorry she had cast
from her such a precious thing as love.
When Emily became much worse, which was shortly after her return, she
installed herself as chief nurse, sitting for hours in the darkened
room, amusing her with children's songs and stories,--for the sick girl,
in her weakest state, craved childish things.
That was a quiet, a truly pleasant winter. After getting letters from
David, telling of his safe arrival out, everybody became more cheerful.
But in the spring, as warm weather came on, Emily grew every day weaker.
The apple-blossoms came and went unheeded.
One morning she awoke, unusually free from pain, and said to Mary
Ellen,--
"I saw David last night. He said to me, 'I shall come sooner than I
expected. But, before I come, I shall send the ruby necklace.'" Then she
described the miner's hut in which she had seen him.
This was in the first part of June.
On the day after the fourth of July we got news of his death. He had
been lost overboard, in a storm, between San Francisco and the Sandwich
Islands.
It is very sad to recall that time of deep affliction. He was the last
of five sons, all of whom had left home in full health and strength,
none of whom returned.
"Five as likely young men," said poor Miss Joey, "as ever grew up
beneath one roof."
"All five gone!" groaned the old man, as he leaned his face against the
wall.
"Five brothers waiting for me," whispered Emily, as Mary Ellen bent over
her, weeping.
"Five boys," moaned the poor broken-hearted mother,--"nobody to take
care of them, nobody to do for them, no comforts, no mother, and now no
grave!"
'Twas touching to see her husband trying to console her. Her favorite
seat was in one corner of the hard, old-fashioned settee. There she
would sit, swaying herself to and fro, whispering sometimes to herself,
"Deep waters! deep waters!"
The old man would sit close up to her, and say, softly,--
"Now, mother, don't! I wouldn't take on. You know he isn't there. Look
up. Don't forget God!"
Poor old man! 'Twas hard for him to look up, with so much to draw him
down. But I don't think he ever forgot God.
A little before sunset, one afternoon, a few weeks after the sad news of
David's death had reached us, Mary Ellen came out to where I was sitting
under the lilacs, and asked if I couldn't move Emily into her own room
for a little while.
"Is she able?" I asked.
"I don't know what has come over her," she replied, "she seems so
strong. For a long time I thought her asleep, but all at once she spoke
out clear and loud, and said, 'I want to see his grave. If anybody could
take me to my own room, I could see his grave.' She keeps repeating it,
and she means the sea."
'Twas not much to take her across the entry. Mary Ellen arranged
everything, and we placed her on a sofa by the window.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "how I have longed for this! I have hungered and
thirsted for a good look at the sea."
Her cheeks were pale, her eyes large and bright.
She looked so ethereal, so unearthly, and lay so long motionless, with
her eyes fixed upon the water, that I half feared she would at that
moment pass away from us,--that she might, in some beautiful form, a
dove, or a bright angel, soar upward through the open window, and be
lost to our sight among the golden-edged clouds above.
But she was thinking of David's grave. And a beautiful grave it seemed,
from that window. The water was still, as smooth as glass. I had never
noticed upon it so uncommon a tinge. 'Twas mostly of a pale green, very
pale; but portions of it were of a deep lilac. Farther off it was
purple, and very far off a dim, shadowy gray. I was glad it had on that
particular night such a peaceful, placid look.
"Oh, what a beautiful grave!" said Emily. Then her eyes wandered to
different points of the landscape, dwelling for a long time on each.
"I suppose you think," said she, at last, in a low, sweet voice, "that
it is easy for a sick girl to go. But I love everything I've been
looking at. It may be more beautiful there, but it will not be the same.
I shall want to see exactly this stretch of water, and the islands
beyond, and the shadows on those woods away off in the distance, and the
field where father has mowed the grass for so many years. Every summer,
as soon as June came in, I've listened, early in the morning, before
noise began, to hear the whetting of the scythe, and then waited for the
smell of the hay to come in at the windows.
"Those maples, on the knoll, are my dear friends. I've been glad with
them in the spring, and sorry with them in the fall, through all these
years. The birds and the dandelions and the violets are all my friends.
I've waited for them every year, and it seemed as if the same ones came
back. You well people can't understand it. They are near to me. I enter
into the life of each one of them, just as you do into the lives of your
human friends. Spirits go everywhere, see everything. That will be too
much. I'm attached to just this spot of earth. And then I'm attached to
myself. I can't realize that I shall be the same, and I don't want to
give myself up, poor miserable creature as I am."
Mary Ellen and I could only look at each other in astonishment. Her
voice, her seeming strength, and, more than all, her conversation,
amazed us. She had always been so trusting, so full of faith in her
Heavenly Father.
The next morning, when Mary Ellen went to her bedside, she found her
lying awake, with her thin, white fingers clasped about her throat. She
looked up with a strange smile, and said,--
"My ruby necklace has come, and next, you know, will be the beautiful
home. It is almost ready, David said. But he brought the necklace, and
clasped it about my throat. It choked me, and I groaned a little. David
went then, and I've been waiting ever since for you to come."
It was noontime when Mary Ellen told me this. I observed that she
trembled. "My dear girl," said I, "what makes you tremble so?"
"Why," said she, in a whisper, "there is truly a red circle about her
throat. I saw it. 'Tis a warning. She's going to die."
"Maybe," I said, "she is going soon to her beautiful home. But we know
no harm can come to our dear sister, she is so good, and so pure." Then,
taking her by the hand, I led her along to Emily's room.
Her mother and Miss Joey stood near, weeping. The old man, with the
Bible upon his knees, sat at the foot of the bed. He had been reading
and praying.
She looked up with a smile, as I entered with Mary Ellen.
"I know," said she, in a perfectly distinct, but low voice, as we drew
near the bedside,--"I know what made me talk so yesterday.".
She paused then, and afterwards spoke with difficulty. We all stood
breathless, bending eagerly forward, that not a word might be lost.
"I know," she repeated, "what it was. 'Twas the earthy principle in
me--which revived--for a moment--at the last--and then put forth all its
strength. Since I have seen David--it seems pleasant--to go. I can't
tell,--you wouldn't understand,--I couldn't, if the separation--hadn't
begun. I'm not wholly here now." And the fixed, strange look in her face
confirmed the words as they fell from her lips.
She lay for some time very still, breathing every moment fainter and
fainter, but seemingly in no distress.
Suddenly she started. Her face grew radiant. Her gaze seemed fixed on
some point, thousands and thousands of miles away. Clasping her hands
together, she cried out, joyfully,--
"Oh, the beautiful home! the beautiful home!"
'Twas over in an instant. She closed her eyes, turned her head a little
on the pillow, and breathed her life away as softly and peacefully as a
poor tired child sinks away to sleep.
"And I saw the angels of God ascending and descending," I said,
earnestly. For I felt that one whose spiritual eyes were opened might
certainly do so.
Late in the afternoon, when the heat of the day was past, I walked out
to the clump of maples on the knoll. Mary Ellen was already there.
"Yes," said I, sitting down by her side, upon the grass, "we will lay
her here among her friends. And we will place here a white marble
monument."
"I wish," said Mary Ellen, looking timidly up in my face, "that it could
be in memory of David, too." She said this with tears in her eyes, and
an unsteady voice.
As I sit writing, I can see from my window the simple white monument,
which Mary Ellen and I planned together. The grass and field-flowers are
growing all about it, and the birds, Emily's birds, are singing in the
branches above. It has only this inscription,--
"_In memory of David and Emily_."
"Six children,--and only one grave to show for all of them!" groaned the
poor old mother, when we first led her out to show her the stone.
But there was shortly another grave beneath the maples; for the worn-out
old woman soon sank after Emily's death, and with her last breath begged
to be laid by her side.
Only the old man and Miss Joey left. Still I could not go away. No other
place seemed like home. And besides, I had found out, long ago, my own
secret. It had been revealed to me, day by day, as I watched Mary Ellen
in the sick-room of Emily,--as I observed her patience, her sweetness,
her tenderness!
And my secret came upon me with an overwhelming power. But I mastered
it. I kept it to myself. That is, as far as words were concerned. For
the expression of his face, for involuntary glances, no man can be held
responsible.
I kept it to myself,--or tried to do so; for I wasn't sure--of anything.
Emily's words, "I fear," came to me with deep meaning. For, if the
goodness of David, if the fascinations of Warren Luce had effected
nothing, what could I hope?
And was I sure about this last, about Warren? He was in the place.
Emily's sickness only had kept him away. I reviewed myself to myself,
overhauled whatever virtues or failings I knew of as belonging to me.
Nothing very satisfactory resulted. But I remembered what the old man
said to Miss Joey, "Love'll go where 'tis sent," and took courage. Eight
or ten years older. I wonder if she would mind that?
Day after day passed, and my secret still burned within me. It must
shine out of my eyes, I thought. But then, since Emily's death, I had
seen Mary Ellen much less frequently. She kept mostly with her mother,
on their own side of the house.
But the time that was foreordained from the beginning of the world for
the bursting-forth of my secret came at last.
It was a month after Emily's death. I happened to come home in the
evening unusually early. 'Twas exactly such a night as the one on which
I tried to sound the depths of a young girl's heart, and failed. If she
would only come out in the moonlight again, and let me try once more!
As I passed the orchard, my heart gave a great leap, for she was
there,--she and Miss Joey, carrying in a great basket of apples. I
seized her side of the basket with one hand, and with the other grasped
hers so earnestly that she fairly started: I was so glad to see her!
I led her along to the house, and then led her back, until we came to
the same little step on the fence,--with full faith, now, that it would
be given me in this hour what to say.
I seated her exactly as she was before, with the moon shining full in
her face. Then I took my stand, leaning against the fence, just the
same. How beautiful she was in the moonlight!
"And is there anybody," said I, as if continuing the conversation, "that
you do love as Jane did?"
My voice, though, was far less steady than at the other time.
"Mr. Turner," she exclaimed, starting up, with flashing eyes and glowing
cheeks, "you've no right to ask me such a question!"
That blushing by moonlight! It was too much to be endured with calmness.
I felt myself giving way before it.
But I sha'n't tell any more. It's no sign, because a man opens his
heart, that he should let everything drop out of it.
If those interested know, that, at my earnest request, she gave me the
right to ask not only that question, but others which would naturally
follow, they know enough.
I would willingly tell them, though, if our English language had a few
thousand words added to it, how delightful it was to know that this
sweet wild-rose had been blossoming for me, that our singing-bird had
been singing for me! I am willing to tell, too, how foolish I felt, when
the deceitfulness of the human heart, of my own human heart, became
apparent; when I found that I had been loving for myself, while I
thought I was loving for David,--that I had been jealous for myself, and
not for him; when I found that I had been studying my chapter, without
regarding the notes underneath.
And being at last put upon the right track, I found it taking me a long
way backwards. It took me away to the beginning, when Mary Ellen first
came across the entry, and showed me that then and there the arrow was
sped, and love went where it was sent. I had misgivings, even, of having
taken a portion of the dark liquid in the little bottle. I could
perceive the drawing of the "chain," and almost feel the "lassoo" about
my neck.
"Lawyer, indeed! And wonderfully sharp at cross-questioning, when you
couldn't draw a secret from a woman! Lawyer, indeed! Of great
penetration, that couldn't read a young girl's heart, when it lay open
before you,--that couldn't read your own! You'd better give up the
profession, and go to painting. That suits you better. Beauty is your
chief delight, after all. Not only beauty of face, but beauty of
everything under the sun. Go sit in your crotch among the green boughs
and paint landscapes!"
It was full four years ago that I thus inveighed against myself, and
just about a year from the time when I took up the moonlight talk where
it had been left off, and finished it so charmingly. We two were taking
a long stroll together, and had been making our mutual confessions,--our
man-and-wife confessions.
My innocent little country-girl turned her sweet face up to mine with a
doubtful expression, a comically wise look, and said, a little
anxiously,--
"Do you think it will pay?"
Oh, she's a capital wife! She has beauty and sweetness and exquisite
taste and simplicity and loving-kindness, with just enough worldliness
to take all these charming qualities safely along through life.
Hear how wisely she discusses the "coquette" question.
Says she,--"I think it's natural for all women to want to please all
men. I believe that the very best and wisest woman in the world is
affected by flattery from a handsome man who knows how to flatter. Very
likely this might be put the other way about, but then in books that
side is usually left out. But what you, Mr. Landscape-painter, would
like to know is, whether I coquetted with the Doctor's boy. And I will
own that I tried to please him. I liked to have him think I was pretty.
I can't think what it was about him that had such power over me. I
tremble now to think what might have been, if--And just think what a
whole life would be with such a person! I don't believe, though, any
girl could have withstood him, unless her heart--I believe I should
certainly have loved him, if"--
"If what, and unless what?" I asked, drawing her close up to me, as if
that dangerous youth had still power to take her from me.
She looked up so roguishly,--
"You ought to know; you took the chapter to study."
Oh, my innocent little country-girl! If I were a poet, I'd write a song
in your praise; and if I were a musician, I'd set it to music. But the
poetry is in my heart; and 'tis set to music there.
* * * * *
SWEET-BRIER.
Tender of words should singer be,
Sweet-Brier, who would tell of thee;
One who has drunk with eager lip
And treasured thy companionship;
One who has sought thee far and wide,
In early dew, with morning pride;
To whom thou art no new-made friend,
Whose memories on thy breath attend.
For such thou art a lemon-grove,
Where wandering orient odors rove,--
Yet loyal ever to thy home,
The valley where the north winds roam.
Sometimes I would call thee mine;
But sweeter far than _mine_ or _thine_
To listen unto Nature's song,
Saying, To lovers all belong.
I love thee for my greenest days
Rescued from Time at thy sweet gaze,
For pictures brilliant as the Spring
Brought back upon thy breathing wing.
I love thee for thy influence,
Heart-honey, without impotence;
He who would reach thy virgin blush,
Like warrior bold, must dangers crush.
Chiefly I love thee for thyself,
Wealth-giver, ignorant of pelf;
Fain would I learn thy upright ways
And heart thus redolent of praise.
* * * * *
HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.
BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.
VIII.
ECONOMY.
"The fact is," said Jennie, as she twirled a little hat on her hand,
which she had been making over, with, nobody knows what of bows and
pompons, and other matters for which the women have curious names,--"the
fact is, American women and girls must learn to economize; it isn't
merely restricting one's self to American goods, it is general economy,
that is required. Now here's this hat,--costs me only three dollars, all
told; and Sophie Page bought an English one this morning at Madame
Meyer's for which she gave fifteen. And I really don't think hers has
more of an air than mine. I made this over, you see, with things I had
in the house, bought nothing but the ribbon, and paid for altering and
pressing, and there you see what a stylish hat I have!"
"Lovely! admirable!" said Miss Featherstone. "Upon my word, Jennie, you
ought to marry a poor parson; you would be quite thrown away upon a rich
man."
"Let me see," said I. "I want to admire intelligently. That isn't the
hat you were wearing yesterday?"
"Oh, no, papa! This is just done. The one I wore yesterday was my
waterfall-hat, with the green feather; this, you see, is an oriole."
"A what?"
"An oriole. Papa, how can you expect to learn about these things?"
"And that plain little black one, with the stiff crop of scarlet
feathers sticking straight up?"
"That's my jockey, papa, with a plume _en militaire_."
"And did the waterfall and the jockey cost anything?"
"They were very, very cheap, papa, considering. Miss Featherstone will
remember that the waterfall was a great bargain, and I had the feather
from last year; and as to the jockey, that was made out of my last
year's white one, dyed over. You know, papa, I always take care of my
things, and they last from year to year."
"I do assure you, Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, "I never saw
such little economists as your daughters; it is perfectly wonderful what
they contrive to dress on. How they manage to do it I'm sure I can't
see. I never could, I'm convinced."
"Yes," said Jennie, "I've bought but just one new hat. I only wish you
could sit in church where we do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianne
and I have counted six new hats apiece of those girls',--_new_, you
know, just out of the milliner's shop; and last Sunday they came out in
such lovely puffed tulle bonnets! Weren't they lovely, Marianne? And
next Sunday, I don't doubt, there'll be something else."
"Yes," said Miss Featherstone,--"their father, they say, has made a
million dollars lately on Government contracts."
"For my part," said Jennie, "I think such extravagance, at such a time
as this, is shameful."
"Do you know," said I, "that I'm quite sure the Misses Fielder think
they are practising rigorous economy?"
"Papa! Now there you are with your paradoxes! How can you say so?"
"I shouldn't be afraid to bet a pair of gloves, now," said I, "that Miss
Fielder thinks herself half ready for translation, because she has
bought only six new hats and a tulle bonnet so far in the season. If it
were not for her dear bleeding country, she would have had thirty-six,
like the Misses Sibthorpe. If we were admitted to the secret councils of
the Fielders, doubtless we should perceive what temptations they daily
resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they suffer themselves to
be, because they feel it important now, in this crisis, to practise
economy; how they abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time
they drive out, and never think of wearing one more than two or three
times; how virtuous and self-denying they feel, when they think of the
puffed tulle, for which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame
Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the Misses Sibthorpe's, for
forty-five; and how they go home descanting on virgin simplicity, and
resolving that they will not allow themselves to be swept into the
vortex of extravagance, whatever other people may do."
"Do you know," said Miss Featherstone, "I believe your papa is right? I
was calling on the oldest Miss Fielder the other day, and she told me
that she positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but that she
really did feel the necessity of economy. 'Perhaps we might afford to
spend more than some others,' she said; 'but it's so much better to give
the money to the Sanitary Commission!'"
"Furthermore," said I, "I am going to put forth another paradox, and say
that very likely there are some people looking on my girls, and
commenting on them for extravagance in having three hats, even though
made over, and contrived from last year's stock."
"They can't know anything about it, then," said Jennie, decisively;
"for, certainly, nobody can be decent, and invest less in millinery than
Marianne and I do."
"When I was a young lady," said my wife, "a well-dressed girl got her a
new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall;--that was the extent
of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last year,
did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. My father was accounted
well-to-do, but I had no more, and wanted no more. I also, bought
myself, every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light pair, and
wore them through the summer, and another two through the winter; one or
two pair of white kids, carefully cleaned, carried me through all my
parties. Hats had not been heard of, and the great necessity which
requires two or three new ones every spring and fall had not arisen.
Yet I was reckoned a well-appearing girl, who dressed liberally. Now, a
young lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat, and a jockey, must
still be troubled with anxious cares for her spring and fall and summer
and winter bonnets,--all the variety will not take the place of them.
Gloves are bought by the dozen; and as to dresses, there seems to be no
limit to the quantity of material and trimming that may be expended upon
them. When I was a young lady, seventy-five dollars a year was
considered by careful parents a liberal allowance for a daughter's
wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was reckoned rich; and I sometimes used a
part to make up the deficiencies in the allowance of Sarah Evans, my
particular friend, whose father gave her only fifty. We all thought that
a very scant pattern; yet she generally made a very pretty and genteel
appearance, with the help of occasional presents from friends."
"How could a girl dress for fifty dollars?" said Marianne.
"She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, with different
sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress-occasions. A silk, in
those days, took only ten yards in the making, and one dark silk was
considered a reasonable allowance to a lady's wardrobe. Once made, it
stood for something,--always worn carefully, it lasted for years. One or
two calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winter wear, completed the
list. Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, etc., we all did our own
embroidering, and very pretty things we wore, too. Girls looked as
pretty then as they do now, when four or five hundred dollars a year is
insufficient to clothe them."
"But, mamma, you know our allowance isn't anything like that,--it is
quite a slender one, though not so small as yours was," said Marianne.
"Don't you think the customs of society make a difference? Do you think,
as things are, we could go back and dress for the sum you did?"
"You cannot," said my wife, "without a greater sacrifice of feeling than
I wish to impose on you. Still, though I don't see how to help it, I
cannot but think that the requirements of fashion are becoming
needlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the dress of women. It
seems to me, it is making the support of families so burdensome that
young men are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in a moderately
good business, might cheerfully undertake the world with a wife who
could make herself pretty and attractive for seventy-five dollars a
year, when he might sigh in vain for one who positively could not get
through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, too, are getting to be
so attached to the trappings and accessories of life, that they cannot
think of marriage without an amount of fortune which few young men
possess."
"You are talking in very low numbers about the dress of women," said
Miss Featherstone. "I do assure you that it is the easiest thing in the
world for a girl to make away with a thousand dollars a year, and not
have so much to show for it either as Marianne and Jennie."
"To be sure," said I. "Only establish certain formulas of expectation,
and it is the easiest thing in the world. For instance, in your mother's
day girls talked of a pair of gloves,--now they talk of a pack; then it
was a bonnet summer and winter,--now it is a bonnet spring, summer,
autumn, and winter, and hats like monthly roses,--a new blossom every
few weeks."
"And then," said my wife, "every device of the toilet is immediately
taken up and varied and improved on, so as to impose an almost monthly
necessity for novelty. The jackets of May are outshone by the jackets of
June; the buttons of June are antiquated in July; the trimmings of July
are _passées_ by September; side-combs, back-combs, puffs, rats, and all
sorts of such matters, are in a distracted race of improvement; every
article of feminine toilet is on the move towards perfection. It seems
to me that an infinity of money must be spent in these trifles, by
those who make the least pretension to keep in the fashion."
"Well, papa," said Jennie, "after all, it's just the way things always
have been since the world began. You know the Bible says, 'Can a maid
forget her ornaments?' It's clear she can't. You see, it's a law of
Nature; and you remember all that long chapter in the Bible that we had
read in church last Sunday, about the curls and veils and tinkling
ornaments and crimping-pins, and all that. Women always have been too
much given to dress, and they always will be."
"The thing is," said Marianne, "how can any woman, I, for example, know
what is too much or too little? In mamma's day, it seems, a girl could
keep her place in society, by hard economy, and spend only fifty dollars
a year on her dress. Mamma found a hundred dollars ample. I have more
than that, and find myself quite straitened to keep myself looking well.
I don't want to live for dress, to give all my time and thoughts to it;
I don't wish to be extravagant; and yet I wish to be lady-like; it
annoys and makes me unhappy not to be fresh and neat and nice;
shabbiness and seediness are my aversion. I don't see where the fault
is. Can one individual resist the whole current of society? It certainly
is not strictly necessary for us girls to have half the things we do. We
might, I suppose, live without many of them, and, as mamma says, look
just as well, because girls did before these things were invented. Now,
I confess, I flatter myself, generally, that I am a pattern of good
management and economy, because I get so much less than other girls I go
with. I wish you could see Miss Thorne's fall dresses that she showed me
last year when she was visiting here. She had six gowns, and no one of
them could have cost less than seventy or eighty dollars, and some of
them must have been even more expensive; and yet I don't doubt that this
fall she will feel that she must have just as many more. She runs
through and wears out these expensive things, with all their velvet and
thread lace, just as I wear my commonest ones; and at the end of the
season they are really gone,--spotted, stained, frayed, the lace all
pulled to pieces,--nothing left to save or make over. I feel as if
Jennie and I were patterns of economy, when I see such things. I really
don't know what economy is. What is it?"
"There is the same difficulty in my housekeeping," said my wife. "I
think I am an economist. I mean to be one. All our expenses are on a
modest scale, and yet I can see much that really is not strictly
necessary; but if I compare myself with some of my neighbors, I feel as
if I were hardly respectable. There is no subject on which all the world
are censuring one another so much as this. Hardly any one but thinks her
neighbors extravagant in some one or more particulars, and takes for
granted that she herself is an economist."
"I'll venture to say," said I, "that there isn't a woman of my
acquaintance that does not think she is an economist."
"Papa is turned against us women, like all the rest of them," said
Jennie. "I wonder if it isn't just so with the men?"
"Yes," said Marianne, "it's the fashion to talk as if all the
extravagance of the country was perpetrated by women. For my part, I
think young men are just as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for
cigars and pipes,--an expense which hasn't even the pretence of
usefulness in any way; it's a purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence.
When a girl spends money in making herself look pretty, she contributes
something to the agreeableness of society; but a man's cigars and pipes
are neither ornamental nor useful."
"Then look at their dress," said Jennie; "they are to the full as fussy
and particular about it as girls; they have as many fine, invisible
points of fashion, and their fashions change quite as often; and they
have just as many knick-knacks, with their studs and their
sleeve-buttons and waistcoat-buttons, their scarfs and scarf-pins, their
watch-chains and seals and seal-rings, and nobody knows what. Then they
often waste and throw away more than women, because they are not good
judges of material, nor saving in what they buy, and have no knowledge
of how things should be cared for, altered, or mended. If their cap is a
little too tight, they cut the lining with a penknife, or slit holes in
a new shirt-collar, because it does not exactly fit to their mind. For
my part, I think men are naturally twice as wasteful as women. A pretty
thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of the country laid to us!"
"You are right, child," said I; "women are by nature, as compared with
men, the care-taking and saving part of creation,--the authors and
conservators of economy. As a general rule, man earns and woman saves
and applies. The wastefulness of woman is commonly the fault of man."
"I don't see into that," said Bob Stephens.
"In this way. Economy is the science of proportion. Whether a particular
purchase is extravagant depends mainly on the income it is taken from.
Suppose a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for her dress, and gives
fifty dollars for a bonnet; she gives a third of her income;--it is a
horrible extravagance, while for the woman whose income is ten thousand
it may be no extravagance at all. The poor clergyman's wife, when she
gives five dollars for a bonnet, may be giving as much, in proportion to
her income, as the woman who gives fifty. Now the difficulty with the
greater part of women is, that the men who make the money and hold it
give them no kind of standard by which to measure their expenses. Most
women and girls are in this matter entirely at sea, without chart or
compass. They don't know in the least what they have to spend. Husbands
and fathers often pride themselves about not saying a word on
business-matters to their wives and daughters. They don't wish them to
understand them, or to inquire into them, or to make remarks or
suggestions concerning them. 'I want you to have everything that is
suitable and proper,' says Jones to his wife, 'but don't be
extravagant.'
"'But, my dear,' says Mrs. Jones, 'what is suitable and proper depends
very much on our means; if you could allow me any specific sum for dress
and housekeeping, I could tell better.'
"'Nonsense, Susan! I can't do that,--it's too much trouble. Get what you
need, and avoid foolish extravagances; that's all I ask.'
"By-and-by Mrs. Jones's bills are sent in, in an evil hour, when Jones
has heavy notes to meet, and then comes a domestic storm.
"'I shall just be ruined, Madam, if that's the way you are going on. I
can't afford to dress you and the girls in the style you have set
up;--look at this milliner's bill!'
"'I assure you,' says Mrs. Jones, 'we haven't got any more than the
Stebbinses,--nor so much.'
"'Don't you know that the Stebbinses are worth five times as much as
ever I was?'
"No, Mrs. Jones did not know it;--how should she, when her husband makes
it a rule never to speak of his business to her, and she has not the
remotest idea of his income?
"Thus multitudes of good conscientious women and girls are extravagant
from pure ignorance. The male provider allows bills to be run up in his
name, and they have no earthly means of judging whether they are
spending too much or too little, except the semi-annual hurricane which
attends the coming in of these bills.
"The first essential in the practice of economy is a knowledge of one's
income, and the man who refuses to accord to his wife and children this
information has never any right to accuse them of extravagance, because
he himself deprives them of that standard of comparison which is an
indispensable requisite in economy. As early as possible in the
education of children they should pass from that state of irresponsible
waiting to be provided for by parents, and be trusted with the spending
of some fixed allowance, that they may learn prices and values, and have
some notion of what money is actually worth and what it will bring. The
simple fact of the possession of a fixed and definite income often
suddenly transforms a giddy, extravagant girl into a care-taking,
prudent little woman. Her allowance is her own; she begins to plan upon
it,--to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and do numberless sums in her
little head. She no longer buys everything she fancies; she deliberates,
weighs, compares. And now there is room for self-denial and generosity
to come in. She can do without this article; she can furbish up some
older possession to do duty a little longer, and give this money to some
friend poorer than she; and ten to one the girl whose bills last year
were four or five hundred finds herself bringing through this year
creditably on a hundred and fifty. To be sure, she goes without numerous
things which she used to have. From the stand-point of a fixed income
she sees that these are impossible, and no more wants them than the
green cheese of the moon. She learns to make her own taste and skill
take the place of expensive purchases. She refits her hats and bonnets,
retrims her dresses, and in a thousand busy, earnest, happy little ways,
sets herself to make the most of her small income.
"So the woman who has her definite allowance for housekeeping finds at
once a hundred questions set at rest. Before, it was not clear to her
why she should not 'go and do likewise' in relation to every purchase
made by her next neighbor. Now, there is a clear logic of proportion.
Certain things are evidently not to be thought of, though next neighbors
do have them; and we must resign ourselves to find some other way of
living."
"My dear," said my wife, "I think there is a peculiar temptation in a
life organized as ours is in America. There are here no settled classes,
with similar ratios of income. Mixed together in the same society, going
to the same parties, and blended in daily neighborly intercourse, are
families of the most opposite extremes in point of fortune. In England
there is a very well understood expression, that people should not dress
or live above their station; in America none will admit that they have
any particular station, or that they can live above it. The principle of
democratic equality unites in society people of the most diverse
positions and means.
"Here, for instance, is a family like Dr. Selden's, an old and highly
respected one, with an income of only two or three thousand,--yet they
are people universally sought for in society, and mingle in all the
intercourse of life with merchant-millionnaires whose incomes are from
ten to thirty thousand. Their sons and daughters go to the same schools,
the same parties, and are thus constantly meeting upon terms of social
equality.
"Now it seems to me that our danger does not lie in the great and
evident expenses of our richer friends. We do not expect to have
pineries, graperies, equipages, horses, diamonds,--we say openly and of
course that we do not. Still, our expenses are constantly increased by
the proximity of these things, unless we understand ourselves better
than most people do. We don't, of course, expect to get a
fifteen-hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we begin to
look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble about the hook. We don't expect
sets of diamonds, but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond
ear-rings, begins to be speculated about among the young people as among
possibilities. We don't expect to carpet our house with Axminster and
hang our windows with damask, but at least we must have Brussels and
brocatelle,--it _would not do_ not to. And so we go on getting hundreds
of things that we don't need, that have no real value except that they
soothe our self-love,--and for these inferior articles we pay a higher
proportion of our income than our rich neighbor does for his better
ones. Nothing is uglier than low-priced Cashmere shawls; and yet a young
man just entering business will spend an eighth of a year's income to
put one on his wife, and when he has put it there it only serves as a
constant source of disquiet,--for now that the door is opened, and
Cashmere shawls are possible, she is consumed with envy at the superior
ones constantly sported around her. So also with point-lace, velvet
dresses, and hundreds of things of that sort, which belong to a certain
rate of income, and are absurd below it."
"And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that velvet, point-lace, and
Cashmere were the cheapest finery that could be bought, because they
lasted a lifetime."
"Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thousand a year; they may be
cheap for her rate of living,--but for us, for example, by no magic of
numbers can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have the greatest
bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, and diamonds, than not to have
them at all. I never had a diamond, never wore a piece of point-lace,
never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly happy, and just as
much respected as if I had. Who ever thought of objecting to me for not
having them? Nobody, as I ever heard."
"Certainly not, mamma," said Marianne.
"The thing I have always said to you girls is, that you were not to
expect to live like richer people, not to begin to try, not to think or
inquire about certain rates of expenditure, or take the first step in
certain directions. We have moved on all our life after a very
antiquated and old-fashioned mode. We have had our little old-fashioned
house, our little old-fashioned ways."
"Except the parlor-carpet, and what came of it, my dear," said I,
mischievously.
"Yes, except the parlor-carpet," said my wife, with a conscious twinkle,
"and the things that came of it; there was a concession there, but one
can't be wise always."
"_We_ talked mamma into that," said Jennie.
"But one thing is certain," said my wife,--"that, though I have had an
antiquated, plain house, and plain furniture, and plain dress, and not
the beginning of a thing such as many of my neighbors have possessed, I
have spent more money than many of them for real comforts. While I had
young children, I kept more and better servants than many women who wore
Cashmeres and diamonds. I thought it better to pay extra wages to a
really good, trusty woman who lived with me from year to year, and
relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, than to have ever so
much lace locked away in my drawers. We always were able to go into the
country to spend our summers, and to keep a good family-horse and
carriage for daily driving,--by which means we afforded, as a family,
very poor patronage to the medical profession. Then we built our house,
and while we left out a great many expensive commonplaces that other
people think they must have, we put in a profusion of
bathing-accommodations such as very few people think of having. There
never was a time when we did not feel able to afford to do what was
necessary to preserve or to restore health; and for this I always drew
on the surplus fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping and
dressing."
"Your mother has had," said I, "what is the great want in America,
perfect independence of mind to go her own way without regard to the way
others go. I think there is, for some reason, more false shame among
Americans about economy than among Europeans. 'I cannot afford it' is
more seldom heard among us. A young man beginning life, whose income may
be from five to eight hundred a year, thinks it elegant and gallant to
affect a careless air about money, especially among ladies,--to hand it
out freely, and put back his change without counting it,--to wear a
watch-chain and studs and shirt-fronts like those of some young
millionnaire. None but the most expensive tailors, shoemakers, and
hatters will do for him; and then he grumbles at the dearness of living,
and declares that he cannot get along on his salary. The same is true of
young girls, and of married men and women too,--the whole of them are
ashamed of economy. The cares that wear out life and health in many
households are of a nature that cannot be cast on God, or met by any
promise from the Bible,--it is not care for 'food convenient,' or for
comfortable raiment, but care to keep up false appearances, and to
stretch a narrow income over the space that can be covered only by a
wider one.
"The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her monthly rent staring
her hourly in the face, and her bread and meat and candles and meal all
to be paid for on delivery or not obtained at all, may find comfort in
the good old Book, reading of that other widow whose wasting measure of
oil and last failing handful of meal were of such account before her
Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruit them; and when
customers do not pay, or wages are cut down, she can enter into her
chamber, and when she hath shut her door, present to her Father in
heaven His sure promise that with the fowls of the air she shall be fed
and with the lilies of the field she shall be clothed: but what promises
are there for her who is racking her brains on the ways and means to
provide as sumptuous an entertainment of oysters and Champagne at her
next party as her richer neighbor, or to compass that great bargain
which shall give her a point-lace set almost as handsome as that of Mrs.
Croesus, who has ten times her income?"
"But, papa," said Marianne, with a twinge of that exacting sensitiveness
by which the child is characterized, "I think I am an economist, thanks
to you and mamma, so far as knowing just what my income is, and keeping
within it; but that does not satisfy me, and it seems that isn't all of
economy;--the question that haunts me is, Might I not make my little all
do more and better than I do?"
"There," said I, "you have hit the broader and deeper signification of
economy, which is, in fact, the science of _comparative values._ In its
highest sense, economy is a just judgment of the comparative value of
things,--money only the means of enabling one to express that value.
This is the reason why the whole matter is so full of difficulty,--why
every one criticizes his neighbor in this regard. Human beings are so
various, the necessities of each are so different, they are made
comfortable or uncomfortable by such opposite means, that the spending
of other people's incomes must of necessity often look unwise from our
stand-point. For this reason multitudes of people who cannot be accused
of exceeding their incomes often seem to others to be spending them
foolishly and extravagantly."
"But is there no standard of value?" said Marianne.
"There are certain things upon which there is a pretty general
agreement, verbally at least, among mankind. For instance, it is
generally agreed that _health_ is an indispensable good,--that money is
well spent that secures it, and worse than ill spent that ruins it.
"With this standard in mind, how much money is wasted even by people who
do not exceed their income! Here a man builds a house, and pays, in the
first place, ten thousand more than he need, for a location in a
fashionable part of the city, though the air will be closer and the
chances of health less; he spends three or four thousand more on a stone
front, on marble mantels imported from Italy, on plate-glass windows,
plated hinges, and a thousand nice points of finish, and has perhaps but
one bathroom for a whole household, and that so connected with his own
apartment that nobody but himself and his wife can use it.
"Another man buys a lot in an open, airy situation, which fashion has
not made expensive, and builds without a stone front, marble mantels,
or plate-glass windows, but has a perfect system of ventilation through
his house, and bathing-rooms in every story, so that the children and
guests may all, without inconvenience, enjoy the luxury of abundant
water.
"The first spends for fashion and show, the second for health and
comfort.
"Here is a man that will buy his wife a diamond bracelet and a lace
shawl, and take her yearly to Washington to show off her beauty in
ball-dresses, who yet will not let her pay wages which will command any
but the poorest and most inefficient domestic service. The woman is worn
out, her life made a desert by exhaustion consequent on a futile attempt
to keep up a showy establishment with only half the hands needed for the
purpose. Another family will give brilliant parties, have a gay season
every year at the first hotels at Newport, and not be able to afford the
wife a fire in her chamber in midwinter, or the servants enough food to
keep them from constantly deserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy
cellar-kitchen, the cold, windy, desolate attic, devoid of any comfort,
where the domestics are doomed to pass their whole time, are witnesses
to what such families consider economy. Economy in the view of some is
undisguised slipshod slovenliness in the home-circle for the sake of
fine clothes to be shown abroad; it is undisguised hard selfishness to
servants and dependents, counting their every approach to comfort a
needless waste,--grudging the Roman-Catholic cook her cup of tea at
dinner on Friday, when she must not eat meat,--and murmuring that a
cracked, second-hand looking-glass must be got for the servants' room:
what business have they to want to know how they look?
"Some families will employ the cheapest physician, without regard to his
ability to kill or cure; some will treat diseases in their incipiency
with quack medicines, bought cheap, hoping thereby to fend off the
doctor's bill. Some women seem to be pursued by an evil demon of
economy, which, like an _ignis fatuus_ in a bog, delights constantly to
tumble them over into the mire of expense. They are dismayed at the
quantity of sugar in the recipe for preserves, leave out a quarter, and
the whole ferments and is spoiled. They cannot by any means be induced
at any one time to buy enough silk to make a dress, and the dress
finally, after many convulsions and alterations, must be thrown by
altogether, as too scanty. They get poor needles, poor thread, poor
sugar, poor raisins, poor tea, poor coal. One wonders, in looking at
their blackened, smouldering grates, in a freezing day, what the fire is
there at all for,--it certainly warms nobody. The only thing they seem
likely to be lavish in is funeral expenses, which come in the wake of
leaky shoes and imperfect clothing. These funeral expenses at last
swallow all, since nobody can dispute an undertaker's bill. One pities
these joyless beings. Economy, instead of a rational act of the
judgment, is a morbid monomania, eating the pleasure out of life, and
haunting them to the grave.
"Some people, again, think that nothing is economical but good eating.
Their flour is of an extra brand, their meat the first cut; the
delicacies of every season, in their dearest stages, come home to their
table with an apologetic smile,--'It was scandalously dear, my love, but
I thought we must just treat ourselves.' And yet these people cannot
afford to buy books, and pictures they regard as an unthought-of
extravagance. Trudging home with fifty dollars' worth of delicacies on
his arm, Smith meets Jones, who is exulting with a bag of crackers under
one arm and a choice little bit of an oil painting under the other,
which he thinks a bargain at fifty dollars. '_I_ can't afford to buy
pictures,' Smith says to his spouse, 'and I don't know bow Jones and his
wife manage.' Jones and his wife will live on bread and milk for a
month, and she will turn her best gown the third time, but they will
have their picture, and they are happy, Jones's picture remains, and
Smith's fifty dollars' worth of oysters and canned fruit to-morrow will
be gone forever. Of all modes of spending money, the swallowing of
expensive dainties brings the least return. There is one step lower than
this,--the consuming of luxuries that are injurious to the health. If
all the money spent on tobacco and liquors could be spent in books and
pictures, I predict that nobody's health would be a whit less sound, and
houses would be vastly more attractive. There is enough money spent in
smoking, drinking, and over-eating to give every family in the community
a good library, to hang everybody's parlor-walls with lovely pictures,
to set up in every house a conservatory which should bloom all winter
with choice flowers, to furnish every dwelling with ample bathing and
warming accommodations, even down to the dwellings of the poor; and in
the Millennium I believe this is the way things are to be.
"In these times of peril and suffering, if the inquiry arises, How shall
there be retrenchment? I answer, First and foremost retrench things
needless, doubtful, and positively hurtful, as rum, tobacco, and all the
meerschaums of divers colors that do accompany the same. Second,
retrench all eating not necessary to health and comfort. A French family
would live in luxury on the leavings that are constantly coming from the
tables of those who call themselves in middling circumstances. There are
superstitions of the table that ought to be broken through. Why must you
always have cake in your closet? why need you feel undone to entertain a
guest with no cake on your tea-table? Do without it a year, and ask
yourselves if you or your children, or any one else, have suffered
materially in consequence.
"Why is it imperative that you should have two or three courses at every
meal? Try the experiment of having but one, and that a very good one,
and see if any great amount of suffering ensues. Why must social
intercourse so largely consist in eating? In Paris there is a very
pretty custom. Each family has one evening in the week when it stays at
home and receives friends. Tea, with a little bread and butter and cake,
served in the most informal way, is the only refreshment. The rooms are
full, busy, bright,--everything as easy and joyous as if a monstrous
supper, with piles of jelly and mountains of cake, were waiting to give
the company a nightmare at the close.
"Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife in a social circle of
this kind, 'I ought to know them well,--I have seen, them every week for
twenty years.' It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of social
enjoyment for friends to eat together; but a little enjoyed in this way
answers the purpose as well as a great deal, and better too."
"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in the matter of dress now,--how much
ought one to spend just to look as others do?"
"I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, in the parlor of one
of our hotels. Two middle-aged Quaker ladies came gliding in, with calm,
cheerful faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks. By their conversation I
found that they belonged to that class of women among the Friends who
devote themselves to travelling on missions of benevolence. They had
just completed a tour of all the hospitals for wounded soldiers in the
country, where they had been carrying comforts, arranging, advising, and
soothing by their cheerful, gentle presence. They were now engaged on
another mission, to the lost and erring of their own sex; night after
night, guarded by a policeman, they had ventured after midnight into the
dance-houses where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle words of
tender, motherly counsel sought to win them from their fatal
ways,--telling them where they might go the next day to find friends who
would open to them an asylum and aid them to seek a better life.
"As I looked upon these women, dressed with such modest purity, I began
secretly to think that the Apostle was not wrong, when he spoke of women
adorning themselves with the _ornament_ of a meek and quiet spirit; for
the habitual gentleness of their expression, the calmness and purity of
the lines in their faces, the delicacy and simplicity of their apparel,
seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty. I could not help
thinking that fashionable bonnets, flowing lace sleeves, and dresses
elaborately trimmed could not have improved even their outward
appearance. Doubtless, their simple wardrobe needed but a small trunk in
travelling from place to place, and hindered but little their prayers
and ministrations.
"Now, it is true, all women are not called to such a life as this; but
might not all women take a leaf at least from their book? I submit the
inquiry humbly. It seems to me that there are many who go monthly to the
sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, and who give thanks
each time sincerely that they are thus made 'members incorporate in the
mystical body of Christ,' who have never thought of this membership as
meaning that they should share Christ's sacrifices for lost souls, or
abridge themselves of one ornament or encounter one inconvenience for
the sake of those wandering sheep for whom he died. Certainly there is a
higher economy which we need to learn,--that which makes all things
subservient to the spiritual and immortal, and that not merely to the
good of our own souls and those of our family, but of all who are knit
with us in the great bonds of human brotherhood.
"The Sisters of Charity and the Friends, each with their different
costume of plainness and self-denial, and other noble-hearted women of
no particular outward order, but kindred in spirit, have shown to
womanhood, on the battle-field and in the hospital, a more excellent
way,--a beauty and nobility before which all the common graces and
ornaments of the sex fade, appear like dim candles by the pure, eternal
stars."
* * * * *
THE HEART OF THE WAR.
Peace in the clover-scented air,
And stars within the dome;
And underneath, in dim repose,
A plain, New-England home.
Within, a murmur of low tones
And sighs from hearts oppressed,
Merging in prayer, at last, that brings
The balm of silent rest.
* * * * *
I've closed a hard day's work, Marty,--
The evening chores are done;
And you are weary with the house,
And with the little one.
But he is sleeping sweetly now,
With all our pretty brood;
So come and sit upon my knee,
And it will do me good.
Oh, Marty! I must tell you all
The trouble in my heart,
And you mast do the best you can
To take and bear your part.
You've seen the shadow on my face,
You've felt it day and night;
For it has filled our little home,
And banished all its light.
I did not mean it should be so,
And yet I might have known
That hearts that live as close as ours
Can never keep their own.
But we are fallen on evil times,
And, do whate'er I may,
My heart grows sad about the war,
And sadder every day.
I think about it when I work,
And when I try to rest,
And never more than when your head
Is pillowed on my breast;
For then I see the camp-fires blaze,
And sleeping men around,
Who turn their faces toward their homes,
And dream upon the ground.
I think about the dear, brave boys,
My mates in other years,
Who pine for home and those they love,
Till I am choked with tears.
With shouts and cheers they marched away
On glory's shining track,
But, ah! how long, how long they stay!
How few of them come back!
One sleeps beside the Tennessee,
And one beside the James,
And one fought on a gallant ship
And perished in its flames.
And some, struck down by fell disease,
Are breathing out their life;
And others, maimed by cruel wounds,
Have left the deadly strife.
Ah, Marty! Marty! only think
Of all the boys have done
And suffered in this weary war!
Brave heroes, every one!
Oh! often, often in the night,
I hear their voices call:
"_Come on and help us! Is it right_
_That we should bear it all_?"
And when I kneel and try to pray,
My thoughts are never free,
But cling to those who toil and fight
And die for you and me.
And when I pray for victory,
It seems almost a sin
To fold my hands and ask for what
I will not help to win.
Oh! do not cling to me and cry,
For it will break my heart;
I'm sure you'd rather have me die
Than not to bear my part.
You think that some should stay at home
To care for those away;
But still I'm helpless to decide
If I should go or stay.
For, Marty, all the soldiers love,
And all are loved again;
And I am loved, and love, perhaps,
No more than other men.
I cannot tell--I do not know--
Which way my duty lies,
Or where the Lord would have me build
My fire of sacrifice.
I feel--I know--I am not mean;
And though I seem to boast,
I'm sure that I would give my life
To those who need it most
Perhaps the Spirit will reveal
That which is fair and right;
So, Marty, let us humbly kneel
And pray to Heaven for light.
* * * * *
Peace in the clover-scented air,
And stars within the dome;
And underneath, in dim repose,
A plain, New-England home.
Within, a widow in her weeds,
From whom all joy is flown,
Who kneels among her sleeping babes,
And weeps and prays alone!
* * * * *
OUR RECENT FOREIGN RELATIONS.
The founders of the American Republic were wise alike in their grasp of
temporary difficulties and in the forethought they bestowed upon the
period of construction which was to come. Before a government was
formed, its necessary elements had attained something of order, much of
efficacy. In the very inception of revolution, the beginning was made of
that elaborate diplomatic system which became the medium by which we
have asserted rights, elicited respect, and received amenities from the
great powers of the earth.
In the early days of our Revolution, the conduct of the foreign
correspondence was intrusted to the care of a Committee, composed of men
of established reputation for capacity and patriotism. Through their
labors, not only did we receive substantial sympathy from those
unselfish men in the mother-country who discountenanced the hateful
oppression of the crown: France, guided by the generous Vergennes, was
also attracted to our active defence; the independent spirit of the Low
Countries cheered and helped us; Tuscany, inheriting the sentiment of
liberty from Dante and Macchiavelli, extended loans with a liberal hand;
Spain and Portugal rose superior to their traditional bigotry, and sent
us money, ships, and stores. So efficient was our infant system of
diplomacy, that, long before the war had ended, England stood absolutely
without the countenance of a single Continental power, and confronted
boldly by her most ancient and most dreaded enemy. Proudly as she
entered into the conflict with her colonies, she became humbled as well
by the skill with which they attracted monarchies and empires to their
aid as by the valor with which they met her armies. It is hardly to be
doubted that our final success is to be in a great degree attributed to
the excellent diplomacy of Franklin, Lee, and Izard. Certain it is that
their labors vastly accelerated that success. How gigantic those labors
must have been, to bring the representatives and supporters of mediæval
systems of state-craft to countenance not only rebellion, but the
sentiment of republican liberty which rebellion matured, and which
successful revolution was to lay at the foundation of a new government!
The Confederation, established for the more easy transition to a
permanent system, included almost as its corner-stone a Department of
Foreign Affairs. The duties of the Secretary were confined to the
performance of the specific acts authorized by Congress, at that time at
once the executive and the legislative power,--and consisted chiefly in
the preservation of the papers and records of the office, and conducting
the correspondence with ministers and agents abroad; he had likewise a
seat, but without a vote, in Congress, to give information and answer
inquiries. He was powerless to perform any executive act; he could not
negotiate a treaty; he could not give positive instructions to
ministers; and he was removable at the pleasure of Congress. Under the
Constitution, the duties of the Secretary of State became more
responsible; and the office was recognized as the highest in dignity,
next to the Executive.
We may attribute our present rank among nations in no little degree to
the conspicuous fitness of our envoys at foreign courts for the peculiar
mission which it was their duty to fulfil, in the first quarter of a
century of our national existence. As soon as the British ministry
recognized the nationality of the United States, it was clear, that, on
the new footing, our relations with the mother-country must of necessity
be more intimate than those with any other nation. To pave the way for
the establishment of such an intercourse, no man could have been more
aptly chosen than John Adams. While his high-toned manners opened the
way to favor, his nervous logic followed up the advantage so gracefully
won, and drove home his purpose to its end. Franklin was equally
felicitous in attaching to himself the good-will of the court of
Versailles. Their successors well sustained the respect which they had
inspired; and it was a matter of surprise among the best educated
Europeans that such cultivated and capable men should proceed from a
country which they had thought to be a wilderness, and from a people of
whom they expected only the most flagrant barbarisms.
That the elevated standard thus set up by our early diplomacy has been
preserved with but little exception is a simple matter of history. We
have been almost uniformly fortunate in the choice of our ministers
abroad, especially those to Great Britain. It is rightly regarded as a
distinction hardly inferior to any in the State, to occupy the post of
Plenipotentiary to St. James's or Versailles,--and this no less because
the incumbent has generally been one of our most honored statesmen than
because of the essential dignity and importance of the office.
If we consider, in connection with this fact, the persistency with which
the Government has asserted the rights of an equal power, the promptness
with which it has resented every indignity offered to our flag, and the
vigor with which it has enforced in our favor the principles of
international law, it can be no matter of surprise that we should stand,
as we assuredly have stood, second to none in the estimate of our
physical and moral power.
Starting on a totally new system,--a system which, if successful, would
disprove the universally received dogmas of the political philosophers
of Europe,--running counter to every prejudice and every conclusion of
the Old-World statesmen,--the United States had to work their way
through difficulties innumerable to their present rank, and were forced
to prove their institutions by experience, before they could assume the
dignity of a first-class power.
When the present Rebellion arose, America had thus far proved the
success of democratic institutions. In military and naval power, in
education, in the administration of justice, in commercial thrift, in
mechanical and agricultural enterprise, in the development of the
national resources, the progress had been steady and rapid. The
politicians of Europe had been amazed to find that their unanimous
prediction of the frailty of our political system had totally failed.
The idea of a political centre combined with separate State
organizations was as firmly fixed as ever. The General Government
wielded an undiminished power in aid of the general good; the local
Legislatures controlled, within the original limits, local interests.
The people had suffered no curtailment of their liberties from the
delegation of political power; the executive had not been weakened
either by the accession of new States or the disaffection of old ones.
The most philosophic of the English statesmen had predicted again and
again that one of these alternatives must occur,--but they had begun to
doubt their own theories, and wellnigh confessed that our institutions
were a success. It was difficult for them to conceive that an entirely
novel frame of government, deriving its genius from an idea, and
regardless of precedent, could live to shame a system which had received
the sanction of centuries of success, which was seemingly Providential
in its stability, which had everywhere superseded every other form,
which had absorbed into itself the elements of all other systems. Our
Government was an anomaly; as such, there were ten chances to one
against it. And now, the Englishman who, above all others, is, on both
sides of the Atlantic, regarded as the ablest of modern political
theorists, has in a series of papers triumphantly vindicated the wisdom
of the founders of this Republic, and placed in the clearest logical
sequence the origin and tendency of our institutions. Every American
feels gratitude and reverence toward John Stuart Mill, who, in the
disinterestedness and courage of a great mind, has led the honest
opinion of England to appreciate at its value the system in which our
reason and our feelings are alike bound up.
The confident belief, that an unusual strain on the supposed weak points
of the Federal Constitution would involve it in the fate of the Cromwell
dynasty and the French Revolution had begun to sleep, at the time of the
Secession movement, and but one ray of hope yet remained to the enemies
of republican government. They watched Slavery with an anxious eye.
There was their only chance. In that they saw the apple of discord which
might destroy our Union. They observed with exultation the increasing
influence of those who warred upon slavery in the North, and the
increasing insolence of those who would nationalize it in the South. On
this ground State and Federal authority must, they thought, come in
conflict. And as far as foresight could avail them, they had some reason
to be encouraged. That question has always been, without doubt, our
greatest, almost our only danger.
There is reason to believe, then, that, when the Rebellion broke out,
the theorists of Europe deemed the test to have come, and that the final
success or failure of the Federal Constitution was staked on the result.
The people of the United States have been willing to accept that issue.
We have been ready to test the doctrines of Democracy by the
practicability of maintaining the Union, and to demonstrate, that, if
need be, the General Government may receive at the hands of the people
greater strength without endangering either their liberties or the order
of law.
The diplomatic correspondence between the State Department and our
ministers to foreign powers during the present contest is contained in
two large volumes, published by the Government, which are full of
valuable matter. In the limited space permitted us, but little more than
a general survey of this correspondence can be attempted; and as our
relations with England far exceed all others in closeness and
interest,--a striking proof of which is found in the fact that the room
occupied in these volumes by communications with that country is greater
than that given to all the world besides,--we mainly confine ourselves
to the portion which regards her.