CHAPTER I.

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua

Hutchinson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE

MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

AND

OTHER TALES.

BY

EDWARD E. HALE,

AUTHOR OF "IN HIS NAME," "TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," "HOW TO DO IT," "WHAT

CAREER," ETC., ETC.

BOSTON:

ROBERTS BROTHERS.

1891.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by

TICKNOR AND FIELDS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of

Massachusetts.

CONTENTS.

THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA

A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY

THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR

THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE

THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE

MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME

THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC

THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET

CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON

THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.

FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS.

This story was written in the summer of 1863, as a contribution, however

humble, towards the formation of a just and true national sentiment, or

sentiment of love to the nation. It was at the time when Mr.

Vallandigham had been sent across the border. It was my wish, indeed,

that the story might be printed before the autumn elections of that

year,--as my "testimony" regarding the principles involved in them,--but

circumstances delayed its publication till the December number of the

Atlantic appeared.

It is wholly a fiction, "founded on fact." The facts on which it is

founded are these,--that Aaron Burr sailed down the Mississippi River in

1805, again in 1806, and was tried for treason in 1807. The rest, with

one exception to be noticed, is all fictitious.

It was my intention that the story should have been published with no

author's name, other than that of Captain Frederic Ingham, U.S.N.

Whether writing under his name or my own, I have taken no liberties with

history other than such as every writer of fiction is privileged to

take,--indeed, must take, if fiction is to be written at all.

The story having been once published, it passed out of my hands. From

that moment it has gradually acquired different accessories, for which I

am not responsible. Thus I have heard it said, that at one bureau of the

Navy Department they say that Nolan was pardoned, in fact, and returned

home to die. At another bureau, I am told, the answer to questions is,

that, though it is true that an officer was kept abroad all his life,

his name was not Nolan. A venerable friend of mine in Boston, who

discredits all tradition, still recollects this "Nolan court-martial."

One of the most accurate of my younger friends had noticed Nolan's death

in the newspaper, but recollected "that it was in September, and not in

August." A lady in Baltimore writes me, I believe in good faith, that

Nolan has two widowed sisters residing in that neighborhood. A

correspondent of the Philadelphia Despatch believed "the article untrue,

as the United States corvette 'Levant' was lost at sea nearly three

years since, between San Francisco and San Juan." I may remark that this

uncertainty as to the place of her loss rather adds to the probability

of her turning up after three years in Lat. 2° 11' S., Long. 131° W. A

writer in the New Orleans Picayune, in a careful historical paper,

explained at length that I had been mistaken all through; that Philip

Nolan never went to sea, but to Texas; that there he was shot in battle,

March 21, 1801, and by orders from Spain every fifth man of his party

was to be shot, had they not died in prison. Fortunately, however, he

left his papers and maps, which fell into the hands of a friend of the

Picayune's correspondent. This friend proposes to publish them,--and the

public will then have, it is to be hoped, the true history of Philip

Nolan, the man without a country.

With all these continuations, however, I have nothing to do. I can only

repeat that my Philip Nolan is pure fiction. I cannot send his

scrap-book to my friend who asks for it, because I have it not to send.

I remembered, when I was collecting material for my story, that in

General Wilkinson's galimatias, which he calls his "Memoirs," is

frequent reference to a business partner of his, of the name of Nolan,

who, in the very beginning of this century, was killed in Texas.

Whenever Wilkinson found himself in rather a deeper bog than usual, he

used to justify himself by saying that he could not explain such or such

a charge because "the papers referring to it were lost when _Mr. Nolan_

was imprisoned in Texas." Finding this mythical character in the

mythical legends of a mythical time, I took the liberty to give him a

cousin, rather more mythical, whose adventures should be on the seas. I

had the impression that Wilkinson's friend was named Stephen,--and as

such I spoke of him in the early editions of this story. But long after

this was printed, I found that the New Orleans paper was right in saying

that the Texan hero was named Philip Nolan.

If I had forgotten him and his name, I can only say that Mr. Jefferson,

who did not forget him, abandoned him and his,--when the Spanish

Government murdered him and imprisoned his associates for life. I have

done my best to repair my fault, and to recall to memory a brave man, by

telling the story of his fate, in a book called "Philip Nolan's

Friends." To the historical statements in that book the reader is

referred. That the Texan Philip Nolan played an important, though

forgotten, part in our national history, the reader will

understand,--when I say that the terror of the Spanish Government,

excited by his adventures, governed all their policy regarding Texas and

Louisiana also, till the last territory was no longer their own.

If any reader considers the invention of a cousin too great a liberty to

take in fiction, I venture to remind him that "'Tis sixty years since";

and that I should have the highest authority in literature even for much

greater liberties taken with annals so far removed from our time.

A Boston paper, in noticing the story of "My Double," contained in

another part of this collection, said it was highly _improbable_. I have

always agreed with that critic. I confess I have the same opinion of

this story of Philip Nolan. It passes on ships which had no existence,

is vouched for by officers who never lived. Its hero is in two or three

places at the same time, under a process wholly impossible under any

conceivable administration of affairs. When my friend, Mr. W.H. Reed,

sent me from City Point, in Virginia, the record of the death of PHILIP

NOLAN, a negro from Louisiana, who died in the cause of his country in

service in a colored regiment, I felt that he had done something to

atone for the imagined guilt of the imagined namesake of his unfortunate

god-father.

E.E.H.

ROXBURY, MASS., March 20, 1886.

* * * * *

I supposed that very few casual readers of the New York Herald of August

18th observed, in an obscure corner, among the "Deaths," the

announcement,--

"NOLAN. Died, on board U.S. Corvette Levant, Lat. 2° 11' S., Long.

131° W., on the 11th of May, PHILIP NOLAN."

I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old

Mission-House in Mackinaw, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did

not choose to come, and I was devouring to the very stubble all the

current literature I could get hold of, even down to the deaths and

marriages in the Herald. My memory for names and people is good, and the

reader will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember

Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at

that announcement, if the officer of the Levant who reported it had

chosen to make it thus:--"Died, May 11th, THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY."

For it was as "The Man without a Country" that poor Philip Nolan had

generally been known by the officers who had him in charge during some

fifty years, as, indeed, by all the men who sailed under them. I dare

say there is many a man who has taken wine with him once a fortnight, in

a three years' cruise, who never knew that his name was "Nolan," or

whether the poor wretch had any name at all.

There can now be no possible harm in telling this poor creature's story.

Reason enough there has been till now, ever since Madison's

administration went out in 1817, for very strict secrecy, the secrecy of

honor itself, among the gentlemen of the navy who have had Nolan in

successive charge. And certainly it speaks well for the _esprit de

corps_ of the profession, and the personal honor of its members, that to

the press this man's story has been wholly unknown,--and, I think, to

the country at large also. I have reason to think, from some

investigations I made in the Naval Archives when I was attached to the

Bureau of Construction, that every official report relating to him was

burned when Ross burned the public buildings at Washington. One of the

Tuckers, or possibly one of the Watsons, had Nolan in charge at the end

of the war; and when, on returning from his cruise, he reported at

Washington to one of the Crowninshields,--who was in the Navy Department

when he came home,--he found that the Department ignored the whole

business. Whether they really knew nothing about it or whether it was a

"_Non mi ricordo_," determined on as a piece of policy, I do not know.

But this I do know, that since 1817, and possibly before, no naval

officer has mentioned Nolan in his report of a cruise.

But, as I say, there is no need for secrecy any longer. And now the poor

creature is dead, it seems to me worth while to tell a little of his

story, by way of showing young Americans of to-day what it is to be A

MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.

* * * * *

Philip Nolan was as fine a young officer as there was in the "Legion of

the West," as the Western division of our army was then called. When

Aaron Burr made his first dashing expedition down to New Orleans in

1805, at Fort Massac, or somewhere above on the river, he met, as the

Devil would have it, this gay, dashing, bright young fellow, at some

dinner-party, I think. Burr marked him, talked to him, walked with him,

took him a day or two's voyage in his flat-boat, and, in short,

fascinated him. For the next year, barrack-life was very tame to poor

Nolan. He occasionally availed himself of the permission the great man

had given him to write to him. Long, high-worded, stilted letters the

poor boy wrote and rewrote and copied. But never a line did he have in

reply from the gay deceiver. The other boys in the garrison sneered at

him, because he sacrificed in this unrequited affection for a politician

the time which they devoted to Monongahela, hazard, and high-low-jack.

Bourbon, euchre, and poker were still unknown. But one day Nolan had his

revenge. This time Burr came down the river, not as an attorney seeking

a place for his office, but as a disguised conqueror. He had defeated I

know not how many district-attorneys; he had dined at I know not how

many public dinners; he had been heralded in I know not how many Weekly

Arguses, and it was rumored that he had an army behind him and an empire

before him. It was a great day--his arrival--to poor Nolan. Burr had not

been at the fort an hour before he sent for him. That evening he asked

Nolan to take him out in his skiff, to show him a canebrake or a

cotton-wood tree, as he said,--really to seduce him; and by the time the

sail was over, Nolan was enlisted body and soul. From that time, though

he did not yet know it, he lived as A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.

What Burr meant to do I know no more than you, dear reader. It is none

of our business just now. Only, when the grand catastrophe came, and

Jefferson and the House of Virginia of that day undertook to break on

the wheel all the possible Clarences of the then House of York, by the

great treason-trial at Richmond, some of the lesser fry in that distant

Mississippi Valley, which was farther from us than Puget's Sound is

to-day, introduced the like novelty on their provincial stage, and, to

while away the monotony of the summer at Fort Adams, got up, for

_spectacles_, a string of court-martials on the officers there. One and

another of the colonels and majors were tried, and, to fill out the

list, little Nolan, against whom, Heaven knows, there was evidence

enough,--that he was sick of the service, had been willing to be false

to it, and would have obeyed any order to march any-whither with any

one who would follow him had the order been signed, "By command of His

Exc. A. Burr." The courts dragged on. The big flies escaped,--rightly

for all I know. Nolan was proved guilty enough, as I say; yet you and I

would never have heard of him, reader, but that, when the president of

the court asked him at the close, whether he wished to say anything to

show that he had always been faithful to the United States, he cried

out, in a fit of frenzy,--

"D----n the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States

again!"

I suppose he did not know how the words shocked old Colonel Morgan, who

was holding the court. Half the officers who sat in it had served

through the Revolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, had

been risked for the very idea which he so cavalierly cursed in his

madness. He, on his part, had grown up in the West of those days, in the

midst of "Spanish plot," "Orleans plot," and all the rest. He had been

educated on a plantation where the finest company was a Spanish officer

or a French merchant from Orleans. His education, such as it was, had

been perfected in commercial expeditions to Vera Cruz, and I think he

told me his father once hired an Englishman to be a private tutor for a

winter on the plantation. He had spent half his youth with an older

brother, hunting horses in Texas; and, in a word, to him "United States"

was scarcely a reality. Yet he had been fed by "United States" for all

the years since he had been in the army. He had sworn on his faith as a

Christian to be true to "United States." It was "United States" which

gave him the uniform he wore, and the sword by his side. Nay, my poor

Nolan, it was only because "United States" had picked you out first as

one of her own confidential men of honor that "A. Burr" cared for you a

straw more than for the flat-boat men who sailed his ark for him. I do

not excuse Nolan; I only explain to the reader why he damned his

country, and wished he might never hear her name again.

He never did hear her name but once again. From that moment, September

23, 1807, till the day he died, May 11, 1863, he never heard her name

again. For that half-century and more he was a man without a country.

Old Morgan, as I said, was terribly shocked. If Nolan had compared

George Washington to Benedict Arnold, or had cried, "God save King

George," Morgan would not have felt worse. He called the court into his

private room, and returned in fifteen minutes, with a face like a sheet,

to say,--

"Prisoner, hear the sentence of the Court! The Court decides, subject to

the approval of the President, that you never hear the name of the

United States again."

Nolan laughed. But nobody else laughed. Old Morgan was too solemn, and

the whole room was hushed dead as night for a minute. Even Nolan lost

his swagger in a moment. Then Morgan added,--

"Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to Orleans in an armed boat, and deliver

him to the naval commander there."

The Marshal gave his orders and the prisoner was taken out of court.

"Mr. Marshal," continued old Morgan, "see that no one mentions the

United States to the prisoner. Mr. Marshal, make my respects to

Lieutenant Mitchell at Orleans, and request him to order that no one

shall mention the United States to the prisoner while he is on board

ship. You will receive your written orders from the officer on duty here

this evening. The court is adjourned without day."

I have always supposed that Colonel Morgan himself took the proceedings

of the court to Washington City, and explained them to Mr. Jefferson.

Certain it is that the President approved them,--certain, that is, if I

may believe the men who say they have seen his signature. Before the

Nautilus got round from New Orleans to the Northern Atlantic coast with

the prisoner on board the sentence had been approved, and he was a man

without a country.

The plan then adopted was substantially the same which was necessarily

followed ever after. Perhaps it was suggested by the necessity of

sending him by water from Fort Adams and Orleans. The Secretary of the

Navy--it must have been the first Crowninshield, though he is a man I do

not remember--was requested to put Nolan on board a government vessel

bound on a long cruise, and to direct that he should be only so far

confined there as to make it certain that he never saw or heard of the

country. We had few long cruises then, and the navy was very much out of

favor; and as almost all of this story is traditional, as I have

explained, I do not know certainly what his first cruise was. But the

commander to whom he was intrusted,--perhaps it was Tingey or Shaw,

though I think it was one of the younger men,--we are all old enough

now,--regulated the etiquette and the precautions of the affair, and

according to his scheme they were carried out, I suppose, till Nolan

died.

When I was second officer of the "Intrepid," some thirty years after, I

saw the original paper of instructions. I have been sorry ever since

that I did not copy the whole of it. It ran, however, much in this

way:--

"WASHINGTON (with a date, which have been late in 1807).

"SIR,--You will receive from Lieutenant Neale the person of Philip

Nolan, late a Lieutenant in the United States Army.

"This person on his trial by court-martial expressed with an oath

the wish that he might 'never hear of the United States again.'

"The Court sentenced him to have his wish fulfilled.

"For the present, the execution of the order is intrusted by the

President to this Department.

"You will take the prisoner on board your ship, and keep him there

with such precautions as shall prevent his escape.

"You will provide him with such quarters, rations, and clothing as

would be proper for an officer of his late rank, if he were a

passenger on your vessel on the business of his Government.

"The gentlemen on board will make any arrangements agreeable to

themselves regarding his society. He is to be exposed to no

indignity of any kind, nor is he ever unnecessarily to be reminded

that he is a prisoner.

"But under no circumstances is he ever to hear of his country or

to see any information regarding it, and you will specially

caution all the officers under your command to take care, that, in

the various indulgences which may be granted, this rule, in which

his punishment is involved, shall not be broken.

"It is the intention of the Government that he shall never again

see the country which he has disowned. Before the end of your

cruise you will receive orders which will give effect to this

intention.

"Respectfully yours,

"W. SOUTHARD, for the Secretary of the Navy."

If I had only preserved the whole of this paper, there would be no break

in the beginning of my sketch of this story. For Captain Shaw, if it

were he, handed it to his successor in the charge, and he to his, and I

suppose the commander of the Levant has it to-day as his authority for

keeping this man in this mild custody.

The rule adopted on board the ships on which I have met "the man without

a country" was, I think, transmitted from the beginning. No mess liked

to have him permanently, because his presence cut off all talk of home

or of the prospect of return, of politics or letters, of peace or of

war,--cut off more than half the talk men liked to have at sea. But it

was always thought too hard that he should never meet the rest of us,

except to touch hats, and we finally sank into one system. He was not

permitted to talk with the men, unless an officer was by. With officers

he had unrestrained intercourse, as far as they and he chose. But he

grew shy, though he had favorites: I was one. Then the captain always

asked him to dinner on Monday. Every mess in succession took up the

invitation in its turn. According to the size of the ship, you had him

at your mess more or less often at dinner. His breakfast he ate in his

own state-room,--he always had a state-room,--which was where a sentinel

or somebody on the watch could see the door. And whatever else he ate or

drank, he ate or drank alone. Sometimes, when the marines or sailors had

any special jollification, they were permitted to invite

"Plain-Buttons," as they called him. Then Nolan was sent with some

officer, and the men were forbidden to speak of home while he was

there. I believe the theory that the sight of his punishment did them

good. They called him "Plain-Buttons," because, while he always chose to

wear a regulation army-uniform, he was not permitted to wear the

army-button, for the reason that it bore either the initials or the

insignia of the country he had disowned.

I remember, soon after I joined the navy, I was on shore with some of

the older officers from our ship and from the Brandywine, which we had

met at Alexandria. We had leave to make a party and go up to Cairo and

the Pyramids. As we jogged along (you went on donkeys then), some of the

gentlemen (we boys called them "Dons," but the phrase was long since

changed) fell to talking about Nolan, and some one told the system which

was adopted from the first about his books and other reading. As he was

almost never permitted to go on shore, even though the vessel lay in

port for months, his time at the best hung heavy; and everybody was

permitted to lend him books, if they were not published in America and

made no allusion to it. These were common enough in the old days, when

people in the other hemisphere talked of the United States as little as

we do of Paraguay. He had almost all the foreign papers that came into

the ship, sooner or later; only somebody must go over them first, and

cut out any advertisement or stray paragraph that alluded to America.

This was a little cruel sometimes, when the back of what was cut out

might be as innocent as Hesiod. Right in the midst of one of Napoleon's

battles, or one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolan would find a great

hole, because on the back of the page of that paper there had been an

advertisement of a packet for New York, or a scrap from the President's

message. I say this was the first time I ever heard of this plan, which

afterwards I had enough and more than enough to do with. I remember it,

because poor Phillips, who was of the party, as soon as the allusion to

reading was made, told a story of something which happened at the Cape

of Good Hope on Nolan's first voyage; and it is the only thing I ever

knew of that voyage. They had touched at the Cape, and had done the

civil thing with the English Admiral and the fleet, and then, leaving

for a long cruise up the Indian Ocean, Phillips had borrowed a lot of

English books from an officer, which, in those days, as indeed in these,

was quite a windfall. Among them, as the Devil would order, was the "Lay

of the Last Minstrel," which they had all of them heard of, but which

most of them had never seen. I think it could not have been published

long. Well, nobody thought there could be any risk of anything national

in that, though Phillips swore old Shaw had cut out the "Tempest" from

Shakespeare before he let Nolan have it, because he said "the Bermudas

ought to be ours, and, by Jove, should be one day." So Nolan was

permitted to join the circle one afternoon when a lot of them sat on

deck smoking and reading aloud. People do not do such things so often

now, but when I was young we got rid of a great deal of time so. Well,

so it happened that in his turn Nolan took the book and read to the

others; and he read very well, as I know. Nobody in the circle knew a

line of the poem, only it was all magic and Border chivalry, and was ten

thousand years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily through the fifth canto,

stopped a minute and drank something, and then began, without a thought

of what was coming,--

"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,"--

It seems impossible to us that anybody ever heard this for the first

time; but all these fellows did then, and poor Nolan himself went on,

still unconsciously or mechanically,--

"This is my own, my native land!"

Then they all saw something was to pay; but he expected to get through,

I suppose, turned a little pale, but plunged on,--

"Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,

As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand?--

If such there breathe, go, mark him well,"--

By this time the men were all beside themselves, wishing there was any

way to make him turn over two pages; but he had not quite presence of

mind for that; he gagged a little, colored crimson, and staggered on,--

"For him no minstrel raptures swell;

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,

Despite these titles, power, and pelf,

The wretch, concentred all in self,"--

and here the poor fellow choked, could not go on, but started up, swung

the book into the sea, vanished into his state-room, "And by Jove," said

Phillips, "we did not see him for two months again. And I had to make up

some beggarly story to that English surgeon why I did not return his

Walter Scott to him."

That story shows about the time when Nolan's braggadocio must have

broken down. At first, they said, he took a very high tone, considered

his imprisonment a mere farce, affected to enjoy the voyage, and all

that; but Phillips said that after he came out of his state-room he

never was the same man again. He never read aloud again, unless it was

the Bible or Shakespeare, or something else he was sure of. But it was

not that merely. He never entered in with the other young men exactly as

a companion again. He was always shy afterwards, when I knew him,--very

seldom spoke, unless he was spoken to, except to a very few friends. He

lighted up occasionally,--I remember late in his life hearing him fairly

eloquent on something which had been suggested to him by one of

Fléchier's sermons,--but generally he had the nervous, tired look of a

heart-wounded man.

When Captain Shaw was coming home,--if, as I say, it was Shaw,--rather

to the surprise of every body they made one of the Windward Islands,

and lay off and on for nearly a week. The boys said the officers were

sick of salt-junk, and meant to have turtle-soup before they came home.

But after several days the Warren came to the same rendezvous; they

exchanged signals; she sent to Phillips and these homeward-bound men

letters and papers, and told them she was outward-bound, perhaps to the

Mediterranean, and took poor Nolan and his traps on the boat back to try

his second cruise. He looked very blank when he was told to get ready to

join her. He had known enough of the signs of the sky to know that till

that moment he was going "home." But this was a distinct evidence of

something he had not thought of, perhaps,--that there was no going home

for him, even to a prison. And this was the first of some twenty such

transfers, which brought him sooner or later into half our best vessels,

but which kept him all his life at least some hundred miles from the

country he had hoped he might never hear of again.

It may have been on that second cruise,--it was once when he was up the

Mediterranean,--that Mrs. Graff, the celebrated Southern beauty of those

days, danced with him. They had been lying a long time in the Bay of

Naples, and the officers were very intimate in the English fleet, and

there had been great festivities, and our men thought they must give a

great ball on board the ship. How they ever did it on board the "Warren"

I am sure I do not know. Perhaps it was not the "Warren," or perhaps

ladies did not take up so much room as they do now. They wanted to use

Nolan's state-room for something, and they hated to do it without asking

him to the ball; so the captain said they might ask him, if they would

be responsible that he did not talk with the wrong people, "who would

give him intelligence." So the dance went on, the finest party that had

ever been known, I dare say; for I never heard of a man-of-war ball that

was not. For ladies they had the family of the American consul, one or

two travellers who had adventured so far, and a nice bevy of English

girls and matrons, perhaps Lady Hamilton herself.

Well, different officers relieved each other in standing and talking

with Nolan in a friendly way, so as to be sure that nobody else spoke to

him. The dancing went on with spirit, and after a while even the fellows

who took this honorary guard of Nolan ceased to fear any _contretemps_.

Only when some English lady--Lady Hamilton, as I said, perhaps--called

for a set of "American dances," an odd thing happened. Everybody then

danced contra-dances. The black band, nothing loath, conferred as to

what "American dances" were, and started off with a "Virginia Reel,"

which they followed with "Money-Musk," which, in its turn in those days,

should have been followed by "The Old Thirteen." But just as Dick, the

leader, tapped for his fiddles to begin, and bent forward, about to say,

in true negro state, "'The Old Thirteen, gentlemen and ladies!" as he

had said "'Virginny Reel,' if you please!" and "'Money-Musk,' if you

please!" the captain's boy tapped him on the shoulder, whispered to him,

and he did not announce the name of the dance; he merely bowed, began on

the air, and they all fell to,--the officers teaching the English girls

the figure, but not telling them why it had no name.

But that is not the story I started to tell.--As the dancing went on,

Nolan and our fellows all got at ease, as I said,--so much so, that it

seemed quite natural for him to bow to that splendid Mrs. Graff, and

say,--

"I hope you have not forgotten me, Miss Rutledge. Shall I have the honor

of dancing?"

He did it so quickly, that Fellows, who was by him, could not hinder

him. She laughed and said,--

"I am not Miss Rutledge any longer, Mr. Nolan; but I will dance all the

same," just nodded to Fellows, as if to say he must leave Mr. Nolan to

her, and led him off to the place where the dance was forming.

Nolan thought he had got his chance. He had known her at Philadelphia,

and at other places had met her, and this was a Godsend. You could not

talk in contra-dances, as you do in cotillons, or even in the pauses of

waltzing; but there were chances for tongues and sounds, as well as for

eyes and blushes. He began with her travels, and Europe, and Vesuvius,

and the French; and then, when they had worked down, and had that long

talking-time at the bottom of the set, he said, boldly,--a little pale,

she said, as she told me the story, years after,--

"And what do you hear from home, Mrs. Graff?"

And that splendid creature looked through him. Jove! how she must have

looked through him!

"Home!! Mr. Nolan!!! I thought you were the man who never wanted to hear

of home again!"--and she walked directly up the deck to her husband, and

left poor Nolan alone, as he always was.--He did not dance again.

I cannot give any history of him in order; nobody can now; and, indeed,

I am not trying to. These are the traditions, which I sort out, as I

believe them, from the myths which have been told about this man for

forty years. The lies that have been told about him are legion. The

fellows used to say he was the "Iron Mask"; and poor George Pons went to

his grave in the belief that this was the author of "Junius," who was

being punished for his celebrated libel on Thomas Jefferson. Pons was

not very strong in the historical line. A happier story than either of

these I have told is of the War. That came along soon after. I have

heard this affair told in three or four ways,--and, indeed, it may have

happened more than once. But which ship it was on I cannot tell.

However, in one, at least, of the great frigate-duels with the English,

in which the navy was really baptized, it happened that a round-shot

from the enemy entered one of our ports square, and took right down the

officer of the gun himself, and almost every man of the gun's crew. Now

you may say what you choose about courage, but that is not a nice thing

to see. But, as the men who were not killed picked themselves up, and as

they and the surgeon's people were carrying off the bodies, there

appeared Nolan, in his shirt-sleeves, with the rammer in his hand, and,

just as if he had been the officer, told them off with authority,--who

should go to the cockpit with the wounded men, who should stay with

him,--perfectly cheery, and with that way which makes men feel sure all

is right and is going to be right. And he finished loading the gun with

his own hands, aimed it, and bade the men fire. And there he stayed,

captain of that gun, keeping those fellows in spirits, till the enemy

struck,--sitting on the carriage while the gun was cooling, though he

was exposed all the time,--showing them easier ways to handle heavy

shot,--making the raw hands laugh at their own blunders,--and when the

gun cooled again, getting it loaded and fired twice as often as any

other gun on the ship. The captain walked forward by way of encouraging

the men, and Nolan touched his hat and said,--

"I am showing them how we do this in the artillery, sir."

And this is the part of the story where all the legends agree; and the

Commodore said,--

"I see you do, and I thank you, sir; and I shall never forget this day,

sir, and you never shall, sir."

And after the whole thing was over, and he had the Englishman's sword,

in the midst of the state and ceremony of the quarter-deck, he said,--

"Where is Mr. Nolan? Ask Mr. Nolan to come here."

And when Nolan came, the captain said,--

"Mr. Nolan, we are all very grateful to you to-day; you are one of us

to-day; you will be named in the despatches."

And then the old man took off his own sword of ceremony, and gave it to

Nolan, and made him put it on. The man told me this who saw it. Nolan

cried like a baby, and well he might. He had not worn a sword since that

infernal day at Fort Adams. But always afterwards on occasions of

ceremony, he wore that quaint old French sword of the Commodore's.

The captain did mention him in the despatches. It was always said he

asked that he might be pardoned. He wrote a special letter to the

Secretary of War. But nothing ever came of it. As I said, that was about

the time when they began to ignore the whole transaction at Washington,

and when Nolan's imprisonment began to carry itself on because there was

nobody to stop it without any new orders from home.

I have heard it said that he was with Porter when he took possession of

the Nukahiwa Islands. Not this Porter, you know, but old Porter, his

father, Essex Porter,--that is, the old Essex Porter, not this Essex. As

an artillery officer, who had seen service in the West, Nolan knew more

about fortifications, embrasures, ravelins, stockades, and all that,

than any of them did; and he worked with a right good-will in fixing

that battery all right. I have always thought it was a pity Porter did

not leave him in command there with Gamble. That would have settled all

the question about his punishment. We should have kept the islands, and

at this moment we should have one station in the Pacific Ocean. Our

French friends, too, when they wanted this little watering-place, would

have found it was preoccupied. But Madison and the Virginians, of

course, flung all that away.

All that was near fifty year ago. If Nolan was thirty then, he must have

been near eighty when he died. He looked sixty when he was forty. But he

never seemed to me to change a hair afterwards. As I imagine his life,

from what I have seen and heard of it, he must have been in every sea,

and yet almost never on land. He must have known, in a formal way, more

officers in our service than any man living knows. He told me once, with

a grave smile, that no man in the world lived so methodical a life as

he. "You know the boys say I am the Iron Mask, and you know how busy he

was." He said it did not do for any one to try to read all the time,

more than to do anything else all the time; but that he read just five

hours a day. "Then," he said, "I keep up my note-books, writing in them

at such and such hours from what I have been reading; and I include in

these my scrap-books." These were very curious indeed. He had six or

eight, of different subjects. There was one of History, one of Natural

Science, one which he called "Odds and Ends." But they were not merely

books of extracts from newspapers. They had bits of plants and ribbons,

shells tied on, and carved scraps of bone and wood, which he had taught

the men to cut for him, and they were beautifully illustrated. He drew

admirably. He had some of the funniest drawings there, and some of the

most pathetic, that I have ever seen in my life. I wonder who will have

Nolan's scrap-books.

Well, he said his reading and his notes were his profession, and that

they took five hours and two hours respectively of each day. "Then,"

said he, "every man should have a diversion as well as a profession. My

Natural History is my diversion." That took two hours a day more. The

men used to bring him birds and fish, but on a long cruise he had to

satisfy himself with centipedes and cockroaches and such small game. He

was the only naturalist I ever met who knew anything about the habits of

the house-fly and the mosquito. All those people can tell you whether

they are _Lepidoptera_ or _Steptopotera_; but as for telling how you can

get rid of them, or how they get away from you when you strike

them,--why Linnæus knew as little of that as John Foy the idiot did.

These nine hours made Nolan's regular daily "occupation." The rest of

the time he talked or walked. Till he grew very old, he went aloft a

great deal. He always kept up his exercise; and I never heard that he

was ill. If any other man was ill, he was the kindest nurse in the

world; and he knew more than half the surgeons do. Then if anybody was

sick or died, or if the captain wanted him to, on any other occasion, he

was always ready to read prayers. I have said that he read beautifully.

My own acquaintance with Philip Nolan began six or eight years after the

War, on my first voyage after I was appointed a midshipman. It was in

the first days after our Slave-Trade treaty, while the Reigning House,

which was still the House of Virginia, had still a sort of

sentimentalism about the suppression of the horrors of the Middle

Passage, and something was sometimes done that way. We were in the South

Atlantic on that business. From the time I joined, I believe I thought

Nolan was a sort of lay chaplain,--a chaplain with a blue coat. I never

asked about him. Everything in the ship was strange to me. I knew it was

green to ask questions, and I suppose I thought there was a

"Plain-Buttons" on every ship. We had him to dine in our mess once a

week, and the caution was given that on that day nothing was to be said

about home. But if they had told us not to say anything about the planet

Mars or the Book of Deuteronomy, I should not have asked why; there were

a great many things which seemed to me to have as little reason. I first

came to understand anything about "the man without a country" one day

when we overhauled a dirty little schooner which had slaves on board.

An officer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a few minutes, he

sent back his boat to ask that some one might be sent him who could

speak Portuguese. We were all looking over the rail when the message

came, and we all wished we could interpret, when the captain asked Who

spoke Portuguese. But none of the officers did; and just as the captain

was sending forward to ask if any of the people could, Nolan stepped out

and said he should be glad to interpret, if the captain wished, as he

understood the language. The captain thanked him, fitted out another

boat with him, and in this boat it was my luck to go.

When we got there, it was such a scene as you seldom see, and never want

to. Nastiness beyond account, and chaos run loose in the midst of the

nastiness. There were not a great many of the negroes; but by way of

making what there were understand that they were free, Vaughan had had

their hand-cuffs and ankle-cuffs knocked off, and, for convenience'

sake, was putting them upon the rascals of the schooner's crew. The

negroes were, most of them, out of the hold, and swarming all round the

dirty deck, with a central throng surrounding Vaughan and addressing him

in every dialect, and _patois_ of a dialect, from the Zulu click up to

the Parisian of Beledeljereed.

As we came on deck, Vaughan looked down from a hogshead, on which he had

mounted in desperation, and said:--

"For God's love, is there anybody who can make these wretches understand

something? The men gave them rum, and that did not quiet them. I knocked

that big fellow down twice, and that did not soothe him. And then I

talked Choctaw to all of them together; and I'll be hanged if they

understood that as well as they understood the English."

Nolan said he could speak Portuguese, and one or two fine-looking

Kroomen were dragged out, who, as it had been found already, had worked

for the Portuguese on the coast at Fernando Po.

"Tell them they are free," said Vaughan; "and tell them that these

rascals are to be hanged as soon as we can get rope enough."

Nolan "put that into Spanish,"--that is, he explained it in such

Portuguese as the Kroomen could understand, and they in turn to such of

the negroes as could understand them. Then there was such a yell of

delight, clinching of fists, leaping and dancing, kissing of Nolan's

feet, and a general rush made to the hogshead by way of spontaneous

worship of Vaughan, as the _deus ex machina_ of the occasion.

"Tell them," said Vaughan, well pleased, "that I will take them all to

Cape Palmas."

This did not answer so well. Cape Palmas was practically as far from the

homes of most of them as New Orleans or Rio Janeiro was; that is, they

would be eternally separated from home there. And their interpreters, as

we could understand, instantly said, "_Ah, non Palmas_" and began to

propose infinite other expedients in most voluble language. Vaughan was

rather disappointed at this result of his liberality, and asked Nolan

eagerly what they said. The drops stood on poor Nolan's white forehead,

as he hushed the men down, and said:--

"He says, 'Not Palmas.' He says, 'Take us home, take us to our own

country, take us to our own house, take us to our own pickaninnies and

our own women.' He says he has an old father and mother who will die if

they do not see him. And this one says he left his people all sick, and

paddled down to Fernando to beg the white doctor to come and help them,

and that these devils caught him in the bay just in sight of home, and

that he has never seen anybody from home since then. And this one says,"

choked out Nolan, "that he has not heard a word from his home in six

months, while he has been locked up in an infernal barracoon."

Vaughan always said he grew gray himself while Nolan struggled through

this interpretation. I, who did not understand anything of the passion

involved in it, saw that the very elements were melting with fervent

heat, and that something was to pay somewhere. Even the negroes

themselves stopped howling, as they saw Nolan's agony, and Vaughan's

almost equal agony of sympathy. As quick as he could get words, he

said:--

"Tell them yes, yes, yes; tell them they shall go to the Mountains of

the Moon, if they will. If I sail the schooner through the Great White

Desert, they shall go home!"

And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then they all fell to kissing

him again, and wanted to rub his nose with theirs.

But he could not stand it long; and getting Vaughan to say he might go

back, he beckoned me down into our boat. As we lay back in the

stern-sheets and the men gave way, he said to me: "Youngster, let that

show you what it is to be without a family, without a home, and without

a country. And if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing

that shall put a bar between you and your family, your home, and your

country, pray God in his mercy to take you that instant home to his own

heaven. Stick by your family, boy; forget you have a self, while you do

everything for them. Think of your home, boy; write and send, and talk

about it. Let it be nearer and nearer to your thought, the farther you

have to travel from it; and rush back to it, when you are free, as that

poor black slave is doing now. And for your country, boy," and the words

rattled in his throat, "and for that flag," and he pointed to the ship,

"never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though the

service carry you through a thousand hells. No matter what happens to

you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another

flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag.

Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind

officers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself,

your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own

mother. Stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those

devils there had got hold of her to-day!"

I was frightened to death by his calm, hard passion, but I blundered

out, that I would, by all that was holy, and that I had never thought of

doing anything else. He hardly seemed to hear me; but he did, almost in

a whisper, say: "O, if anybody had said so to me when I was of your

age!"

I think it was this half-confidence of his, which I never abused, for I

never told this story till now, which afterward made us great friends.

He was very kind to me. Often he sat up, or even got up, at night, to

walk the deck with me, when it was my watch. He explained to me a great

deal of my mathematics, and I owe to him my taste for mathematics. He

lent me books, and helped me about my reading. He never alluded so

directly to his story again; but from one and another officer I have

learned, in thirty years, what I am telling. When we parted from him in

St. Thomas harbor, at the end of our cruise, I was more sorry than I can

tell. I was very glad to meet him again in 1830; and later in life, when

I thought I had some influence in Washington, I moved heaven and earth

to have him discharged. But it was like getting a ghost out of prison.

They pretended there was no such man, and never was such a man. They

will say so at the Department now! Perhaps they do not know. It will not

be the first thing in the service of which the Department appears to

know nothing!

There is a story that Nolan met Burr once on one of our vessels, when a

party of Americans came on board in the Mediterranean. But this I

believe to be a lie; or, rather, it is a myth, _ben trovato_, involving

a tremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr,--asking him how he

liked to be "without a country." But it is clear from Burr's life, that

nothing of the sort could have happened; and I mention this only as an

illustration of the stories which get a-going where there is the least

mystery at bottom.

So poor Philip Nolan had his wish fulfilled. I know but one fate more

dreadful; it is the fate reserved for those men who shall have one day

to exile themselves from their country because they have attempted her

ruin, and shall have at the same time to see the prosperity and honor to

which she rises when she has rid herself of them and their iniquities.

The wish of poor Nolan, as we all learned to call him, not because his

punishment was too great, but because his repentance was so clear, was

precisely the wish of every Bragg and Beauregard who broke a soldier's

oath two years ago, and of every Maury and Barron who broke a sailor's.

I do not know how often they have repented. I do know that they have

done all that in them lay that they might have no country,--that all the

honors, associations, memories, and hopes which belong to "country"

might be broken up into little shreds and distributed to the winds. I

know, too, that their punishment, as they vegetate through what is left

of life to them in wretched Boulognes and Leicester Squares, where they

are destined to upbraid each other till they die, will have all the

agony of Nolan's, with the added pang that every one who sees them will

see them to despise and to execrate them. They will have their wish,

like him.

For him, poor fellow, he repented of his folly, and then, like a man,

submitted to the fate he had asked for. He never intentionally added to

the difficulty or delicacy of the charge of those who had him in hold.

Accidents would happen; but they never happened from his fault.

Lieutenant Truxton told me, that, when Texas was annexed, there was a

careful discussion among the officers, whether they should get hold of

Nolan's handsome set of maps, and cut Texas out of it,--from the map of

the world and the map of Mexico. The United States had been cut out when

the atlas was bought for him. But it was voted, rightly enough, that to

do this would be virtually to reveal to him what had happened, or, as

Harry Cole said, to make him think Old Burr had succeeded. So it was

from no fault of Nolan's that a great botch happened at my own table,

when, for a short time, I was in command of the George Washington

corvette, on the South American station. We were lying in the La Plata,

and some of the officers, who had been on shore, and had just joined

again, were entertaining us with accounts of their misadventures in

riding the half-wild horses of Buenos Ayres. Nolan was at table, and was

in an unusually bright and talkative mood. Some story of a tumble

reminded him of an adventure of his own, when he was catching wild

horses in Texas with his adventurous cousin, at a time when he must have

been quite a boy. He told the story with a good deal of spirit,--so much

so, that the silence which often follows a good story hung over the

table for an instant, to be broken by Nolan himself. For he asked

perfectly unconsciously:--

"Pray, what has become of Texas? After the Mexicans got their

independence, I thought that province of Texas would come forward very

fast. It is really one of the finest regions on earth; it is the Italy

of this continent. But I have not seen or heard a word of Texas for near

twenty years."

There were two Texan officers at the table. The reason he had never

heard of Texas was that Texas and her affairs had been painfully cut out

of his newspapers since Austin began his settlements; so that, while he

read of Honduras and Tamaulipas, and, till quite lately, of

California,--this virgin province, in which his brother had travelled so

far, and, I believe, had died, had ceased to be to him. Waters and

Williams, the two Texas men, looked grimly at each other, and tried not

to laugh. Edward Morris had his attention attracted by the third link in

the chain of the captain's chandelier. Watrous was seized with a

convulsion of sneezing. Nolan himself saw that something was to pay, he

did not know what. And I, as master of the feast, had to say,--

"Texas is out of the map, Mr. Nolan. Have you seen Captain Back's

curious account of Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome?"

After that cruise I never saw Nolan again. I wrote to him at least twice

a year, for in that voyage we became even confidentially intimate; but

he never wrote to me. The other men tell me that in those fifteen years

he _aged_ very fast, as well he might indeed, but that he was still the

same gentle, uncomplaining, silent sufferer that he ever was, bearing as

best he could his self-appointed punishment,--rather less social,

perhaps, with new men whom he did not know, but more anxious,

apparently, than ever to serve and befriend and teach the boys, some of

whom fairly seemed to worship him. And now it seems the dear old fellow

is dead. He has found a home at last, and a country.

* * * * *

Since writing this, and while considering whether or no I would print

it, as a warning to the young Nolans and Vallandighams and Tatnalls of

to-day of what it is to throw away a country, I have received from

Danforth, who is on board the Levant, a letter which gives an account

of Nolan's last hours. It removes all my doubts about telling this

story.

To understand the first words of the letter, the non-professional reader

should remember that after 1817, the position of every officer who had

Nolan in charge was one of the greatest delicacy. The government had

failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him. What was a man to do?

Should he let him go? What, then, if he were called to account by the

Department for violating the order of 1807? Should he keep him? What,

then, if Nolan should be liberated some day, and should bring an action

for false imprisonment or kidnapping against every man who had had him

in charge? I urged and pressed this upon Southard, and I have reason to

think that other officers did the same thing. But the Secretary always

said, as they so often do at Washington, that there were no special

orders to give, and that we must act on our own judgment. That means,

"If you succeed, you will be sustained; if you fail, you will be

disavowed." Well, as Danforth says, all that is over now, though I do

not know but I expose myself to a criminal prosecution on the evidence

of the very revelation I am making.

Here is the letter:--

* * * * *

"LEVANT, 2° 2' S. @ 131° W.

"DEAR FRED:--I try to find heart and life to tell you that it is all

over with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this voyage more than

I ever was, and I can understand wholly now the way in which you used

to speak of the dear old fellow. I could see that he was not strong, but

I had no idea the end was so near. The doctor has been watching him very

carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told me that Nolan was

not so well, and had not left his state-room,--a thing I never remember

before. He had let the doctor come and see him as he lay there,--the

first time the doctor had been in the state-room,--and he said he should

like to see me. O dear! do you remember the mysteries we boys used to

invent about his room, in the old Intrepid days? Well, I went in, and

there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay in his berth, smiling pleasantly

as he gave me his hand, but looking very frail. I could not help a

glance round, which showed me what a little shrine he had made of the

box he was lying in. The stars and stripes were triced up above and

around a picture of Washington, and he had painted a majestic eagle,

with lightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just clasping the

whole globe, which his wings overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my

glance, and said, with a sad smile, 'Here, you see, I have a country!'

And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before

a great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from memory, and

which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were

on it, in large letters: 'Indiana Territory,' 'Mississippi Territory,'

and 'Louisiana Territory,' as I suppose our fathers learned such

things: but the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his

western boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that shore he had

defined nothing.

"'O Danforth,' he said, 'I know I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely

you will tell me something now?--Stop! stop! Do not speak till I say

what I am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that there is

not in America,--God bless her!--a more loyal man than I. There cannot

be a man who loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or

hopes for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I

thank God for that, though I do not know what their names are. There has

never been one taken away: I thank God for that. I know by that that

there has never been any successful Burr. O Danforth, Danforth,' he

sighed out, 'how like a wretched night's dream a boy's idea of personal

fame or of separate sovereignty seems, when one looks back on it after

such a life as mine! But tell me,--tell me something,--tell me

everything, Danforth, before I die!'

"Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told

him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who

was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this

dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole

manhood's life, the madness of a boy's treason? 'Mr. Nolan,' said I, 'I

will tell you every thing you ask about. Only, where shall I begin?'

"O the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he pressed my

hand and said, 'God bless you' 'Tell me their names,' he said, and he

pointed to the stars on the flag. 'The last I know is Ohio. My father

lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana and

Mississippi,--that was where Fort Adams is,--they make twenty. But where

are your other fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I

hope?'

"Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in as good

order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw

them in as I best could with my pencil. He was wild with delight about

Texas, told me how his cousin died there; he had marked a gold cross

near where he supposed his grave was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then

he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon;--that, he said, he had

suspected partly, because he had never been permitted to land on that

shore, though the ships were there so much. 'And the men,' said he,

laughing, 'brought off a good deal besides furs.' Then he went

back--heavens, how far!--to ask about the Chesapeake, and what was done

to Barron for surrendering her to the Leopard, and whether Burr ever

tried again,--and he ground his teeth with the only passion he showed.

But in a moment that was over, and he said, 'God forgive me, for I am

sure I forgive him.' Then he asked about the old war,--told me the true

story of his serving the gun the day we took the Java,--asked about

dear old David Porter, as he called him. Then he settled down more

quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour the history of

fifty years.

"How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I did as well

as I could. I told him of the English war. I told him about Fulton and

the steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott, and Jackson; told

him all I could think of about the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and

Texas, and his own old Kentucky. And do you think, he asked who was in

command of the 'Legion of the West.' I told him it was a very gallant

officer named Grant, and that, by our last news, he was about to

establish his head-quarters at Vicksburg. Then, 'Where was Vicksburg?' I

worked that out on the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less,

above his old Fort Adams; and I thought Fort Adams must he a ruin now.

'It must be at old Vick's plantation,' at Walnut Hills, said he: 'well,

that is a change!'

"I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the history of half

a century into that talk with a sick man. And I do not now know what I

told him,--of emigration, and the means of it,--of steamboats, and

railroads, and telegraphs,--of inventions, and books, and

literature,--of the colleges, and West Point, and the Naval School,--but

with the queerest interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was

Robinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions of fifty-six

years!

"I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now; and when I

told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln's son. He

said he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy himself, at

some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like

himself, but I could not tell him of what family; he had worked up from

the ranks. 'Good for him!' cried Nolan; 'I am glad of that. As I have

brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in keeping up those

regular successions in the first families.' Then I got talking about my

visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon Congressman,

Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian, and the Exploring Expedition;

I told him about the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment, and

Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Washington: Ingham, I told him

everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his country

and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word

about this infernal Rebellion!

"And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew more

and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a

glass of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go away.

Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian 'Book of Public Prayer,'

which lay there, and said, with a smile, that it would open at the right

place,--and so it did. There was his double red mark down the page; and

I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me, 'For ourselves and our

country, O gracious God, we thank Thee, that, notwithstanding our

manifold transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thou hast continued to us Thy

marvellous kindness,'--and so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he

turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words more familiar

to me: 'Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless

Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in

authority,'--and the rest of the Episcopal collect. 'Danforth,' said he,

'I have repeated those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five

years.' And then he said he would go to sleep. He bent me down over him

and kissed me; and he said, 'Look in my Bible, Danforth, when I am

gone.' And I went away.

"But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired and would

sleep. I knew he was happy and I wanted him to be alone.

"But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently he found Nolan had

breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to

his lips. It was his father's badge of the Order of the Cincinnati.

"We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the place

where he had marked the text:--

"'They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed

to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.'

"On this slip of paper he had written:--

"'Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not

some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that

my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it:--

"'_In Memory of_

PHILIP NOLAN,

_Lieutenant in the Army of the United States_, He loved his

country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at

her hands.'"

THE LAST OF THE FLORIDA.

FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS.

[The Florida, Anglo-Rebel pirate, after inflicting horrible injuries on

the commerce of America and the good name of England, was cut out by

Captain Collins, from the bay of Bahia, by one of those fortunate

mistakes in international law which endear brave men to the nations in

whose interest they are committed. When she arrived here the government

was obliged to disavow the act. The question then was, as we had her by

mistake, what we should do with her. At that moment the National

Sailors' Fair was in full blast at Boston, and I offered my suggestion

in answer in the following article, which was published November 19,

1864, in the "Boatswain's Whistle," a little paper issued at the fair.

The government did not take the suggestion. Very unfortunately, before

the Florida was got ready for sea, she was accidentally sunk in a

collision with a tug off Fort Monroe, and the heirs of the Confederate

government or the English bond-holders must look there for her, if the

Brazilian government will give them permission.

For the benefit of the New York Observer I will state that a despatch

sent round the world in a spiral direction westward 1,200 times, would

not really arrive at its destination four years before it started. It is

only a joke which suggests it.]

* * * * *

SPECIAL DESPATCH.

LETTER FROM CAPTAIN INGHAM, IN COMMAND OF THE FLORIDA.

[Received four years in advance of the mail by a lightning express,

which has gained that time by running round the world 1,200 times in a

spiral direction westward on its way from Brazil to our

publication-office. Mrs. Ingham's address not being known, the letter is

printed for her information.]

No. 29.

BAHIA, BRAZIL, April 1, 1868.

MY DEAR WIFE:--We are here at last, thank fortune; and I shall surrender

the old pirate to-day to the officers of government. We have been

saluted, are to be fêted, and perhaps I shall be made a Knight Commander

of the Golden Goose. I never was so glad as when I saw the lights on the

San Esperitu head-land, which makes the south point of this Bahia or

bay.

You will not have received my No. 28 from Loando, and may have missed 26

and 24, which I gave to _outward_ bound whalemen. I always doubted

whether you got 1, 7, 9, and 11. And for me I have no word of you since

you waved your handkerchief from the window in Springfield Street on the

morning of the 1st of June, 1865, nearly four years. My dear child, you

will not know me.

Let me then repeat, very briefly, the outline of this strange cruise;

and when the letters come, you can fill in the blanks.

The government had determined that the Florida must be returned to the

neutral harbor whence she came. They had put her in complete repair, and

six months of diplomacy had made the proper apologies to the Brazilian

government. Meanwhile Collins, who had captured her by mistake, had, by

another mistake, been made an admiral, and was commanding a squadron;

and to insure her safe and respectful delivery, I, who had been waiting

service, was un shelved, and, as you know, bidden to take command.

She was in apple-pie order. The engines had been cleaned up; and I

thought we could make a quick thing of it. I was a little dashed when I

found the crew was small; but I have been glad enough since that we had

no more mouths. No one but myself knew our destination. The men thought

we were to take despatches to the Gulf squadron.

You remember I had had only verbal orders to take command, and after we

got outside the bay I opened my sealed despatches. The gist of them was

in these words:--

"You will understand that the honor of this government is pledged for

the _safe_ delivery of the Florida to the government of Brazil. You will

therefore hazard nothing to gain speed. The quantity of your coal has

been adjusted with the view to give your vessel her best trim, and the

supply is not large. You will husband it with care,--taking every

precaution to arrive in Bahia _safely_ with your charge, in such time as

_your best discretion_ may suggest to you."

"_Your best discretion_" was underscored.

I called Prendergast, and showed him the letter. Then we called the

engineer and asked about the coal. He had not been into the bunkers, but

went and returned with his face white, through the black grime, to

report "not four days' consumption." By some cursed accident, he said,

the bunkers had been filled with barrels of salt-pork and flour!

On this, I ordered a light and went below. There had been some fatal

misunderstanding somewhere. The vessel was fitted out as for an arctic

voyage. Everywhere hard-bread, flour, pork, beef, vinegar, sour-krout;

but, clearly enough, not, at the very best, five days of coal!

And I was to get to Brazil with this old pirate transformed into a

provision ship, "at my best discretion."

"Prendergast," said I, "we will take it easy. Were you ever in Bahia?"

"Took flour there in '55, and lay waiting for India-rubber from July to

October. Lost six men by yellow-jack."

Prendergast was from the merchant marine. I had known him since we were

children. "Ethan," said I, "in my best discretion it would be bad to

arrive there before the end of October. Where would you go?"

I cannot say he took the responsibility. He would not take it. You know,

my dear, of course, that it was I who suggested Upernavik. From the days

of the old marbled paper Northern Regions,--through the quarto Ross and

Parry and Back and the nephew Ross and Kane and McClure and McClintock,

you know, my dear, what my one passion has been,--to see those floes

and icebergs for myself. Surely you forgive me, or at least excuse me.

Do not you? Here was this fast steamer under me. I ought not to be in

Bahia before October 25. It was June 1. Of course we went to Upernavik.

I will not say I regret it now. Yet I will say that on that decision,

cautiously made, though it was "on my discretion," all our subsequent

misfortunes hang. The Danes were kind to us,--the Governor especially,

though I had to carry the poor fellow bad news about the Duchies and the

Danish war, which was all fresh then. He got up a dance for us, I

remember, and there I wrote No. 1 to you. I could not of course

help--when we left him--running her up a few degrees to the north, just

to see whether there is or is not that passage between Igloolik and

Prince Rupert's Headland (and by the way there _is_). After we passed

Igloolik, there was such splendid weather, that I just used up a little

coal to drive her along the coast of King William's Land; and there, as

we waited for little duck-shooting on the edge of a floe one day, as our

luck ordered, a party of natives came on board, and we treated them with

hard-tack crumbs and whale-oil. They fell to dancing, and we to

laughing,--they danced more and we laughed more, till the oldest woman

tumbled in her bear-skin bloomers, and came with a smash right on the

little cast-iron frame by the wheel, which screened binnacle and

compass. My dear child, there was such a hullalu and such a mess

together as I remember now. We had to apologize, the doctor set her

head as well as he could. We gave them gingerbread from the cabin, to

console them, and got them off without a fight. But the next morning

when I cast off from the floe, it proved the beggars had stolen the

compass card, needle and all.

My dear Mary, there was not another bit of magnetized iron in the ship.

The government had been very shy of providing instruments of any kind

for Confederate cruisers. Poor Ethan had traded off two compasses only

the day before for whalebone spears and skin breeches, neither of which

knew the north star from the ace of spades. And this thing proved of

more importance than you will think; it really made me feel that the

stuff in the books and the sermons about the mariners' needle was not

quite poetry.

As you shall see, if I ever get through. (Since I began, I have seen the

Consul,--and heard the glorious news from home,--and am to be presented

to the port authorities to-morrow.) It was the most open summer, Mary,

ever known there. If I had not had to be here in October, I would have

driven right through Lancaster Sound, by Baring's Island, and come out

into the Pacific. But here was the honor of the country, and we merely

stole back through the Straits. It was well enough there,--all daylight,

you know. But after we passed Cape Farewell, we worked her into such

fogs, child, as you never saw out of Hyde Park. Did not I long for that

compass-card! We sailed, and we sailed, and we sailed. For thirty-seven

days I did not get an observation, nor speak a ship! October! It was

October before we were warm. At noon we used to sail where we thought it

was lightest. At night I used to keep two men up for a lookout, lash the

wheel, and let her drift like a Dutchman. One way as good as another.

Mary, when I saw the sun at last, enough to get any kind of observation,

we were wellnigh three hundred miles northeast of Iceland! Talk of fogs

to me!

Well, I set her south again, but how long can you know if you are

sailing south, in those places where the northeast winds and Scotch

mists come from! Thank Heaven, we got south, or we should have frozen to

death. We got into November, and we got into December. We were as far

south as 37° 29'; and were in 31° 17' west on New Year's Day, 1866, when

the second officer wished me a happy new year, congratulated me on the

fine weather, said we should get a good observation, and asked me for

the new nautical almanac! You know they are only calculated for five

years. We had two Greenwich ones on board, and they ran out December 31,

1865. But the government had been as stingy in almanacs as in coal and

compasses. They did not mean to keep the Confederacy in almanacs.

That was the beginning of our troubles. I had to take the old almanac,

with Prendergast, and we figured like Cocker, and always kept ahead with

a month's tables. But somehow,--I feel sure we were right,--but

something was wrong; and after a few weeks the lunars used to come out

in the most beastly way, and we always proved to be on the top of the

Andes or in the Marquesas Islands, or anywhere but in the Atlantic

Ocean. Well then, by good luck, we spoke the Winged Batavian; could not

speak a word of Dutch, nor he a word of English; but he let Ethan copy

his tables, and so we ran for St. Sacrament. I posted 8, 9, and 10

there; I gave the Dutchman 7, which I hope you got, but fear.

Well, this story is running long; but at St. Sacrament we started again,

but, as ill-luck would have it, without a clean bill of health. At that

time I could have run into Bahia with coal--of which I had bought

some--in a week. But there was fever on shore,--and bad,--and I knew we

must make pratique when we came into the outer harbor here; so, rather

than do that, we stretched down the coast, and met that cyclone I wrote

you about, and had to put into Loando. Understand, this was the first

time we went into Loando. I have learned that wretched hole well enough

since. And it was as we were running out of Loando, that, in reversing

the engine too suddenly, lest we should smash up an old Portuguese

woman's bum-boat, that the slides or supports of the piston-rod just

shot out of the grooves they run in on the top, came cleverly down on

the outside of the carriage, gave that odious _g-r-r-r_, which I can

hear now, and then, _dump_,--down came the whole weight of the

walking-beam, bent rod and carriages all into three figure 8's, and

there we were! I had as lief run the boat with a clothes-wringer as with

that engine, any day, from then to now.

Well, we tinkered, and the Portuguese dock-yard people tinkered. We took

out this, and they took out that. It was growing sickly, and I got

frightened, and finally I shipped the propeller and took it on board,

and started under such canvas as we had left,--not much after the

cyclone,--for the North and the South together had rather rotted the

original duck.

Then,--as I wrote you in No. 11,--it was too late to get to Bahia before

that summer's sickly season, and I stretched off to cooler regions

again, "in my best discretion." That was the time when we had the fever

so horribly on board; and but for Wilder the surgeon, and the Falkland

Islands, we should be dead, every man of us, now. But we touched in

Queen's Bay just in time. The Governor (who is his own only subject) was

very cordial and jolly and kind. We all went ashore, and pitched tents,

and ate ducks and penguins till the men grew strong. I scraped her,

nearly down to the bends, for the grass floated by our side like a

mermaid's hair as we sailed, and the once swift Florida would not make

four knots an hour on the wind;--and this was the ship I was to get into

Bahia in good order, at my best discretion!

Meanwhile none of these people had any news from America. The last

paper at the Falkland Islands was a London Times of 1864, abusing the

Yankees. As for the Portuguese, they were like the people Logan saw at

Vicksburg. "They don't know anything good!" said he; "they don't know

anything at all!" It was really more for news than for water I put into

Sta. Lucia,--and a pretty mess I made of it there. We looked so like

pirates (as at bottom the old tub is), that they took all of us who

landed to the guard-house. None of us could speak Sta. Lucia, whatever

that tongue may be, nor understand it. And it was not till Ethan fired a

shell from the 100-pound Parrott over the town that they let us go. I

hope the dogs sent you my letters. I suppose there was another

infringement of neutrality. But if the Brazilian government sends this

ship to Sta. Lucia, I shall not command her, that's all!

Well! what happened at Loando the second time, Valencia, and Puntos

Pimos, and Nueva Salamanca, and Loando this last time, you know and will

know, and why we loitered so. At last, thank fortune, here we are.

Actually, Mary, this ship logged on the average only thirty-two knots a

day for the last week before we got her into port.

Now think of the ingratitude of men! I have brought her in here,

"according to my best discretion," and do you believe, these hidalgos,

or dons, or senores, or whatever they are, had forgotten she existed.

And when I showed them to her, they said in good Portugal that I was a

liar. Fortunately the Consul is our old friend Kingsley. He was

delighted to see me; thought I was at the bottom of the sea. From him we

learned that the Confederacy was blown sky-high long ago. And from all I

can learn, I may have the Florida back again for my own private yacht or

peculium, unless she goes to Sta. Lucia.

Not I, my friends! Scrape her, and mend her, and give her to the

marines,--and tell them her story; but do not intrust her again to my

own Polly's own

FREDERIC INGHAM

A PIECE OF POSSIBLE HISTORY.

[This essay was first published in the Monthly Religious Magazine,

Boston, for October, 1851. One or another professor of chronology has

since taken pains to tell me that it is impossible. But until they

satisfy themselves whether Homer ever lived at all, I shall hold to the

note which I wrote to Miss Dryasdust's cousin, which I printed

originally at the end of the article, and which will be found there in

this collection. The difficulties in the geography are perhaps worse

than those of chronology.]

* * * * *

A summer bivouac had collected together a little troop of soldiers from

Joppa, under the shelter of a grove, where they had spread their

sheep-skins, tethered their horses, and pitched a single tent. With the

carelessness of soldiers, they were chatting away the time till sleep

might come, and help them to to-morrow with its chances; perhaps of

fight, perhaps of another day of this camp indolence. Below the garden

slope where they were lounging, the rapid torrent of Kishon ran brawling

along. A full moon was rising above the rough edge of the Eastern hills,

and the whole scene was alive with the loveliness of an Eastern

landscape.

As they talked together, the strains of a harp came borne down the

stream by the wind, mingling with the rippling of the brook.

"The boys were right," said the captain of the little company. "They

asked leave to go up the stream to spend their evening with the

Carmel-men; and said that they had there a harper, who would sing and

play for them."

"Singing at night, and fighting in the morning! It is the true soldier's

life," said another.

"Who have they there?" asked a third.

"One of those Ziklag-men," replied the chief. "He came into camp a few

days ago, seems to be an old favorite of the king's, and is posted with

his men, by the old tomb on the edge of the hill. If you cross the

brook, he is not far from the Carmel post; and some of his young men

have made acquaintance there."

"One is not a soldier for nothing. If we make enemies at sight, we make

friends at sight too."

"Echish here says that the harper is a Jew."

"What!--a deserter?"

"I do not know that; that is the king's lookout. Their company came up a

week ago, were reviewed the day I was on guard at the outposts, and they

had this post I tell you of assigned to them. So the king is satisfied;

and, if he is, I am."

"Jew or Gentile, Jehovah's man or Dagon's man," said one of the younger

soldiers, with a half-irreverent tone, "I wish we had him here to sing

to us."

"And to keep us awake," yawned another.

"Or to keep us from thinking of to-morrow," said a third.

"Can nobody sing here, or play, or tell an old-time story?"

There was nobody. The only two soldiers of the post, who affected

musical skill, were the two who had gone up to the Carmelites' bivouac;

and the little company of Joppa--catching louder notes and louder, as

the bard's inspiration carried him farther and farther away--crept as

far up the stream as the limits of their station would permit; and lay,

without noise, to catch, as they best could, the rich tones of the music

as it swept down the valley.

Soothed by the sound, and by the moonlight, and by the summer breeze,

they were just in mood to welcome the first interruption which broke the

quiet of the night. It was the approach of one of their company, who had

been detached to Accho a day or two before; and who came hurrying in to

announce the speedy arrival of companions, for whom he bespoke a

welcome. Just as they were to leave Accho, he said, that day, on their

return to camp, an Ionian trading-vessel had entered port. He and his

fellow-soldiers had waited to help her moor, and had been chatting with

her seamen. They had told them of the chance of battle to which they

were returning; and two or three of the younger Ionians, enchanted at

the relief from the sea's imprisonment, had begged them to let them

volunteer in company with them. These men had come up into the country

with the soldiers, therefore; and he who had broken the silence of the

listeners to the distant serenade had hurried on to tell his comrades

that such visitors were on their way.

They soon appeared on foot, but hardly burdened by the light packs they

bore.

A soldier's welcome soon made the Ionian sailors as much at home with

the men of the bivouac, as they had been through the day with the

detachment from the sea-board. A few minutes were enough to draw out

sheep-skins for them to lie upon, a skin of wine for their thirst, a

bunch of raisins and some oat-cakes for their hunger; a few minutes more

had told the news which each party asked from the other; and then these

sons of the sea and these war-bronzed Philistines were as much at ease

with each other as if they had served under the same sky for years.

"We were listening to music," said the old chief, "when you came up.

Some of our young men have gone up, indeed, to the picket yonder, to

hear the harper sing, whose voice you catch sometimes, when we are not

speaking."

"You find the Muses in the midst of arms, then," said one of the young

Ionians.

"Muses?" said the old Philistine, laughing. "That sounds like you

Greeks. Ah! sir, in our rocks here we have few enough Muses, but those

who carry these lances, or teach us how to trade with the islands for

tin."

"That's not quite fair," cried another. "The youngsters who are gone

sing well; and one of them has a harp I should be glad you should see.

He made it himself from a gnarled olive-root." And he turned to look for

it.

"You'll not find it in the tent: the boy took it with him. They hoped

the Ziklag minstrel might ask them to sing, I suppose."

"A harp of olive-wood," said the Ionian, "seems Muse-born and

Pallas-blessed."

And, as he spoke, one of the new-comers of the Philistines leaned over,

and whispered to the chief: "He is a bard himself, and we made him

promise to sing to us. I brought his harp with me that he might cheer up

our bivouac. Pray, do you ask him."

The old chief needed no persuasion; and the eyes of the whole force

brightened as they found they had a minstrel "of their own" now, when

the old man pressed the young Ionian courteously to let them hear him:

"I told you, sir, that we had no Muses of our own; but we welcome all

the more those who come to us from over seas."

Homer smiled; for it was Homer whom he spoke to,--Homer still in the

freshness of his unblinded youth. He took the harp which the young

Philistine handed to him, thrummed upon its chords, and as he tuned them

said: "I have no harp of olive-wood; we cut this out, it was years ago,

from an old oleander in the marshes behind Colophon. What will you hear,

gentlemen?"

"The poet chooses for himself," said the courtly old captain.

"Let me sing you, then, of _the Olive Harp_"; and he struck the chords

in a gentle, quieting harmony, which attuned itself to his own spirit,

pleased as he was to find music and harmony and the olive of peace in

the midst of the rough bivouac, where he had come up to look for war.

But he was destined to be disappointed. Just as his prelude closed, one

of the young soldiers turned upon his elbow, and whispered

contemptuously to his neighbor: "Always _olives_, always _peace_: that's

all your music's good for!"

The boy spoke too loud, and Homer caught the discontented tone and words

with an ear quicker than the speaker had given him credit for. He ended

the prelude with a sudden crash on the strings, and said shortly, "And

what is better to sing of than the olive?"

The more courteous Philistines looked sternly on the young soldier; but

he had gone too far to be frightened, and he flashed back: "War is

better. My broadsword is better. If I could sing, I would sing to your

Ares; we call him Mars!"

Homer smiled gravely. "Let it be so," said he; and, in a lower tone, to

the captain, who was troubled at the breach of courtesy, he added, "Let

the boy see what war and Mars are for."

He struck another prelude and began. Then was it that Homer composed his

"Hymn to Mars." In wild measure, and impetuous, he swept along through

the list of Mars's titles and attributes; then his key changed, and his

hearers listened more intently, more solemnly, as in a graver strain,

with slower music, and an almost awed dignity of voice, the bard went

on.--

"Helper of mortals, hear!

As thy fires give

The present boldnesses that strive

In youth for honor;

So would I likewise wish to have the power

To keep off from my head thy bitter hour,

And quench the false fire of my soul's low kind,

By the fit ruling of my highest mind I

Control that sting of wealth

That stirs me on still to the horrid scath

Of hideous battle!

"Do thou, O ever blessed! give me still

Presence of mind to put in act my will,

Whate'er the occasion be;

And so to live, unforced by any fear,

Beneath those laws of peace, that never are

Affected with pollutions popular

Of unjust injury,

As to bear safe the burden of hard fates,

Of foes inflexive, and inhuman hates!"

The tones died away; the company was hushed for a moment; and the old

chief then said gravely to his petulant follower, "That is what _men_

fight for, boy." But the boy did not need the counsel. Homer's manner,

his voice, the music itself, the spirit of the song, as much as the

words, had overcome him; and the boasting soldier was covering his tears

with his hands.

Homer felt at once (the prince of gentlemen he) that the little

outbreak, and the rebuke of it, had jarred the ease of their unexpected

meeting. How blessed is the presence of mind with which the musician of

real genius passes from song to song, "whate'er the occasion be!" With

the ease of genius he changed the tone of his melody again, and sang his

own hymn, "To Earth, the Mother of all."

The triumphant strain is one which harmonizes with every sentiment; and

he commanded instantly the rapt attention of the circle. So engrossed

was he, that he did not seem to observe, as he sang, an addition to

their company of some soldiers from above in the valley, just _as_ he

entered on the passage:--

"Happy, then, are they

Whom thou, O great in reverence!

Are bent to honor. They shall all things find

In all abundance! All their pastures yield

Herds in all plenty. All their roofs are filled

With rich possessions.

High happiness and wealth attend them,

While, with laws well-ordered, they

Cities of happy households sway;

And their sons exult in the pleasure of youth,

And their daughters dance with the flower-decked girls,

Who play among the flowers of summer!

Such are the honors thy full hands divide;

Mother of Gods and starry Heaven's bride!"[A]

A buzz of pleasure and a smile ran round the circle, in which the

new-comers joined. They were the soldiers who had been to hear and join

the music at the Carmel-men's post. The tones of Homer's harp had

tempted them to return; and they had brought with them the Hebrew

minstrel, to whom they had been listening. It was the outlaw David, of

Bethlehem Ephrata.

David had listened to Homer more intently than any one; and, as the

pleased applause subsided, the eyes of the circle gathered upon him, and

the manner of all showed that they expected him, in minstrel-fashion, to

take up the same strain.

He accepted the implied invitation, played a short prelude, and taking

Homer's suggestion of topic, sang in parallel with it:--

"I will sing a new song unto thee, O God!

Upon psaltery and harp will I sing praise to thee.

Thou art He that giveth salvation to kings,

That delivereth David, thy servant, from the sword.

Rid me and save me from those who speak vanity,

Whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood,--

That our sons may be as plants in fresh youth;

That our daughters may be as corner-stones,--

The polished stones of our palaces;

That our garners may be full with all manner of store;

That our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in the

way;

That there may be no cry nor complaint in our streets

Happy is the people that is in such a case;

Yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord!"

The melody was triumphant; and the enthusiastic manner yet more so. The

Philistines listened delighted,--too careless of religion, they, indeed

not to be catholic in presence of religious enthusiasm; and Homer wore

the exalted expression which his face seldom wore. For the first time

since his childhood, Homer felt that he was not alone in the world!

Who shall venture to tell what passed between the two minstrels, when

Homer, leaving his couch, crossed the circle at once, flung himself on

the ground by David's side, gave him his hand; when they looked each

other in the face, and sank down into the rapid murmuring of talk, which

constant gesture illustrated, but did not fully explain to the rough men

around them? They respected the poets' colloquy for a while; but then,

eager again to hear one harp or the other, they persuaded one of the

Ionian sailors to ask Homer again to sing to them.

It was hard to persuade Homer. He shook his head, and turned back to the

soldier-poet.

"What should _I_ sing?" he said.

They did not enter into his notion: hearers will not always. And so,

taking his question literally, they replied, "Sing? Sing us of the

snow-storm, the storm of stones, of which you sang at noon."

Poor Homer! It was easier to do it than to be pressed to do it; and he

struck his harp again:--

"It was as when, some wintry day, to men

Jove would, in might, his sharp artillery show;

He wills his winds to sleep, and over plain

And mountains pours, in countless flakes, his snow,

Deep it conceals the rocky cliffs and hills,

Then covers all the blooming meadows o'er,

All the rich monuments of mortals' skill,

All ports and rocks that break the ocean-shore

Rock, haven, plain, are buried by its fall;

But the near wave, unchanging, drinks it all.

So while these stony tempests veil the skies,

While this on Greeks, and that on Trojans flies,

The walls unchanged above the clamor rise."[B]

The men looked round upon David, whose expression, as he returned the

glance, showed that he had enjoyed the fragment as well as they. But

when they still looked expectant, he did not decline the unspoken

invitation; but, taking Homer's harp, sang, as if the words were

familiar to him:--

"He giveth snow like wool;

He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes;

He casteth forth his ice like morsels;

Who can stand before his cold?

He sendeth forth his word, and melteth them;

He causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow."

"Always this '_He_,'" said one of the young soldiers to another.

"Yes," he replied; "and it was so in the beginning of the evening, when

we were above there."

"There is a strange difference between the two men, though the one plays

as well as the other, and the Greek speaks with quite as little foreign

accent as the Jew, and their subjects are the same."

"Yes," said the young Philistine harper; "if the Greek should sing one

of the Hebrew's songs, you would know he had borrowed it, in a moment."

"And so, if it were the other way."

"Of course," said their old captain, joining in this conversation.

"Homer, if you call him so, sings the thing made: David sings the maker.

Or, rather, Homer thinks of the thing made: David thinks of the maker,

whatever they sing."

"I was going to say that Homer would sing of cities; and David, of the

life in them."

"It is not what they say so much, as the way they look at it. The Greek

sees the outside,--the beauty of the thing; the Hebrew--"

"Hush!"

For David and his new friend had been talking too. Homer had told him of

the storm at sea they met a few days before; and David, I think, had

spoken of a mountain-tornado, as he met it years before. In the

excitement of his narrative he struck the harp, which was still in his

hand, and sung:--

"Then the earth shook and trembled,

The foundations of the hills moved and were shaken,

Because He was wroth;

There went up a smoke out of his nostrils,

And fire out of his mouth devoured;

It burned with living coal.

He bowed the heavens also, and came down,

And darkness was under his feet;

He rode upon a cherub and did fly,

Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.

He made darkness his resting-place,

His pavilion were dark waters and clouds of the skies;

At the brightness before him his clouds passed by,

Hail-stones and coals of fire.

The Lord also thundered in the heavens,

And the highest gave his voice;

Hail-stones and coals of fire.

Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them,

And he shot out his lightnings, and discomfited them.

Then the channels of waters were seen,

And the foundations of the world were made known,

At thy rebuke, O Lord!

At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

He sent from above, he took me,

He drew me out of many waters."

"Mine were but a few verses," said Homer. "I am more than repaid by

yours. Imagine Neptune, our sea-god, looking on a battle:--

"There he sat high, retired from the seas;

There looked with pity on his Grecians beaten;

There burned with rage at the god-king who slew them.

Then he rushed forward from the rugged mountains,

Quickly descending;

He bent the forests also as he came down,

And the high cliffs shook under his feet.

Three times he trod upon them,

And with his fourth step reached the home he sought for.

"There was his palace, in the deep waters of the seas,

Shining with gold, and builded forever.

There he yoked him his swift-footed horses;

Their hoofs are brazen, and their manes are golden.

He binds them with golden thongs,

He seizes his golden goad,

He mounts upon his chariot, and doth fly:

Yes! he drives them forth into the waves!

And the whales rise under him from the depths,

For they know he is their king;

And the glad sea is divided into parts,

That his steeds may fly along quickly;

And his brazen axle passes dry between the waves,

So, bounding fast, they bring him to his Grecians."[C]

And the poets sank again into talk.

"You see it," said the old Philistine. "He paints the picture. David

sings the life of the picture."

"Yes: Homer sees what he sings; David feels his song."

"Homer's is perfect in its description."

"Yes; but for life, for the soul of the description, you need the

Hebrew."

"Homer might be blind; and, with that fancy and word-painting power of

his, and his study of everything new, he would paint pictures as he

sang, though unseen."

"Yes," said another; "but David--" And he paused.

"But David?" asked the chief.

"I was going to say that he might be blind, deaf, imprisoned, exiled,

sick, or all alone, and that yet he would never know he was alone;

feeling as he does, as he must to sing so, of the presence of this Lord

of his!"

"He does not think of a snow-flake, but as sent from him."

"While the snow-flake is reminding Homer of that hard, worrying,

slinging work of battle. He must have seen fight himself."

They were hushed again. For, though they no longer dared ask the poets

to sing to them,--so engrossed were they in each other's society,--the

soldiers were hardly losers from this modest courtesy. For the poets

were constantly arousing each other to strike a chord, or to sing some

snatch of remembered song. And so it was that Homer, _àpropos_ of I do

not know what, sang in a sad tone:--

"Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,

Now green in youth, now withering on the ground:

Another race the following spring supplies;

They fall successive, and successive rise.

So generations in their course decay,

So flourish these, when those have passed away."[D]

David waited for a change in the strain; but Homer stopped. The young

Hebrew asked him to go on; but Homer said that the passage which

followed was mere narrative, from a long narrative poem. David looked

surprised that his new friend had not pointed a moral as he sang; and

said simply, "We sing that thus:--

"As for man, his days are as grass;

As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth;

For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone,

And the place thereof shall know it no more.

But the mercy of the Lord

Is from everlasting to everlasting

Of them that fear him;

And his righteousness

Unto children's children,

To such as keep his covenant,

As remember his commandments to do them!"

Homer's face flashed delighted. "I, like you, 'keep his covenant,'" he

cried; and then without a lyre, for his was still in David's hands, he

sang, in clear tone:--

"Thou bid'st me birds obey;--I scorn their flight,

If on the left they rise, or on the right!

Heed them who may, the will of Jove I own,

Who mortals and immortals rules alone!"[E]

"That is more in David's key," said the young Philistine harper, seeing

that the poets had fallen to talk together again. "But how would it

sound in one of the hymns on one of our feast-days?"

"Who mortals and immortals rules alone."

"How, indeed?" cried one of his young companions. "There would be more

sense in what the priests say and sing, if each were not quarrelling for

his own,--Dagon against Astarte, and Astarte against Dagon."

The old captain bent over, that the poets might not hear him, and

whispered: "There it is that the Hebrews have so much more heart than we

in such things. Miserable fellows though they are, so many of them, yet,

when I have gone through their whole land with the caravans, the chances

have been that any serious-minded man spoke of no God but this '_He_'

of David's."

"What is his name?"

"They do not know themselves, I believe."

"Well, as I said an hour ago, God's man or Dagon's man,--for those are

good names enough for me,--I care little; but I should like to sing as

that young fellow does."

"My boy," said the old man, "have not you heard him enough to see that

it is not _he_ that sings, near as much as this love of his for a Spirit

he does not name? It is that spirited heart of his that sings."

"_You_ sing like him? Find his life, boy; and perhaps it may sing for

you."

"We should be more manly men, if he sang to us every night."

"Or if the other did," said an Ionian sailor.

"Yes," said the chief. "And yet, I think, if your countryman sang every

night to me, he would make me want the other. Whether David's singing

would send me to his, I do not feel sure. But how silly to compare them!

As well compare the temple in Accho with the roar of a whirlwind--"

"Or the point of my lance with the flight of an eagle. The men are in

two worlds."

"O, no! that is saying too much. You said that one could paint

pictures--"

"--Into which the other puts life. Yes, I did say so. We are fortunate

that we have them together."

"For this man sings of men quite as well as the other does; and to have

the other sing of God--'

"--Why, it completes the song. Between them they bring the two worlds

together."

"He bows the heavens, and comes down," said the boy of the olive-harp,

trying to hum David's air.

"Let us ask them--"

And just then there rang along the valley the sound of a distant

conch-shell. The soldiers groaned, roused up, and each looked for his

own side-arms and his own skin.

But the poets talked on unheeding.

The old chief knocked down a stack of lances; but the crash did not

rouse them. He was obliged himself to interrupt their eager converse.

"I am sorry to break in; but the night-horn has sounded to rest, and the

guard will be round to inspect the posts. I am sorry to hurry you away,

sir," he said to David.

David thanked him courteously.

"Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest," said Homer, with a smile.

"We will all meet to-morrow. And may to-night's dreams be good omens!"

"If we dream at all," said Homer again:--

"Without a sign his sword the brave man draws,

And asks no omen but his country's cause."

They were all standing together, as he made this careless reply to the

captain; and one of the young men drew him aside, and whispered that

David was in arms against his country.

Homer was troubled that he had spoken as he did, But the young Jew

looked little as if he needed sympathy. He saw the doubt and regret

which hung over their kindly faces; told them not to fear for him;

singing, as he bade them good night, and with one of the Carmel-men

walked home to his own outpost:--

"The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion,

The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear,

He will deliver me."

And he smiled to think how his Carmelite companion would start, if he

knew when first he used those words.

So they parted, as men who should meet on the morrow.

But God disposes.

David had left to-morrow's dangers for to-morrow to care for. It seemed

to promise him that he must be in arms against Saul. But, unlike us in

our eagerness to anticipate our conflicts of duty, David _waited_.

And the Lord delivered him. While they were singing by the brookside,

the proud noblemen of the Philistine army had forced an interview with

their king; and, in true native Philistine arrogance, insisted that

"this Hebrew" and his men should be sent away.

With the light of morning the king sent for the minstrel, and

courteously dismissed him, because "the princes of the Philistines have

said, 'He shall not go up with us to the battle.'"

So David marched his men to Ziklag.

And David and Homer never met on earth again.

NOTE.--This will be a proper place to print the following note,

which I was obliged to write to a second cousin of Miss Dryasdust

after she had read the MS. of the article above:--

"DEAR MADAM:--I thank you for your kind suggestion, in returning

my paper, that it involves a piece of impossible history. You

inform me, that, according to the nomenclatured formulas and

homophonic analogies of Professor Gouraud, of

never-to-be-forgotten memory, "A NEEDLE is less useful for curing

a DEAF HEAD, than for putting ear-rings into a _Miss's

lily-ears_"; and that this shows that the second king of Judah,

named David (or Deaf-head) began to reign in 1055 B.C., and died

1040 B.C.'; and further, that, according to the same authority,

'_Homer flourished_ when the Greeks were fond of his POETRY';

which, being interpreted, signifies that he flourished in 914

B.C., and, consequently, could have had no more to do with David

than to plant ivy over his grave, in some of his voyages to

Phoenicia.

"I thank you for the suggestion. I knew the unforgetting

professor; and I do not doubt that he remembered David and Homer

as his near friends. But, of course, to such a memory, a century

or two might easily slip aside.

"Now, did you look up Clement? And did you not forget the

Arundelian Marbles? For, if you will take the long estimates, you

will find that some folks think Homer lived as long ago as the

year 1150, and some that it was as 'short ago' as 850. And some

set David as long ago as 1170, and some bring him down to a

hundred and fifty years later. These are the long measures and the

short measures. So the long and short of it is, that you can keep

the two poets 320 years apart, while I have rather more than a

century which I can select any night of, for a bivouac scene, in

which to bring them together. Believe me, my dear Miss D., always

yours, &c.

"Confess that you forgot the Arundelian Marbles!"

THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR

[I am tempted to include this little burlesque in this collection simply

in memory of the Boston Miscellany, the magazine in which it was

published, which won for itself a brilliant reputation in its short

career. There was not a large staff of writers for the Miscellany, but

many of the names then unknown have since won distinction. To quote them

in the accidental order in which I find them in the table of contents,

where they are arranged by the alphabetical order of the several papers,

the Miscellany contributors were Edward Everett, George Lunt, Nathan

Hale, Jr., Nathaniel Hawthorne, N.P. Willis, W.W. Story, J.R. Lowell,

C.N. Emerson, Alexander H. Everett, Sarah P. Hale, W.A. Jones, Cornelius

Matthews, Mrs. Kirkland, J.W. Ingraham, H.T. Tuckerman, Evart A.

Duyckinck, Francis A. Durivage, Mrs. J. Webb, Charles F. Powell, Charles

W. Storey, Lucretia P. Hale, Charles F. Briggs, William E. Channing,

Charles Lanman, G.H. Hastings, and Elizabeth B. Barrett, now Mrs.

Browning, some of whose earliest poems were published in this magazine.

These are all the contributors whose names appear, excepting the writers

of a few verses. They furnished nine tenths of the contents of the

magazine. The two Everetts, Powell, William Story, and my brother, who

was the editor, were the principal contributors. And I am tempted to say

that I think they all put some of their best work upon this magazine.

The misfortune of the Miscellany, I suppose, was that its publishers had

no capital. They had to resort to the claptraps of fashion-plates and

other engravings, in the hope of forcing an immediate sale upon persons

who, caring for fashion-plates, did not care for the literary character

of the enterprise. It gave a very happy escape-pipe, however, for the

high spirits of some of us who had just left college, and, through my

brother's kindness, I was sometimes permitted to contribute to the

journal. In memory of those early days of authorship, I select "The

South American Editor" to publish here. For the benefit of the New York

Observer, I will state that the story is not true. And lest any should

complain that it advocates elopements, I beg to observe, in the

seriousness of mature life, that the proposed elopement did not succeed,

and that the parties who proposed it are represented as having no

guardians or keepers but themselves. The article was first published in

1842.]

* * * * *

It is now more than six years since I received the following letter from

an old classmate of mine, Harry Barry, who had been studying divinity,

and was then a settled minister. It was an answer to a communication I

had sent him the week before.

"TOPSHAM, R.I. January 22, 1836.

"To say the truth, my dear George, your letter startled me a

little. To think that I, scarcely six months settled in the

profession, should be admitted so far into the romance of it as to

unite forever two young runaways like yourself and Miss Julia

What's-her-name is at least curious. But, to give you your due,

you have made a strong case of it, and as Miss ---- (what is her

name, I have not yours at hand) is not under any real

guardianship, I do not see but I am perfectly justified in

complying with your rather odd request. You see I make a

conscientious matter of it.

"Write me word when it shall be, and I will be sure to be ready.

Jane is of course in my counsels, and she will make your little

wife feel as much at home as in her father's parlor. Trust us for

secrecy.

"I met her last week--"

But the rest of the letter has nothing to do with the story.

The elopement alluded to in it (if the little transaction deserves so

high-sounding a name) was, in every sense of the words, strictly

necessary. Julia Wentworth had resided for years with her grandfather, a

pragmatic old gentleman, to whom from pure affection she had long

yielded an obedience which he would have had no right to extort, and

which he was sometimes disposed to abuse. He had declared in the most

ingenuous manner that she should never marry with his consent any man of

less fortune than her own would be; and on his consent rested the

prospect of her inheriting his property.

Julia and I, however, care little for money now, we cared still less

then; and her own little property and my own little salary made us

esteem ourselves entirely independent of the old gentleman and his will.

His intention respecting the poor girl's marriage was thundered in her

ears at least once a week, so that we both knew that I had no need to

make court to him, indeed, I had never seen him, always having met her

in walking, or in the evening at party, spectacle, concert, or lecture.

He had lately been more domineering than usual, and I had but little

difficulty in persuading the dear girl to let me write to Harry Barry,

to make the arrangement to which he assented in the letter which I have

copied above. The reasoning which I pressed upon her is obvious. We

loved each other,--the old gentleman could not help that; and as he

managed to make us very uncomfortable in Boston, in the existing state

of affairs, we naturally came to the conclusion that the sooner we

changed that state the better. Our excursion to Topsham would, we

supposed, prove a very disagreeable business to him; but we knew it

would result very agreeably for us, and so, though with a good deal of

maidenly compunction and granddaughterly compassion on Julia's part, we

outvoted him.

I have said that I had no fortune to enable me to come near the old

gentleman's _beau ideal_ of a grandson-in-law. I was then living on my

salary as a South American editor. Does the reader know what that is?

The South American editor of a newspaper has the uncontrolled charge of

its South American news. Read any important commercial paper for a

month, and at the end of it tell me if you have any clear conception of

the condition of the various republics (!) of South America. If you

have, it is because that journal employs an individual for the sole

purpose of setting them in the clearest order before you, and that

individual is its South American editor. The general-news editor of the

paper will keep the run of all the details of all the histories of all

the rest of the world, but he hardly attempts this in addition. If he

does, he fails. It is therefore necessary, from the most cogent reasons,

that any American news office which has a strong regard for the

consistency or truth of its South American intelligence shall employ

some person competent to take the charge which I held in the

establishment of the Boston Daily Argus at the time of which I am

speaking. Before that enterprising paper was sold, I was its "South

American man"; this being my only employment, excepting that by a

special agreement, in consideration of an addition to my salary, I was

engaged to attend to the news from St. Domingo, Guatemala, and

Mexico.[F]

Monday afternoon, just a fortnight after I received Harry Barry's

letter, in taking my afternoon walk round the Common, I happened to meet

Julia. I always walked in the same direction when I was alone. Julia

always preferred to go the other way; it was the only thing in which we

differed. When we were together I always went her way of course, and

liked it best.

I had told her, long before, all about Harry's letter, and the dear girl

in this walk, after a little blushing and sighing, and half faltering

and half hesitating and feeling uncertain, yielded to my last and

warmest persuasions, and agreed to go to Mrs. Pollexfen's ball that

evening, ready to leave it with me in my buggy sleigh, for a three

hours' ride to Topsham, where we both knew Harry would be waiting for

us. I do not know how she managed to get through tea that evening with

her lion of a grandfather, for she could not then cover her tearful eyes

with a veil as she did through the last half of our walk together. I

know that I got through my tea and such like ordinary affairs by

skipping them. I made all my arrangements, bade Gage and Streeter be

ready with the sleigh at my lodgings (fortunately only two doors from

Mrs. Pollexfen's) at half-past nine o'clock, and was the highest

spirited of men when, on returning to those lodgings myself at eight

o'clock, I found the following missives from the Argus office, which had

been accumulating through the afternoon.

No. 1.

"4 o'clock, P.M.

"DEAR SIR:--The southern mail, just in, brings Buenos Ayres papers

six days later, by the Medora, at Baltimore.

"In haste, J.C."

(Mr. C. was the gentleman who opened the newspapers, and arranged the

deaths and marriages; he always kindly sent for me when I was out of the

way.)

No. 2.

"5 o'clock, P.M.

"DEAR SIR:--The U.S. ship Preble is in at Portsmouth; latest from

Valparaiso. The mail is not sorted.

"Yours, J.D."

(Mr. D. arranged the ship news for the Argus.)

No. 3.

"6 o'clock, p.m.

"DEAR SIR:--I boarded, this morning, off Cape Cod, the

Blunderhead, from Carthagena, and have a week's later papers.

"Truly yours, J.E."

(Mr. E. was the enterprising commodore of our news-boats.)

No. 4.

"6-1/4 o'clock, P.M.

"DEAR SIR:--I have just opened accidentally the enclosed letter,

from our correspondent at Panama. You will see that it bears a New

Orleans post-mark. I hope it may prove exclusive.

"Yours, J.F."

(Mr. F. was general editor of the Argus.)

No. 5.

"6-1/2 o'clock, P.M.

"DEAR SIR:--A seaman, who appears to be an intelligent man, has

arrived this morning at New Bedford, and says he has later news of

the rebellion in Ecuador than any published. The Rosina (his

vessel) brought no papers. I bade him call at your room at eight

o'clock, which he promised to do.

"Truly yours, J.G."

(Mr. G. was clerk in the Argus counting-room.)

No 6.

"7-1/2 o'clock, P.M.

"Dear Sir:--The papers by the Ville de Lyon, from Havre, which I

have just received, mention the reported escape of M. Bonpland

from Paraguay, the presumed death of Dr. Francia, the probable

overthrow of the government, the possible establishment of a

republic, and a great deal more than I understand in the least.

"These papers had not come to hand when I wrote you this

afternoon. I have left them on your desk at the office.

"In haste, J.F."

I was taken all aback by this mass of odd-looking little notes. I had

spent the afternoon in drilling Singelton, the kindest of friends, as to

what he should do in any probable contingency of news of the next

forty-eight hours, for I did not intend to be absent on a wedding tour

even longer than that time; but I felt that Singleton was entirely

unequal to such a storm of intelligence as this; and, as I hurried down

to the office, my chief sensation was that of gratitude that the cloud

had broken before I was out of the way; for I knew I could do a great

deal in an hour, and I had faith that I might slur over my digest as

quickly as possible, and be at Mrs. Pollexfen's within the time

arranged.

I rushed into the office in that state of zeal in which a man may do

anything in almost no time. But first, I had to go into the

conversation-room, and get the oral news from my sailor; then Mr. H.;

from one of the little news-boats, came to me in high glee, with some

Venezuela Gazettes, which he had just extorted from a skipper, who, with

great plausibility, told him that he knew his vessel had brought no

news, for she never had before. (N.B. In this instance she was the only

vessel to sail, after a three months' blockade.) And then I had handed

to me by Mr. J., one of the commercial gentlemen, a private letter from

Rio Janeiro, which had been lent him. After these delays, with full

materials, I sprang to work--read, read, read; wonder, wonder, wonder;

guess, guess, guess; scratch, scratch, scratch; and scribble, scribble,

scribble, make the only transcript I can give of the operations which

followed. At first, several of the other gentlemen in the room sat

around me; but soon Mr. C., having settled the deaths and marriages, and

the police and municipal reporters immediately after him, screwed out

their lamps and went home; then the editor himself, then the legislative

reporters, then the commercial editors, then the ship-news conductor,

and left me alone.

I envied them that they got through so much earlier than usual, but

scratched on, only interrupted by the compositors coming in for the

pages of my copy as I finished them; and finally, having made my last

translation from the last _Boletin Extraordinario_, sprang up, shouting,

"Now for Mrs. P.'s," and looked at my watch. It was half past one![G] I

thought of course it had stopped,--no; and my last manuscript page was

numbered twenty-eight! Had I been writing there five hours? Yes!

Reader, when you are an editor, with a continent's explosions to

describe, you will understand how one may be unconscious of the passage

of time.

I walked home, sad at heart. There was no light in all Mr. Wentworth's

house; there was none in any of Mrs. Pollexfen's windows;[H] and the

last carriage of her last relation had left her door. I stumbled up

stairs in the dark, and threw myself on my bed. What should I say, what

could I say, to Julia? Thus pondering, I fell asleep.

If I were writing a novel, I should say that, at a late hour the next

day, I listlessly drew aside the azure curtains of my couch, and

languidly rang a silver bell which stood on my dressing-table, and

received from a page dressed in an Oriental costume the notes and

letters which had been left for me since morning, and the newspapers of

the day.

I am not writing a novel.

The next morning, about ten o'clock, I arose and went down to

breakfast. As I sat at the littered table which every one else had left,

dreading to attack my cold coffee and toast, I caught sight of the

morning papers, and received some little consolation from them. There

was the Argus with its three columns and a half of "Important from South

America," while none of the other papers had a square of any

intelligibility excepting what they had copied from the Argus the day

before. I felt a grim smile creeping over my face as I observed this

signal triumph of our paper, and ventured to take a sip of the black

broth as I glanced down my own article to see if there were any glaring

misprints in it. Before I took the second sip, however, a loud peal at

the door-bell announced a stranger, and, immediately after, a note was

brought in for me which I knew was in Julia's hand-writing.

"DEAR GEORGE:--Don't be angry; it was not my fault, really it was

not. Grandfather came home just as I was leaving last night, and

was so angry, and said I should not go to the party, and I had to

sit with him all the evening. Do write to me or let me see you; do

something--"

What a load that note took off my mind! And yet, what must the poor girl

have suffered! Could the old man suspect? Singleton was true to me as

steel, I knew. He could not have whispered,--nor Barry; out that Jane,

Barry's wife. O woman! woman! what newsmongers they are! Here were Julia

and I, made miserable for life, perhaps, merely that Jane Barry might

have a good story to tell. What right had Barry to a wife? Not four

years out of college, and hardly settled in his parish. To think that I

had been fool enough to trust even him with the particulars of my

all-important secret! But here I was again interrupted, coffee-cup still

full, toast still untasted, by another missive.

"Tuesday morning.

"SIR:--I wish to see you this morning. Will you call upon me, or

appoint a time and place where I may meet you?

"Yours, JEDEDIAH WENTWORTH."

"Send word by the bearer."

"Tell Mr. Wentworth I will call at his house at eleven o'clock."

The cat was certainly out; Mrs. Barry had told, or some one else had,

who I did not know and hardly cared. The scene was to come now, and I

was almost glad of it. Poor Julia! what a time she must have had with

the old bear!

* * * * *

At eleven o'clock I was ushered into Mr. Wentworth's sitting-room. Julia

was there, but before I had even spoken to her the old gentleman came

bustling across the room, with his "Mr. Hackmatack, I suppose"; and

then followed a formal introduction between me and her, which both of us

bore with the most praiseworthy fortitude and composure, neither

evincing, even by a glance, that we had ever seen or heard of each other

before. Here was another weight off my mind and Julia's. I had wronged

poor Mrs. Barry. The secret was not out--what could he want? It very

soon appeared.

After a minute's discussion of the weather, the snow, and the

thermometer, the old gentleman drew up his chair to mine, with "I think,

sir, you are connected with the Argus office?"

"Yes, sir; I am its South American editor.'

"Yes!" roared the old man, in a sudden rage. "Sir, I wish South America

was sunk in the depths of the sea!"

"I am sure I do, sir," replied I, glancing at Julia, who did not,

however, understand me. I had not fully passed out of my last night's

distress.

My sympathizing zeal soothed the old gentleman a little, and he said

more coolly, in an undertone: "Well, sir, you are well informed, no

doubt; tell me, in strict secrecy, sir, between you and me, do you--do

you place full credit--entire confidence in the intelligence in this

morning's paper?"

"Excuse me, sir; what paper do you allude to? Ah! the Argus, I see.

Certainly, sir; I have not the least doubt that it is perfectly

correct."

"No doubt, sir! Do you mean to insult me?--Julia, I told you so; he

says there is no doubt it is true. Tell me again there is some mistake,

will you?" The poor girl had been trying to soothe him with the constant

remark of uninformed people, that the newspapers are always in the

wrong. He turned from her, and rose from his chair in a positive rage.

She was half crying. I never saw her more distressed. What did all this

mean? Were one, two, or all of us crazy?

It soon appeared. After pacing the length of the room once or twice,

Wentworth came up to me again, and, attempting to appear cool, said

between his closed lips: "Do you say you have no doubt that Rio Janeiro

is strictly blockaded?"

"Not the slightest in the world," said I, trying to seem unconcerned.

"Not the slightest, sir? What are you so impudent and cool about it for?

Do you think you are talking of the opening of a rose-bud or the death

of a mosquito? Have you no sympathy with the sufferings of a

fellow-creature? Why, sir!" and the old man's teeth chattered as he

spoke, "I have five cargoes of flour on their way to Rio, and their

captains will--Damn it, sir, I shall lose the whole venture."

The secret was out. The old fool had been sending flour to Rio, knowing

as little of the state of affairs there as a child.

"And do you really mean, sir," continued the old man, "that there is an

embargo in force in Monte Video?"

"Certainly, sir; but I'm very sorry for it."

"Sorry for it! of course you are;--and that all foreigners are sent out

of Buenos Ayres?"

"Undoubtedly, sir. I wish--"

"Who does not wish so? Why, sir, my corresponding friends there are half

across the sea by this time. I wish Rosas was in--and that the Indians

have risen near Maranham?"

"Undoubtedly, sir."

"Undoubtedly! I tell you, sir, I have two vessels waiting for cargoes of

India-rubbers there, under a blunder-headed captain, who will do nothing

he has not been bidden to,--obey his orders if he breaks his owners. You

smile, sir? Why, I should have made thirty thousand dollars this winter,

sir, by my India-rubbers, if we had not had this devilish mild, open

weather, you and Miss Julia there have been praising so. But next winter

must be a severe one, and with those India-rubbers I should have

made--But now those Indians,--pshaw! And a revolution in Chili?"

"Yes, sir."

"No trade there! And in Venezuela?"

"Yes, sir"

"Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir! Sir, I am ruined. Say 'Yes,

sir,' to that. I have thirteen vessels at this moment in the South

American trade, sir; say 'Yes, sir,' to that. Half of them will be

taken by the piratical scoundrels; say 'Yes, sir,' to that. Their

insurance will not cover them; say 'Yes, sir,' to that. The other half

will forfeit their cargoes, or sell them for next to nothing; say 'Yes,

sir,' to that. I tell you I am a ruined man, and I wish the South

America, and your daily Argus, and you--"

Here the old gentleman's old-school breeding got the better of his rage,

and he sank down in his arm-chair, and, bursting into tears, said:

"Excuse me, sir,--excuse me, sir,--I am too warm."

We all sat for a few moments in silence, but then I took my share of the

conversation. I wish you could have seen the old man's face light up

little by little, as I showed him that to a person who understood the

politics and condition of the mercurial country with which he had

ignorantly attempted to trade, his condition was not near so bad as he

thought it; that though one port was blockaded, another was opened; that

though one revolution thwarted him, a few weeks would show another which

would favor him; that the goods which, as he saw, would be worthless at

the port to which he had sent them, would be valuable elsewhere; that

the vessels which would fail in securing the cargoes he had ordered

could secure others; that the very revolutions and wars which troubled

him would require in some instances large government purchases, perhaps

large contracts for freight, possibly even for passage,--his vessels

might be used for transports; that the very excitement of some

districts might be made to turn to our advantage; that, in short, there

were a thousand chances open to him which skilful agents could readily

improve. I reminded him that a quick run in a clipper schooner could

carry directions to half these skippers of his, to whom, with an

infatuation which I could not and cannot conceive, he had left no

discretion, and who indeed were to be pardoned if they could use none,

seeing the tumult as they did with only half an eye. I talked to him for

half an hour, and went into details to show that my plans were not

impracticable. The old gentleman grew brighter and brighter, and Julia,

as I saw, whenever I stole a glance across the room, felt happier and

happier. The poor girl had had a hard time since he had first heard this

news whispered the evening before.

His difficulties were not over, however; for when I talked to him of the

necessity of sending out one or two skilful agents immediately to take

the personal superintendence of his complicated affairs, the old man

sighed, and said he had no skilful agents to send.

With his customary suspicion, he had no partners, and had never

intrusted his clerks with any general insight into his business.

Besides, he considered them all, like his captains, blunder-headed to

the last degree. I believe it was an idea of Julia's, communicated to me

in an eager, entreating glance, which induced me to propose myself as

one of these confidential agents, and to be responsible for the other.

I thought, as I spoke, of Singleton, to whom I knew I could explain my

plans in full, and whose mercantile experience would make him a valuable

coadjutor. The old gentleman accepted my offer eagerly. I told him that

twenty-four hours were all I wanted to prepare myself. He immediately

took measures for the charter of two little clipper schooners which lay

in port then; and before two days were past, Singleton and I were on our

voyage to South America. Imagine, if you can, how these two days were

spent. Then, as now, I could prepare for any journey in twenty minutes,

and of course I had no little time at my disposal for last words with

Mr. and--Miss Wentworth. How I won on the old gentleman's heart in those

two days! How he praised me to Julia, and then, in as natural affection,

how he praised her to me! And how Julia and I smiled through our tears,

when, in the last good-bys, he said he was too old to write or read any

but business letters, and charged me and her to keep up a close

correspondence, which on one side should tell all that I saw and did,

and on the other hand remind me of all at home.

* * * * *

I have neither time nor room to give the details of that South American

expedition. I have no right to. There were revolutions accomplished in

those days without any object in the world's eyes; and, even in mine,

only serving to sell certain cargoes of long cloths and flour. The

details of those outbreaks now told would make some patriotic presidents

tremble in their seats; and I have no right to betray confidence at

whatever rate I purchased it. Usually, indeed, my feats and Singleton's

were only obtaining the best information and communicating the most

speedy instructions to Mr. Wentworth's vessels, which were made to move

from port to port with a rapidity and intricacy of movement which none

besides us two understood in the least. It was in that expedition that I

travelled almost alone across the continent. I was, I think, the first

white man who ever passed through the mountain path of Xamaulipas, now

so famous in all the Chilian picturesque annuals. I was carrying

directions for some vessels which had gone round the Cape; and what a

time Burrows and Wheatland and I had a week after, when we rode into the

public square of Valparaiso shouting, "Muera la Constitucion,--Viva

Libertad!" by our own unassisted lungs actually raising a rebellion,

and, which was of more importance, a prohibition on foreign flour, while

Bahamarra and his army were within a hundred miles of us. How those

vessels came up the harbor, and how we unloaded them, knowing that at

best our revolution could only last five days! But as I said, I must be

careful, or I shall be telling other people's secrets.

The result of that expedition was that those thirteen vessels all made

good outward voyages, and all but one or two eventually made profitable

home voyages. When I returned home, the old gentleman received me with

open arms. I had rescued, as he said, a large share of that fortune

which he valued so highly. To say the truth, I felt and feel that he had

planned his voyages so blindly, that, without some wiser head than his,

they would never have resulted in anything. They were his last, as they

were almost his first, South American ventures. He returned to his old

course of more methodical trading for the few remaining years of his

life. They were, thank Heaven, the only taste of mercantile business

which I ever had. Living as I did, in the very sunshine of Mr. Went

worth's favor, I went through the amusing farce of paying my addresses

to Julia in approved form, and in due time received the old gentleman's

cordial assent to our union, and his blessing upon it. In six months

after my return, we were married; the old man as happy as a king. He

would have preferred a little that the ceremony should have been

performed by Mr. B----, his friend and pastor, but readily assented to

my wishes to call upon a dear and early friend of my own.

Harry Barry came from Topsham and performed the ceremony, "assisted by

Rev. Mr. B."

G.H.

ARGUS COTTAGE, April 1, 1842.

THE OLD AND THE NEW, FACE TO FACE.

A THUMB-NAIL SKETCH.

[This essay was published in Sartain's Magazine, in 1852, as "A

Thumb-nail Sketch," having received one of ten premiums which Mr.

Sartain offered to encourage young writers. It had been written a few

years earlier, some time before the studies of St. Paul's life by

Conybeare and Howson, now so well known, were made public. The

chronology of my essay does not precisely agree with that of these

distinguished scholars. But I make no attempt now either to recast the

essay or to discuss the delicate and complicated questions which belong

to the chronology of Paul's life or to that of Nero; for there is no

question with regard to the leading facts. At the end of twenty years I

may again express the wish that some master competent to the greatest

themes might take the trial of Paul as the subject of a picture.]

* * * * *

In a Roman audience-chamber, the old civilization and the new

civilization brought out, at the very birth of the new, their chosen

champions.

In that little scene, as in one of Rembrandt's thumb-nail studies for a

great picture, the lights and shades are as distinct as they will ever

be in the largest scene of history. The champions were perfect

representatives of the parties. And any man, with the soul of a man,

looking on, could have prophesied the issue of the great battle from the

issue of that contest.

The old civilization of the Roman Empire, just at that time, had reached

a point which, in all those outward forms which strike the eye, would

regard our times as mean indeed. It had palaces of marble, where even

modern kings would build of brick with a marble front to catch the eye;

it counted its armies by thousands, where we count ours by hundreds; it

surmounted long colonnades with its exquisite statues, for which modern

labor digs deep in ruined cities, because it cannot equal them from its

own genius; it had roads, which are almost eternal, and which, for their

purposes, show a luxury of wealth and labor that our boasted locomotion

cannot rival. These are its works of a larger scale. And if you enter

the palaces, you find pictures of matchless worth, rich dresses which

modern looms cannot rival, and sumptuous furniture at which modern times

can only wonder. The outside of the ancient civilization is unequalled

by the outside of ours, and for centuries will be unequalled by it. We

have not surpassed it there. And we see how it attained this

distinction, such as it was. It came by the constant concentration of

power. Power in few hands is the secret of its display and glory. And

thus that form of civilization attained its very climax in the moment of

the greatest unity of the Roman Empire. When the Empire nestled into

rest, after the convulsions in which it was born; when a generation had

passed away of those who had been Roman citizens; when a generation

arose, which, excepting one man, the emperor, was a nation of Roman

subjects,--then the Empire was at its height of power, its

centralization was complete, the system of its civilization was at the

zenith of its success.

At that moment it was that there dawned at Rome the first gray

morning-light of the new civilization.

At that moment it was that that short scene, in that one chamber,

contrasted the two as clearly as they can be contrasted even in long

centuries.

There is one man, the emperor, who is a precise type, an exact

representative, of the old. That man is brought face to face with

another who is a precise type, an exact representative, of the new.

Only look at them as they stand there! The man who best illustrates the

old civilization owes to it the most careful nurture. From his childhood

he has been its petted darling. Its principal is concentration under one

head. He is that head. When he is a child, men know he will be emperor

of the world. The wise men of the world teach him; the poets of the

world flatter him; the princes of the world bow to him. He is trained in

all elegant accomplishments; he is led forward through a graceful,

luxurious society. His bearing is that of an emperor; his face is the

face of fine physical beauty. Imagine for yourself the sensual

countenance of a young Bacchus, beautiful as Milton's devils; imagine

him clad in splendor before which even English luxury is mean; arrayed

in jewels, to which even Eastern pomp is tinsel; imagine an expression

of tired hate, of low, brutal lust, hanging on those exquisite

licentious features, and you have before you the type of Roman

civilization. It is the boy just budding into manhood, whom later times

will name as the lowest embodiment of meanness and cruelty! You are

looking upon Nero!

Not only is this man an exact type of the ancient civilization, its

central power, its outside beauty, but the precise time of this sketch

of ours is the exact climax of the _moral_ results of the ancient

civilization. We are to look at Nero just when he has returned to Rome

from a Southern journey.[I] That journey had one object, which

succeeded. To his after-life it gives one memory, which never dies. He

has travelled to his beautiful country palace, that he might kill his

mother!

We can picture to ourselves Agrippina, by knowing that she was Nero's

mother, and our picture will not fail in one feature. She has all the

beauty of sense, all the attraction of passion. Indeed, she is the

Empress of Rome, because she is queen of beauty--and of lust. She is

most beautiful among the beautiful of Rome; but what is that beauty of

feature in a state of whose matrons not one is virtuous, of whose

daughters not one is chaste? It is the beauty of sense alone, fit

adornment of that external grandeur, of that old society.

In the infancy of her son, this beautiful Agrippina consulted a troop of

fortune-tellers as to his fate; and they told her that he would live to

be Emperor of Rome, and to kill his mother. With all the ecstasy of a

mother's pride fused so strangely with all the excess of an ambitious

woman's love of power, she cried in answer, "He may kill me, if only he

rules Rome!"[J]

She spoke her own fate in these words.

Here is the account of it by Tacitus. Nero had made all the

preparations; had arranged a barge, that of a sudden its deck might fall

heavily upon those in the cabin, and crush them in an instant. He meant

thus to give to the murder which he planned the aspect of an accident.

To this fatal vessel he led Agrippina. He talked with her affectionately

and gravely on the way; "and when they parted at the lakeside, with his

old boyish familiarity he pressed her closely to his heart, either to

conceal his purpose, or because the last sight of a mother, on the eve

of death, touched even his cruel nature, and then bade her farewell."

Just at the point upon the lake where he had directed, as the Empress

sat in her cabin talking with her attendants, the treacherous deck was

let fall upon them all. But the plot failed. She saw dead at her feet

one of her favorites, crushed by the sudden blow. But she had escaped

it. She saw that death awaited them all upon the vessel. The men around

sprang forward, ready to do their master's bidding in a less clumsy and

more certain way. But the Empress, with one of her attendants, sprang

from the treacherous vessel into the less treacherous waves. And there,

this faithful friend of hers, with a woman's wit and a woman's devotion,

drew on her own head the blows and stabs of the murderers above, by

crying, as if in drowning, "Save me, I am Nero's mother!" Uttering those

words of self-devotion, she was killed by the murderers above, while the

Empress, in safer silence, buoyed up by fragments of the wreck, floated

to the shore.

Nero had failed thus in secret crime, and yet he knew that he could not

stop here. And the next day after his mother's deliverance, he sent a

soldier to her palace, with a guard; and there, where she was deserted

even by her last attendant, without pretence of secrecy, they put to

death the daughter and the mother of a Cæsar. And Nero only waits to

look with a laugh upon the beauty of the corpse, before he returns to

resume his government at Rome.

That moment was the culminating moment of the ancient civilization. It

is complete in its centralizing power; it is complete in its external

beauty; it is complete in its crime. Beautiful as Eden to the eye, with

luxury, with comfort, with easy indolence to all; but dust and ashes

beneath the surface! It is corrupted at the head! It is corrupted at

the heart! There is nothing firm!

This is the moment which I take for our little picture. At this very

moment there is announced the first germ of the new civilization. In the

very midst of this falsehood, there sounds one voice of truth; in the

very arms of this giant, there plays the baby boy who is to cleave him

to the ground. This Nero slowly returns to the city. He meets the

congratulations of a senate, which thank him and the gods that he has

murdered his own mother. With the agony of an undying conscience

torturing him, he strives to avert care by amusement. He hopes to turn

the mob from despising him by the grandeur of their public

entertainments. He enlarges for them the circus. He calls unheard-of

beasts to be baited and killed for their enjoyment. The finest actors

rant, the sweetest musicians sing, that Nero may forget his mother, and

that his people may forget him.

At that period, the statesmen who direct the machinery of affairs inform

him that his personal attention is required one morning for a state

trial, to be argued before the Emperor in person. Must the Emperor be

there? May he not waste the hours in the blandishments of lying

courtiers, or the honeyed falsehoods of a mistress? If he chooses thus

to postpone the audience, be it so; Seneca, Burrhus, and his other

counsellors will obey. But the time will come when the worn-out boy will

be pleased some morning with the almost forgotten majesty of state. The

time comes one day. Worn out by the dissipation of the week, fretted by

some blunder of his flatterers, he sends for his wiser counsellors, and

bids them lead him to the audience-chamber, where he will attend to

these cases which need an Emperor's decision. It is at that moment that

we are to look upon him.

He sits there, upon that unequalled throne, his face sickly pale with

boyish debauchery; his young fore head worn with the premature sensual

wrinkles of lust; and his eyes bloodshot with last night's intemperance.

He sits there, the Emperor-boy, vainly trying to excite himself, and

forget her, in the blazonry of that pomp, and bids them call in the

prisoner.

A soldier enters, at whose side the prisoner has been chained for years.

This soldier is a tried veteran of the Prætorian cohorts. He was

selected, that from him this criminal could not escape; and for that

purpose they have been inseparably bound. But, as he leads that other

through the hall, he looks at him with a regard and earnestness which

say he is no criminal to him. Long since, the criminal has been the

guardian of his keeper. Long since, the keeper has cared for the

prisoner with all the ardor of a new-found son's affection.

They lead that gray-haired captive forward, and with his eagle eye he

glances keenly round the hall. That flashing eye has ere now bade

monarchs quail; and those thin lips have uttered words which shall make

the world ring till the last moment of the world shall come. The stately

Eastern captive moves unawed through the assembly, till he makes a

subject's salutation to the Emperor-judge who is to hear him. And when,

then, the gray-haired sage kneels before the sensual boy, you see the

prophet of the new civilization kneel before the monarch of the old! You

see Paul make a subject's formal reverence to Nero![K]

Let me do justice to the court which is to try him. In that

judgment-hall there are not only the pomp of Rome, and its crime; we

have also the best of its wisdom. By the dissolute boy, Nero, there

stands the prime minister Seneca, the chief of the philosophers of his

time; "Seneca the saint," cry the Christians of the next century. We

will own him to be Seneca the wise, Seneca almost the good. To this sage

had been given the education of the monster who was to rule the world.

This sage had introduced him into power, had restrained his madness when

he could, and with his colleague had conducted the general

administration of the Empire with the greatest honor, while the boy was

wearing out his life in debauchery in the palace. Seneca dared say more

to Nero, to venture more with him, than did any other man. For the young

tiger was afraid of his old master long after he had tasted blood. Yet

Seneca's system was a cowardly system. It was the best of Roman morality

and Greek philosophy, and still it was mean. His daring was the bravest

of the men of the old civilization. He is the type of their

excellences, as is Nero the model of their power and their adornments.

And yet all that Seneca's daring could venture was to seduce the

baby-tyrant into the least injurious of tyrannies. From the plunder of a

province he would divert him by the carnage of the circus. From the

murder of a senator he could lure him by some new lust at home. From the

ruin of the Empire, he could seduce him by diverting him with the ruin

of a noble family. And Seneca did this with the best of motives. He said

he used all the power in his hands, and he thought he did. He was one of

those men of whom all times have their share. The bravest of his time,

he satisfied himself with alluring the beardless Emperor by petty crime

from public wrong; he could flatter him to the expedient. He dared not

order him to the right.

But Seneca knew what was right. Seneca also had a well-trained

conscience, which told him of right and of wrong. Seneca's brother,

Gallio, had saved Paul's life when a Jewish mob would have dragged him

to pieces in Corinth; and the legend is that Seneca and Paul had

corresponded with each other before they stood together in Nero's

presence, the one as counsellor, the other as the criminal.[L] When Paul

arose from that formal salutation, when the apostle of the new

civilization spoke to the tottering monarch of the old, if there had

been one man in that assemblage, could he have failed to see that that

was a turning-point in the world's history? Before him in that little

hall, in that little hour, was passing the scene which for centuries

would be acted out upon the larger stage.

Faith on the one side, before expediency and cruelty on the other! Paul

before Seneca and Nero! He was ready to address Nero, with the eloquence

and vehemence which for years had been demanding utterance.

He stood at length before the baby Cæsar, to whose tribunal he had

appealed from the provincial court of a doubting Festus and a trembling

Agrippa.

And who shall ask what words the vigorous Christian spoke to the dastard

boy! Who that knows the eloquence which rung out on the ears of

astonished Stoics at Athens, which commanded the incense and the

hecatombs of wandering peasants in Asia, which stilled the gabbling

clamor of a wild mob at Jerusalem,--who will doubt the tone in which

Paul spoke to Nero! The boy quailed for the moment before the man! The

gilded dotard shrunk back from the home truths of the new, young,

vigorous faith: the ruler of a hundred legions was nothing before the

God-commissioned prisoner.

No; though at this audience all men forsook Paul, as he tells us; though

not one of the timid converts were there, but the soldier chained at

his side,--still he triumphed over Nero and Nero's minister.

From that audience-hall those three men retire. The boy, grown old in

lust, goes thence to be an hour alone, to ponder for an hour on this

God, this resurrection, and this truth, of which the Jew, in such

uncourtly phrase, has harangued him. To be alone, until the spectre of a

dying mother rises again to haunt him, to persecute him and drive him

forth to his followers and feasters, where he will try to forget Paul

and the Saviour and God, where he would be glad to banish them forever.

He does not banish them forever! Henceforward, whenever that spectre of

a mother comes before him, it must re-echo the words of God and eternity

which Paul has spoken. Whenever the chained and bleeding captive of the

arena bends suppliant before him, there must return the memory of the

only captive who was never suppliant before him, and his words of sturdy

power!

And Seneca? Seneca goes home with the mortified feelings of a great man

who has detected his own meanness.

We all know the feeling; for all God's children might be great, and it

is with miserable mortification that we detect ourselves in one or

another pettiness. Seneca goes home to say: "This wild _Easterner_ has

rebuked the Emperor as I have so often wanted to rebuke him. He stood

there, as I have wanted to stand, a man before a brute.

"He said what I have thought, and have been afraid to say. Downright,

straightforward, he told the Emperor truths as to Rome, as to man, and

as to his vices, which I have longed to tell him. He has done what I am

afraid to do. He has dared this, which I have dallied with, and left

undone. _What is the mystery of his power?_"

Seneca did not know. Nero did not know. The "Eastern mystery" was in

presence before them, and they knew it not!

What was the mystery of Paul's power?

Paul leaves them with the triumph of a man who has accomplished the hope

of long years. Those solemn words of his, "After that, I _must_ also see

Rome," expressed the longing of years, whose object now, in part, at

least, is gratified. He must see Rome!

It is God's mission to him that he see Rome and its Emperor. Paul has

seen with the spirit's eye what we have seen since in history,--that he

is to be the living link by which the electric fire of life should pass

first from religious Asia to quicken this dead, brutish Europe. He knows

that he is God's messenger to bear this mystery of life eternal from the

one land to the other, and to unfold it there. And to-day has made real,

in fact, this his inward confidence. To-day has put the seal of fact on

that vision of his, years since, when he first left his Asiatic home. A

prisoner in chains, still he has to-day seen the accomplishment of the

vows, hopes, and resolutions of that field of Troy, most truly famous

from the night he spent there. There was another of these hours when God

brings into one spot the acts which shall be the _argument_ of centuries

of history. Paul had come down there in his long Asiatic

journeys,--Eastern in his lineage, Eastern in his temperament, Eastern

in his outward life, and Eastern in his faith,--to that narrow

Hellespont, which for long ages has separated East from West, tore madly

up the chains which would unite them, overwhelmed even love when it

sought to intermarry them, and left their cliffs frowning eternal hate

from shore to shore. Paul stood upon the Asian shore and looked across

upon the Western. There were Macedonia and the hills of Greece, here

Troas and the ruins of Ilium. The names speak war. The blue Hellespont

has no voice but separation, except to Paul. But to Paul, sleeping, it

might be, on the tomb of Achilles, that night the "man of Macedonia"

appears, and bids him come over to avenge Asia, to pay back the debt of

Troy.

"Come over _and help us._" Give us life, for we gave you death. Give us

help for we gave you ruin. Paul was not disobedient to the heavenly

vision. The Christian Alexander, he crosses to Macedon with the words of

peace instead of war,--the Christian shepherd of the people, he carries

to Greece, from Troy, the tidings of salvation instead of carnage, of

charity instead of license. And he knows that to Europe it is the

beginning of her new civilization, it in the dawn of her new warfare, of

her new poetry, of her reign of heroes who are immortal.

That _faith_ of his, now years old, has this day received its crowning

victory. This day, when he has faced Nero and Seneca together, may well

stand in his mind as undoing centuries of bloodshed and of license.

And in this effort, and in that spiritual strength which had nerved him

in planning it and carrying it through, was the "Asian mystery." Ask

what was the secret of Paul's power as he bearded the baby Emperor, and

abashed the baby Philosopher? What did he give the praise to, as he left

that scene? What was the principle in action there, but faith in the new

life, faith in the God who gave it!

We do not wonder, as Seneca wondered, that such a man as Paul dared say

anything to such a boy as Nero! The absolute courage of the new faith

was the motive-power which forced it upon the world. Here were the

sternest of morals driven forward with the most ultra bravery.

Perfect faith gave perfect courage to the first witnesses. And there was

the "mystery" of their victories.

And so, in this case, when after a while Seneca again reminded Nero of

his captive, poor Nero did not dare but meet him again. Yet, when he met

him again in that same judgment-hall, he did not dare hear him long;

and we may be sure that there were but few words before, with such

affectation of dignity as he could summon, he bade them set the prisoner

free.

Paul free! The old had faced the new. Each had named its champion. And

the new conquers!

THE DOT AND LINE ALPHABET.

[This sketch was originally published in the Atlantic Monthly for

October, 1858, just at the time that the first Atlantic Cable, whose

first prattle had been welcomed by the acclamations of a continent,

gasped its last under the manipulations of De Sauty. It has since been

copied by Mr. Prescott in his valuable hand-book of the electric

telegraph.

The war, which has taught us all so much, has given a brilliant

illustration of the dot and line alphabet, wholly apart from the

electric use of it, which will undoubtedly be often repeated. In the

movements of our troops under General Foster in North Carolina, Dr. J.B.

Upham of Boston, the distinguished medical director in that department,

equally distinguished for the success with which he has led forward the

musical education of New England, trained a corps of buglers to converse

with each other by long and short bugle-notes, and thus to carry

information with literal accuracy from point to point at any distance

within which the tones of a bugle could be heard. It will readily be

seen that there are many occasions in military affairs when such means

of conversation might prove of inestimable value. Mr. Tuttle, the

astronomer, on duty in the same campaign, made a similar arrangement

with long and short flashes of light.]

* * * * *

Just in the triumph week of that Great Telegraph which takes its name

from the Atlantic Monthly, I read in the September number of that

journal the revelations of an observer who was surprised to find that he

had the power of reading, as they run, the revelations of the wire. I

had the hope that he was about to explain to the public the more general

use of this instrument,--which, with a stupid fatuity, the public has as

yet failed to grasp. Because its signals have been first applied by

means of electro-magnetism, and afterwards by means of the chemical

power of electricity, the many-headed people refuses to avail itself, as

it might do very easily, of the same signals for the simpler

transmission of intelligence, whatever the power employed.

The great invention of Mr. Morse is his register and alphabet. He

himself eagerly disclaims any pretension to the original conception of

the use of electricity as an errand-boy. Hundreds of people had thought

of that and suggested it: but Morse was the first to give the errand-boy

such a written message, that he could not lose it on the way, nor

mistake it when he arrived. The public, eager to thank Morse, as he

deserves, thanks him for something he did not invent. For this he

probably cares very little; nor do I care more. But the public does not

thank him for what he did originate,--this invaluable and simple

alphabet. Now, as I use it myself in every detail of life, and see every

hour how the public might use it, if it chose, I am really sorry for

this negligence,--both on the score of his fame, and of general

convenience.

Please to understand, then, ignorant Reader, that this curious alphabet

reduces all the complex machinery of Cadmus and the rest of the

writing-masters to characters as simple as can be made by a dot, a

space, and a line, variously combined. Thus, the marks .-- designate the

letter A. The marks --... designate the letter B. All the other letters

are designated in as simple a manner.

Now I am stripping myself of one of the private comforts of my life,

(but what will one not do for mankind?) when I explain that this simple

alphabet need not be confined to electrical signals. _Long_ and _short_

make it all,--and wherever long and short can be combined, be it in

marks, sounds, sneezes, fainting-fits, canes, or children, ideas can be

conveyed by this arrangement of the long and short together. Only last

night I was talking scandal with Mrs. Wilberforce at a summer party at

the Hammersmiths. To my amazement, my wife, who scarcely can play "The

Fisher's Hornpipe," interrupted us by asking Mrs. Wilberforce if she

could give her the idea of an air in "The Butcher of Turin." Mrs.

Wilberforce had never heard that opera,--indeed, had never heard of it.

My angel-wife was surprised,--stood thrumming at the piano,--wondered

she could not catch this very odd bit of discordant accord at all,--but

checked herself in her effort, as soon as I observed that her long notes

and short notes, in their tum-tee, tee,--tee-tee, tee-tum tum, meant,

"He's her brother." The conversation on her side turned from "The

Butcher of Turin," and I had just time on the hint thus given me by Mrs.

I. to pass a grateful eulogium on the distinguished statesman whom Mrs.

Wilberforce, with all a sister's care, had rocked in his

baby-cradle,--whom, but for my wife's long and short notes, I should

have clumsily abused among the other statesmen of the day.

You will see, in an instant, awakening Reader, that it is not the

business simply of "operators" in telegraphic dens to know this Morse

alphabet, but your business, and that of every man and woman. If our

school committees understood the times, it would be taught, even before

phonography or physiology, at school. I believe both these sciences now

precede the old English alphabet.

As I write these words, the bell of the South Congregational strikes

dong, dong, dong,--dong, dong, dong, dong,--dong,--dong. Nobody has

unlocked the church-door. I know that, for I am locked up in the vestry.

The old tin sign, "In case of fire, the key will be found at the

opposite house," has long since been taken down, and made into the nose

of a water-pot. Yet there is no Goody Two-Shoes locked in. No one except

me, and certainly I am not ringing the bell. No! But, thanks to Dr.

Channing's Fire Alarm,[M] the bell is informing the South End that

there is a fire in District Dong-dong-dong,--that is to say, District

No. 3. Before I have explained to you so far, the "Eagle" engine, with a

good deal of noise, has passed the house on its way to that fated

district. An immense improvement this on the old system, when the

engines radiated from their houses in every possible direction, and the

fire was extinguished by the few machines whose lines of quest happened

to cross each other at the particular place where the child had been

building cob-houses out of lucifer-matches in a paper warehouse. Yes, it

is a very great improvement. All those persons, like you and me, who

have no property in District Dong-dong-dong, can now sit at home at

ease;--and little need we think upon the mud above the knees of those

who have property in that district and are running to look after it. But

for them the improvement only brings misery. You arrive wet, hot/or

cold, or both, at the large District No. 3, to find that the

lucifer-matches were half a mile away from your store,--and that your

own private watchman, even, had not been waked by the working of the

distant engines. Wet property holder, as you walk home, consider this.

When you are next in the Common Council, vote an appropriation for

applying Morse's alphabet of long and short to the bells. Then they can

be made to sound intelligibly. Daung ding ding,--ding,--ding

daung,--daung daung daung, and so on, will tell you as you wake in the

night that it is Mr. B.'s store which is on fire, and not yours, or that

it is yours and not his. This is not only a convenience to you and a

relief to your wife and family, who will thus be spared your excursions

to unavailable and unsatisfactory fires, and your somewhat irritated

return,--it will be a great relief to the Fire Department. How placid

the operations of a fire where none attend except on business! The

various engines arrive, but no throng of distant citizens, men and boys,

fearful of the destruction of their all. They have all roused on their

pillows to learn that it is No. 530 Pearl Street which is in flames. All

but the owner of No. 530 Pearl Street have dropped back to sleep. He

alone has rapidly repaired to the scene. That is he, who stands in the

uncrowded street with the Chief Engineer, on the deck of No. 18, as she

plays away. His property destroyed, the engines retire,--he mentions the

amount of his insurance to those persons who represent the daily press,

they all retire to their homes,--and the whole is finished as simply,

almost, as was his private entry in his day-book the afternoon

before.[N]

This is what might be, if the magnetic alarm only struck _long_ and

_short_, and we had all learned Morse's alphabet. Indeed, there is

nothing the bells could not tell, if you would only give them time

enough. We have only one chime, for musical purposes, in the town. But,

without attempting tunes, only give the bells the Morse alphabet, and

every bell in Boston might chant in monotone the words of "Hail

Columbia" at length, every Fourth of July. Indeed, if Mr. Barnard should

report any day that a discouraged 'prentice-boy had left town for his

country home, all the bells could instantly be set to work to speak

articulately, in language regarding which the dullest imagination need

not be at loss,

"Turn again, Higginbottom,

Lord Mayor of Boston!"

I have suggested the propriety of introducing this alphabet into the

primary schools. I need not say I have taught it to my own

children,--and I have been gratified to see how rapidly it made head,

against the more complex alphabet, in the grammar schools. Of course it

does;--an alphabet of two characters matched against one of

twenty-six,--or of forty-odd, as the very odd one of the phonotypists

employ! On the Franklin-medal day I went to the Johnson-School

examination. One of the committee asked a nice girl what was the capital

of Brazil. The child looked tired and pale, and, for an instant,

hesitated. But, before she had time to commit herself, all answering was

rendered impossible by an awful turn of whooping-cough which one of my

own sons was seized with,--who had gone to the examination with me.

Hawm, hem hem;--hem hem hem;--hem, hem;--hawm, hem hem;--hem hem

hem;--hem, hem,--barked the poor child, who was at the opposite extreme

of the school-room. The spectators and the committee looked to see him

fall dead with a broken blood-vessel. I confess that I felt no alarm,

after I observed that some of his gasps were long and some very

_staccato_;--nor did pretty little Mabel Warren. She recovered her

color,--and, as soon as silence was in the least restored, answered,

"_Rio_ is the capital of Brazil,"--as modestly and properly as if she

had been taught it in her cradle. They are nothing but children, any of

them,--but that afternoon, after they had done all the singing the city

needed for its annual entertainment of the singers, I saw Bob and Mabel

start for a long expedition into West Roxbury,--and when he came back, I

know it was a long featherfew, from her prize school-bouquet, that he

pressed in his Greene's "Analysis," with a short frond of maiden's hair.

I hope nobody will write a letter to "The Atlantic," to say that these

are very trifling uses. The communication of useful information is never

trifling. It is as important to save a nice child from mortification on

examination-day, as it is to tell Mr. Fremont that he is not elected

President. If, however, the reader is distressed, because these

illustrations do not seem to his more benighted observation to belong to

the big bow-wow strain of human life, let him consider the arrangement

which ought to have been made years since, for lee shores, railroad

collisions, and that curious class of maritime accidents where one

steamer runs into mother under the impression that she is a light

house. Imagine the Morse alphabet applied to a steam-whistle, which is

often heard five miles. It needs only _long_ and _short_ again. "_Stop

Comet_," for instance, when you send it down the railroad line, by the

wire, is expressed thus:

... -- . . ....,... . . -- --- . --

Very good message, if Comet happens to be at the telegraph station when

it comes! But what if Cornel has gone by? Much good will your trumpery

message do then! If, however, you have the wit to sound your long and

short on an engine-whistle, thus;--Scre scre, scre; screeee; scre scre;

scre scre scre scre scre; scre scre scre,--scre scre; screeeee screeeee;

scre; screeeee;--why, then the whole neighborhood, for five miles

around, will know that Comet must stop, if only they understand spoken

language,--and among others, the engineman of Comet will understand it;

and Comet will not run into that wreck of worlds which gives the

order,--with the nucleus of hot iron and his tail of five hundred tons

of coal.--So, of the signals which fog-bells can give, attached to

light-houses. How excellent to have them proclaim through the darkness,

"I am Wall "! Or of signals for steamship-engineers. When our friends

were on board the "Arabia" the other day, and she and the "Europa"

pitched into each other,--as if, on that happy week, all the continents

were to kiss and join hands all round,--how great the relief to the

passengers on each, if, through every night of their passage, collision

had been prevented by this simple expedient! One boat would have

screamed, "Europa, Europa, Europa," from night to morning,--and the

other, "Arabia, Arabia, Arabia,"--and neither would have been mistaken,

as one unfortunately was, for a light-house.

The long and short of it is, that whoever can mark distinctions of time

can use this alphabet of long-and-short, however he may mark them. It is

therefore within the compass of all intelligent beings, except those who

are no longer conscious of the passage of time, having exchanged its

limitations for the wider sweep of eternity. The illimitable range of

this alphabet, however, is not half disclosed when this has been said.

Most articulate language addresses itself to one sense, or at most to

two, sight and sound. I see, as I write, that the particular

illustrations I have given are all of them confined to signals seen or

signals heard. But the dot-and-line alphabet, in the few years of its

history, has already shown that it is not restricted to these two

senses, but makes itself intelligible to all. Its message, of course, is

heard as well as read. Any good operator understands the sounds of its

ticks upon the flowing strip of paper, as well as when he sees it As he

lies in his cot at midnight, he will expound the passing message without

striking a light to see it But this is only what may be said of any

written language. You can read this article to your wife, or she can

read it, as she prefers; that is, she chooses whether it shall address

her eye or her ear. But the long-and-short alphabet of Morse and his

imitators despises such narrow range. It addresses whichever of the five

senses the listener chooses. This fact is illustrated by a curious set

of anecdotes,--never yet put in print, I think,--of that critical

despatch which in one night announced General Taylor's death to this

whole land. Most of the readers of these lines probably read that

despatch in the morning's paper. The compositors and editors had read

it. To them it was a despatch to the eye. But half the operators at the

stations _heard_ it ticked out, by the register stroke, and knew it

before they wrote it down for the press. To them it was a despatch to

the ear. My good friend Langenzunge had not that resource. He had just

been promised, by the General himself (under whom he served at Palo

Alto), the office of Superintendent of the Rocky Mountain Lines. He was

returning from Washington over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, on a

freight-train, when he heard of the President's danger. Langenzunge

loved Old Rough and Ready,--and he felt badly about his own office, too.

But his extempore train chose to stop at a forsaken shanty-village on

the Potomac, for four mortal hours, at midnight. What does he do, but

walk down the line into the darkness, climb a telegraph-post, cut a

wire, and applied the two ends to his tongue, to _taste_, at the fatal

moment, the words, "Died at half past ten." Poor Langenzunge! he hardly

had nerve to solder the wire again. Cogs told me that they had just

fitted up the Naguadavick stations with Bain's chemical revolving disk.

This disk is charged with a salt of potash, which, when the electric

spark passes through it, is changed to Prussian blue. Your despatch is

noiselessly written in dark blue dots and lines. Just as the disk

started on that fatal despatch, and Cogs bent over it to read, his

spirit-lamp blew up,--as the dear things will. They were beside

themselves in the lonely, dark office; but, while the men were fumbling

for matches, which would not go, Cogs's sister, Nydia, a sweet blind

girl, who had learned Bain's alphabet from Dr. Howe at South Boston,

bent over the chemical paper, and _smelt_ out the prussiate of potash,

as it formed itself in lines and dots to tell the sad story. Almost

anybody used to reading the blind books can read the embossed Morse

messages with the finger,--and so this message was read at all the

midnight way-stations where no night-work is expected, and where the

companies do not supply fluid or oil. Within my narrow circle of

acquaintance, therefore, there were these simultaneous instances, where

the same message was seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. So

universal is the dot-and-line alphabet,--for Bain's is on the same

principle as Morse's.

The reader sees, therefore, first, that the dot-and-line alphabet can be

employed by any being who has command of any long and short symbols,--be

they long and short notches, such as Robinson Crusoe kept his accounts

with, or long and short waves of electricity, such as these which

Valentia is sending across to the Newfoundland bay, so prophetically and

appropriately named "The Bay of Bulls." Also, I hope the reader sees

that the alphabet can be understood by any intelligent being who has any

one of the five senses left him,--by all rational men, that is,

excepting the few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both taste and

smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's telegraph is by no

means confined to the small clique who possess or who understand

electrical batteries. It is not only the torpedo or the _Gymnotus

electricus_ that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales in the sea

can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only note the

difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can listen,

too. If they will only note the difference between long and short, the

eel of Ocean's bottom may feel on his slippery skin the smooth messages

of our Presidents, and the catfish, in his darkness, look fearless on

the secrets of a Queen. Any beast, bird, fish, or insect, which can

discriminate between long and short, may use the telegraph alphabet, if

he have sense enough. Any creature, which can hear, smell, taste, feel,

or see, may take note of its signals, if he can understand them. A tired

listener at church, by properly varying his long yawns and his short

ones, may express his opinion of the sermon to the opposite gallery

before the sermon is done. A dumb tobacconist may trade with his

customers in an alphabet of short-sixes and long-nines. A beleaguered

Sebastopol may explain its wants to the relieving army beyond the line

of the Chernaya, by the lispings of its short Paixhans and its long

twenty-fours.

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.

[I had some opportunities, which no other writer for the press had, I

believe, of examining the Resolute on her return from that weird voyage

which is the most remarkable in the history of the navies of the world.

And, as I know of no other printed record of the whole of that voyage

than this, which was published in the Boston Daily Advertiser of June

11, 1856, I reprint it here. Readers should remember that the English

government abandoned all claim on the vessel; that the American

government then bought her of the salvors, refitted her completely, and

sent her to England as a present to the Queen. The Queen visited the

ship, and accepted the present in person. The Resolute has never since

been to sea. I do not load the page with authorities; but I studied the

original reports of the Arctic expeditions carefully in preparing the

paper, and I believe it to be accurate throughout.

The voyage from New London to England, when she was thus returned, is

strictly her last voyage. But when this article was printed its name was

correct.]

* * * * *

It was in early spring in 1852, early on the morning of the 21st of

April, that the stout English discovery ship Resolute, manned by a large

crew, commanded by a most manly man, Henry Kellett, left her moorings

in the great river Thames, a little below the old town of London, was

taken in tow by a fussy steam-tug, and proudly started as one of a fine

English squadron in the great search of the nations for the lost Sir

John Franklin. It was late in the year 1855, on the 24th of December,

that the same ship, weather-worn, scantily rigged, without her lighter

masts, all in the trim of a vessel which has had a hard fight with wind,

water, ice, and time, made the light-house of _New_ London,--waited for

day and came round to anchor in the other river Thames, of _New_

England. Not one man of the English crew was on board. The gallant

Captain Kellett was not there; but in his place an American master, who

had shown, in his way, equal gallantry. The sixty or seventy men with

whom she sailed were all in their homes more than a year ago. The eleven

men with whom she returned had had to double parts, and to work hard to

make good the places of the sixty. And between the day when the

Englishmen left her, and the day the Americans found her, she had spent

fifteen months and more alone. She was girt in by the ice of the Arctic

seas. No man knows where she went, what narrow scapes she passed

through, how low her thermometers marked cold;--it is a bit of her

history which was never written. Nor what befell her little tender, the

"Intrepid," which was left in her neighborhood, "ready for occupation,"

just as she was left. No man will ever tell of the nip that proved too

much for her,--of the opening of her seams, and her disappearance

beneath the ice. But here is the hardy Resolute, which, on the 15th of

May, 1854, her brave commander left, as he was ordered, "ready for

occupation,"--which the brave Captain Buddington found September 10,

1855, more than a thousand miles from there, and pronounced still "ready

for occupation";--and of what can be known of her history from Old

London to New London, from Old England's Thames to New England's Thames,

we will try to tell the story; as it is written in the letters of her

old officers and told by the lips of her new rescuers.

For Arctic work, if ships are to go into every nook and lane of ice that

will yield at all to wind and steam, they must be as nearly

indestructible as man can make them. For Arctic work, therefore, and for

discovery work, ships built of the _teak_ wood of Malabar and Java are

considered most precisely fitted. Ships built of teak are said to be

wholly indestructible by time. To this we owe the fact, which now

becomes part of a strange coincidence, that one of the old Captain

Cook's ships which went round the world with him has been, till within a

few years, a whaling among the American whalers, revisiting, as a

familiar thing, the shores which she was first to discover. The English

admiralty, eager to fit out for Arctic service a ship of the best build

they could find, bought the two teak-built ships Baboo and Ptarmigan in

1850,--sent them to their own dock-yards to be refitted, and the Baboo

became the Assistance,--the Ptarmigan became the Resolute, of their

squadrons of Arctic discovery.

Does the reader know that in the desolation of the Arctic shores the

Ptarmigan is the bird most often found? It is the Arctic grouse or

partridge,[O] and often have the ptarmigans of Melville Island furnished

sport and even dinners to the hungry officers of the "Resolute," wholly

unconscious that she had ever been their god-child, and had thrown off

their name only to take that which she now wears.

Early in May, 1850, just at the time we now know that brave Sir John

Franklin and the remnant of his crew were dying of starvation at the

mouth of Back's River, the "Resolute" sailed first for the Arctic seas,

the flag-ship of Commodore Austin, with whose little squadron our own De

Haven and his men had such pleasant intercourse near Beechey Island. In

the course of that expedition she wintered off Cornwallis Island,--and

in autumn of the next year returned to England.

Whenever a squadron or a man or an army returns to England, unless in

the extreme and exceptional case of complete victory over obstacle

invincible, there is always dissatisfaction. This is the English way.

And so there was dissatisfaction when Captain Austin returned with his

ships and men. There was also still a lingering hope that some trace of

Franklin might yet be found, perhaps some of his party. Yet more, there

were two of the searching ships which had entered the Polar seas from

Behring's Straits on the west, the "Enterprise" and "Investigator,"

which might need relief before they came through or returned. Arctic

search became a passion by this time, and at once a new squadron was

fitted out to take the seas in the spring of 1852. This squadron

consisted of the "Assistance" and "Resolute" again, which had been

refitted since their return, of the "Intrepid" and "Pioneer," two

steamships used as tenders to the "Assistance" and "Resolute"

respectively, and of the "North Star," which had also been in those

regions, and now went as a storeship to the rest of the squadron. To the

command of the whole Sir Edward Belcher was appointed, an officer who

had served in some of the earlier Arctic expeditions. Officers and men

volunteered in full numbers for the service, and these five vessels

therefore carried out a body of men who brought more experience of the

Northern seas together than any expedition which had ever visited them.

Of these, Captain Henry Kellett had command of the "Resolute," and was

second in seniority to Sir Edward Belcher, who made the "Assistance" the

flag-ship. It shows what sort of man he was, to say that for more than

ten years he spent only part of one in England, and was the rest of the

time in an antipodean hemisphere or a hyperborean zone. Before brave Sir

John Franklin sailed, Captain Kellett was in the Pacific. Just as he was

to return home, he was ordered into the Arctic seas to search for Sir

John. Three years successively, in his ship the "Herald," he passed

inside Behring's Straits, and far into the Arctic Ocean. He discovered

"Herald Island," the farthest land known there. He was one of the last

men to see McClure in the "Investigator" before she entered the Polar

seas from the northwest. He sent three of his men on board that ship to

meet them all again, as will be seen, in strange surroundings. After

more than seven years of this Pacific and Arctic life, he returned to

England, in May or June, 1851, and in the next winter volunteered to try

the eastern approach to the same Arctic seas in our ship, the

"Resolute." Some of his old officers sailed with him.

We know nothing of Captain Kellett but what his own letters, despatches,

and instructions show, as they are now printed in enormous parliamentary

blue-books, and what the despatches and letters of his officers and of

his commander show. But these papers present the picture of a vigorous,

hearty man, kind to his crew and a great favorite with them, brave in

whatever trial, always considerate, generous to his officers, reposing

confidence in their integrity; a man, in short, of whom the world will

be apt to hear more. His commander, Sir Edward Belcher, tried by the

same standard, appears a brave and ready man, apt to talk of himself,

not very considerate of his inferiors, confident in his own opinion; in

short, a man with whom one would not care to spend three Arctic winters.

With him, as we trace the "Resolute's" fortunes, we shall have much to

do. Of Captain Kellett we shall see something all along till the day

when he sadly left her, as bidden by Sir Edward Belcher, "ready for

occupation."

With such a captain, and with sixty-odd men, the "Resolute" cast off her

moorings in the gray of the morning on the 21st of April, 1852, to go in

search of Sir John Franklin. The brave Sir John had died two years

before, but no one knew that, nor whispered it. The river steam-tug

"Monkey" took her in tow, other steamers took the "Assistance" and the

"North Star"; the "Intrepid" and "Pioneer" got up their own steam, and

to the cheers of the little company gathered at Greenhithe to see them

off, they went down the Thames. At the Nore, the steamship "Desperate"

took the "Resolute" in charge, Sir Edward Belcher made the signal

"Orkneys" as the place of rendezvous, and in four days she was there, in

Stromness outer harbor. Here there was a little shifting of provisions

and coal-bags, those of the men who could get on shore squandered their

spending-money, and then, on the 28th of April, she and hers bade good

by to British soil. And, though they have welcomed it again long since,

she has not seen it from then till now.

The "Desperate" steamer took her in tow, she sent her own tow-lines to

the "North Star," and for three days in this procession of so wild and

weird a name, they three forged on westward toward Greenland,--a train

which would have startled any old Viking had he fallen in with it, with

a fresh gale blowing all the time and "a nasty sea." On the fourth day

all the tow-lines broke or were cast off however, Neptune and the winds

claimed their own, and the "Resolute" tried her own resources. The

towing steamers were sent home in a few days more, and the squadron left

to itself.

We have too much to tell in this short article to be able to dwell on

the details of her visits to the hospitable Danes of Greenland, or of

her passage through the ice of Baffin's Bay. But here is one incident,

which, as the event has proved, is part of a singular coincidence. On

the 6th of July all the squadron, tangled in the ice, joined a fleet of

whalers beset in it, by a temporary opening between the gigantic masses.

Caught at the head of a bight in the ice, with the "Assistance" and the

"Pioneer," the "Resolute" was, for the emergency, docked there, and, by

the ice closing behind her, was, for a while, detained. Meanwhile the

rest of the fleet, whalers and discovery ships, passed on by a little

lane of water, the American whaler "McLellan" leading. This "McLellan"

was one of the ships of the spirited New London merchants, Messrs.

Perkins & Smith, another of whose vessels has now found the "Resolute"

and befriended her in her need in those seas. The "McLellan" was their

pioneer vessel there.

The "North Star" of the English squadron followed the "McLellan." A

long train stretched out behind. Whalers and government ships, as they

happened to fall into line,--a long three quarters of a mile. It was

lovely weather, and, though the long lane closed up so that they could

neither go back nor forward,--nobody apprehended injury till it was

announced on the morning of the 7th that the poor "McLellan" was nipped

in the ice and her crew were deserting her. Sir Edward Belcher was then

in condition to befriend her, sent his carpenters to examine her,--put a

few charges of powder into the ice to relieve the pressure upon

her,--and by the end of the day it was agreed that her injuries could be

repaired, and her crew went on board again. But there is no saying what

ice will do next. The next morning there was a fresh wind, the

"McLellan" was caught again, and the water poured into her, a steady

stream. She drifted about unmanageable, now into one ship, now into

another, and the English whalemen began to pour on board, to help

themselves to such plunder as they chose. At the Captain's request, Sir

Edward Belcher put an end to this, sent sentries on board, and working

parties, to clear her as far as might be, and keep account of what her

stores were and where they went to. In a day or two more she sank to the

water's edge and a friendly charge or two of powder put her out of the

way of harm to the rest of the fleet. After such a week spent together

it will easily be understood that the New London whalemen did not feel

strangers on board one of Sir Edward's vessels when they found her

"ready for occupation" three years and more afterwards.

In this tussle with the ice, the "Resolute" was nipped once or twice,

but she has known harder nips than that since. As July wore away, she

made her way across Baffin's Bay, and on the 10th of August made Beechey

Island,--known now as the head-quarters for years of the searching

squadrons, because, as it happened, the place where the last traces of

Franklin's ships were found,--the wintering place of his first winter.

But Captain Kellett was on what is called the "western search," and he

only stayed at Beechey Island to complete his provisions from the

storeships, and in the few days which this took, to see for himself the

sad memorials of Franklin's party,--and then the "Resolute" and

"Intrepid" were away, through Barrow's Straits,--on the track which

Parry ran along with such success thirty-three years before,--and which

no one had followed with as good fortune as he, until now.

On the 15th of August Captain Kellett was off; bade good by to the party

at Beechey Island, and was to try his fortune in independent command. He

had not the best of luck at starting. The reader must remember that one

great object of these Arctic expeditions was to leave provisions for

starving men. For such a purpose, and for travelling parties of his own

over the ice, Captain Kellett was to leave a depot at Assistance Bay,

some thirty miles only from Beechey Island. In nearing for that purpose

the "Resolute" grounded, was left with but seven feet of water, the ice

threw her over on her starboard bilge, and she was almost lost. Not

quite lost, however, or we should not be telling her story. At midnight

she was got off, leaving sixty feet of her false keel behind. Captain

Kellett forged on in her,--left a depot here and another there,--and at

the end of the short Arctic summer had come as far westward as Sir

Edward Parry came. Here is the most westerly point the reader will find

on most maps far north in America,--the Melville Island of Captain

Parry. Captain Kellett's associate, Captain McClintock of the

"Intrepid," had commanded the only party which had been here since

Parry. In 1851 he came over from Austin's squadron with a sledge party.

So confident is every one there that nobody has visited those parts

unless he was sent, that McClintock encouraged his men one day by

telling them that if they got on well, they should have an old cart

Parry had left thirty-odd years before, to make a fire of. Sure enough;

they came to the place, and there was the wreck of the cart just as

Parry left it. They even found the ruts the old cart left in the ground

as if they had not been left a week. Captain Kellett came into harbor,

and with great spirit he and his officers began to prepare for the

extended searching parties of the next spring. The "Resolute" and her

tender came to anchor off Dealy Island, and there she spent the next

eleven months of her life, with great news around her in that time.

There is not much time for travelling in autumn. The days grow very

short and very cold. But what, days there were were spent in sending out

carts and sledges with depots of provisions, which the parties of the

next spring could use. Different officers were already assigned to

different lines of search in spring. On their journeys they would be

gone three months and more, with a party of some eight men,--dragging a

sled very like a Yankee wood-sled with their instruments and provisions,

over ice and snow. To extend those searches as much as possible, and to

prepare the men for that work when it should come, advanced depots were

now sent forward in the autumn, under the charge of the gentlemen who

would have to use them in the spring.

One of these parties, the "South line of Melville Island" party, was

under a spirited young officer Mr. Mecham, who had tried such service in

the last expedition. He had two of "her Majesty's sledges," "The

Discovery" and "The Fearless," a depot of twenty days' provision to be

used in the spring, and enough for twenty-five days' present use. All

the sledges had little flags, made by some young lady friends of Sir

Edward Belcher's. Mr. Mecham's bore an armed hand and sword on a white

ground, with the motto, "_Per mare, per terram, per glaciem_" Over mud,

land, snow, and ice they carried their dépot, and were nearly back,

when, on the 12th of October, 1852, Mr. Mecham made the great discovery

of the expedition.

On the shore of Melville Island, above Winter Harbor, is a great

sandstone boulder, ten feet high, seven or eight broad, and twenty and

more long, which is known to all those who have anything to do with

those regions as "Parry's sandstone," for it stood near Parry's

observatory the winter he spent here, and Mr. Fisher, his surgeon, cut

on a flat face of it this inscription:--

HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S

SHIPS HECLA AND GRIPER,

COMMANDED BY

W.E. PARRY AND MR. LIDDON,

WINTERED IN THE ADJACENT

HARBOR 1819-20.

A. FISHER, SCULPT.

It was a sort of God Terminus put up to mark the end of that expedition,

as the Danish gentlemen tell us our Dighton rock is the last point of

Thorfinn's expedition to these parts. Nobody came to read Mr. Fisher's

inscription for thirty years and more,--a little Arctic hare took up her

home under the great rock, and saw the face of man for the first time

when, on the 5th of June, 1851, Mr. McClintock, on his first expedition

this way, had stopped to see whether possibly any of Franklin's men had

ever visited it. He found no signs of them, had not so much time as Mr.

Fisher for stone-cutting, but carved the figures 1851 on the stone, and

left it and the hare. To this stone, on his way back to the "Resolute,"

Mr. Mecham came again (as we said) on the 12th of October, one memorable

Tuesday morning, having been bidden to leave a record there. He went on

in advance of his party, meaning to cut 1852 on the stone. On top of it

was a small cairn of stones built by Mr. McClintock the year before.

Mecham examined this, and to his surprise a copper cylinder rolled out

from under a spirit tin. "On opening it, I drew out a roll folded in a

bladder, which, being frozen, broke and crumbled. From its dilapidated

appearance, I thought at the moment it must be some record of Sir Edward

Parry, and, fearing I might damage it, laid it down with the intention

of lighting the fire to thaw it. My curiosity, however, overcame my

prudence, and on opening it carefully with my knife, I came to a roll of

cartridge paper with the impression fresh upon the seals. My

astonishment may be conceived on finding it contained an account of the

proceedings of H.M. ship 'Investigator' since parting company with the

"Herald" [Captain Kellett's old ship] in August, 1850, in Behring's

Straits. Also a chart which disclosed to view not only the long-sought

Northwest Passage, but the completion of the survey of Banks and

Wollaston lands. Opened and indorsed Commander McClintock's despatch;

found it contained the following additions:--

"'Opened and copied by his old friend and messmate upon this date,

April 28, 1852. ROBERT McCLURE

"'Party all well and return to Investigator to-day.'"

A great discovery indeed to flash across one in a minute. The

"Investigator" had not been heard from for more than two years. Here was

news of her not yet six months old. The Northwest Passage had been

dreamed of for three centuries and more. Here was news of its

discovery,--news that had been known to Captain McClure for two years.

McClure and McClintock were lieutenants together in the "Enterprise"

when she was sent after Sir John Franklin in 1848, and wintered together

at Port Leopold the next winter. Now, from different hemispheres, they

had come so near meeting at this old block of sandstone. Mr. Mecham bade

his mate build a new cairn, to put the record of the story in, and

hurried on to the "Resolute" with his great news,--news of almost

everybody but Sir John Franklin. Strangely enough, the other expedition,

Captain Collinson's, had had a party in that neighborhood, between the

other two, under Mr. Parks; but it was his extreme point possible, and

he could not reach the Sandstone, though he saw the ruts of McClure's

sleigh. This was not known till long afterwards.

The "Investigator," as it appeared from this despatch of Captain

McClure's, had been frozen up in the Bay of Mercy of Banks Land: Banks

Land having been for thirty years at once an Ultima Thule and Terra

Incognita, put down on the maps where Captain Parry saw it across thirty

miles of ice and water in 1819. Perhaps she was still in that same bay:

these old friends wintering there, while the "Resolute" and "Intrepid"

were lying under Dealy Island, and only one hundred and seventy miles

between. It must have been tantalizing to all parties to wait the winter

through, and not even get a message across. But until winter made it too

cold and dark to travel, the ice in the strait was so broken up that it

was impossible to attempt to traverse it, even with a light boat, for

the lanes of water. So the different autumn parties came in, the last on

the last of October, and the officers and men entered on their winter's

work and play, to push off the winter days as quickly as they could.

The winter was very severe; and it proved that, as the "Resolute" lay,

they were a good deal exposed to the wind. But they kept themselves

busy,--exercised freely,--found game quite abundant within reasonable

distances on shore, whenever the light served,--kept schools for

the men,--delivered scientific lectures to whoever would

listen,--established the theatre for which the ship had been provided at

home,--and gave juggler's exhibitions by way of variety. The recent

system of travelling in the fall and spring cuts in materially to the

length of the Arctic winters as Ross, Parry, and Back used to experience

it, and it was only from the 1st of November to the 10th of March that

they were left to their own resources. Late in October one of the

"Resolute's" men died, and in December one of the "Intrepid's," but,

excepting these cases, they had little sickness, for weeks no one on

the sick-list; indeed, Captain Kellett says cheerfully that a

sufficiency of good provisions, with plenty of work in the open air,

will insure good health in that climate.

As early in the spring as he dared risk a travelling party, namely, on

the 10th of March, 1853, he sent what they all called a forlorn hope

across to the Bay of Mercy, to find any traces of the "Investigator";

for they scarcely ventured to hope that she was still there. This start

was earlier by thirty-five days than the early parties had started on

the preceding expedition. But it was every way essential that, if

Captain McClure had wintered in the Bay of Mercy, the messenger should

reach him before he sent off any or all his men, in travelling parties,

in the spring. The little forlorn hope consisted of ten men under the

command of Lieutenant Pirn, an officer who had been with Captain Kellett

in the "Herald" on the Pacific side, had spent a winter in the "Plover"

up Behring's Straits, and had been one of the last men whom the

"Investigator" had seen before they put into the Arctic Ocean, to

discover, as it proved, the Northwest Passage.

Here we must stop a moment, to tell what one of these sledge parties is

by whose efforts so much has been added to our knowledge of Arctic

geography, in journeys which could never have been achieved in ships or

boats. In the work of the "Resolute's" parties, in this spring of 1852,

Commander McClintock travelled 1,325 miles with his sledge, and

Lieutenant Mecham 1,163 miles with his, through regions before wholly

unexplored. The sledge, as we have said, is in general contour not

unlike a Yankee wood-sled, about eleven feet long. The runners are

curved at each end. The sled is fitted with a light canvas trough, so

adjusted that, in case of necessity, all the stores, &c., can be ferried

over any narrow lane of water in the ice. There are packed on this sled

a tent for eight or ten men, five or six pikes, one or more of which Is

fitted as an ice-chisel; two large buffalo-skins, a water-tight

floor-cloth, which contrives

"a double debt to pay,

A floor by night, the sledge's sail by day"

(and it must be remembered that "day" and "night" in those regions are

very equivocal terms). There are, besides, a cooking-apparatus, of which

the fire is made in spirit or tallow lamps, one or two guns, a pick and

shovel, instruments for observation, pannikins, spoons, and a little

magazine of such necessaries, with the extra clothing of the party. Then

the provision, the supply of which measures the length of the

expedition, consists of about a pound of bread and a pound of pemmican

per man per day, six ounces of pork, and a little preserved potato, rum,

lime-juice, tea, chocolate, sugar, tobacco, or other such creature

comforts. The sled is fitted with two drag-ropes, at which the men haul.

The officer goes ahead to find the best way among hummocks of ice or

masses of snow. Sometimes on a smooth floe, before the wind, the

floor-cloth is set for a sail, and she runs off merrily, perhaps with

several of the crew on board, and the rest running to keep up. But

sometimes over broken ice it is a constant task to get her on at all.

You hear, "One, two, three, _haul_" all day long, as she is worked out

of one ice "cradle-hole" over a hummock into another. Different parties

select different hours for travelling. Captain Kellett finally

considered that the best division of time, when, as usual, they had

constant daylight, was to start at four in the afternoon, travel till

ten P.M., _breakfast_ then, tent and rest four hours; travel four more,

tent, dine, and sleep nine hours. This secured sleep, when the sun was

the highest and most trying to the eyes. The distances accomplished with

this equipment are truly surprising. Each man, of course, is dressed as

warmly as flannel, woollen cloth, leather, and seal-skin will dress him.

For such long journeying, the study of boots becomes a science, and our

authorities are full of discussions as to canvas or woollen, or carpet

or leather boots, of strings and of buckles. When the time "to tent"

comes, the pikes are fitted for tent-poles, and the tent set up, its

door to leeward, on the ice or snow. The floor-cloth is laid for the

carpet. At an hour fixed, all talking must stop. There is just room

enough for the party to lie side by side on the floor-cloth. Each man

gets into a long felt bag, made of heavy felting literally nearly half

an inch thick. He brings this up wholly over his head, and buttons

himself in. He has a little hole in it to breathe through. Over the

felt is sometimes a brown holland bag, meant to keep out moisture. The

officer lies farthest in the tent,--as being next the wind, the point of

hardship and so of honor. The cook for the day lies next the doorway, as

being first to be called. Side by side the others lie between. Over them

all Mackintosh blankets with the buffalo-robes are drawn, by what power

this deponent sayeth not, not knowing. No watch is kept, for there is

little danger of intrusion. Once a whole party was startled by a white

bear smelling at them, who waked one of their dogs, and a droll time

they had of it, springing to their arms while enveloped in their sacks.

But we remember no other instance where a sentinel was needed. And

occasionally in the journals the officer notes that he overslept in the

morning, and did not "call the cook" early enough. What a passion is

sleep, to be sure, that one should oversleep with such comforts round

him!

Some thirty or forty parties, thus equipped, set out from the "Resolute"

while she was under Captain Kellett's charge, on various expeditions. As

the journey of Lieutenant Pim to the "Investigator" at Banks Land was

that on which turned the great victory of her voyage, we will let that

stand as a specimen of all. None of the others, however, were undertaken

at so early a period of the year, and, on the other hand, several others

were much longer,--some of them, as has been said, occupying three

months and more.

Lieutenant Pim had been appointed in the autumn to the "Banks Land

search," and had carried out his depots of provisions when the other

officers took theirs. Captain McClure's chart and despatch made it no

longer necessary to have that coast surveyed, but made it all the more

necessary to have some one go and see if he was still there. The chances

were against this, as a whole summer had intervened since he was heard

from. Lieutenant Pim proposed, however, to travel all round Banks Land,

which is an island about the size and shape of Ireland, in search of

him, Collinson, Franklin, or anybody. Captain Kellett, however, told him

not to attempt this with his force, but to return to the ship by the

route he went. First he was to go to the Bay of Mercy; if the

"Investigator" was gone, he was to follow any traces of her, and, if

possible, communicate with her or her consort, the "Enterprise."

Lieutenant Pim started with a sledge and seven men, and a dog-sledge

with two under Dr. Domville, the surgeon, who was to bring back the

earliest news from the Bay of Mercy to the captain. There was a relief

sledge to go part way and return. For the intense cold of this early

season they had even more careful arrangements than those we have

described. Their tent was doubled. They had extra Mackintoshes, and

whatever else could be devised. They had bad luck at starting,--broke

down one sledge and had to send back for another; had bad weather, and

must encamp, once for three days. "Fortunately," says the lieutenant of

this encampment, "the temperature arose from fifty-one below zero to

thirty-six below, and there remained," while the drift accumulated to

such a degree around the tents, that within them the thermometer was

only twenty below, and, when they cooked, rose to zero. A pleasant time

of it they must have had there on the ice, for those three days, in

their bags smoking and sleeping! No wonder that on the fourth day they

found they moved slowly, so cramped and benumbed were they. This morning

a new sledge came to them from the ship; they got out of their bags,

packed, and got under way again. They were still running along shore,

but soon sent back the relief party which had brought the new sled, and

in a few days more set out to cross the strait, some twenty-five to

thirty miles wide, which, when it is open, as no man has ever seen it,

is one of the Northwest Passages discovered by these expeditions.

Horrible work it was! Foggy and dark, so they could not choose the road,

and, as it happened, lit on the very worst mass of broken ice in the

channel. Just as they entered on it, one black raven must needs appear.

"Bad luck," said the men. And when Mr. Pim shot a musk-ox, their first,

and the wounded creature got away, "So much for the raven," they croaked

again. Only three miles the first day, four miles the second day, two

and a half the third, and half a mile the fourth; this was all they

gained by most laborious hauling over the broken ice, dragging one

sledge at a time, and sometimes carrying forward the stores separately

and going back for the sledges. Two days more gave them eight miles

more, but on the seventh day on this narrow strait, the dragging being a

little better, the great sledge slipped off a smooth hummock, broke one

runner to smash, and "there they were."

If the two officers had a little bit of a "tiff" out there on the ice,

with the thermometer at eighteen below, only a little dog-sledge to get

them anywhere, their ship a hundred miles off, fourteen days' travel as

they had come, nobody ever knew it; they kept their secret from us, it

is nobody's business, and it is not to be wondered at. Certainly they

did not agree. The Doctor, whose sled, the "James Fitzjames," was still

sound, thought they had best leave the stores and all go back; but the

Lieutenant, who had the command, did not like to give it up, so he took

the dogs and the "James Fitzjames" and its two men and went on, leaving

the Doctor on the floe, but giving him directions to go back to land

with the wounded sledge and wait for him to return. And the Doctor did

it, like a spirited fellow, travelling back and forth for what he could

not take in one journey, as the man did in the story who had a peck of

corn, a goose, and a wolf to get across the river. Over ice, over

hummock the Lieutenant went on his way with his dogs, not a bear nor a

seal nor a hare nor a wolf to feed them with: preserved meats, which

had been put up with dainty care for men and women, all he had for the

ravenous, tasteless creatures, who would have been more pleased with

blubber, came to Banks Land at last, but no game there; awful drifts;

shut up in the tent for a whole day, and he himself so sick he could

scarcely stand! There were but three of them in all; and the captain of

the sledge not unnaturally asked poor Pim, when he was at the worst,

"What shall I do, sir, if you die?" Not a very comforting question!

He did not die. He got a few hours' sleep, felt better and started

again, but had the discouragement of finding such tokens of an open

strait the last year that he felt sure that the ship he was going to

look for would be gone. One morning, he had been off for game for the

dogs unsuccessfully, and, when he came back to his men, learned that

they had seen seventeen deer. After them goes Pim; finds them to be

_three hares_, magnified by fog and mirage, and their long ears

answering for horns. This same day they got upon the Bay of Mercy. No

ship in sight! Right across it goes the Lieutenant to look for records;

when, at two in the afternoon, Robert Hoile sees something black up the

bay. Through the glass the Lieutenant makes it out to be a ship. They

change their direction at once. Over the ice towards her! He leaves the

sledge at three and goes on. How far it seems! At four he can see people

walking about, and a pile of stones and flag-staff on the beach. Keep

on, Pim; shall one never get there? At five he is within a hundred

yards of her, and no one has seen him. But just then the very persons

see him who ought to! Pim beckons, waves his arms as the Esquimaux do in

sign of friendship. Captain McClure and his lieutenant Haswell are

"taking their exercise," the chief business of those winters, and at

last see him! Pim is black as Erebus from the smoke of cooking in the

little tent. McClure owns, not to surprise only, but to a twinge of

dismay. "I paused in my advance," says he, "doubting who or what it

could be, a denizen of this or the other world." But this only lasts a

moment. Pim speaks. Brave man that he can. How his voice must have

choked, as if he were in a dream. "I am Lieutenant Pim, late of

'Herald.' Captain Kellett is at Melville Island." Well-chosen words,

Pim, to be sent in advance over the hundred yards of floe! Nothing about

the "Resolute,"--that would have confused them. But "Pim," "Herald," and

"Kellett" were among the last signs of England they had seen,--all this

was intelligible. An excellent little speech, which the brave man had

been getting ready, perhaps, as one does a telegraphic despatch, for the

hours that he had been walking over the floe to her. Then such shaking

hands, such a greeting. Poor McClure could not speak at first. One of

the men at work got the news on board; and up through the hatches poured

everybody, sick and well, to see the black stranger, and to hear his

news from England. It was nearly three years since they had seen any

civilized man but themselves.

The 28th of July, three years before, Commander McClure had sent his

last despatch to the Admiralty. He had then prophesied just what in

three years he had almost accomplished. In the winter of 1850 he had

discovered the Northwest Passage. He had come round into one branch of

it, Banks Straits, in the next summer; had gladly taken refuge on the

Bay of Mercy in a gale; and his ship had never left it since. Let it be

said, in passing, that most likely she is there now. In his last

despatches he had told the Admiralty not to be anxious about him if he

did not arrive home before the autumn of 1854. As it proved, that autumn

he did come with all his men, except those whom he had sent home before,

and those who had died. When Pim found them, all the crew but thirty

were under orders for marching, some to Baffin's Bay, some to the

Mackenzie River, on their return to England. McClure was going to stay

with the rest, and come home with the ship, if they could; if not, by

sledges to Port Leopold, and so by a steam-launch which he had seen left

there for Franklin in 1849. But the arrival of Mr. Pim put an end to all

these plans. We have his long despatch to the Admiralty explaining them,

finished only the day before Pim arrived. It gives the history of his

three years' exile from the world,--an exile crowded full of effective

work,--in a record which gives a noble picture of the man. The Queen

has made him Sir Robert Le Mesurier McClure since, in honor of his great

discovery.

Banks Land, or Baring Island, the two names belong to the same island,

on the shores of which McClure and his men had spent most of these two

years or more, is an island on which they were first of civilized men to

land. For people who are not very particular, the measurement of it

which we gave before, namely, that it is about the size and shape of

Ireland, is precise enough. There is high land in the interior probably,

as the winds from in shore are cold. The crew found coal and dwarf

willow which they could burn; lemmings, ptarmigan, hares, reindeer, and

musk-oxen, which they could eat.

"Farewell to the land where I often have wended

My way o'er its mountains and valleys of snow;

Farewell to the rocks and the hills I've ascended,

The bleak arctic homes of the buck and the doe;

Farewell to the deep glens where oft has resounded

The snow-bunting's song, as she carolled her lay

To hillside and plain, by the green sorrel bounded,

Till struck by the blast of a cold winter's day."

There is a bit of description of Banks Land, from the anthology of that

country, which, so far as we know, consists of two poems by a seaman

named Nelson, one of Captain McClure's crew. The highest temperature

ever observed on this "gem of the sea" was 53° in midsummer. The lowest

was 65° below zero in January, 1853; that day the thermometer did not

rise to 60° below, that month was never warmer than 16° below, and the

average of the month was 43° below. A pleasant climate to spend three

years in!

One day for talk was all that could be allowed, after Mr. Pim's amazing

appearance. On the 8th of April, he and his dogs, and Captain McClure

and a party, were ready to return to our friend the "Resolute." They

picked up Dr. Domville on the way; he had got the broken sledge mended,

and killed five musk-oxen, against they came along. He went on in the

dog-sledge to tell the news, but McClure and his men kept pace with

them; and he and Dr. Domville had the telling of the news together.

It was decided that the "Investigator" should be abandoned, and the

"Intrepid" and "Resolute" made room for her men. Glad greeting they gave

them too, as British seamen can give. More than half the crews were away

when the "Investigator's" parties came in, but by July everybody had

returned. They had found islands where the charts had guessed there was

sea, and sea where they had guessed there was land; had changed

peninsulas into islands and islands into peninsulas. Away off beyond the

seventy eighth parallel, Mr. McClintock had christened the farthest dot

of land "Ireland's Eye," as if his native island were peering off into

the unknown there;--a great island, which will be our farthest now, for

years to come, had been named "Prince Patrick's Land," in honor of the

baby prince who was the youngest when they left home. Will he not be

tempted, when he is a man, to take a crew, like another Madoc, and, as

younger sons of queens should, go and settle upon this tempting

god-child? They had heard from Sir Edward Belcher's part of the

squadron; they had heard from England; had heard of everything but Sir

John Franklin. They had even found an ale-bottle of Captain Collinson's

expedition,--but not a stick nor straw to show where Franklin or his men

had lived or died. Two officers of the "Investigator" were sent home to

England this summer by a ship from Beechey Island, the head-quarters;

and thus we heard, in October, 1853, of the discovery of the Northwest

Passage.

After their crews were on board again, and the "Investigator's" sixty

stowed away also, the "Resolute" and "Intrepid" had a dreary summer of

it. The ice would not break up. They had hunting-parties on shore and

races on the floe; but the captain could not send the "Investigators"

home as he wanted to, in his steam tender. All his plans were made, and

made on a manly scale,--if only the ice would open. He built a

storehouse on the island for Collinson's people, or for you, reader, and

us, if we should happen there, and stored it well, and left this

record:--

"This is a house which I have named the 'Sailor's Home,' under the

especial patronage of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

"_Here_ royal sailors and marines are fed, clothed, and receive

double pay for inhabiting it."

In that house is a little of everything, and a good deal of victuals and

drink; but nobody has been there since the last of the "Resolute's" men

came away.

At last, the 17th of August, a day of foot-racing and jumping in bags

and wrestling, all hands present, as at a sort of "Isthmian games,"

ended with a gale, a cracking up of ice, and the "Investigators" thought

they were on their way home, and Kellett thought he was to have a month

of summer yet. But no; "there is nothing certain in this navigation from

one hour to the next." The "Resolute" and "Intrepid" were never really

free of ice all that autumn; drove and drifted to and fro in Barrow's

Straits till the 12th of November; and then froze up, without anchoring,

off Cape Cockburn, perhaps one hundred and forty miles from their harbor

of the last winter. The log-book of that winter is a curious record; the

ingenuity of the officer in charge was well tasked to make one day

differ from another. Each day has the first entry for "ship's position"

thus: "In the floe off Cape Cockburn." And the blank for the second

entry, thus: "In the same position." Lectures, theatricals, schools,

&c., whiled away the time; but there could be no autumn travelling

parties, and not much hope for discovery in the summer.

Spring came. The captain went over ice in his little dog-sled to

Beechey Island, and received his directions to abandon his ships. It

appears that he would rather have sent most of his men forward, and with

a small crew brought the "Resolute" home that autumn or the next. But

Sir Edward Belcher considered his orders peremptory "that the safety of

the crews must preclude any idea of extricating the ships." Both ships

were to be abandoned. Two distant travelling parties were away, one at

the "Investigator," one looking for traces of Collinson, which they

found. Word was left for them, at a proper point, not to seek the ship

again, but to come on to Beechey Island. And at last, having fitted the

"Intrepid's" engines so that she could be under steam in two hours,

having stored both ships with equal proportions of provisions, and made

both vessels "ready for occupation," the captain calked down the

hatches, and with all the crew he had not sent on before,--forty-two

persons in all,--left her Monday, the 15th of May, 1854, and started

with the sledges for Beechey Island.

Poor old "Resolute"! All this gay company is gone who have made her

sides split with their laughter. Here is Harlequin's dress, lying in one

of the wardrooms, but there is nobody to dance Harlequin's dances. "Here

is a lovely clear day,--surely to-day they will come on deck and take a

meridian!" No, nobody comes. The sun grows hot on the decks; but it is

all one, nobody looks at the thermometer! "And so the poor ship was

left all alone." Such gay times she has had with all these brave young

men on board! Such merry winters, such a lightsome summer! So much fun,

so much nonsense! So much science and wisdom, and now it is all so

still! Is the poor "Resolute" conscious of the change? Does she miss the

races on the ice, the scientific lecture every Tuesday, the occasional

racket and bustle of the theatre, and the worship of every Sunday? Has

not she shared the hope of Captain Kellett, of McClure, and of the crew,

that she may _break out well!_ She sees the last sledge leave her. The

captain drives off his six dogs,--vanishes over the ice, and they are

all gone "Will they not come back again?" says the poor ship. And she

looks wistfully across the ice to her little friend the steam tender

"Intrepid," and she sees there is no one there. "Intrepid! Intrepid!

have they really deserted us? We have served them so well, and have they

really left us alone? A great many were away travelling last year, but

they came home. Will not any of these come home now?" No, poor

"Resolute"! Not one of them ever came back again! Not one of them meant

to. Summer came. August came. No one can tell how soon, but some day or

other this her icy prison broke up, and the good ship found herself on

her own element again; shook herself proudly, we cannot doubt, nodded

joyfully across to the "Intrepid," and was free. But alas! there was no

master to take latitude and longitude, no helmsman at the wheel. In

clear letters cast in brass over her helm there are these words,

"England expects each man to do his duty." But here is no man to heed

the warning, and the rudder flaps this way and that way, no longer

directing her course, but stupidly swinging to and fro. And she drifts

here and there,--drifts out of sight of her little consort,--strands on

a bit of ice floe now, and then is swept off from it,--and finds

herself, without even the "Intrepid's" company, alone on these blue seas

with those white shores. But what utter loneliness! Poor "Resolute "!

She longed for freedom,--but what is freedom where there is no law? What

is freedom without a helmsman! And the "Resolute" looks back so sadly to

the old days when she had a master. And the short bright summer passes.

And again she sees the sun set from her decks. And now even her topmasts

see it set. And now it does not rise to her deck. And the next day it

does not rise to her topmast. Winter and night together! She has known

them before! But now it is winter and night and loneliness all together.

This horrid ice closes up round her again. And there is no one to bring

her into harbor,--she is out in the open sound. If the ice drifts west,

she must go west. If it goes east, she must east. Her seeming freedom is

over, and for that long winter she is chained again. But her heart is

true to old England. And when she can go east, she is so happy! and when

she must go west, she is so sad! Eastward she does go! Southward she

does go! True to the instinct which sends us all home, she tracks

undirected and without a sail fifteen hundred miles of that sea, without

a beacon, which separates her from her own. And so goes a dismal year.

"Perhaps another spring they will come and find me out, and fix things

below. It is getting dreadfully damp down there; and I cannot keep the

guns bright and the floors dry," No, good old "Resolute." May and June

pass off the next year, and nobody comes; and here you are all alone out

in the bay, drifting in this dismal pack. July and August,--the days are

growing shorter again. "Will nobody come and take care of me, and cut

off these horrid blocks of ice, and see to these sides of bacon in the

hold, and all these mouldy sails, and this powder, and the bread and the

spirit that I have kept for them so well? It is September, and the sun

begins to set again. And here is another of those awful gales. Will it

be my very last? all alone here,--who have done so much,--and if they

would only take care of me I can do so much more. Will nobody come?

Nobody?.... What! Is it ice blink,--are my poor old lookouts blind? Is

not there the 'Intrepid'? Dear 'Intrepid,' I will never look down on you

again! No! there is no smoke-stack, it is not the 'Intrepid.' But it is

somebody. Pray see me, good somebody. Are you a Yankee whaler? I am glad

to see the Yankee whalers, I remember the Yankee whalers very

pleasantly. We had a happy summer together once.... It will be dreadful

if they do not see me! But this ice, this wretched ice! They do see

me,--I know they see me, but they cannot get at me. Do not go away, good

Yankees; pray come and help me. I know I can get out, if you will help a

little.... But now it is a whole week and they do not come! Are there

any Yankees, or am I getting crazy? I have heard them talk of crazy old

ships, in my young days.... No! I am not crazy. They are coming! they

are coming. Brave Yankees! over the hummocks, down into the sludge. Do

not give it up for the cold. There is coal below, and we will have a

fire in the Sylvester, and in the captain's cabin.... There is a horrid

lane of water. They have not got a Halkett. O, if one of these boats of

mine would only start for them, instead of lying so stupidly on my deck

here! But the men are not afraid of water! See them ferry over on that

ice block! Come on, good friends! Welcome, whoever you be,--Dane, Dutch,

French, or Yankee, come on! come on! It is coming up a gale, but I can

bear a gale. Up the side, men. I wish I could let down the gangway

alone. But here are all these blocks of ice piled up,--you can scramble

over them! Why do you stop? Do not be afraid. I will make you very

comfortable and jolly. Do not stay talking there. Pray come in. There is

port in the captain's cabin, and a little preserved meat in the pantry.

You must be hungry; pray come in! O, he is coming, and now all four are

coming. It would be dreadful if they had gone back! They are on deck.

Now I shall go home! How lonely it has been!"

It was true enough that when Mr. Quail, the brother of the captain of

the "McLellan," whom the "Resolute" had befriended, the mate of the

George Henry, whaler, whose master, Captain Buddington, had discovered

the "Resolute" in the ice, came to her after a hard day's journey with

his men, the men faltered with a little superstitious feeling, and

hesitated for a minute about going on board. But the poor lonely ship

wooed them too lovingly, and they climbed over the broken ice and came

on deck. She was lying over on her larboard side, with a heavy weight of

ice holding her down. Hatches and companion were made fast, as Captain

Kellett had left them. But, knocking open the companion, groping down

stairs to the after cabin they found their way to the captain's table;

somebody put his hand on a box of lucifers, struck a light, and

revealed--books scattered in confusion, a candle standing, which he

lighted at once, the glasses and the decanters from which Kellett and

his officers had drunk good by to the vessel. The whalemen filled them

again, and undoubtedly felt less discouraged. Meanwhile night came on,

and a gale arose. So hard did it blow, that for two days these four were

the whole crew of the "Resolute," and it was not till the 19th of

September that they returned to their own ship, and reported what their

prize was.

All these ten days, since Captain Buddington had first seen her, the

vessels had been nearing each other. On the 19th he boarded her himself;

found that in her hold, on the larboard side, was a good deal of ice; on

the starboard side there seemed to be water. In fact, her tanks had

burst from the extreme cold; and she was full of water, nearly to her

lower deck. Everything that could move from its place had moved;

everything was wet; everything that would mould was mouldy. "A sort of

perspiration" settled on the beams above. Clothes were wringing wet. The

captain's party made a fire in Captain Kellett's stove, and soon started

a sort of shower from the vapor with which it filled the air. The

"Resolute" has, however, four fine force-pumps. For three days the

captain and six men worked fourteen hours a day on one of these, and had

the pleasure of finding that they freed her of water,--that she was

tight still. They cut away upon the masses of ice; and on the 23d of

September, in the evening, she freed herself from her encumbrances, and

took an even keel. This was off the west shore of Baffin's Bay, in

latitude 67°. On the shortest tack she was twelve hundred miles from

where Captain Kellett left her.

There was work enough still to be done. The rudder was to be shipped,

the rigging to be made taut, sail to be set; and it proved, by the way,

that the sail on the yards was much of it still serviceable, while a

suit of new linen sails below were greatly injured by moisture. In a

week more they had her ready to make sail. The pack of ice still drifted

with both ships; but on the 21st of October, after a long northwest

gale, the "Resolute" was free,--more free than she had been for more

than two years.

Her "last voyage" is almost told. Captain Buddington had resolved to

bring her home. He had picked ten men from the "George Henry," leaving

her fifteen, and with a rough tracing of the American coast drawn on a

sheet of foolscap, with his lever watch and a quadrant for his

instruments, he squared off for New London. A rough, hard passage they

had of it. The ship's ballast was gone, by the bursting of the tanks;

she was top-heavy and under manned. He spoke a British whaling bark, and

by her sent to Captain Kellett his epaulettes, and to his own owners

news that he was coming. They had heavy gales and head winds, were

driven as far down as the Bermudas; the water left in the ship's tanks

was brackish, and it needed all the seasoning which the ship's chocolate

would give to make it drinkable. "For sixty hours at a time," says the

spirited captain, "I frequently had no sleep"; but his perseverance was

crowned with success at last, and on the night of the 23d-24th of

December he made the light off the magnificent harbor from which he

sailed; and on Sunday morning, the 24th, dropped anchor in the Thames,

opposite _New_ London, ran up the royal ensign on the shorn masts of the

"Resolute," and the good people of the town knew that he and his were

safe, and that one of the victories of peace was won.

As the fine ship lies opposite the piers of that beautiful town, she

attracts visitors from everywhere, and is, indeed, a very remarkable

curiosity. Seals were at once placed, and very properly, on the

captain's book-cases, lockers, and drawers, and wherever private

property might be injured by wanton curiosity, and two keepers are on

duty on the vessel, till her destination is decided. But nothing is

changed from what she was when she came into harbor. And, from stem to

stern, every detail of her equipment is a curiosity, to the sailor or to

the landsman. The candlestick in the cabin is not like a Yankee

candlestick. The hawse hole for the chain cable is fitted as has not

been seen before. And so of everything between. There is the aspect of

wet over everything now, after months of ventilation;--the rifles, which

were last fired at musk-oxen in Melville Island, are red with rust, as

if they had lain in the bottom of the sea; the volume of Shakespeare,

which you find in an officer's berth, has a damp feel, as if you had

been reading it in the open air in a March north-easter. The old seamen

look with most amazement, perhaps, on the preparations for

amusement,--the juggler's cups and balls, or Harlequin's spangled dress;

the quiet landsman wonders at the gigantic ice-saws, at the cast-off

canvas boots, the long thick Arctic stockings. It seems almost wrong to

go into Mr. Hamilton's wardroom, and see how he arranged his soap-cup

and his tooth-brush; and one does not tell of it, if he finds on a blank

leaf the secret prayer a sister wrote down for the brother to whom she

gave a prayer-book. There is a good deal of disorder now,--thanks to her

sudden abandonment, and perhaps to her three months' voyage home. A

little union-jack lies over a heap of unmended and unwashed

underclothes; when Kellett left the ship, he left his country's flag

over his arm-chair as if to keep possession. Two officers' swords and a

pair of epaulettes were on the cabin table. Indeed, what is there not

there,--which should make an Arctic winter endurable,--make a long night

into day,--or while long days away?

The ship is stanch and sound. The "last voyage" which we have described

will not, let us hope, be the last voyage of her career. But wherever

she goes, under the English flag or under our own, she will scarcely

ever crowd more adventure into one cruise than into that which sealed

the discovery of the Northwest Passage; which gave new lands to England,

nearest to the pole of all she has; which spent more than a year, no man

knows where, self-governed and unguided; and which, having begun under

the strict _régime_ of the English navy, ended under the remarkable

mutual rules, adopted by common consent, on the business of American

whalemen.

Is it not worth noting that in this chivalry of Arctic adventure, the

ships which have been wrecked have been those of the fight or horror?

They are the "Fury," the "Victory," the "Erebus," the "Terror." But the

ships which never failed their crews,--which, for all that man knows,

are as sound now as ever,--bear the names of peaceful adventure; the

"Hecla," the "Enterprise," and "Investigator," the "Assistance" and

"Resolute," the "Pioneer" and "Intrepid," and our "Advance" and "Rescue"

and "Arctic," never threatened any one, even in their names. And they

never failed the men who commanded them or who sailed in them.

MY DOUBLE, AND HOW HE UNDID ME

ONE OF THE INGHAM PAPERS.

[A Boston journal, in noticing this story, called it improbable. I think

it is. But I think the moral important. It was first published in the

Atlantic Monthly for September, 1859.]

* * * * *

It is not often that I trouble the readers of the Atlantic Monthly. I

should not trouble them now, but for the importunities of my wife, who

"feels to insist" that a duty to society is unfulfilled, till I have

told why I had to have a double, and how he undid me. She is sure, she

says, that intelligent persons cannot understand that pressure upon

public servants which alone drives any man into the employment of a

double. And while I fear she thinks, at the bottom of her heart, that my

fortunes will never be remade, she has a faint hope that, as another

Rasselas, I may teach a lesson to future publics, from which they may

profit, though we die. Owing to the behavior of my double, or, if you

please, to that public pressure which compelled me to employ him, I have

plenty of leisure to write this communication.

I am, or rather was, a minister, of the Sandemanian connection. I was

settled in the active, wide-awake town of Naguadavick, on one of the

finest water-powers in Maine. We used to call it a Western town in the

heart of the civilization of New England. A charming place it was and

is. A spirited, brave young parish had I; and it seemed as if we might

have all "the joy of eventful living" to our heart's content.

Alas! how little we knew on the day of my ordination, and in those

halcyon moments of our first house-keeping. To be the confidential

friend in a hundred families in the town,--cutting the social trifle, as

my friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped syllabub to the

bottom of the sponge-cake, which is the foundation,"--to keep abreast of

the thought of the age in one's study, and to do one's best on Sunday to

interweave that thought with the active life of an active town, and to

inspirit both and make both infinite by glimpses of the Eternal Glory,

seemed such an exquisite forelook into one's life! Enough to do, and all

so real and so grand! If this vision could only have lasted!

The truth is, that this vision was not in itself a delusion, nor,

indeed, half bright enough. If one could only have been left to do his

own business, the vision would have accomplished itself and brought out

new paraheliacal visions, each as bright as the original. The misery was

and is, as we found out, I and Polly, before long, that besides the

vision, and besides the usual human and finite failures in life (such as

breaking the old pitcher that came over in the "Mayflower" and putting

into the fire the Alpenstock with which her father climbed Mont

Blanc),--besides these, I say (imitating the style of Robinson Crusoe),

there were pitchforked in on us a great rowen-heap of humbugs, handed

down from some unknown seed-time, in which we were expected, and I

chiefly, to fulfil certain public functions before the community, of the

character of those fulfilled by the third row of supernumeraries who

stand behind the Sepoys in the spectacle of the "Cataract of the

Ganges." They were the duties, in a word, which one performs as member

of one or another social class or subdivision, wholly distinct from what

one does as A. by himself A. What invisible power put these functions on

me, it would be very hard to tell. But such power there was and is. And

I had not been at work a year before I found I was living two lives, one

real and one merely functional,--for two sets of people, one my parish,

whom I loved, and the other a vague public, for whom I did not care two

straws. All this was in a vague notion, which everybody had and has,

that this second life would eventually bring out some great results,

unknown at present, to somebody somewhere.

Crazed by this duality of life, I first read Dr. Wigan on the "Duality

of the Brain," hoping that I could train one side of my head to do these

outside jobs, and the other to do my intimate and real duties. For

Richard Greenough once told me, that, in studying for the statue of

Franklin, he found that the left side of the great man's face was

philosophic and reflective, and the right side funny and smiling. If you

will go and look at the bronze statue, you will find he has repeated

this observation there for posterity. The eastern profile is the

portrait of the statesman Franklin, the western of poor Richard. But Dr.

Wigan does not go into these niceties of this subject, and I failed. It

was then that, on my wife's suggestion, I resolved to look out for a

Double.

I was, at first, singularly successful. We happened to be recreating at

Stafford Springs that summer. We rode out one day, for one of the

relaxations of that watering-place, to the great Monson Poorhouse. We

were passing through one of the large halls, when my destiny was

fulfilled!

He was not shaven. He had on no spectacles. He was dressed in a green

baize roundabout and faded blue overalls, worn sadly at the knee. But I

saw at once that he was of my height, five feet four and a half. He had

black hair, worn off by his hat. So have and have not I. He stooped in

walking. So do I. His hands were large, and mine. And--choicest gift of

Fate in all--he had, not "a strawberry-mark on his left arm," but a cut

from a juvenile brickbat over his right eye, slightly affecting the play

of that eyebrow. Reader, so have I! My fate was sealed!

A word with Mr. Holley, one of the inspectors, settled the whole thing.

It proved that this Dennis Shea was a harmless, amiable fellow, of the

class known as shiftless, who had sealed his fate by marrying a dumb

wife, who was at that moment ironing in the laundry. Before I left

Stafford, I had hired both for five years. We had applied to Judge

Pynchon, then the probate judge at Springfield, to change the name of

Dennis Shea to Frederic Ingham. We had explained to the Judge, what was

the precise truth, that an eccentric gentleman wished to adopt Dennis,

under this new name, into his family. It never occurred to him that

Dennis might be more than fourteen years old. And thus, to shorten this

preface, when we returned at night to my parsonage at Naguadavick, there

entered Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress, myself, who am Mr. Frederic

Ingham, and my double, who was Mr. Frederic Ingham by as good right as

I.

O the fun we had the next morning in shaving his beard to my pattern,

cutting his hair to match mine, and teaching him how to wear and how to

take off gold-bowed spectacles! Really, they were electro-plate, and the

glass was plain (for the poor fellow's eyes were excellent). Then in

four successive afternoons I taught him four speeches. I had found these

would be quite enough for the supernumerary-Sepoy line of life, and it

was well for me they were; for though he was good-natured, he was very

shiftless, and it was, as our national proverb says, "like pulling

teeth," to teach him. But at the end of the next week he could say, with

quite my easy and frisky air,--

1. "Very well, thank you. And you?" This for a answer to casual

salutations.

2. "I am very glad you liked it."

3. "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I

will not occupy the time."

4. "I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of the room."

At first I had a feeling that I was going to be at great cost for

clothing him. But it proved, of course, at once, that, whenever he was

out, I should be at home. And I went, during the bright period of his

success, to so few of those awful pageants which require a black

dress-coat and what the ungodly call, after Mr. Dickens, a white choker,

that in the happy retreat of my own dressing-gowns and jackets my days

went by as happily and cheaply as those of another Thalaba. And Polly

declares there was never a year when the tailoring cost so little. He

lived (Dennis, not Thalaba) in his wife's room over the kitchen. He had

orders never to show himself at that window. When he appeared in the

front of the house, I retired to my sanctissimum and my dressing-gown.

In short, the Dutchman and his wife, in the old weather-box, had not

less to do with each other than he and I. He made the furnace-fire and

split the wood before daylight; then he went to sleep again, and slept

late; then came for orders, with a red silk bandanna tied round his

head, with his overalls on, and his dress-coat and spectacles off. If we

happened to be interrupted, no one guessed that he was Frederic Ingham

as well as I; and, in the neighborhood, there grew up an impression that

the minister's Irishman worked day-times in the factory-village at New

Coventry. After I had given him his orders, I never saw him till the

next day.

I launched him by sending him to a meeting of the Enlightenment Board.

The Enlightenment Board consists of seventy-four members, of whom

sixty-seven are necessary to form a quorum. One becomes a member under

the regulations laid down in old Judge Dudley's will. I became one by

being ordained pastor of a church in Naguadavick. You see you cannot

help yourself, if you would. At this particular time we had had four

successive meetings, averaging four hours each,--wholly occupied in

whipping in a quorum. At the first only eleven men were present; at the

next, by force of three circulars, twenty-seven; at the third, thanks to

two days' canvassing by Auchmuty and myself, begging men to come, we had

sixty. Half the others were in Europe. But without a quorum we could do

nothing. All the rest of us waited grimly for our four hours, and

adjourned without any action. At the fourth meeting we had flagged, and

only got fifty-nine together. But on the first appearance of my

double,--whom I sent on this fatal Monday to the fifth meeting,--he was

the _sixty-seventh_ man who entered the room. He was greeted with a

storm of applause! The poor fellow had missed his way,--read the street

signs ill through his spectacles (very ill, in fact, without them),--and

had not dared to inquire. He entered the room,--finding the president

and secretary holding to their chairs two judges of the Supreme Court,

who were also members _ex officio_, and were begging leave to go away.

On his entrance all was changed. _Presto_, the by-laws were suspended,

and the Western property was given away. Nobody stopped to converse with

him. He voted, as I had charged him to do, in every instance, with the

minority. I won new laurels as a man of sense, though a little

unpunctual,--and Dennis, _alias_ Ingham, returned to the parsonage,

astonished to see with how little wisdom the world is governed. He cut a

few of my parishioners in the street; but he had his glasses off, and I

am known to be near-sighted. Eventually he recognized them more readily

than I.

I "set him again" at the exhibition of the New Coventry Academy; and

here he undertook a "speaking part,"--as, in my boyish, worldly days, I

remember the bills used to say of Mlle. Celeste. We are all trustees of

the New Coventry Academy; and there has lately been "a good deal of

feeling" because the Sandemanian trustees did not regularly attend the

exhibitions. It has been intimated, indeed, that the Sandemanians are

leaning towards Free-Will, and that we have, therefore, neglected these

semiannual exhibitions, while there is no doubt that Auchmuty last year

went to Commencement at Waterville. Now the head master at New Coventry

is a real good fellow, who knows a Sanskrit root when he sees it, and

often cracks etymologies with me,--so that, in strictness, I ought to go

to their exhibitions. But think, reader, of sitting through three long

July days in that Academy chapel, following the programme from

TUESDAY MORNING. _English Composition._ "SUNSHINE." Miss Jones.

round to

_Trio on Three Pianos._ Duel from the Opera of "Midshipman Easy."

_Marryat_.

coming in at nine, Thursday evening! Think of this, reader, for men who

know the world is trying to go backward, and who would give their lives

if they could help it on! Well! The double had succeeded so well at the

Board, that I sent him to the Academy. (Shade of Plato, pardon!) He

arrived early on Tuesday, when, indeed, few but mothers and clergymen

are generally expected, and returned in the evening to us, covered with

honors. He had dined at the right hand of the chairman, and he spoke in

high terms of the repast. The chairman had expressed his interest in the

French conversation. "I am very glad you liked it," said Dennis; and the

poor chairman, abashed, supposed the accent had been wrong. At the end

of the day, the gentlemen present had been called upon for

speeches,--the Rev. Frederic Ingham first, as it happened; upon which

Dennis had risen, and had said, "There has been so much said, and, on

the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the time." The girls

were delighted, because Dr. Dabney, the year before, had given them at

this occasion a scolding on impropriety of behavior at lyceum lectures.

They all declared Mr. Ingham was a love,--and _so_ handsome! (Dennis is

good-looking.) Three of them, with arms behind the others' waists,

followed him up to the wagon he rode home in; and a little girl with a

blue sash had been sent to give him a rosebud. After this _début_ in

speaking, he went to the exhibition for two days more, to the mutual

satisfaction of all concerned. Indeed, Polly reported that he had

pronounced the trustees' dinners of a higher grade than those of the

parsonage. When the next term began, I found six of the Academy girls

had obtained permission to come across the river and attend our church.

But this arrangement did not long continue.

After this he went to several Commencements for me, and ate the dinners

provided; he sat through three of our Quarterly Conventions for

me,--always voting judiciously, by the simple rule mentioned above, of

siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who had before been losing

caste among my friends, as holding myself aloof from the associations of

the body, began to rise in everybody's favor. "Ingham's a good

fellow,--always on hand "; "never talks much, but does the right thing

at the right time"; "is not as unpunctual as he used to be,--he comes

early, and sits through to the end." "He has got over his old talkative

habit, too. I spoke to a friend of his about it once; and I think Ingham

took it kindly," etc., etc.

This voting power of Dennis was particularly valuable at the quarterly

meetings of the proprietors of the Naguadavick Ferry. My wife inherited

from her father some shares in that enterprise, which is not yet fully

developed, though it doubtless will become a very valuable property. The

law of Maine then forbade stockholders to appear by proxy at such

meetings. Polly disliked to go, not being, in fact, a "hens'-rights

hen," transferred her stock to me. I, after going once, disliked it more

than she. But Dennis went to the next meeting, and liked it very much.

He said the arm-chairs were good, the collation good, and the free rides

to stockholders pleasant. He was a little frightened when they first

took him upon one of the ferry-boats, but after two or three quarterly

meetings he became quite brave.

Thus far I never had any difficulty with him. Indeed, being, as I

implied, of that type which is called shiftless, he was only too happy

to be told daily what to do, and to be charged not to be forthputting or

in any way original in his discharge of that duty. He learned, however,

to discriminate between the lines of his life, and very much preferred

these stockholders' meetings and trustees' dinners and Commencement

collations to another set of occasions, from which he used to beg off

most piteously. Our excellent brother, Dr. Fillmore, had taken a notion

at this time that our Sandemanian churches needed more expression of

mutual sympathy. He insisted upon it that we were remiss. He said, that,

if the Bishop came to preach at Naguadavick, all the Episcopal clergy of

the neighborhood were present; if Dr. Pond came, all the Congregational

clergymen turned out to hear him; if Dr. Nichols, all the Unitarians;

and he thought we owed it to each other, that, whenever there was an

occasional service at a Sandemanian church, the other brethren should

all, if possible, attend. "It looked well," if nothing more. Now this

really meant that I had not been to hear one of Dr. Fillmore's lectures

on the Ethnology of Religion. He forgot that he did not hear one of my

course on the "Sandemanianism of Anselm." But I felt badly when he said

it; and afterwards I always made Dennis go to hear all the brethren

preach, when I was not preaching myself. This was what he took

exceptions to,--the only thing, as I said, which he ever did except to.

Now came the advantage of his long morning-nap, and of the green tea

with which Polly supplied the kitchen. But he would plead, so humbly, to

be let off, only from one or two! I never excepted him, however. I knew

the lectures were of value, and I thought it best he should be able to

keep the connection.

Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has observed in the outset

of this memoir. She risked Dennis one night under the eyes of her own

sex. Governor Gorges had always been very kind to us, and, when he gave

his great annual party to the town, asked us. I confess I hated to go. I

was deep in the new volume of Pfeiffer's "Mystics," which Haliburton had

just sent me from Boston. "But how rude," said Polly, "not to return the

Governor's civility and Mrs. Gorges's, when they will be sure to ask why

you are away!" Still I demurred, and at last she, with the wit of Eve

and of Semiramis conjoined, let me off by saying that, if I would go in

with her, and sustain the initial conversations with the Governor and

the ladies staying there, she would risk Dennis for the rest of the

evening. And that was just what we did. She took Dennis in training all

that afternoon, instructed him in fashionable conversation, cautioned

him against the temptations of the supper-table,--and at nine in the

evening he drove us all down in the carryall. I made the grand

star-_entrée_ with Polly and the pretty Walton girls, who were staying

with us. We had put Dennis into a great rough top-coat, without his

glasses: and the girls never dreamed, in the darkness, of looking at

him. He sat in the carriage, at the door, while we entered. I did the

agreeable to Mrs. Gorges, was introduced to her niece, Miss Fernanda; I

complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision in the great case of

D'Aulnay _vs._ Laconia Mining Company; I stepped into the dressing-room

for a moment, stepped out for another, walked home after a nod with

Dennis and tying the horse to a pump; and while I walked home, Mr.

Frederic Ingham, my double, stepped in through the library into the

Gorges's grand saloon.

Oh! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at midnight! And even

here, where I have to teach my hands to hew the beech for stakes to

fence our cave, she dies of laughing as she recalls it,--and says that

single occasion was worth all we have paid for it. Gallant Eve that she

is! She joined Dennis at the library-door, and in an instant presented

him to Dr. Ochterlony, from Baltimore, who was on a visit in town, and

was talking with her as Dennis came in. "Mr. Ingham would like to hear

what you were telling us about your success among the German

population." And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a scowl from Polly,

"I'm very glad you liked it." But Dr. Ochterlony did not observe, and

plunged into the tide of explanation; Dennis listened like a

prime-minister, and bowing like a mandarin, which is, I suppose, the

same thing. Polly declared it was just like Haliburton's Latin

conversation with the Hungarian minister, of which he is very fond of

telling. "_Quæne sit historia Reformationis in Ungariâ?_" quoth

Haliburton, after some thought. And his _confrère_ replied gallantly,

"_In seculo decimo tertio_," etc., etc., etc.; and from _decimo

tertio_[P] to the nineteenth century and a half lasted till the oysters

came. So was it that before Dr. Ochterlony came to the "success," or

near it, Governor Gorges came to Dennis, and asked him to hand Mrs.

Jeffries down to supper, a request which he heard with great joy.

Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as a lark. Auchmuty came

to her "in pity for poor Ingham," who was so bored by the stupid

pundit,--and Auchmuty could not understand why I stood it so long. But

when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, Polly could not resist standing

near them. He was a little flustered, till the sight of the eatables and

drinkables gave him the same Mercian courage which it gave Diggory. A

little excited then, he attempted one or two of his speeches to the

Judge's lady. But little he knew how hard it was to get in even a

_promptu_ there edgewise. "Very well, I thank you," said he, after the

eating elements were adjusted; "and you?" And then did not he have to

hear about the mumps, and the measles, and arnica, and belladonna, and

chamomile-flower, and dodecatheon, till she changed oysters for salad;

and then about the old practice and the new, and what her sister said,

and what her sister's friend said, and what the physician to her

sister's friend said, and then what was said by the brother of the

sister of the physician of the friend of her sister, exactly as if it

had been in Ollendorff? There was a moment's pause, as she declined

Champagne. "I am very glad you liked it," said Dennis again, which he

never should have said but to one who complimented a sermon. "Oh! you

are so sharp, Mr. Ingham! No! I never drink any wine at all,--except

sometimes in summer a little currant shrub,--from our own currants, you

know. My own mother,--that is, I call her my own mother, because, you

know, I do not remember," etc., etc., etc.; till they came to the

candied orange at the end of the feast, when Dennis, rather confused,

thought he must say something, and tried No. 4,--"I agree, in general,

with my friend the other side of the room,"--which he never should have

said but at a public meeting. But Mrs. Jeffries, who never listens

expecting to understand, caught him up instantly with "Well, I'm sure my

husband returns the compliment; he always agrees with you,--though we do

worship with the Methodists; but you know, Mr. Ingham," etc., etc.,

etc., till the move up-stairs; and as Dennis led her through the hall,

he was scarcely understood by any but Polly, as he said, "There has been

so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy

the time."

His great resource the rest of the evening was standing in the library,

carrying on animated conversations with one and another in much the same

way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine,

that it is not necessary to finish your sentences in a crowd, but by a

sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your

words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech, but better

where other talking is going on. Thus: "We missed you at the Natural

History Society, Ingham." Ingham replies, "I am very gligloglum, that

is, that you were mmmmm." By gradually dropping the voice, the

interlocutor is compelled to supply the answer. "Mrs. Ingham, I hope

your friend Augusta is better." Augusta has not been ill. Polly cannot

think of explaining, however, and answers, "Thank you, Ma'am; she is

very rearason wewahwewoh," in lower and lower tones. And Mrs.

Throckmorton, who forgot the subject of which she spoke as soon as she

asked the question, is quite satisfied. Dennis could see into the

card-room, and came to Polly to ask if he might not go and play

all-fours. But, of course, she sternly refused. At midnight they came

home delighted,--Polly, as I said, wild to tell me the story of the

victory; only both the pretty Walton girls said, "Cousin Frederic, you

did not come near me all the evening."

We always called him Dennis at home, for convenience, though his real

name was Frederic Ingham, as I have explained. When the election-day

came round, however, I found that by some accident there was only one

Frederic Ingham's name on the voting-list; and as I was quite busy that

day in writing some foreign letters to Halle, I thought I would forego

my privilege of suffrage, and stay quietly at home, telling Dennis that

he might use the record on the voting-list, and vote. I gave him a

ticket, which I told him he might use, if he liked to. That was that

very sharp election in Maine which the readers of the Atlantic so well

remember, and it had been intimated in public that the ministers would

do well not to appear at the polls. Of course, after that, we had to

appear by self or proxy. Still, Naguadavick was not then a city, and

this standing in a double queue at town-meeting several hours to vote

was a bore of the first water; and so when I found that there was but

one Frederic Ingham on the list, and that one of us must give up, I

stayed at home and finished the letters (which, indeed, procured for

Fothergill his coveted appointment of Professor of Astronomy at

Leavenworth), and I gave Dennis, as we called him, the chance. Something

in the matter gave a good deal of popularity to the Frederic Ingham

name; and at the adjourned election, next week, Frederic Ingham was

chosen to the legislature. Whether this was I or Dennis I never really

knew. My friends seemed to think it was I; but I felt that as Dennis had

done the popular thing, he was entitled to the honor; so I sent him to

Augusta when the time came, and he took the oaths. And a very valuable

member he made. They appointed him on the Committee on Parishes; but I

wrote a letter for him, resigning, on the ground that he took an

interest in our claim to the stumpage in the minister's sixteenths of

Gore A, next No. 7, in the 10th Range. He never made any speeches, and

always voted with the minority, which was what he was sent to do. He

made me and himself a great many good friends, some of whom I did not

afterwards recognize as quickly as Dennis did my parishioners. On one or

two occasions, when there was wood to saw at home, I kept him at home;

but I took those occasions to go to Augusta myself. Finding myself often

in his vacant seat at these times, I watched the proceedings with a good

deal of care; and once was so much excited that I delivered my somewhat

celebrated speech on the Central School-District question, a speech of

which the "State of Maine" printed some extra copies. I believe there is

no formal rule permitting strangers to speak; but no one objected.

Dennis himself, as I said, never spoke at all. But our experience this

session led me to think that if, by some such "general understanding" as

the reports speak of in legislation daily, every member of Congress

might leave a double to sit through those deadly sessions and answer to

roll-calls and do the legitimate party-voting, which appears stereotyped

in the regular list of Ashe, Bocock, Black, etc., we should gain

decidedly in working-power. As things stand, the saddest State prison I

ever visit is that Representatives' Chamber in Washington. If a man

leaves for an hour, twenty "correspondents" may be howling, "Where was

Mr. Pendergrast when the Oregon bill passed?" And if poor Pendergrast

stays there! Certainly the worst use you can make of a man is to put him

in prison!

I know, indeed, that public men of the highest rank have resorted to

this expedient long ago. Dumas's novel of the "Iron Mask" turns on the

brutal imprisonment of Louis the Fourteenth's double. There seems little

doubt, in our own history, that it was the real General Pierce who shed

tears when the delegate from Lawrence explained to him the sufferings of

the people there, and only General Pierce's double who had given the

orders for the assault on that town, which was invaded the next day. My

charming friend, George Withers, has, I am almost sure, a double, who

preaches his afternoon sermons for him. This is the reason that the

theology often varies so from that of the forenoon. But that double is

almost as charming as the original. Some of the most well defined men,

who stand out most prominently on the background of history, are in this

way stereoscopic men, who owe their distinct relief to the slight

differences between the doubles. All this I know. My present suggestion

is simply the great extension of the system, so that all public

machine-work may be done by it.

But I see I loiter on my story, which is rushing to the plunge. Let me

stop an instant more, however, to recall, were it only to myself, that

charming year while all was yet well. After the double had become a

matter of course, for nearly twelve months before he undid me, what a

year it was! Full of active life, full of happy love, of the hardest

work, of the sweetest sleep, and the fulfilment of so many of the fresh

aspirations and dreams of boyhood! Dennis went to every school-committee

meeting, and sat through all those late wranglings which used to keep me

up till midnight and awake till morning. He attended all the lectures to

which foreign exiles sent me tickets begging me to come for the love of

Heaven and of Bohemia. He accepted and used all the tickets for charity

concerts which were sent to me. He appeared everywhere where it was

specially desirable that "our denomination," or "our party," or "our

class," or "our family," or "our street," or "our town," or "our

country," or "our State," should be fully represented. And I fell back

to that charming life which in boyhood one dreams of, when he supposes

he shall do his own duty and make his own sacrifices, without being tied

up with those of other people. My rusty Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek,

Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and English began to take

polish. Heavens! how little I had done with them while I attended to my

_public_ duties! My calls on my parishioners became the friendly,

frequent, homelike sociabilities they were meant to be, instead of the

hard work of a man goaded to desperation by the sight of his lists of

arrears. And preaching! what a luxury preaching was when I had on Sunday

the whole result of an individual, personal week, from which to speak to

a people whom all that week I had been meeting as hand-to-hand

friend;--I, never tired on Sunday, and in condition to leave the sermon

at home, if I chose, and preach it extempore, as all men should do

always. Indeed, I wonder, when I think that a sensible people, like

ours,--really more attached to their clergy than they were in the lost

days, when the Mathers and Nortons were noblemen,--should choose to

neutralize so much of their ministers' lives, and destroy so much of

their early training, by this undefined passion for seeing them in

public. It springs from our balancing of sects. If a spirited

Episcopalian takes an interest in the almshouse, and is put on the Poor

Board, every other denomination must have a minister there, lest the

poorhouse be changed into St. Paul's Cathedral. If a Sandemanian is

chosen president of the Young Men's Library, there must be a Methodist

vice-president and a Baptist secretary. And if a Universalist

Sunday-School Convention collects five hundred delegates, the next

Congregationalist Sabbath-School Conference must be as large, "lest

'they'--whoever _they_ may be--should think 'we'--whoever _we_ may

be--are going down."

Freed from these necessities, that happy year I began to know my wife by

sight. We saw each other sometimes. In those long mornings, when Dennis

was in the study explaining to map-peddlers that, I had eleven maps of

Jerusalem already, and to school-book agents that I would see them

hanged before I would be bribed to introduce their text-books into the

schools,--she and I were at work together, as in those old dreamy

days,--and in these of our log-cabin again. But all this could not

last,--and at length poor Dennis, my double, overtasked in turn, undid

me.

It was thus it happened. There is an excellent fellow, once a

minister,--I will call him Isaacs,--who deserves well of the world till

he dies, and after, because he once, in a real exigency, did the right

thing, in the right way, at the right time, as no other man could do it.

In the world's great football match, the ball by chance found him

loitering on the outside of the field; he closed with it, "camped" it,

charged it home,--yes, right through the other side,--not disturbed, not

frightened by his own success,--and breathless found himself a great

man, as the Great Delta rang applause. But he did not find himself a

rich man; and the football has never come in his way again. From that

moment to this moment he has been of no use, that one can see at all.

Still, for that great act we speak of Isaacs gratefully and remember him

kindly; and he forges on, hoping to meet the football somewhere again.

In that vague hope, he had arranged a "movement" for a general

organization of the human family into Debating-Clubs, County Societies,

State Unions, etc., etc., with a view of inducing all children to take

hold of the handles of their knives and forks, instead of the metal.

Children have bad habits in that way. The movement, of course, was

absurd; but we all did our best to forward, not it, but him. It came

time for the annual county-meeting on this subject to be held at

Naguadavick. Isaacs came round, good fellow! to arrange for it,--got the

town-hall, got the Governor to preside (the saint!--he ought to have

triplet doubles provided him by law), and then came to get me to speak.

"No," I said, "I would not speak, if ten Governors presided. I do not

believe in the enterprise. If I spoke, it should be to say children

should take hold of the prongs of the forks and the blades of the

knives. I would subscribe ten dollars, but I would not speak a mill." So

poor Isaacs went his way sadly, to coax Auchmuty to speak, and

Delafield. I went out. Not long after he came back, and told Polly that

they had promised to speak, the Governor would speak, and he himself

would close with the quarterly report, and some interesting anecdotes

regarding Miss Biffin's way of handling her knife and Mr. Nellis's way

of footing his fork. "Now if Mr. Ingham will only come and sit on the

platform, he need not say one word; but it will show well in the

paper,--it will show that the Sandemanians take as much interest in the

movement as the Armenians or the Mesopotamians, and will be a great

favor to me." Polly, good soul! was tempted, and she promised. She knew

Mrs. Isaacs was starving, and the babies,--she knew Dennis was at

home,--and she promised! Night came, and I returned. I heard her story.

I was sorry. I doubted. But Polly had promised to beg me, and I dared

all! I told Dennis to hold his peace, under all circumstances, and sent

him down.

It was not half an hour more before he returned, wild with

excitement,--in a perfect Irish fury,--which it was long before I

understood. But I knew at once that he had undone me!

What happened was this. The audience got together, attracted by Governor

Gorges's name. There were a thousand people. Poor Gorges was late from

Augusta. They became impatient. He came in direct from the train at

last, really ignorant of the object of the meeting. He opened it in the

fewest possible words, and said other gentlemen were present who would

entertain them better than he. The audience were disappointed, but

waited. The Governor, prompted by Isaacs, said, "The Honorable Mr.

Delafield will address you." Delafield had forgotten the knives and

forks, and was playing the Ruy Lopez opening at the chess-club. "The

Rev. Mr. Auchmuty will address you." Auchmuty had promised to speak

late, and was at the school-committee. "I see Dr. Stearns in the hall;

perhaps he will say a word." Dr. Stearns said he had come to listen and

not to speak The Governor and Isaacs whispered. The Governor looked at

Dennis, who was resplendent on the platform; but Isaacs, to give him his

due, shook his head. But the look was enough. A miserable lad, ill-bred,

who had once been in Boston, thought it would sound well to call for me,

and peeped out, "Ingham!" A few more wretches cried, "Ingham! Ingham!"

Still Isaacs was firm; but the Governor, anxious, indeed, to prevent a

row, knew I would say something, and said, "Our friend Mr. Ingham is

always prepared; and, though we had not relied upon him, he will say a

word perhaps." Applause followed, which turned Dennis's head. He rose,

fluttered, and tried No. 3: "There has been so much said, and, on the

whole, so well said, that I will not longer occupy the time!" and sat

down, looking for his hat; for things seemed squally. But the people

cried, "Go on! go on!" and some applauded. Dennis, still confused, but

flattered by the applause, to which neither he nor I are used, rose

again, and this time tried No. 2: "I am very glad you liked it!" in a

sonorous, clear delivery. My best friends stared. All the people who did

not know me personally yelled with delight at the aspect of the evening;

the Governor was beside himself, and poor Isaacs thought he was undone!

Alas, it was I! A boy in the gallery cried in a loud tone, "It's all an

infernal humbug," just as Dennis, waving his hand, commanded silence,

and tried No. 4: "I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of

the room." The poor Governor doubted his senses and crossed to stop

him,--not in time, however. The same gallery-boy shouted, "How's your

mother?" and Dennis, now completely lost, tried, as his last shot, No.

1, vainly: "Very well, thank you; and you?"

I think I must have been undone already. But Dennis, like another

Lockhard, chose "to make sicker."

The audience rose in a whirl of amazement, rage, and sorrow. Some other

impertinence, aimed at Dennis, broke all restraint, and, in pure Irish,

he delivered himself of an address to the gallery, inviting any person

who wished to fight to come down and do so,--stating, that they were all

dogs and cowards and the sons of dogs and cowards,--that he would take

any five of them single-handed. "Shure, I have said all his Riverence

and the Misthress bade me say," cried he, in defiance; and, seizing the

Governor's cane from his hand, brandished it, quarter-staff fashion,

above his head. He was, indeed, got from the hall only with the greatest

difficulty by the Governor, the City Marshal, who had been called in,

and the Superintendent of my Sunday-School.

The universal impression, of course, was, that the Rev. Frederic Ingham

had lost all command of himself in some of those haunts of intoxication

which for fifteen years I have been laboring to destroy. Till this

moment, indeed, that is the impression in Naguadavick. This number of

the Atlantic will relieve from it a hundred friends of mine who have

been sadly wounded by that notion now for years; but I shall not be

likely ever to show my head there again.

No! My double has undone me.

We left town at seven the next morning. I came to No. 9, in the Third

Range, and settled on the Minister's Lot. In the new towns in Maine, the

first settled minister has a gift of a hundred acres of land.

I am the first settled minister in No. 9. My wife and little Paulina

are my parish. We raise corn enough to live on in summer. We kill bear's

meat enough to carbonize it in winter. I work on steadily on my "Traces

of Sandemanianism in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries," which I hope to

persuade Phillips, Sampson, & Co. to publish next year. We are very

happy, but the world thinks we are undone.

THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC

[This story originated in the advertisement of the humbug which it

describes. Some fifteen or twenty years since, when gift enterprises

rose to one of their climaxes, a gift of a large sum of money, I think

$10,000, was offered in New York to the most successful ticket-holder in

some scheme, and one of $5,000 to the second. It was arranged that one

of these parties should be a man and the other a woman; and the amiable

suggestion was added, on the part of the undertaker of the enterprise,

that if the gentleman and lady who drew these prizes liked each other

sufficiently well when the distribution was made, they might regard the

decision as a match made for them in Heaven, and take the money as the

dowry of the bride. This thoroughly practical, and, at the same time,

thoroughly absurd suggestion, arrested the attention of a distinguished

story-teller, a dear friend of mine, who proposed to me that we should

each of us write the history of one of the two successful parties, to be

woven together by their union at the end. The plan, however, lay latent

for years,--the gift enterprise of course blew up,--and it was not until

the summer of 1862 that I wrote my half of the proposed story, with the

hope of eliciting the other half. My friend's more important

engagements, however, have thus far kept Fausta's detailed biography

from the light. I sent my half to Mr. Frank Leslie, in competition for a

premium offered by him, as is stated in the second chapter of the story.

And the story found such favor in the eyes of the judges, that it

received one of his second premiums. The first was very properly awarded

to Miss Louisa Alcott, for a story of great spirit and power. "The

Children of the Public" was printed in Frank Leslie's Illustrated

Newspaper for January 24 and January 31, 1863. The moral which it tries

to illustrate, which is, I believe, an important one, was thus commended

to the attention of the very large circle of the readers of that

journal,--a journal to which I am eager to say I think this nation has

been very largely indebted for the loyalty, the good sense, and the high

tone which seem always to characterize it. During the war, the pictorial

journals had immense influence in the army, and they used this influence

with an undeviating regard to the true honor of the country.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER I.

THE PORK-BARREL.

"Felix," said my wife to me, as I came home to-night, "you will have to

go to the pork-barrel."

"Are you quite sure," said I,--"quite sure? 'Woe to him,' says the

oracle, 'who goes to the pork-barrel before the moment of his need.'"

"And woe to him, say I," replied my brave wife,--"woe and disaster to

him; but the moment of our need has come. The figures are here, and you

shall see. I have it all in black and in white."

And so it proved, indeed, that when Miss Sampson, the nurse, was paid

for her month's service, and when the boys had their winter boots, and

when my life-insurance assessment was provided for, and the new payment

for the insurance on the house,--when the taxes were settled with the

collector (and my wife had to lay aside double for the war),--when the

pew-rent was paid for the year, and the water-rate--we must have to

start with, on the 1st of January, one hundred dollars. This, as we

live, would pay, in cash, the butcher, and the grocer, and the baker,

and all the dealers in things that perish, and would buy the omnibus

tickets, and recompense Bridget till the 1st of April. And at my house,

if we can see forward three months we are satisfied. But, at my house,

we are never satisfied if there is a credit at any store for us. We are

sworn to pay as we go. We owe no man anything.

So it was that my wife said: "Felix, you will have to go to the

pork-barrel."

This is the story of the pork-barrel.

It happened once, in a little parish in the Green Mountains, that the

deacon reported to Parson Plunkett, that, as he rode to meeting by

Chung-a-baug Pond, he saw Michael Stowers fishing for pickerel through a

hole in the ice on the Sabbath day. The parson made note of the

complaint, and that afternoon drove over to the pond in his "one-horse

shay." He made his visit, not unacceptable, on the poor Stowers

household, and then crossed lots to the place where he saw poor Michael

hoeing. He told Michael that he was charged with Sabbath breaking, and

bade him plead to the charge. And poor Mike, like a man, plead guilty;

but, in extenuation, he said that there was nothing to eat in the

house, and rather than see wife and children faint, he had cut a hole in

the ice, had put in his hook again and again, and yet again, and coming

home had delighted the waiting family with an unexpected breakfast. The

good parson made no rebuke, nodded pensive, and drove straightway to the

deacon's door.

"Deacon," said he, "what meat did you eat for breakfast yesterday?"

The deacon's family had eaten salt pork, fried.

"And where did you get the pork, Deacon?"

The Deacon stared, but said he had taken it from his pork-barrel.

"Yes, Deacon," said the old man; "I supposed so. I have been to see

Brother Stowers, to talk to him about his Sabbath-breaking; and, Deacon,

I find the pond is his pork-barrel."

The story is a favorite with me and with Fausta. But "woe," says the

oracle, "to him who goes to the pork-barrel before the moment of his

need." And to that "woe" both Fausta and I say "amen." For we know that

there is no fish in our pond for spend-thrifts or for lazy-bones; none

for people who wear gold chains or Attleborough jewelry; none for people

who are ashamed of cheap carpets or wooden mantelpieces. Not for those

who run in debt will the fish bite; nor for those who pretend to be

richer or better or wiser than they are. No! But we have found, in our

lives, that in a great democracy there reigns a great and gracious

sovereign. We have found that this sovereign, in a reckless and

unconscious way, is, all the time, making the most profuse provision for

all the citizens. We have found that those who are not too grand to

trust him fare as well as they deserve. We have found, on the other

hand, that those who lick his feet or flatter his follies fare worst of

living men. We find that those who work honestly, and only seek a man's

fair average of life, or a woman's, get that average, though sometimes

by the most singular experiences in the long run. And thus we find that,

when an extraordinary contingency arises in life, as just now in ours,

we have only to go to our pork-barrel, and the fish rises to our hook or

spear.

The sovereign brings this about in all sorts of ways, but he does not

fail, if, without flattering him, you trust him. Of this sovereign the

name is--"the Public." Fausta and I are apt to call ourselves his

children, and so I name this story of our lives,

"THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC."