CHAPTER LV.

RHYMES AND CHIMES.--SUITABLE FOR AUTOGRAPH ALBUMS

* * * * *

I.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

(BORN 1706--DIED 1790.)

HIS FAME STILL CLIMBING TO HEAVEN--WHAT HE HAD DONE AT FIFTY-TWO--POOR

RICHARD'S ADDRESS.

The late Judge Black was remarkable not only for his wit and humor,

which often enlivened the dry logic of law and fact, but also for

flashes of unique eloquence. In presenting a certain brief before the

United States Supreme Court he had occasion to animadvert upon some of

our great men. Among other things he said, as related to the writer by

one who heard him: "The colossal name of Washington is growing year by

year, _and the fame of Franklin is still climbing to heaven_,"

accompanying the latter words by such a movement of his right hand that

not one of his hearers failed to see the immortal kite quietly bearing

the philosopher's question to the clouds. It was a point which delivered

the answer. In the life of every great man there is likewise a point

which delivers the special message which he was born to publish to the

world. Biography is greatly simplified when it confines itself chiefly

to that one point. What does the reader, who has his own work to do,

care for a great multitude of details which are not needed for the

setting of the picture? _To the point_ is the cry of our busy life.

Benjamin Franklin is here introduced to the reader

AT FIFTY-TWO.

What had he done at that age to command more than ordinary respect and

admiration?

I. Born in poverty and obscurity, in which he passed his early years;

with no advantages of education in the schools of his day, after he

entered his teens; under the condition of daily toil for his bread; he

had carried on, in spite of all obstacles, the process of self-education

through books and observation, and become in literature and science, as

well as in the practical affairs of every-day life, the best informed

man in America.

II. Apprenticed to a printer in his native Boston, at thirteen; a

journeyman in Philadelphia at seventeen; working at the case in London

at nineteen; back to the Quaker City, and set up for himself at

twenty-six; he had long since mastered all the details of a great

business, prepared to put his hand to any thing, from the trundling of

paper through the streets on a wheel-barrow to the writing of editorials

and pamphlets, and had earned for himself a position as the most

prosperous printer and publisher in the colonies.

III. Retired from active business at forty-six, considering that he had

already earned and saved enough to supply his reasonable wants for the

rest of his life; fired with ambition to do something for the

advancement of science; he had now for six years given himself to

philosophical investigation and experiment, among other things

demonstrated the identity of electricity as produced by artificial means

and atmospheric lightning, and made himself a name throughout the

civilized world.

IV. Besides, it must not be forgotten that he had all along been

foremost in many a work for the public good. The Franklin Library, of

Philadelphia, owes to him its origin. The University of Pennsylvania

grew out of an educational project in which he was a prime mover. And

his ideas as to the relative importance of ancient and modern _classics_

were more than a hundred years in advance of his times.

Such is a glimpse of Franklin at fifty-two, as preliminary to a single

episode which will occupy the rest of this chapter. But the episode

itself requires a special word.

V. For a quarter of a century Franklin had published an almanac under

the _pseudonym_ of Richard Saunders, into the pages of which he crowded

year by year choice scraps of wit and wisdom, which made the little

hand-book a welcome visitor in almost every home of the New World. Now

in the midst of those philosophical studies which so much delighted him,

when about to cross the Atlantic as a commissioner to the Home

Government, he found time to gather up the maxims and quaint sayings of

twenty-five years and set them in a wonderful mosaic, as the preface of

Poor Richard's world-famous almanac--as unique a piece of writing as any

language affords. Here it is:

POOR RICHARD'S ADDRESS.

Courteous Reader: I have heard that nothing gives an author so great

pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge,

then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to

relate to you. I stopped my horse lately where a great company of people

were collected at an auction of merchants' goods. The hour of the sale

not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and

one of the company called to a plain, clean old man, with white locks,

"Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will not those heavy

taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay them?

What would you advise us to do?" Father Abraham stood up and replied,

"If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; 'for a word

to the wise is enough,' as Poor Richard says." They joined in desiring

him to speak his mind, and gathering around him, he proceeded as

follows:--

"Friends," says he, "the taxes are indeed very heavy; and if those laid

on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more

easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous

to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times

as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from

these taxes the commissioners can not ease or deliver us by allowing an

abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be

done for us; 'God helps them that help themselves,' as Poor Richard

says.

"I. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people

one-tenth of their time to be employed in its service, but idleness

taxes many of us much more: sloth, by bringing on disease, absolutely

shortens life. 'Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears,

while the used key is always bright,' as Poor Richard says. 'But dost

thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is

made of,' as Poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we

spend in sleep! forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and

that there will be sleeping enough in the grave,' as Poor Richard says.

'If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be,' as

Poor Richard says, 'the greatest prodigality;' since as he elsewhere

tell us, 'Lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough

always proves little enough.' Let us then up and be doing, and doing to

the purpose, so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity.

'Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy, and he that

riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at

night; while laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes

him. Drive thy business, let not that drive thee; and early to bed, and

early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,' as Poor Richard

says.

"So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? We may make

these times better if we bestir ourselves. 'Industry need not wish, and

he that lives upon hope will die fasting. There are no gains without

pains; then help hands, for I have no lands,' or if I have they are

smartly taxed. 'He that hath a trade, hath an estate; and he that hath a

calling, hath an office of profit and honor,' as Poor Richard says; but

then the trade must be worked at, and the calling well followed, or

neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we

are industrious we shall never starve; for 'at the workingman's house

hunger looks in, but dares not enter.' Nor will the bailiff or the

constable enter, for 'industry pays debts, while despair increaseth

them.' What though you have found no treasure, nor has any rich relation

left a legacy; 'Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all

things to industry. Then plow deep, while sluggards sleep, and you shall

have corn to sell and to keep.' Work while it is called to-day, for you

know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. 'One to-day is worth

two to-morrows,' as Poor Richard says; and farther, 'Never leave that

till to-morrow which you can do to-day.' If you were a servant, would

you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you

then your own master? Be ashamed to catch yourself idle, when there is

so much to be done for yourself, your family, your country, and your

king. Handle your tools without mittens; remember, that 'the cat in

gloves catches no mice,' as Poor Richard says. It is true there is much

to be done, and, perhaps, you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily,

and you will see great effects; for, 'Constant dropping wears away

stones; and by diligence, and patience the mouse ate in two the cable;

and little strokes fell great oaks.'

"Methinks I hear some of you say, 'Must a man afford himself no

leisure?' I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor Richard says: 'Employ

thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure; and, since thou art not

sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.' Leisure is time for doing

something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the

lazy man never; for 'A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two

things. Many, without labor, would live by their wits only, but they

break for want of stock;' whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty,

and respect. 'Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent

spinner has a large shift; and now I have a sheep and a cow, every body

bids me good morrow.'

"II. But with our industry we must likewise be steady, settled, and

careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust

too much to others, for, as Poor Richard says,

"'I never saw an oft removed tree,

Nor yet an oft removed family,

That throve so well as those that settled be.'

"And again, 'three removes is as bad as a fire;' and again, 'Keep thy

shop, and thy shop will keep thee;' and again, 'If you would have your

business done, go; if not, send;' and again,

"'He that by the plow would thrive,

Himself must either hold or drive.'

And again, 'the eye of the master will do more work than both his

hands;' and again, 'Want of care does us more damage than want of

knowledge;' and again, 'Not to oversee workmen is to leave them your

purse open.' Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many; for,

'In the affairs of this world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the

want of it; but a man's own care is profitable, for, 'If you would have

a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself. A little

neglect may breed great mischief; for want of a nail the shoe was lost;

for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider

was lost,' being overtaken and slain by the enemy; all for want of a

little care about a horseshoe nail.

"III. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own

business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our

industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to

save as he gets, 'keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die

not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a lean will;' and

"'Many estates are spent in the getting,

Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting,

And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting.'

'If you would be wealthy, think of saving, as well as of getting. The

Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than

her incomes.'

"Away then with your expensive follies, and you will not then have so

much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable

families; for

"'Women and wine, game and deceit,

Make the wealth small, and the want great.'

And farther, 'What maintains one vice would bring up two children.' You

may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little punch now and then,

diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little

entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember, 'Many

a little makes a mickle.' Beware of little expenses. 'A small leak will

sink a great ship,' as Poor Richard says; and again, 'Who dainties love,

shall beggars prove;' and moreover, 'Fools make feasts, and wise men eat

them.' Here you are all got together to this sale of fineries and

knick-knacks. You call them goods, but, if you do not take care, they

will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and

perhaps they may, for less than they cost; but if you have no occasion

for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says,

'Buy what thou hast no need of, and erelong thou shalt sell thy

necessaries.' And again, 'At a great pennyworth pause awhile;' he means,

that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only, and not real; or the

bargain, by straitening thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than

good. For in another place he says, 'Many have been ruined by buying

good pennyworths.' Again, 'It is foolish to lay out money in a purchase

of repentance;' and yet this folly is practiced every day at auctions,

for want of minding the almanac. Many a one, for the sake of finery on

the back, have gone with a hungry belly, and half starved their

families; 'Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen

fire,' as Poor Richard says. These are not the necessaries of life; they

can scarcely be called the conveniences; and yet, only because they look

pretty, how many want to have them? By these and other extravagances,

the greatest are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom

they formerly despised, but who, through industry and frugality, have

maintained their standing; in which case it appears plainly, that 'A

plowman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees,' as Poor

Richard says. Perhaps they have had a small estate left them, which they

knew not the getting of; they think 'It is day, and will never be

night;' that a little to be spent out of so much is not worth minding;

but 'Always taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes

to the bottom,' as Poor Richard says; and then, 'When the well is dry,

they know the worth of water.' But this they might have known before, if

they had taken his advice. 'If you would know the value of money, go and

try to borrow some; for he that goes a borrowing, goes a sorrowing,' as

Poor Richard says; and, indeed, so does he that lends to such people,

when he goes to get it in again. Poor Dick farther advises, and says,

"'Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse;

Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.'

And again, 'Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more

saucy.' When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that

your appearance may be all of a piece; but Poor Dick says, 'It is easier

to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.' And

it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to

swell in order to equal the ox.

"'Vessels large may venture more,

But little boats should keep near shore.'

It is, however, a folly soon punished; for, as Poor Richard says, 'Pride

that dines on vanity, sups on contempt; Pride breakfasted with Plenty,

dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy.' And after all, of what use

is this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is

suffered? It can not promote health, nor ease pain; it makes no increase

of merit in the person; it creates envy, it hastens misfortune.

"But what madness it must be to run in debt for these superfluities! We

are offered by the terms of this sale six months' credit; and that,

perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, because we can not spare

the ready money, and hope, now to be fine without it. But, ah! think

what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your

liberty. If you can not pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your

creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor,

pitiful, sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity,

and sink into base downright lying; for 'The second vice is lying, the

first is running in debt,' as Poor Richard says; and again, to the same

purpose, 'Lying rides upon debt's back;' whereas a freeborn Englishman

ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living.

But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. 'It is hard

for an empty bag to stand upright.' What would you think of that prince,

or of that government, who should issue an edict forbidding you to dress

like a gentleman or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude?

Would you not say that you were free, have a right to dress as you

please, and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and

such a government tyrannical? and yet you are about to put yourself

under that tyranny when you run in debt for such dress! Your creditor

has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty, by

confining you in jail for life, or by selling you for a servant, if you

should not be able to pay him. When you have got your bargain, you may,

perhaps, think little of payment; but, as Poor Richard says, 'Creditors

have better memories than debtors; creditors are a superstitious sect,

great observers of days and times.' The day comes round before you are

aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it; or,

if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which at first seemed so long,

will, as it lessens, appear extremely short: Time will seem to have

added wings to his heels as well as his shoulders. 'Those have a short

Lent, who owe money to be paid at Easter.' At present, perhaps, you may

think yourselves in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a

little extravagance without injury; but

"'For age and want save while you may,

No morning sun lasts a whole day.'

"Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever, while you live, expense

is constant and certain; and 'It is easier to build two chimneys than to

keep one in fuel,' as Poor Richard says: so, 'Rather go to bed

supperless than rise in debt.'

"'Get what you can, and what you get hold,

'Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold.'

And, when you have got the philosopher's stone, sure you will no longer

complain of bad times, or the difficulty of paying taxes.

"IV. This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom; but, after all, do

riot depend too much upon your own industry and frugality and prudence,

though excellent things; for they may all be blasted without the

blessing of Heaven; and, therefore, ask that blessing humbly, and be not

uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and

help them. Remember Job suffered, and was afterwards prosperous.

"And now to conclude, 'Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will

learn in no other,' as Poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for it is

true, 'We may give advice, but we can not give conduct.' However,

remember this, 'They that will not be counseled, can not be helped;' and

farther, that, 'If you will not hear reason, she will surely rap your

knuckles,' as Poor Richard says."

Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it, and

approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary, just as

if it had been a common sermon; for the auction opened, and they began

to buy extravagantly. I found the good man had thoroughly studied my

Almanac, and digested all I had dropped on these topics during the

course of twenty-five years. The frequent mention he made of me must

have tired any one else; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with

it, though I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my

own which he ascribed to me; but rather the gleanings that I had made of

the sense of all ages and nations. However, I resolved to be the better

for the echo of it; and, though I had at first determined to buy stuff

for a new coat, I went away, resolved to wear my old one a little

longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be as great as

mine. I am, as ever, thine to serve thee,

RICHARD SAUNDERS.

This quaint address made a brilliant hit. It was at once printed on

large sheets, framed, and hung up in cottages in England, as well as in

this country. It was also translated into French, Spanish, and modern

Greek. At the present day, however, it is not often met with, except in

the author's collected works, or in fragments; and the young reader,

especially, will be thankful to find it here in full.

* * * * *

II.

DEFENSE OF A GREAT MAN.

WAS DR. FRANKLIN MEAN?--JAMES PARTON'S ANSWER.

A man of no enviable notoriety is reported to have spoken of Dr.

Franklin as "hard, calculating, angular, unable to comprehend any higher

object than the accumulation of money." Not a few people who profess

much admiration for Franklin in other respects seem to think that in

money matters there was something about him akin to meanness. To correct

this false impression and show "how Franklin got his money, how much he

got, and what he did with it," one of his recent biographers is called

up in his defense, and to the question, "Was Dr. Franklin mean?" here is

JAMES PARTON'S ANSWER.

I will begin with the first pecuniary transaction in which he is known

to have been concerned, and this shall be given in his own words:

"When I was a child of seven years old my friends, on a holiday, filled

my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys

for children, and, being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met

by the way in the hands of another boy, _I voluntarily offered and gave

all my money for one_."

That was certainly not the act of a stingy, calculating boy.

His next purchase, of which we have any knowledge was made when he was

about eleven years old; and this time, I confess, he made a much better

bargain. The first book he could ever call his own was a copy of

Pilgrim's Progress, which he read and re-read until he got from it all

so young a person could understand. But being exceedingly fond of

reading, he exchanged his Pilgrim's Progress for a set of little books,

then much sold by peddlers, called "Burton's Historical Collections," in

forty paper-covered volumes, containing history, travels, tales,

wonders, and curiosities, just the thing for a boy. As we do not know

the market value of his Pilgrim's Progress, we can not tell whether the

poor peddler did well by him or the contrary. But it strikes me that

that is not the kind of barter in which a mean, grasping boy usually

engages.

His father being a poor soap-and-candle maker, with a dozen children or

more to support or assist, and Benjamin being a printer's apprentice, he

was more and more puzzled to gratify his love of knowledge. But one day

he hit upon an expedient that brought in a little cash. By reading a

vegetarian book this hard, calculating Yankee lad had been led to think

that people could live better without meat than with it, and that

killing innocent animals for food was cruel and wicked. So he abstained

from meat altogether for about two years. As this led to some

inconvenience at his boarding-house, he made this cunning proposition to

his master:

"Give me one-half the money you pay for my board and I will board

myself."

The master consenting, the apprentice lived entirely on such things as

hominy, bread, rice, and potatoes, and found that he could actually live

upon half of the half. What did the calculating wretch do with the

money? Put it into his money-box? No; he laid it out in the improvement

of his mind.

When at the age of seventeen, he landed in Philadelphia, a runaway

apprentice, he had one silver dollar and one shilling in copper coin. It

was a fine Sunday morning, as probably the reader remembers, and he knew

not a soul in the place. He asked the boatmen upon whose boat he had

come down the Delaware how much he had to pay. They answered, Nothing,

because he had helped them row. Franklin, however, insisted upon their

taking his shilling's worth of coppers, and forced the money upon them.

An hour after, having bought three rolls for his breakfast, he ate one

and gave the other two to a poor woman and her child who had been his

fellow-passengers. These were small things, you may say; but remember he

was a poor, ragged, dirty runaway in a strange town, four hundred miles

from a friend, with three pence gone out of the only dollar he had in

the world.

Next year when he went home to see his parents, with his pocket full of

money, a new suit of clothes and a watch, one of his oldest Boston

friends was so much pleased with Franklin's account of Philadelphia that

he determined to go back with him. On the journey Franklin discovered

that his friend had become a slave to drink. He was sorely plagued and

disgraced by him, and at last the young drunkard had spent all his money

and had no way of getting on except by Franklin's aid. This hard,

calculating, mercenary youth, did he seize the chance of shaking off a

most troublesome and injurious traveling companion? Strange to relate,

he stuck to his old friend, shared his purse with him till it was empty,

and then began on some money which he had been intrusted with for

another, and so got him to Philadelphia, where he still assisted him. It

was seven years before Franklin was able to pay all the debt incurred by

him to aid this old friend, for abandoning whom few would have blamed

him.

A year after he was in still worse difficulty from a similar cause. He

went to London to buy types and a press with which to establish himself

in business at Philadelphia, the governor of Pennsylvania having

promised to furnish the money. One of the passengers on the ship was a

young friend of Franklin's named James Ralph, with whom he had often

studied, and of whom he was exceedingly fond. Ralph gave out that he,

too, was going to London to make arrangements for going into business

for himself at Philadelphia. The young friends arrived. Franklin

nineteen and Ralph a married man with two children. On reaching London

Franklin learned, to his amazement and dismay, that the governor had

deceived him, that no money was to be expected from him, and that he

must go to work and earn his living at his trade. No sooner had he

learned this than James Ralph gave him another piece of stunning

intelligence; namely, that he had run away from his family and meant to

settle in London as a poet and author.

Franklin had ten pounds in his pocket, and knew a trade. Ralph had no

money, and knew no trade. They were both strangers in a strange city.

Now, in such circumstances, what would a mean, calculating young man

have done? Reader, you know very well, without my telling you. What

Franklin did was this: he shared his purse with his friend till his ten

pounds were all gone; and having at once got to work at his trade, he

kept on dividing his wages with Ralph until he had advanced him

thirty-six pounds--half a year's income--not a penny of which was ever

repaid. And this he did--the cold-blooded wretch!--because he could not

help loving his brilliant, unprincipled comrade, though disapproving his

conduct and sadly needing his money.

Having returned to Philadelphia, he set up in business as a printer and

editor, and, after a very severe effort, he got his business well

established, and at last had the most profitable establishment of the

kind in all America. During the most active part of his business life he

always found some time for the promotion of public objects. He founded a

most useful and public-spirited club; a public library, which still

exists, and assisted in every worthy scheme. He was most generous to his

poor relations, hospitable to his fellow-citizens, and particularly

interested in his journeymen, many of whom he set up in business.

The most decisive proof, however, which he ever gave that he did not

overvalue money, was the retirement from a most profitable business for

the purpose of having leisure to pursue his philosophical studies. He

had been in business twenty years, and he was still in the prime of

life--forty-six years of age. He was making money faster than any other

printer on this continent. But being exceedingly desirous of spending

the rest of his days in study and experiment, and having saved a

moderate competency, he sold his establishment to his foreman on very

easy terms, and withdrew. His estate, when he retired, was worth about a

hundred thousand dollars. If he had been a lover of money, I am

confident that he could and would have accumulated one of the largest

fortunes in America. He had nothing to do but continue in business, and

take care of his investments, to roll up a prodigious estate. But not

having the slightest taste for needless accumulation, he joyfully laid

aside the cares of business, and spent the whole remainder of his life

in the services of his country; for he gave up his heart's desire of

devoting his leisure to philosophy when his country needed him.

Being in London when Captain Cook returned from his first voyage to the

Pacific, he entered warmly into a beautiful scheme for sending a ship

for the purpose of stocking the islands there with pigs, vegetables, and

other useful animals and products. A hard, selfish man would have

laughed such a project to scorn.

In 1776, when he was appointed embassador of the revolted colonies to

the French king, the ocean swarmed with British cruisers, General

Washington had lost New York, and the prospects of the Revolution were

gloomy in the extreme. Dr. Franklin was an old man of seventy, and might

justly have asked to be excused from a service so perilous and

fatiguing. But he did not. He went. And just before he sailed he got

together all the money he could raise--about three thousand pounds--and

invested it in the loan recently announced by Congress. This he did at a

moment when few men had a hearty faith in the success of the Revolution.

This he did when he was going to a foreign country that might not

receive him, from which he might be expelled, and he have no country to

return to. There never was a more gallant and generous act done by an

old man.

In France he was as much the main stay of the cause of his country as

General Washington was at home.

Returning home after the war, he was elected president of Pennsylvania

for three successive years, at a salary of two thousand pounds a year.

But by this time he had become convinced that offices of honor, such as

the governorship of a State, ought not to have any salary attached to

them. He thought they should be filled by persons of independent income,

willing to serve their fellow-citizens from benevolence, or for the

honor of it. So thinking, he at first determined not to receive any

salary; but this being objected to, he devoted the whole of the salary

for three years--six thousand pounds--to the furtherance of public

objects. Part of it he gave to a college, and part was set aside for the

improvement of the Schuylkill River.

Never was an eminent man more thoughtful of people who were the

companions of his poverty. Dr. Franklin, from amidst the splendors of

the French court, and when he was the most famous and admired person in

Europe, forgot not his poor old sister, Jane, who was in fact dependent

on his bounty. He gave her a house in Boston, and sent her every

September the money to lay in her Winter's fuel and provisions. He wrote

her the kindest, wittiest, pleasantest letters. "Believe me, dear

brother," she writes, "your writing to me gives me so much pleasure that

the great, the very great, presents you have sent me give me but a

secondary joy."

How exceedingly absurd to call such a man "hard" and miserly, because he

recommended people not to waste their money! Let me tell you, reader,

that if a man means to be liberal and generous, he _must_ be economical.

No people are so mean as the extravagant, because, spending all they

have upon themselves, they have nothing left for others. Benjamin

Franklin was the most consistently generous man of whom I have any

knowledge.

* * * * *

III.

SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MOTHER.

THE MOTHER'S EDUCATION--THE SON'S TRAINING--DOMESTIC LOVE AND SOCIAL

DUTIES.

It was in the Spring of 1758 that the daughter of a distinguished

professor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh changed her maiden

name of Rutherford for her married name of Scott, having the happiness

to unite her lot with one who was not only a scrupulously honorable man,

but who, from his youth up, had led a singularly blameless life. Well

does Coventry Patmore sing:

"Who is the happy husband? He,

Who, scanning his unwedded life,

Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free,

'Twas faithful to his future wife."

Such a husband as this was the father of Sir Walter Scott, a writer to

the signet (or lawyer) in large practice in Edinburgh. He had never been

led from the right way; and when the less virtuously inclined among the

companions of his early life in Edinburgh found that they could not

corrupt him, they ceased after a little while to laugh at him, and

learned to honor him and to confide in him, "which is certainly," says

he who makes the record on the authority of Mrs. Scott herself, "a great

inducement to young men in the outset of life to act a similar part." It

does not appear that old Walter Scott sought for beauty of person in his

bride, though no doubt the face he loved was more beautiful to him than

that of the bonniest belle in Scotland; but beauty of mind and

disposition she certainly had. Of her father it is told that, when in

practice as "a physician, he never gave a prescription without silently

invoking on it the blessing of Heaven, and the piety which dictated the

custom had been inherited by his daughter.

THE MOTHER'S' EDUCATION.

Mrs. Scott's education, also, had been an excellent one--giving, besides

a good general grounding, an acquaintance with literature, and not

neglecting "the more homely duties of the needle and the account-book."

Her manners, moreover (an important and too often neglected factor in a

mother's influence over her children), were finished and elegant, though

intolerably stiff in some respects, when compared with the manners and

habits of to-day. The maidens of today can scarcely realize, for

instance, the asperity of the training of their embryo

great-grandmothers, who were always made to sit in so Spartanly upright

a posture that Mrs. Scott, in her seventy-ninth year, boasted that she

had never allowed her shoulders to touch the back of her chair!

THE SON'S TRAINING.

As young Walter was one of many children he could not, of course,

monopolize his mother's attention; but probably she recognized the

promise of his future greatness (unlike the mother of the duke of

Wellington, who thought Arthur the family dunce), and gave him a special

care; for, speaking of his early boyhood, he tells us: "I found much

consolation in the partiality of my mother." And he goes on to say that

she joined to a light and happy temper of mind a strong turn to study

poetry and works of imagination. Like the mothers of the Ettrick

Shepherd and of Burns, she repeated to her son the traditionary ballads

she knew by heart; and, so soon as he was sufficiently advanced, his

leisure hours were usually spent in reading Pope's translation of Homer

aloud to her, which, with the exception of a few ballads and some of

Allan Ramsay's songs, was the first poetry he made acquaintance with. It

must often have been with anxiety, and sometimes not without a struggle,

that his mother--solicitous about every trifle which affected the

training of her child--decided on the books which she was to place in

his hands. She wished him to develop his intellectual faculties, but not

at the expense of his spiritual; and romantic frivolity and mental

dissipation on the one hand, and a too severe repression--dangerous in

its after reaction--on the other, were the Scylla and Charybdis between

which she had to steer. The ascetic Puritanism of her training and

surroundings would naturally have led her to the narrower and more

restrictive view, in which her husband, austerer yet, would have

heartily concurred; but her broad sense, quickened by the marvelous

insight that comes from maternal love, led her to adopt the broader,

and, we may safely add, with Sir Walter's career and character before

us, the better course. Her courage was, however, tempered with a wise

discretion; and when he read to her she was wont, he says, to make him

"pause upon those passages which expressed generous and worthy

sentiments"--a most happy method of education, and a most effective one

in the case of an impressionable boy. A little later, when he passed

from the educational care of his mother to that of a tutor, his

relations to literature changed, as the following passage from his

autobiography will show: "My tutor thought it almost a sin to open a

profane play or poem; and my mother had no longer the opportunity to

hear me read poetry as formerly. I found, however, in her dressing-room,

where I slept at one time, some odd volumes of Shakespeare; nor can I

easily forget the rapture with which I sat up in my shirt reading them

by the light of a fire in her apartment, until the bustle of the family

rising from supper warned me that it was time to creep back to my bed,

where I was supposed to have been safely deposited since 9 o'clock."

This is a suggestive, as well as frank, story. Supposing for a moment

that instead of Shakespeare the room had contained some of the volumes

of verse and romance which, though denying alike the natural and the

supernatural virtues, are to be found in many a Christian home, how

easily might he have suffered a contamination of mind.

DOMESTIC LOVE AND SOCIAL DUTY.

It has been proudly said of Sir Walter as an author that he never forgot

the sanctities of domestic love and social duty in all that he wrote;

and considering how much he did write, and how vast has been the

influence of his work on mankind, we can scarcely overestimate the

importance of the fact. Yet it might have been all wrecked by one little

parental imprudence in this matter of books. And what excuse is there,

after all, for running the terrible risk? Authors who are not fit to be

read by the sons and daughters are rarely read without injury by the

fathers and mothers; and it would be better by far, Savonarola-like, to

make a bonfire of all the literature of folly, wickedness, and

infidelity, than run the risk of injuring a child simply for the sake of

having a few volumes more on one's shelves. In the balance of heaven

there is no parity between a complete library and a lost soul. But this

story has another lesson. It indicates once more the injury which may be

done to character by undue limitations. Under the ill-considered

restrictions of his tutor, which ran counter to the good sense of his

mother, whose wisdom was justified by the event, Walter Scott might

easily have fallen into tricks of concealment and forfeited his

candor--that candor which developed into the noble probity which marked

his conduct to the last. Without candor there can not be truth, and, as

he himself has said, there can be no other virtue without truth.

Fortunately for him, by the wise sanction his mother had given to his

perusal of imaginative writings, she had robbed them of a mystery

unhealthy in itself; and he came through these stolen readings

substantially unharmed, because he knew that his fault was only the

lighter one of sitting up when he was supposed to be lying down.

Luckily this tutor's stern rule did not last long; and when a severe

illness attacked the youth (then advanced to be a student at Edinburgh

College) and brought him under his mother's charge once more, the bed on

which he lay was piled with a constant succession of works of

imagination, and he was allowed to find consolation in poetry and

romance, those fountains which flow forever for the ardent and the

young. It was in relation to Mrs. Scott's control of her son's reading

that he wrote with gratitude, late in life, "My mother had good natural

taste and great feeling." And after her death, in a letter to a friend,

he paid her this tribute: "She had a mind peculiarly well stored. If I

have been able to do any thing in the way of painting the past times, it

is very much from the studies with which she presented me. She was a

strict economist, which, she said, enabled her to be liberal. Out of her

little income of about fifteen hundred dollars a year, she bestowed at

least a third in charities; yet I could never prevail on her to accept

of any assistance." Her charity, as well as her love for genealogy, and

her aptitude for story-telling, was transmitted to her son. It found

expression in him, not only in material gifts to the poor, but in a

conscientious care and consideration for the feelings of others. This

trait is beautifully exhibited by many of the facts recorded by Lockhart

in his famous memoir, and also by a little incident, not included there,

which I have heard Sir Henry Taylor tell, and which, besides

illustrating the subject, deserves for its own sake a place in print.

The great and now venerable author of "Philip Van Artevelde" dined at

Abbotsford only a year or two before the close of its owner's life. Sir

Walter had then lost his old vivacity, though not his simple dignity;

but for one moment during the course of the evening he rose into

animation, and it happened thus: There was a talk among the party of an

excursion which was to be made on the following day, and during the

discussion of the plans Miss Scott mentioned that two elderly maiden

ladies, living in the neighborhood, were to be of the number, and hinted

that their company would be a bore. The chivalrous kindliness of her

father's heart was instantly aroused. "I can not call that

good-breeding," he said, in an earnest and dignified tone--a rebuke

which echoed the old-fashioned teaching on the duties of true politeness

he had heard from his mother half a century before.

We would gladly know more than we do of Mrs. Scott's attitude toward her

son when first his _penchant_ for authorship was shown. That she smiled

on his early evidences of talent, and fostered them, we may well

imagine; and the tenderness with which she regarded his early

compositions is indicated by the fact that a copy of verses, written in

a boyish scrawl, was carefully preserved by her, and found, after her

death, folded in a paper on which was inscribed, "My Walter's first

lines, 1782." That she gloried in his successes when they came, we

gather; for when speaking late in life to Dr. Davy about his brother Sir

Humphrey's distinction, Sir Walter, doubtless drawing on his own home

memories, remarked, "I hope, Dr. Davy, that your mother lived to see it;

there must have been great pleasure in that to her." But with whatever

zeal Mrs. Scott may have unfolded Sir Walter's mind by her training, by

her praise, by her motherly enthusiasm, it is certain that, from first

to last, she loved his soul, and sought its interest, in and above all.

Her final present to him before she died was not a Shakespeare or a

Milton, but an old Bible--the book she loved best; and for her sake Sir

Walter loved it too.

Happy was Mrs. Scott in having a son who in all things reciprocated the

affection of his mother. With the first five-guinea fee he earned at the

bar he bought a present for her--a silver taper-stand, which stood on

her mantle-piece many a year; when he became enamored of Miss Carpenter

he filially wrote to consult his mother about the attachment, and to beg

her blessing upon it; when, in 1819, she died at an advanced age, he was

in attendance at her side, and, full of occupations though he was, we

find him busying himself to obtain for her body a beautifully situated

grave. Thirteen years later he also rested from his labors. During the

last hours of his lingering life he desired to be read to from the New

Testament; and when his memory for secular poetry had entirely failed

him, the words and the import of the sacred volume were still in his

recollection, as were also some of the hymns of his childhood, which his

grandson, aged six years, repeated to him. "Lockhart," he said to his

son-in-law, "I have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good

man; be virtuous, be religious, be a good man. Nothing else will give

you any comfort when you come to lie here."

So passed the great author of "Waverley" away. And when, in due course,

his executors came to search for his testament, and lifted up his desk,

"we found," says one of them, "arranged in careful order a series of

little objects, which had obviously been so placed there that his eye

might rest on them every morning before he began his tasks." There were

the old-fashioned boxes that had garnished his mother's toilet-table

when he, a sickly child, slept in her dressing-room; the silver

taper-stand which the young advocate bought for her with his first fee;

a row of small packets inscribed by her hand, and containing the hair of

such of her children as had died before her; and more odds and ends of a

like sort--pathetic tokens of a love which bound together for a little

while here on earth, and binds together for evermore in heaven,

Christian mother and son.

Sir Walter of the land

Of song and old romance,

Tradition in his cunning hand

Obedient as the lance

His valiant Black Knight bore,

Wove into literature

The legend, myth, and homely lore

Which now for us endure,

To charm our weary hours,

To rouse our stagnant hearts,

And leave the sense of new-born powers,

Which never more departs.

We thank him in the name

Of One who sits on high,

And aye abides in every fame

Which makes a brighter sky.

* * * * *

IV.

ABIGAIL ADAMS

(BORN 1744--DIED 1818.)

THE WIFE OF OUR SECOND PRESIDENT--THE MOTHER OF OUR SIXTH.

Abigail Smith, the daughter of a Congregational minister, of Weymouth,

Massachusetts, was one of the most noted women of our early history. She

left a record of her heart and character, and to some extent a picture

of the stirring times in which she lived, in the shape of letters which

are of perennial value, especially to the young. "It was fashionable to

ridicule female learning" in her day; and she says of herself in one of

her letters, "I was never sent to any school." She adds in explanation,

"I was always sick." When girls, however, were sent to school, their

education seldom went beyond writing and arithmetic. But in spite of

disadvantages, she read and studied in private, and by means of

correspondence with relatives and others, cultivated her mind, and

formed an easy and graceful style of writing.

On the 25th of October, 1764, Miss Smith became the wife of John Adams,

a lawyer of Braintree, the part of the town in which he lived being

afterwards called Quincy, in honor of Mrs. Adams's maternal grandfather.

Charles Francis Adams, her grandson, from whose memoir of her the

material for this brief sketch is drawn, says that the ten years

immediately following her marriage present little that is worth

recording.

But when the days of the Revolution came on, those times that tried

men's souls, women were by no means exempt from tribulation, and they,

too, began to make history. The strength of Mrs. Adams's affection for

her husband may be learned from an extract from one of her letters: "I

very well remember when Eastern circuits of the courts, which lasted a

month, were thought an age, and an absence of three months intolerable;

but we are carried from step to step, and from one degree to another, to

endure that which we at first think impossible."

In 1778 her husband went as one of the commissioners to France. During

his absence Mrs. Adams managed, as she had often done before, both the

household and the farm--a true wife and mother of the Revolution. "She

was a farmer cultivating the land, and discussing the weather and the

crops; a merchant reporting prices current and the rates of exchange,

and directing the making up of invoices; a politician speculating upon

the probabilities of peace and war; and a mother writing the most

exalted sentiments to her son."

John Quincy Adams, the son, in his twelfth year, was with his father in

Europe. The following extracts are from letters to him, dated 1778-80:

"'Tis almost four months since you left your native land, and embarked

upon the mighty waters, in quest of a foreign country. Although I have

not particularly written to you since, yet you may be assured you have

constantly been upon my heart and mind.

"It is a very difficult task, my dear son, for a tender parent to bring

her mind to part with a child of your years going to a distant land; nor

could I have acquiesced in such a separation under any other care than

that of the most excellent parent and guardian who accompanied you. You

have arrived at years capable of improving under the advantages you will

be likely to have, if you do but properly attend to them. They are

talents put into your hands, of which an account will be required of you

hereafter; and being possessed of one, two, or four, see to it that you

double your numbers.

"The most amiable and most useful disposition in a young mind is

diffidence of itself; and this should lead you to seek advice and

instruction from him who is your natural guardian, and will always

counsel and direct you in the best manner, both for your present and

future happiness. You are in possession of a natural good understanding,

and of spirits unbroken by adversity and untamed with care. Improve your

understanding by acquiring useful knowledge and virtue, such as will

render you an ornament to society, an honor to your country, and a

blessing to your parents. Great learning and superior abilities, should

you ever possess them, will be of little value and small estimation

unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them. Adhere to

those religious sentiments and principles which were early instilled

into your mind, and remember that you are accountable to your Maker for

all your words and actions.

"Let me enjoin it upon you to attend constantly and steadfastly to the

precepts and instructions of your father, as you value the happiness of

your mother and your own welfare. His care and attention to you render

many things unnecessary for me to write, which I might otherwise do; but

the inadvertency and heedlessness of youth require line upon line and

precept upon precept, and, when enforced by the joint efforts of both

parents, will, I hope, have a due influence upon your conduct; for, dear

as you are to me, I would much rather you should have found your grave

in the ocean you have crossed, or that any untimely death crop you in

your infant years, than see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless

child.

"You have entered early in life upon the great theater of the world,

which is full of temptations and vice of every kind. You are not wholly

unacquainted with history, in which you have read of crimes which your

inexperienced mind could scarcely believe credible. You have been taught

to think of them with horror, and to view vice as

'A monster of so frightful mien,

That, to be hated, needs but to be seen.'

"Yet you must keep a strict guard upon yourself, or the odious monster

will soon lose its terror by becoming familiar to you. The modern

history of our own times furnishes as black a list of crimes as can be

paralleled in ancient times, even if we go back to Nero, Caligula, or

Cæsar Borgia. Young as you are, the cruel war into which we have been

compelled by the haughty tyrant of Britain and the bloody emissaries of

his vengeance, may stamp upon your mind this certain truth, that the

welfare and prosperity of all countries, communities, and, I may add,

individuals, depend upon their morals. That nation to which we were once

united, as it has departed from justice" eluded and subverted the wise

laws which formerly governed it, and suffered the worst of crimes to go

unpunished, has lost its valor, wisdom, and humanity, and, from being

the dread and terror of Europe, has sunk into derision and infamy....

"Some author, that I have met with, compares a judicious traveler to a

river, that increases its stream the further it flows from its source;

or to certain springs, which, running through rich veins of minerals,

improve their qualities as they pass along. It will be expected of you,

my son, that, as you are favored with superior advantages under the

instructive eye of a tender parent, your improvement should bear some

proportion to your advantages. Nothing is wanting with you but

attention, diligence, and steady application. Nature has not been

deficient.

"These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the

still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great

characters are formed. Would Cicero have shone so distinguished an

orator if he had not been roused, kindled, and inflamed by the tyranny

of Catiline, Verres, and Mark Antony? The habits of a vigorous mind are

formed in contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of

this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not

the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great

virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the

heart, then those qualities, which would otherwise lie dormant, wake

into life and form the character of the hero and statesman. War,

tyranny, and desolation are the scourges of the Almighty, and ought no

doubt to be deprecated. Yet it is your lot, my son, to be an eye-witness

of these calamities in your own native land, and, at the same time, to

owe your existence among a people who have made a glorious defense of

their invaded liberties, and who, aided by a generous and powerful ally,

with the blessing of Heaven, will transmit this inheritance to ages yet

unborn.

"Nor ought it to be one of the least of your incitements towards

exerting every power and faculty of your mind, that you have a parent

who has taken so large and active a share in this contest, and

discharged the trust reposed in him with so much satisfaction as to be

honored with the important embassy which at present calls him abroad.

"The strict and inviolable regard you have ever paid to truth gives me

pleasing hopes that you will not swerve from her dictates, but add

justice, fortitude, and every manly virtue which can adorn a good

citizen, do honor to your country, and render your parents supremely

happy, particularly your ever affectionate mother.

... "The only sure and permanent foundation of virtue is religion. Let

this important truth be engraven upon your heart. And also, that the

foundation of religion is the belief of the one only God, and a just

sense of his attributes, as a being infinitely wise, just, and good, to

whom you owe the highest reverence, gratitude, and adoration; who

superintends and governs all nature, even to clothing the lilies of the

field, and hearing the young ravens when they cry; but more particularly

regards man, whom he created after his own image, and breathed into him

an immortal spirit, capable of a happiness beyond the grave; for the

attainment of which he is bound to the performance of certain duties,

which all tend to the happiness and welfare of society, and are

comprised in one short sentence, expressive of universal benevolence,

'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'

"Justice, humanity, and benevolence, are the duties you owe to society

in general. To your country the same duties are incumbent upon you, with

the additional obligation of sacrificing ease, pleasure, wealth, and

life itself for its defense and security. To your parents you owe love,

reverence, and obedience to all just and equitable commands. To

yourself,--here, indeed, is a wide field to expatiate upon. To become

what you ought to be, and what a fond mother wishes to see you, attend

to some precepts and instructions from the pen of one who can have no

motive but your welfare and happiness, and who wishes in this way to

supply to you the personal watchfulness and care which a separation from

you deprived you of at a period of life when habits are easiest acquired

and fixed; and though the advice may not be new, yet suffer it to obtain

a place in your memory, for occasions may offer, and perhaps some

concurring circumstances unite, to give it weight and force.

"Suffer me to recommend to you one of the most useful lessons of

life--the knowledge and study of yourself. There you run the greatest

hazard of being deceived. Self-love and partiality cast a mist before

the eyes, and there is no knowledge so hard to be acquired, nor of more

benefit when once thoroughly understood. Ungoverned passions have aptly

been compared to the boisterous ocean, which is known to produce the

most terrible effects. 'Passions are the elements of life,' but elements

which are subject to the control of reason. Whoever will candidly

examine themselves, will find some degree of passion, peevishness, or

obstinacy in their natural tempers. You will seldom find these

disagreeable ingredients all united in one; but the uncontrolled

indulgence of either is sufficient to render the possessor unhappy in

himself, and disagreeable to all who are so unhappy as to be witnesses

of it, or suffer from its effects.

"You, my dear son, are formed with a constitution feelingly alive; your

passions are strong and impetuous; and, though I have sometimes seen

them hurry you into excesses, yet with pleasure I have observed a

frankness and generosity accompany your efforts to govern and subdue

them. Few persons are so subject to passion but that they can command

themselves when they have a motive sufficiently strong; and those who

are most apt to transgress will restrain themselves through respect and

reverence to superiors, and even, where they wish to recommend

themselves, to their equals. The due government of the passions has been

considered in all ages as a most valuable acquisition. Hence an inspired

writer observes, 'He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty;

and he that ruleth his spirit, than he than taketh a city.' This

passion, co-operating with power, and unrestrained by reason, has

produced the subversion of cities, the desolation of countries, the

massacre of nations, and filled the world with injustice and oppression.

Behold your own country, your native land, suffering from the effects of

lawless power and malignant passions, and learn betimes, from your own

observation and experience, to govern and control yourself. Having once

obtained this self-government, you will find a foundation laid for

happiness to yourself and usefulness to mankind. 'Virtue alone is

happiness below;' and consists in cultivating and improving every good

inclination, and in checking and subduing every propensity to evil. I

have been particular upon the passion of anger, as it is generally the

most predominant passion at your age, the soonest excited, and the least

pains are taken to subdue it;

'What composes man, can man destroy.'"

With such a mother to counsel him, one is led to ask, how could John

Quincy Adams _help_ becoming a noble-minded and great man? Who wonders

that, with good natural endowments and his excellent privileges, coupled

with maternal training, he fitted himself to fill the highest office in

the gift of a free people?

In June, 1784, Mrs. Adams sailed for London, to join her husband, who

was then our Minister at the Court of St. James. While absent, she

visited France and Netherlands; resided for a time in the former

country; and returned with her knowledge of human nature, of men,

manners, etc., enlarged; disgusted with the splendor and sophistications

of royalty, and well prepared to appreciate the republican simplicity

and frankness of which, she was herself a model. While Mr. Adams was

Vice-president and President, she never laid aside her singleness of

heart and that sincerity and unaffected dignity which had won for her

many friends before her elevation, and which, in spite of national

animosity, conquered the prejudices and gained the heart of the

aristocracy of Great Britain. But her crowning virtue was her Christian

humility, which is beautifully exemplified in a letter which she wrote

to Mr. Adams, on the 8th of February, 1797, "the day on which the votes

for President were counted, and Mr. Adams, as Vice-president, was

required by law to announce himself the President elect for the ensuing

term:"

"'The sun is dressed in brightest beams,

To give thy honors to the day.'

"And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each ensuing season. You have

this day to declare yourself head of a nation. 'And now, O Lord, my God,

thou hast made thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an

understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before

this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is

able to judge this thy so great a people?' were the words of a royal

sovereign; and not less applicable to him who is invested with the chief

magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown nor the robes of

royalty.

"My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though personally absent;

and my petitions to Heaven are, that 'the things which make for peace

may not be hidden from your eyes.' My feelings are not those of pride or

ostentation, upon the occasion. They are solemnized by a sense of the

obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties connected with

it. That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself,

with justice and impartiality to your country, and with satisfaction to

this great people, shall be the daily prayer of your A.A."

From her husband's retirement from the Presidency in 1801, to the close

of her life in 1818, Mrs. Adams remained constantly at Quincy. Cheerful,

contented, and happy, she devoted her last years, in that rural

seclusion, to the reciprocities of friendship and love, to offices of

kindness and charity, and, in short, to all those duties which tend to

ripen the Christian for an exchange of worlds.

But it would be doing injustice to her character and leaving one of her

noblest deeds unrecorded, to close without mentioning the influence for

good which she exerted over Mr. Adams, and her part in the work of

making him what he was. That he was sensible of the benignant influence

of wives, may be gathered from the following letter, which was addressed

to Mrs. Adams from Philadelphia, on the 11th of August, 1777:

"I think I have sometimes observed to you in conversation, that upon

examining the biography of illustrious men you will generally find some

female about them, in the relation of mother or wife or sister, to whose

instigation a great part of their merit is to be ascribed. You will find

a curious example of this in the case of Aspasia, the wife of Pericles.

She was a woman of the greatest beauty and the first genius. She taught

him, it is said, his refined maxims of policy, his lofty imperial

eloquence, nay, even composed the speeches on which so great a share of

his reputation was founded.

"I wish some of our great men had such wives. By the account in your

last letter, it seems the women in Boston begin to think themselves able

to serve their country. What a pity it is that our generals in the

northern districts had not Aspasias to their wives!

"I believe the two Howes have not very great women to their wives. If

they had, we should suffer more from their exertions than we do. This is

our good fortune. A smart wife would have put Howe in possession of

Philadelphia a long time ago."

While Mr. Adams was wishing that some of our great men had such wives as

Aspasia, he had such a wife, was himself such a man, and owed half his

greatness to _his_ Aspasia. The exalted patriotism and cheerful piety

infused into the letters she addressed to him during the long night of

political uncertainty that hung over the country, strengthened his

courage, fired his nobler feelings, nerved his higher purposes, and,

doubtless, greatly contributed to make him one of the chief pillars of

the young republic. All honor to a brave wife, and not less heroic

mother. If her husband and son kept the ship of state from the rocks,

the light which guided them was largely from her.

Heroic wife and mother,

Whose days were toil and grace,

Thy glory gleams for many another,

And shines in many a face.

The heart, as of a nation,

Throbs with thy tender love;

And all our drama of salvation

Thou watchest from above.

Our days, which yet are evil,

And only free in part,

Have need of things with Heaven co-eval,

Of Faith's unbounded heart.

God grant the times approaching

Be full of glad events,

No unheroic aims reproaching

Our line of Presidents.

* * * * *

V.

TWO NEIGHBOURS.

WHAT THEY GOT OUT OF LIFE.

It was just two o'clock of one of the warmest of the July afternoons.

Mrs. Hill had her dinner all over, had put on her clean cap and apron,

and was sitting on the north porch, making an unbleached cotton shirt

for Mr. Peter Hill, who always wore unbleached shirts at harvest-time.

Mrs. Hill was a thrifty housewife. She had pursued this economical

avocation for some little time, interrupting herself only at times to

"_shu_!" away the flocks of half-grown chickens that came noisily about

the door for the crumbs from the table-cloth, when the sudden shutting

down of a great blue cotton umbrella caused her to drop her work, and

exclaim:

"Well, now, Mrs. Troost! who would have thought you ever _would_ come to

see me!"

"Why, I have thought a great many times I would come," said the visitor,

stamping her little feet--for she was a little woman--briskly on the

blue flag-stones, and then dusting them nicely with her white cambric

handkerchief, before venturing on the snowy floor of Mrs. Hill. And,

shaking hands, she added, "It _has_ been a good while, for I remember

when I was here last I had my Jane with me--quite a baby then, if you

mind--and she is three years old now."

"Is it possible?" said Mrs. Hill, untying the bonnet-strings of her

neighbor, who sighed as she continued, "Yes, she was three along in

February;" and she sighed again, more heavily than before, though there

was no earthly reason that I know of why she should sigh, unless,

perhaps, the flight of time, thus brought to mind, suggested the

transitory nature of human things.

Mrs. Hill laid the bonnet of Mrs. Troost on her "spare bed," and covered

it with a little pale-blue crape shawl, kept especially for such

occasions; and, taking from the drawer of the bureau a large fan of

turkey feathers, she presented it to her guest, saying, "A very warm

day, isn't it?"

"O, dreadful, dreadful! It seems as hot as a bake oven; and I suffer

with the heat all Summer, more or less. But it's a world of suffering;"

and Mrs. Troost half closed her eyes, as if to shut out the terrible

reality.

"Hay-making requires sunshiny weather, you know; so we must put up with

it," said Mrs. Hill; "besides, I can mostly find some cool place about

the house; I keep my sewing here on the porch, and, as I bake my bread

or cook my dinner, manage to catch it up sometimes, and so keep from

getting overheated; and then, too, I get a good many stitches taken in

the course of the day."

"This _is_ a nice cool place--completely curtained with vines," said

Mrs. Troost; and she sighed again. "They must have cost you a great deal

of pains."

"O, no! no trouble at all; morning-glories grow themselves; they only

require to be planted. I will save seed for you this Fall, and next

Summer you can have your porch as shady as mine."

"And if I do, it would not signify," said Mrs. Troost; "I never get time

to sit down from one week's end to another; besides, I never had any

luck with vines. Some folks don't, you know."

Mrs. Hill was a woman of a short, plethoric habit; one that might be

supposed to move about with little agility, and to find excessive warmth

rather inconvenient; but she was of a happy, cheerful temperament; and

when it rained she tucked up her skirts, put on thick shoes, and waddled

about the same as ever, saying to herself, "This will make the grass

grow," or, "It will bring on the radishes," or something else equally

consolatory.

Mrs. Troost, on the contrary, was a little thin woman, who looked as

though she could move about nimbly at any .season; but, as she herself

often said, she was a poor, unfortunate creature, and pitied herself a

great deal, as she was in justice bound to do, for nobody else cared,

she said, how much she had to bear.

They were near neighbors, these good women, but their social

interchanges of tea-drinking were not of very frequent occurrence, for

sometimes Mrs. Troost had nothing to wear like other folks; sometimes it

was too hot and sometimes it was too cold; and then, again, nobody

wanted to see her, and she was sure she didn't want to go where she

wasn't wanted. Moreover, she had such a great barn of a house as no

other woman ever had to take care of. But in all the neighborhood it was

called the big house, so Mrs. Troost was in some measure compensated for

the pains it cost her. It was, however, as she said, a barn of a place,

with half the rooms unfurnished, partly because they had no use for

them, and partly because they were unable to get furniture. So it stood

right in the sun, with no shutters, and no trees about it, and Mrs.

Troost said she didn't suppose it ever would have. She was always

opposed to building it; but she never had her way about any thing.

Nevertheless, some people said Mr. Troost had taken the dimensions of

his house with his wife's apron-strings--but that may have been slander.

While Mrs. Troost sat sighing over things in general, Mrs. Hill sewed on

the last button, and, shaking the loose threads from the completed

garment, held it up a moment to take a satisfactory view, as it were,

and folded it away.

"Well, did you ever!" said Mrs. Troost. "You have made half a shirt, and

I have got nothing at all done. My hands sweat so I can not use the

needle, and it's no use to try."

"Lay down your work for a little while, and we will walk in the garden."

So Mrs. Hill threw a towel over her head, and, taking a little tin basin

in her hand, the two went to the garden--Mrs. Troost under the shelter

of the blue umbrella, which she said was so heavy that it was worse than

nothing. Beans, radishes, raspberries, and currants, besides many other

things, were there in profusion, and Mrs. Troost said every thing

flourished for Mrs. Hill, while her garden was all choked up with weeds.

"And you have bees, too--don't they sting the children, and give you a

great deal of trouble? Along in May, I guess it was, Troost [Mrs. Troost

always called her husband so] bought a hive, or, rather, he traded a

calf for one--a nice, likely calf, too, it was--and they never did us a

bit of good;" and the unhappy woman sighed.

"They _do_ say," said Mrs. Hill, sympathizingly, "that bees won't work

for some folks; in case their king dies they are very likely to quarrel

and not do well; but we have never had any ill luck with ours; and we

last year sold forty dollars' worth of honey, besides having all we

wanted for our own use. Did yours die off, or what, Mrs. Troost?"

"Why," said the ill-natured visitor, "my oldest boy got stung one day,

and being angry, upset the hive, and I never found it out for two or

three days; and, sending Troost to put it up in its place, there was not

a bee to be found high or low."

"You don't tell! the obstinate little creatures! But they must be

treated kindly, and I have heard of their going off for less things."

The basin was by this time filled with currants, and they returned to

the house. Mrs. Hill, seating herself on the sill of the kitchen door,

began to prepare her fruit for tea, while Mrs. Troost drew her chair

near, saying, "Did you ever hear about William McMicken's bees?"

Mrs. Hill had never heard, and, expressing an anxiety to do so, was told

the following story:

"His wife, you know, was she that was Sally May, and it's an old

saying--

'To change the name and not the letter,

You marry for worse and not for better.'

"Sally was a dressy, extravagant girl; she had her bonnet 'done up'

twice a year always, and there was no end to her frocks and ribbons and

fine things. Her mother indulged her in every thing; she used to say

Sally deserved all she got; that she was worth her weight in gold. She

used to go everywhere, Sally did. There was no big meeting that she was

not at, and no quilting that she didn't help to get up. All the girls

went to her for the fashions, for she was a good deal in town at her

Aunt Hanner's, and always brought out the new patterns. She used to have

her sleeves a little bigger than anybody else, you remember, and then

she wore great stiffeners in them--la, me! there was no end to her

extravagance.

"She had a changeable silk, yellow and blue, made with a surplus front;

and when she wore that, the ground wasn't good enough for her to walk

on, so some folks used to say; but I never thought Sally was a bit proud

or lifted up; and if any body was sick there was no better-hearted

creature than she; and then, she was always good-natured as the day was

long, and would sing all the time at her work. I remember, along before

she was married, she used to sing one song a great deal, beginning

'I've got a sweetheart with bright black eyes;'

and they said she meant William McMicken by that, and that she might not

get him after all--for a good many thought they would never make a

match, their dispositions were so contrary. William was of a dreadful

quiet turn, and a great home body; and as for being rich, he had nothing

to brag of, though he was high larnt and followed the river as dark

sometimes."

Mrs. Hill had by this time prepared her currants, and Mrs. Troost paused

from her story while she filled the kettle and attached the towel to the

end of the well-sweep, where it waved as a signal for Peter to come to

supper.

"Now, just move your chair a leetle nearer the kitchen door, if you

please," said Mrs. Hill, "and I can make up my biscuit and hear you,

too."

Meantime, coming to the door with some bread-crumbs in her hands, she

began scattering them on the ground and calling, "Biddy, biddy,

biddy--chicky, chicky, chicky"--hearing which, a whole flock of poultry

was around her in a minute; and, stooping down, she secured one of the

fattest, which, an hour afterward, was broiled for supper.

"Dear me, how easily you get along!" said Mrs. Troost.

And it was some time before she could compose herself sufficiently to

take up the thread of her story. At length, however, she began with--

"Well, as I was saying, nobody thought William McMicken would marry

Sally May. Poor man! they say he is not like himself any more. He may

get a dozen wives, but he'll never get another Sally. A good wife she

made him, for all she was such a wild girl.

"The old man May was opposed to the marriage, and threatened to turn

Sally, his own daughter, out of house and home; but she was headstrong,

and would marry whom she pleased; and so she did, though she never got a

stitch of new clothes, nor one thing to keep house with. No; not one

single thing did her father give her when she went away but a hive of

bees. He was right down ugly, and called her Mrs. McMicken whenever he

spoke to her after she was married; but Sally didn't seem to mind it,

and took just as good care of the bees as though they were worth a

thousand dollars. Every day in Winter she used to feed

them--maple-sugar, if she had it; and if she had not, a little Muscovade

in a saucer or some old broken dish.

"But it happened one day that a bee stung her on the hand--the right

one, I think it was--and Sally said right away that it was a bad sign;

and that very night she dreamed that she went out to feed her bees, and

a piece of black crape was tied on the hive. She felt that it was a

token of death, and told her husband so, and she told me and Mrs. Hanks.

No, I won't be sure she told Mrs. Hanks, but Mrs. Hanks got to hear it

some way."

"Well," said Mrs. Hill, wiping the tears away with her apron, "I really

didn't know, till now, that poor Mrs. McMicken was dead."

"O, she is not dead," answered Mrs. Troost, "but as well as she ever

was, only she feels that she is not long for this world." The painful

interest of her story, however, had kept her from work, so the afternoon

passed without her having accomplished much--she never could work when

she went visiting.

Meantime Mrs. Hill had prepared a delightful supper, without seeming to

give herself the least trouble. Peter came precisely at the right

moment, and, as he drew a pail of water, removed the towel from the

well-sweep, easily and naturally, thus saving his wife the trouble.

"Troost would never have thought of it," said his wife; and she finished

with an "Ah, well!" as though all her tribulations would be over before

long.

As she partook of the delicious honey she was reminded of her own upset

hive; and the crispred radishes brought thoughts of the weedy garden at

home; so that, on the whole, her visit, she said, made her perfectly

wretched, and she should have no heart for a week; nor did the little

basket of extra nice fruit which Mrs. Hill presented her as she was

about to take leave heighten her spirits in the least. Her great heavy

umbrella, she said, was burden enough for her.

"But Peter will take you in the carriage," insisted Mrs. Hill.

"No," said Mrs. Troost, as though charity was offered her; "it will be

more trouble to get in and out than to walk"--and so she trudged home,

saying, "Some folks are born to be lucky."

* * * * *

VI.

HORACE GREELEY.

(BORN 1811--DIED 1872.)

THE MOLDER OF PUBLIC OPINION--THE BRAVE JOURNALIST.

Mr. Greeley lived through the most eventful era in our public history

since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. For the eighteen years

between the, formation of the Republican party, in 1854, and his sudden

death in 1872, the stupendous civil convulsions through which we have

passed have merely translated into acts, and recorded in our annals, the

fruits of his thinking and the strenuous vehemence of his moral

convictions. Whether he was right or wrong, is a question on which

opinions will differ; but no person conversant with our history will

dispute the influence which this remarkable and singularly endowed man

has exerted in shaping the great events of our time. Whatever may be the

ultimate judgment of other classes of his countrymen respecting the real

value of his services, the colored race, when it becomes sufficiently

educated to appreciate his career, must always recognize him as the

chief author of their emancipation from slavery and their equal

citizenship. Mr. Lincoln, to whom their ignorance as yet gives the chief

credit, was a chip tossed on the surface of a resistless wave.

THE MOLDER OF PUBLIC OPINION.

It was Mr. Greeley, more than any other man, who let loose the winds

that lifted the waters and drove forward their foaming, tumbling

billows. Mr. Greeley had lent his hand to stir public feeling to its

profoundest depths before Mr. Lincoln's election became possible. He

contributed more than any other man to defeat the compromise and

settlement for which Mr. Lincoln and his chief adviser, Mr. Seward, were

anxious in the exciting, expectant Winter of 1860-61, and to precipitate

an avoidable bloody war. It was he, carrying a majority of the

Republican party with him, who kept insisting, in the early stages of

the conflict, that the emancipation of the slaves was an indispensable

element of success. Mr. Lincoln stood out and resisted, ridiculing an

emancipation proclamation as 'a bull against the comet.' Mr. Greeley

roused the Republican party by that remarkable leader signed by his name

and addressed to Mr. Lincoln, headed 'The Prayer of Twenty Millions,'

the effect of which the President tried to parry by a public letter to

the editor of the _Tribune_, written with all the dexterous ingenuity

and telling aptness of phrase of which Mr. Lincoln was so great a

master. But Mr. Greeley victoriously carried the Republican party, which

he had done more than all other men to form, with him; and within two

months after Mr. Lincoln's reply to 'The Prayer of Twenty Millions,' his

reluctance was overborne, and he was constrained to issue his celebrated

Proclamation, which committed the Government to emancipation, and staked

the success of the war on that issue. This culminating achievement, the

greatest of Mr. Greeley's life, is the most signal demonstration of his

talents. It was no sudden, random stroke. It was the effect of an

accumulated, ever-rising, widening, deepening stream of influence, which

had been gathering volume and momentum for years, and whose piling

waters at last burst through and bore down every barrier. Mr. Greeley

had long been doing all in his power to swell the tide of popular

feeling against slavery, and it was chiefly in consequence of the

tremendous force he had given to the movement that that barbarous

institution was at last swept away. It is the most extraordinary

revolution ever accomplished by a single mind with no other instrument

than a public journal.

It may be said, indeed, that Mr. Greeley had many zealous coadjutors.

But so had Luther able coadjutors in the Protestant Reformation; so had

Cromwell in the Commonwealth; so had Washington in our Revolution; so

had Cobden in the repeal of the corn laws. They are nevertheless

regarded as the leading minds in the respective innovations which they

championed; and by as just a title Mr. Greeley will hold the first place

with posterity on the roll of emancipation. This is the light in which

he will be remembered so long as the history of our times shall be read.

It may be said, again, that Mr. Greeley's efforts in this direction were

aided by the tendencies of his time. But so were Luther's, and

Cromwell's, and Washington's, and everybody's who has left a great mark

on his age, and accomplished things full of consequences to future

generations. The first qualification for exerting this kind of fruitful

influence is for the leader to be in complete sympathy with the

developing tendencies of his own epoch. This is necessary to make him

the embodiment of its spirit, the representative of its ideas, the

quickener of its passions, the reviver of its courage in adverse turns

of fortune, the central mind whom other advocates of the cause consult,

whose action they watch in every new emergency, and whose guidance they

follow because he has resolute, unflagging confidence to lead. In the

controversies in which Mr. Greeley has been behind his age, or stood

against the march of progress, even he has accomplished little. Since

Henry Clay's death, he has been the most noted and active champion of

Protection; but that cause steadily declined until the war forced the

government to strain every source of revenue, and since the close of the

war free-trade ideas have made surprising advances in Mr. Greeley's own

political party. On this subject he was the disciple of dead masters,

and hung to the skirts of a receding cause; but in this school he

acquired that dexterity in handling the weapons of controversy which

proved so effective when he advanced from the position of a disciple to

that of a master, and led a movement in the direction towards which the

rising popular feeling was tending. Mr. Greeley's name will always be

identified with the extirpation of negro slavery as its most

distinguished, powerful, and effective advocate.

THE BRAVE JOURNALIST.

This is his valid title to distinction and lasting fame. Instrumental to

this, and the chief means of its attainment, he founded a public journal

which grew, under his direction, to be a great moving force in the

politics and public thought of our time. This alone would have attested

his energy and abilities; but this is secondary praise. It is the use he

made of his journal when he had created it, the moral ends to which

(besides making it a vehicle of news and the discussion of ephemeral

topics) he devoted it, that will give him his peculiar place in history.

If he had had no higher aim than to supply the market for current

intelligence, as a great merchant supplies the market for dry-goods, he

would have deserved to rank with the builders-up of other prosperous

establishments by which passing contemporary wants were supplied, but

would have had no claim on the remembrance of coming generations. But he

regarded his journal not primarily as a property, but as the instrument

of high moral and political ends; an instrument whose great potency for

good or ill he fully comprehended, and for whose salutary direction he

felt a corresponding responsibility. His simple tastes, inexpensive

habits, his contempt for the social show and parade which are the chief

use made of wealth, and the absorption of his mind in other aims, made

it impossible for him to think of the _Tribune_ merely as a source of

income, and he always managed it mainly with a view to make it an

efficient organ for diffusing opinions which he thought conducive to the

public welfare. It was this which distinguished Mr. Greeley from the

founders of other important journals, who have, in recent years, been

taken from us. With him the moral aim was always paramount, the

pecuniary aim subordinate. Journalism, as he looked upon it, was not an

end, but a means to higher ends. He may have had many mistaken and some

erratic opinions on particular subjects; but the moral earnestness with

which he pursued his vocation, and his constant subordination of private

interest to public objects, nobly atone for his occasional errors.

Among the means by which Mr. Greeley gained, and so long held, the first

place among American journalists, was his manner of writing. His

negative merits as a writer were great; and it would be surprising to

find these negative merits so rare as to be a title to distinction, if

observation did not force the faults he avoided so perpetually upon our

notice. He had no verbiage. We do not merely mean by this that he never

used a superfluous word (which, in fact, he rarely did), but that he

kept quite clear of the hazy, half-relevant ideas which encumber meaning

and are the chief source of prolixity. He threw away every idea that did

not decidedly help on his argument, and expressed the others in the

fewest words that would make them clear. He began at once where the pith

of his argument began; and had the secret, possessed by few writers, of

stopping the moment he was done; leaving his readers no chaff to sift

out from the simple wheat. This perfect absence of cloudy irrelevance

and encumbering superfluity was one source of his popularity as a

writer. His readers had to devour no husks to get at the kernel of what

he meant.

Besides these negative recommendations, Mr. Greeley's style had positive

merits of a very high order. The source of these was in the native

structure of his mind; no training could have conferred them; and it was

his original mental qualities, and not any special culture, that pruned

his writing of verbiage and redundancies. Whatever he saw, he saw with

wonderful distinctness. Whether it happened to be a sound idea or a

crotchet, it stood before his mind with the clearness of an object in

sunlight. He never groped at and around it, like one feeling in the

dark. He saw on which side he could lay hands on it at once with the

firmest grasp. It was his vividness of conception which made Mr. Greeley

so clear and succinct a writer. He knew precisely what he would be at,

and he hastened to say it in the fewest words. His choice of language,

though often homely, and sometimes quaint or coarse, was always adapted

to his purpose. He had a great command of racy phrases in common use,

and frequently gave them an unexpected turn which enlivened his style as

by a sudden stroke of wit or grotesque humor. But these touches were

rapid, never detained him; he kept grappling with his argument, and

hurried on.

This peculiar style was aided by the ardor of his feelings and his

vehement moral earnestness. Bent on convincing, he tried to flash his

meaning on the minds of his readers in the readiest and manliest way;

and he was so impatient to make them see the full force of his main

points that he stripped them as naked as he could. This combined

clearness of perception, strength of conviction, and hurrying ardor of

feeling, were the sources of a style which enabled him to write more

than any other journalist of his time, and yet always command attention.

But he is a model which none can successfully imitate without his

strongly marked individuality and peculiarities of mental structure. We

have mentioned his occasional coarseness; but it was merely his

preference of strong direct expression to dainty feebleness; he was

never vulgar.

Mr. Greeley has contributed to the surprising growth and development of

journalism in our time, chiefly by his successful efforts to make it a

guide of public opinion, as well as a chronicle of important news. In

his hands, it was not merely a mirror which indifferently reflects back

the images of all objects on which it is turned, but a creative force; a

means of calling into existence a public opinion powerful enough to

introduce great reforms and sweep down abuses. He had no faith in

purposeless journalism, in journalism which has so little insight into

the tendencies of the time that it shifts its view from day to day in

accommodation to transient popular caprices. No great object is

accomplished without constancy of purpose, and a guide of public opinion

can not be constant unless he has a deep and abiding conviction of the

importance of what he advocates. Mr. Greeley's remarkable power, when

traced back to its main source, will be found to have consisted chiefly

in that vigorous earnestness of belief which held him to the strenuous

advocacy of measures which he thought conducive to the public welfare,

whether they were temporarily popular or not. Journalism may perhaps

gain more success as a mercantile speculation by other methods; but it

can be respected as a great moral and political force only in the hands

of men who have the talents, foresight, and moral earnestness which fit

them to guide public opinion. It is in this sense that Mr. Greeley was

our first journalist, and nobody can successfully dispute his rank, any

more than Mr. Bennett's could be contested in the kind that seeks to

float on the current instead of directing its course. The one did most

to render our American journals great vehicles of news, the other to

make them controlling organs of opinion. Their survivors in the

profession have much to learn from both.--_New York World_.

Knight of the ready pen,

Soldier without a sword,

Such eyes hadst thou for other men,

So true and grand a word!

As Cæsar led his legions

Triumphant over Gaul,

And through still wilder, darker regions,

So thou didst lead us all!

Until we saw the chains

Which bound our brothers' lives,

And heard the groans and felt the pains,

Which come from wearing gyves.

To brave heroic men

The false no more was true;

And what the Nation needed then

Could any soldier do.

* * * * *

VII.

WENDELL PHILLIPS

(BORN 1811--DIED 1884.)

THE TIMES WHEN HE APPEARED--"WHO IS THIS FELLOW?"--A FLAMING ADVOCATE OF

LIBERTY--LIBERTY OF SPEECH AND THOUGHT--POWER TO DISCERN THE RIGHT--THE

MOB-BEATEN HERO TRIUMPHANT.

Long chapters of history are illumined as by as electric light in the

following characteristic address from his pulpit by Henry Ward Beecher,

at the time the name of the great philanthropist was added to the roll

of American heroes.

THE TIMES WHEN HE APPEARED.

The condition of the public mind throughout the North at the time I came

to the consciousness of public affairs and was studying my profession

may be described, in one word, as the condition of imprisoned moral

sense. All men, almost, agreed with all men that slavery was wrong; but

what can we do? The compromises of our fathers include us and bind us to

fidelity to the agreements that had been made in the formation of our

Constitution. Our confederation first, and our Constitution after. These

were regarded everywhere as moral obligations by men that hated slavery.

"The compromises of the Constitution must be respected," said the priest

in the pulpit, said the politician in the field, said the statesmen in

public halls; and men abroad, in England especially, could not

understand what was the reason of the hesitancy of President Lincoln and

of the people, when they had risen to arms, in declaring at once the end

for which arms were taken and armies gathered to be the emancipation of

the slaves. There never has been an instance in which, I think, the

feelings and the moral sense of so large a number of people have been

held in check for reasons of fidelity to obligations assumed in their

behalf. There never has been in history another instance more notable,

and I am bound to say, with all its faults and weaknesses, more noble.

The commercial question--that being the underlying moral element--the

commercial question of the North very soon became, on the subject of

slavery, what the industrial and political question of the South had

made it. It corrupted the manufacturer and the merchant. Throughout the

whole North every man that could make any thing regarded the South as

his legal, lawful market; for the South did not manufacture; it had the

cheap and vulgar husbandry of slavery. They could make more money with

cotton than with corn, or beef, or pork, or leather, or hats, or

wooden-ware; and Northern ships went South to take their forest timbers,

and brought them to Connecticut to be made into wooden-ware and

ax-helves and rake-handles, and carried them right back to sell to the

men whose axes had cut down the trees. The South manufactured nothing

except slaves. It was a great manufacture, that; and the whole market of

the North was bribed. The harness-makers, the wagon-makers, the

clock-makers, makers of all manner of implements, of all manner of

goods, every manufactory, every loom as it clanked in the North said,

"Maintain," not slavery, but the "compromises of the Constitution." The

Constitution--that was the veil under which all these cries were

continually uttered.

The distinction between the Anti-slavery men and Abolitionists was

simply this: The Abolitionists disclaimed the obligation to maintain

this government and the compromises of the Constitution, and the

Anti-slavery men recognized the binding obligation and sought the

emancipation of slaves by the more circuitous and gradual influence; but

Abolitionism covered both terms. It was regarded, however, throughout

the North as a greater sin than slavery itself, and none of you that are

under thirty years of age can form any adequate conception of the public

sentiment and feeling during the days of my young manhood. A man that

was known to be an Abolitionist had better be known to have the plague.

Every door was shut to him. If he was born under circumstances that

admitted him to the best society, he was the black sheep of the family.

If he aspired by fidelity, industry, and genius, to good society, he was

debarred. "An Abolitionist" was enough to put the mark of Cain upon any

young man that arose in my early day, and until I was forty years of

age. It was punishable to preach on the subject of liberty. It was

enough to expel a man from Church communion, if he insisted on praying

in the prayer-meeting for the liberation of the slaves. The Church was

dumb in the North, not in the West. The great publishing societies that

were sustained by the contributions of the Churches were absolutely

dumb.

"WHO IS THIS FELLOW?"

It was at the beginning of this Egyptian era in America that the young

aristocrat of Boston appeared. His blood came through the best colonial

families. He was an aristocrat by descent and by nature; a noble one,

but a thorough aristocrat. All his life and power assumed that guise. He

was noble; he was full of kindness to inferiors; he was willing to be,

and do, and suffer for them; but he was never of them, nor equaled

himself to them. He was always above them, and his gifts of love were

always the gifts of a prince to his subjects. All his life long he

resented every attack on his person and on his honor, as a noble

aristocrat would. When they poured the filth of their imaginations upon

him, he cared no more for it than the eagle cares what the fly is

thinking about him away down under the cloud. All the miserable

traffickers, and all the scribblers, and all the aristocratic boobies of

Boston were no more to him than mosquitoes are to the behemoth or to the

lion. He was aristocratic in his pride, and lived higher than most men

lived. He was called of God as much as ever Moses and the prophets were;

not exactly for the same great end, but in consonance with those great

ends. You remember, my brother, when Lovejoy was infamously slaughtered

by a mob in Alton?--blood that has been the seed of liberty all over

this land! I remember it. At this time it was that Channing lifted up

his voice and declared that the moral sentiment of Boston ought to be

uttered in rebuke of that infamy and cruelty, and asking for Faneuil

Hall in which to call a public meeting. This was indignantly refused by

the Common Council of Boston. Being a man of wide influence, he gathered

around about himself enough venerable and influential old citizens of

Boston to make a denial of their united request a perilous thing; and

Faneuil Hall was granted to call a public meeting to express itself on

this subject of the murder of Lovejoy. The meeting was made up largely

of rowdies. They meant to overawe and put down all other expressions of

opinion except those that then rioted with the riotous. United States

District-attorney Austin (when Wendell Phillips's name is written in

letters of light on one side of the monument, down low on the other

side, and spattered with dirt, let the name of Austin also be written)

made a truculent speech, and justified the mob, and ran the whole career

of the sewer of those days and justified non-interference with slavery.

Wendell Phillips, just come to town as a young lawyer, without at

present any practice, practically unknown, except to his own family,

fired with the infamy, and, feeling called of God in his soul, went upon

the platform. His first utterances brought down the hisses of the mob.

He was not a man very easily subdued by any mob. They listened as he

kindled and poured on that man Austin the fire and lava of a volcano,

and he finally turned the course of the feeling of the meeting.

Practically unknown when the sun went down one day, when it rose next

morning all Boston was saying, "Who is this fellow? Who is this

Phillips?" A question that has never been asked since.

A FLAMING ADVOCATE OF LIBERTY.

Thenceforth he has been a flaming advocate of liberty, with singular

advantages over all other pleaders. Mr. Garrison was not noted as a

speaker, yet his tongue was his pen. Mr. Phillips, not much given to the

pen, his pen was his tongue; and no other like speaker has ever graced

our history. I do not undertake to say that he surpassed all others. He

had an intense individuality, and that intense individuality ranked him

among the noblest orators that have ever been born to this continent, or

I may say to our mother-land. He adopted in full the tenets of Garrison,

which were excessively disagreeable to the whole public mind. The ground

which he took was that which Garrison took. Seeing that the conscience

of the North was smothered and mute by reason of the supposed

obligations to the compromises of the Constitution, Garrison declared

that the compromises of the Constitution were covenants with hell, and

that no man was bound to observe them. This extreme ground Mr. Phillips

also took,--immediate, unconditional, universal emancipation, at any

cost whatsoever. That is Garrisonism; that is Wendell Phillipsism; and

it would seem as though the Lord rather leaned that way, too.

I shall not discuss the merits of Mr. Garrison or Mr. Phillips in every

direction. I shall say that while the duty of immediate emancipation

without conditions was unquestionably the right ground, yet in the

providence of God even that could not be brought to pass except through

the mediation of very many events. It is a remarkable thing that Mr.

Phillips and Mr. Garrison both renounced the Union and denounced the

Union in the hope of destroying slavery; whereas the providence of God

brought about the love of the Union when it was assailed by the South,

and made the love of the Union the enthusiasm that carried the great war

of emancipation through. It was the very antithesis of the ground which

they took. Like John Brown, Mr. Garrison; like John Brown, Mr. Phillips;

of a heroic spirit, seeking the great and noble, but by measures not

well adapted to secure the end.

Little by little the controversy spread. I shall not trace it. I am

giving you simply the atmosphere in which he sprang into being and into

power. His career was a career of thirty or forty years of undiminished

eagerness. He never quailed nor flinched, nor did he ever at any time go

back one step or turn in the slightest degree to the right or left. He

gloried in his cause, and in that particular aspect of it which had

selected him; for he was one that was called rather than one that chose.

He stood on this platform. It is a part of the sweet and pleasant

memories of my comparative youth here, that when the mob refused to let

him speak in the Broadway Tabernacle before it moved up-town--the old

Tabernacle--William A. Hall, now dead, a fervent friend and

Abolitionist, had secured the Graham Institute wherein to hold a meeting

where Mr. Phillips should be heard. I had agreed to pray at the opening

of the meeting. On the morning of the day on which it was to have taken

place, I was visited by the committee of that Institute--excellent

gentlemen, whose feelings will not be hurt now, because they are all now

ashamed of it; they are in heaven. They visited me to say that in

consequence of the great peril that attended a meeting at the Institute,

they had withdrawn the liberty to use it, and paid back the money, and

that they called simply to say that it was out of no disrespect to me,

but from fidelity to their supposed trust. Well, it was a bitter thing.

LIBERTY OF SPEECH AND THOUGHT.

If there is any thing on earth that I am sensitive to, it is the

withdrawing of the liberty of speech and thought. Henry C. Bowen, who

certainly has done some good things in his life-time, said to me: "You

can have Plymouth Church if you want it." "How?" "It is the rule of the

church trustees that the church may be let by a majority vote when we

are convened; but if we are not convened, then every trustee must give

his assent in writing. If you choose to make it a personal matter, and

go to every trustee, you can have it." He meanwhile undertook, with Mr.

Hall, to put new placards over the old ones, notifying men quietly that

the meeting was to be held here, and distributed thousands and tens of

thousands of hand-bills at the ferries. No task was ever more welcome. I

went to the trustees man by man. The majority of the trustees very

cheerfully accorded the permission. One or two of them were disposed to

decline and withhold it. I made it a matter of personal friendship. "You

and I will break, if you don't give me this permission." And they

signed. So the meeting glided from the Graham Institute to this house. A

great audience assembled. We had detectives in disguise, and every

arrangement made to handle the subject in a practical form if the crowd

should undertake to molest us. The Rev. Dr. R.S. Storrs consented to

come and pray, for Mr. Wendell Phillips was by marriage a near and

intimate friend and relation of his. The reporters were here; when were

they ever not?

Mr. Phillips began his lecture, and, you may depend upon it, by this

time the lion was in him, and he went careering on. Hie views were

extreme; he made them extravagant. I remember at one point--for he was a

man without bluster, serene, self-poised, never disturbed in the

least--he made an affirmation that was very bitter, and the cry arose

over the whole congregation. He stood still, with a cold, bitter smile

in his eye, and waited till they subsided, when he repeated it with more

emphasis. Again the roar went through. He waited and repeated it, if

possible, more intensely, and he beat them down with that one sentence

until they were still, and let him go on.

POWER TO DISCERN THE RIGHT.

The power to discern right amid all the wrappings of interest and all

the seductions of ambition was singularly his. To choose the lowly for

their sake, to abandon all favor, all power, all comfort, all ambition,

all greatness--that was his genius and glory. He confronted the spirit

of the nation and of the age. I had almost said he set himself against

nature, as if he had been a decree of God over-riding all these other

insuperable obstacles. That was his function. Mr. Phillips was not

called to be a universal orator any more than he was a universal

thinker. In literature and in history widely read, in person

magnificent, in manners most accomplished, gentle as a babe, sweet as a

new-blown rose, in voice clear and silvery, yet he was not a man of

tempests, he was not an orchestra of a hundred instruments, he was not

an organ, mighty and complex. The nation slept, and God wanted a

trumpet, sharp, wide-sounding, narrow and intense; and that was Mr.

Phillips. The long-roll is not particularly agreeable in music, or in

times of war, but it is better than flutes or harps when men are in a

great battle, or are on the point of it. His eloquence was penetrating

and alarming. He did not flow as a mighty Gulf Stream; he did not dash

upon this continent as the ocean does; he was not a mighty rushing

river. His eloquence was a flight of arrows, sentence after sentence

polished, and most of them burning. He slung them one after the other,

and where they struck they slew. Always elegant, always awful. I think

his scorn is and was as fine as I ever knew it in any human being. He

had that sublime sanctuary in his pride that made him almost insensitive

to what would by other men be considered obloquy. It was as if he said

every day in himself: "I am not what they are firing at. I am not there,

and I am not that. It is not against me. I am infinitely superior to

what they think me to be. They do not know me." It was quiet and

unpretentious, but it was there. Conscience and pride were the two

concurrent elements of his nature.

THE MOB-BEATEN HERO TRIUMPHANT.

He lived to see the slave emancipated, but not by moral means. He lived

to see the sword cut the fetter. After this had taken place, he was too

young to retire, though too old to gather laurels of literature or to

seek professional honors. The impulse of humanity was not at all abated.

His soul still flowed on for the great under-masses of mankind, though,

like the Nile, it split up into scores of mouths, and not all of them

were navigable. After a long and stormy life his sun went down in glory.

All the English-speaking people on the globe have written among the

names that shall never die the name of that scoffed, detested,

mob-beaten, persecuted wretch--Wendell Phillips. Boston, that persecuted

and would have slain him, is now exceedingly busy in building his tomb

and rearing his statue. The men that would not defile their lips with

his name are thanking God to-day that he lived.

He has taught some lessons--lessons that the young will do well to take

heed to--that the most splendid gifts and opportunities and ambitions

may be best used for the dumb and lowly. His whole life is a rebuke to

the idea that we are to climb to greatness by climbing up on the backs

of great men, that we are to gain strength by running with the currents

of life, that we can from without add any thing to the great within that

constitutes man. He poured out the precious ointment of his soul upon

the feet of that diffusive Jesus who suffers here in his poor and

despised ones. He has taught young ambitions, too, that the way to glory

is the way often-times of adhesion simply to principle, and that

popularity and unpopularity are not things to be known or considered. Do

right and rejoice. If to do right will bring you under trouble, rejoice

in it that you are counted worthy to suffer with God and the providences

of God in this world.

He belongs to the race of giants, not simply because he was, in and of

himself a great soul, but because he had bathed in the providence of God

and came forth scarcely less than a god; because he gave himself to the

work of God upon earth, and inherited thereby, or had reflected upon

him, some of the majesty of his Master. When pigmies are all dead, the

noble countenance of Wendell Phillips will still look forth, radiant as

a rising sun, a sun that will never set. He has become to us a lesson,

his death an example, his whole history an encouragement to manhood--and

to heroic manhood.

* * * * *

VIII

MARY WORDSWORTH

(BORN 1770--DIED 1859.)

THE KINDLY WIFE OF THE GREAT POET.

"A creature not too bright or good

For human nature's daily food."

The last thing that would have occurred to Mrs. Wordsworth would have

been that her departure, or any thing about her, would be publicly

noticed amidst the events of a stirring time. Those who knew her well

regarded her with as true a homage as they ever rendered to any member

of the household, or to any personage of the remarkable group which will

be forever traditionally associated with the Lake District; but this

reverence, genuine and hearty as it was, would not, in all eyes, be a

sufficient reason for recording more than the fact of her death. It is

her survivorship of such a group which constitutes an undisputed public

interest in her decease. With her closes a remarkable scene in the

history of the literature of our century. The well-known cottage, mount,

and garden at Rydal will be regarded with other eyes when shut up or

transferred to new occupants. With Mrs. Wordsworth, an old world has

passed away before the eyes of the inhabitants of the district, and a

new one succeeds, which may have its own delights, solemnities, honors,

and graces, but which can never replace the familiar one that is gone.

There was something mournful in the lingering of this aged lady--blind,

deaf, and bereaved in her latter years; but _she_ was not mournful, any

more than she was insensible. Age did not blunt her feelings, nor deaden

her interest in the events of the day. It seems not so very long ago

that she said that the worst of living in such a place (as the Lake

District), was its making one unwilling to go. It is too beautiful to

let one be ready to leave it. Within a few years the beloved daughter

was gone, and then the aged husband, and then the son-in-law, and then

the devoted friend, Mr. Wordsworth's publisher, Mr. Moxon, who paid his

duty occasionally by the side of her chair; then she became blind and

deaf. Still her cheerfulness was indomitable. No doubt, she would in

reality have been "willing to go," whenever called upon, throughout her

long life; but she liked life to the end. By her disinterestedness of

nature, by her fortitude of spirit, and her constitutional elasticity

and activity, she was qualified for the honor of surviving her

household--nursing and burying them, and bearing the bereavement which

they were vicariously spared. She did it wisely, tenderly, bravely, and

cheerfully; and then she will be remembered accordingly by all who

witnessed the spectacle.

It was by the accident, so to speak, of her early friendship with

Wordsworth's sister, that her life became involved with the poetic

element which her mind would hardly have sought for itself in another

position. She was the incarnation of good sense, as applied to the

concerns of the every-day world. In as far as her marriage and course of

life tended to infuse a new elevation into her views of things, it was a

blessing; and, on the other hand, in as far as it infected her with the

spirit of exclusiveness, which was the grand defect of the group in its

own place, it was hurtful; but that very exclusiveness was less an evil

than an amusement, after all. It was rather a serious matter to hear the

poet's denunciation of the railway, and to read his well-known sonnets

on the desecration of the Lake region by the unhallowed presence of

commonplace strangers; and it was truly painful to observe how the

scornful and grudging mood spread among the young, who thought they were

agreeing with Wordsworth in claiming the vales and lakes as a natural

property for their enlightened selves. But it was so unlike Mrs.

Wordsworth, with her kindly, cheery, generous turn, to say that a green

field, with buttercups, would answer all the purposes of Lancashire

operatives, and that they did not know what to do with themselves when

they came among the mountains, that the innocent insolence could do no

harm. It became a fixed sentiment when she alone survived to uphold it,

and one demonstration of it amused the whole neighborhood in a

good-natured way. "People from Birthwaite" were the bugbear--Birthwaite

being the end of the railway. In the Summer of 1857, Mrs. Wordsworth's

companion told her (she being then blind) that there were some strangers

in the garden--two or three boys on the mount, looking at the view.

"Boys from Birthwaite," said the old lady, in the well-known tone, which

conveyed that nothing good could come from Birthwaite. When the

strangers were gone, it appeared that they were the Prince of Wales and

his companions. Making allowance for prejudices, neither few nor small,

but easily dissolved when reason and kindliness had opportunity to work,

she was a truly wise woman, equal to all occasions of action, and

supplying other persons' needs and deficiencies.

In the "Memoirs of Wordsworth" it is stated that she was the original of

"She was a phantom of delight;"

and some things in the next few pages look like it; but for the greater

part of the poet's life it was certainly believed by some, who ought to

know, that that wonderful description related to another who flitted

before his imagination in earlier days than those in which he discovered

the aptitude of Mary Hutchinson to his own needs. The last stanza is

very like her; and her husband's sonnet to the painter of her portrait,

in old age, discloses to us how the first stanza might be also, in days

beyond the ken of the existing generation.

Of her early sorrows, in the loss of two children and a beloved sister,

who was domesticated with the family, there are probably no living

witnesses. It will never be forgotten, by those who saw it, how the late

dreary train of afflictions was met. For many years Wordsworth's sister

Dorothy was a melancholy charge. Mrs. Wordsworth was wont to warn any

rash enthusiasts for mountain-walking by the spectacle before them. The

adoring sister would never fail her brother; and she destroyed her

health, and then her reason, by exhausting walks and wrong remedies for

the consequences. Forty miles in a day was not a singular feat of

Dorothy's. During the long years of this devoted creature's helplessness

she was tended with admirable cheerfulness and good sense. Thousands of

lake tourists must remember the locked garden-gate when Miss Wordsworth

was taking the air, and the garden-chair going round and round the

terrace, with the emaciated little woman in it, who occasionally called

out to strangers and amused them with her clever sayings. She outlived

the beloved Dora, Wordsworth's only surviving daughter.

After the lingering illness of that daughter (Mrs. Quillinan), the

mother encountered the dreariest portion, probably, of her life. Her

aged husband used to spend the long Winter evenings in grief and

tears--week after week, month after month. Neither of them had eyes for

reading. He could not be comforted. She, who carried as tender a

maternal heart as ever beat, had to bear her own grief and his too. She

grew whiter and smaller, so as to be greatly changed in a few months;

but this was the only expression of what she endured, and he did not

discover it. When he, too, left her, it was seen how disinterested had

been her trouble. When his trouble had ceased, she, too, was relieved.

She followed his coffin to the sacred corner of Grasmere churchyard,

where lay now all those who had once made her home. She joined the

household guests on their return from the funeral, and made tea as

usual. And this was the disinterested spirit which carried her through

the last few years, till she had just reached the ninetieth. Even then

she had strength to combat disease for many days. Several times she

rallied and relapsed; and she was full of alacrity of mind and body as

long as exertion of any kind was possible. There were many eager to

render all duty and love--her two sons, nieces, and friends, and a whole

sympathizing neighborhood.

The question commonly asked by visitors to that corner of Grasmere

churchyard was: Where would _she_ be laid when the time came? The space

was so completely filled. The cluster of stones told of the little

children who died a long life-time ago; of the sisters--Sarah Hutchinson

and Dorothy Wordsworth; and of Mr. Quillinan, and his two wives, Dora

lying between her husband and father, and seeming to occupy her mother's

rightful place. And Hartley Coleridge lies next the family group; and

others press closely round. There is room, however. The large gray

stone, which bears the name of William Wordsworth, has ample space left

for another inscription; and the grave beneath has ample space also for

his faithful life-companion.

Not one is left now of the eminent persons who rendered that cluster of

valleys so eminent as it has been. Dr. Arnold went first, in the vigor

of his years. Southey died at Keswick, and Hartley Coleridge on the

margin of Rydal Lake; and the Quillinans under the shadow of Loughrigg;

and Professor Wilson disappeared from Elleray; and the aged Mrs.

Fletcher from Lancrigg; and the three venerable Wordsworths from Rydal

Mount.

The survivor of all the rest had a heart and a memory for the solemn

_last_ of every thing. She was the one to inquire of about the last

eagle in the district, the last pair of ravens in any crest of rocks,

the last old dalesman in any improved spot, the last round of the last

peddler among hills where the broad white road has succeeded the green

bridal-path. She knew the district during the period between its first

recognition, through Gray's "Letters," to its complete publicity in the

age of railways. She saw, perhaps, the best of it. But she contributed

to modernize and improve it, though the idea of doing so probably never

occurred to her. There were great people before to give away Christmas

bounties, and spoil their neighbors, as the established alms-giving of

the rich does spoil the laboring class, which ought to be above that

kind of aid. Mrs. Wordsworth did infinitely more good in her own way,

and without being aware of it. An example of comfortable thrift was a

greater boon to the people round than money, clothes, meat, or fuel. The

oldest residents have long borne witness that the homes of the neighbors

have assumed a new character of order and comfort, and wholesome

economy, since the poet's family lived at Rydal Mount. It used to be a

pleasant sight when Wordsworth was seen in the middle of a hedge,

cutting switches for half a dozen children, who were pulling at his

cloak, or gathering about his heels; and it will long be pleasant to

family friends to hear how the young wives of half a century learned to

make home comfortable by the example of the good housewife at the Mount,

who never was above letting her thrift be known.

Finally, she who had noted so many last survivors was herself the last

of a company more venerable than eagles, or ravens, or old-world yeomen,

or antique customs. She would not, in any case, be the first forgotten.

As it is, her honored name will live for generations in the traditions

of the valleys round. If she was studied as the poet's wife, she came

out so well from that investigation that she was contemplated for

herself; and the image so received is her true monument. It will be

better preserved in her old-fashioned neighborhood than many monuments

which make a greater show.

"She was a phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely apparition, sent

To he a moment's ornament;

Her eyes, as stars of twilight fair;

Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful dawn;

A dancing shape, an image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

* * * * *

And now I see, with eye serene,

The very pulse of the machine;

A being breathing thoughtful breath,

A traveler between life and death;

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;

A perfect woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort, and command;

And yet a spirit still and bright,

With something of an angel light."

HARRIET MARTINEAU IN 1859.

* * * * *

IX.

MADAME MALIBRAN.

(BORN 1808--DIED 1836.)

HER CAREER AS A SINGER--KINDNESS OF HEART.

Marie Felicita Garcia, who died at the early age of twenty-eight, was

one of the greatest singers the world has ever known. Born at Paris in

1808, according to some biographers at Turin, she was the daughter of

Manuel Garcia, the famous Spanish tenor singer, by whom she was so

thoroughly trained that she made her first public appearance in London

March 25, 1826, and achieved a remarkable and instant success.

She sang with wonderful acceptance in different parts of England, and in

the Autumn of the same year came to America as prima donna of an opera

company under the management of her father. In New York her success was

without precedent. In the memory of many aged people there she still

holds her place as the Queen of Song.

In the following year she married Eugene Malibran, an elderly French

merchant, under whose name she was ever afterwards known.

Returning to Europe, she made her first appearance in Paris January 14,

1828, where she added other jewels to the singer's crown.

We can not follow her throughout her brilliant career, but must hasten

on to the closing scenes of her life.

In May, 1836, she fell from her horse and was seriously injured. Not

considering the matter in its true aspect, she kept her engagements

during the Summer, and in September appeared in England, at the

Manchester Musical Festival, though warned by her physician to desist.

As the result of the imprudence a nervous fever set in, and she died

September 23d, 1836.

In one of the many notices of this great singer, these words are found:

"Madame Malibran's voice was a mezzo-soprano of great volume and purity,

and had been brought to absolute perfection by the severe training of

her father. Her private character was irreproachable. Few women have

been more beloved for their amiability, generosity, and professional

enthusiasm. Her intellect was of a high order, and the charms of her

conversation fascinated all who were admitted into the circle of her

intimate friends. Her benefactions amounted to such considerable sums

that her friends were frequently obliged to interfere for the purpose of

regulating her finances."

Many stories are told, which show her kindness of heart. The following

is one of pathetic interest:

In a humble room in one of the poorest streets of London, Pierre, a

faithful French boy, sat humming by the bedside of his sick mother.

There was no bread in the closet, and for the whole day he had not

tasted food. Yet he sat humming to keep up his spirits. Still at times

he thought of his loneliness and hunger, and he could scarcely keep the

tears from his eyes; for he knew that nothing would be so grateful to

his poor invalid mother as a good, sweet orange, and yet he had not a

penny in the world.

The little song he was singing was his own--one he had composed, both

air and words--for the child was a genius.

He went to the window, and, looking out, saw a man putting up a great

bill with yellow letters, announcing that Madame Malibran would sing

that night in public.

"O, if I could only go!" thought little Pierre; and then pausing a

moment, he clasped his hands, his eyes lighted with a new hope.

Running to the little stand, he smoothed his yellow curls, and taking

from a little box some old, stained paper, gave one eager glance at his

mother, who slept, and ran speedily from the house.

"Who did you say was waiting for me?" said the madame to her servant; "I

am already worn out with company."

"It's only a very pretty little boy, with yellow curls, who said if he

can just see you he is sure you will not be sorry, and he will not keep

you a moment."

"O, well, let him come in!" said the beautiful singer, with a smile; "I

can never refuse children."

Little Pierre came in, his hat under his arm, and in his hand a little

roll of paper. With manliness unusual for a child, he walked straight to

the lady, and, bowing, said:

"I came to see you because my mother is very sick, and we are too poor

to get food and medicine. I thought, perhaps, that if you would sing my

little song at some of your grand concerts, may be some publisher would

buy it for a small sum, and so I could get food and medicine for my

mother."

The beautiful woman arose from her seat. Very tall and stately she was.

She took the little roll from his hand and lightly hummed the air.

"Did you compose it?" she asked; "you, a child! And the words? Would you

like to come to my concert?" she asked.

"O yes!" and the boy's eyes grew bright with happiness; "but I couldn't

leave my mother."

"I will send somebody to take care of your mother for the evening, and

here is a crown with which you may go and get food and medicine. Here is

also one of my tickets. Come to-night; that will admit you to a seat

near me."

Almost beside himself with joy, Pierre bought some oranges, and many a

little luxury besides, and carried them home to the poor invalid,

telling her, not without tears, of his good fortune.

When evening came, and Pierre was admitted to the concert hall, he felt

that never in his life had he been in so great a place. The music, the

myriad lights, the beauty, the flashing of diamonds and rustling of

silks bewildered his eyes and brain.

At last she came, and the child sat with his glance riveted on her

glorious face. Could he believe that the grand lady, all blazing with

jewels, and whom every body seemed to worship, would really sing his

little song?

Breathless he waited; the band--the whole band--struck up a plaintive

little melody. He knew it, and clasped his hands for joy. And O, how she

sang it! It was so simple, so mournful. Many a bright eye dimmed with

tears, and naught could be heard but the touching words of that little

song--O, so touching!

Pierre walked home as if he were moving on the air.

What cared he for money now? The greatest singer in all Europe had sung

his little song, and thousands had wept at his grief.

The next day he was frightened at a visit from Madame Malibran. She laid

her hand on his yellow curls, and, turning to the sick woman, said,

"Your little boy, madame, has brought you a fortune. I was offered this

morning, by the best publisher in London, $1,500 for his little song;

and, after he has realized a certain amount from the sale, little Pierre

here is to share the profits. Madame, thank God that your son has a gift

from heaven."

The noble-hearted singer and the poor woman wept together. As to Pierre,

always mindful of Him who watches over the tried and tempted, he knelt

down by his mother's bedside and uttered a simple prayer, asking God's

blessing on the kind lady who had deigned to notice their affliction.

The memory of that prayer made the singer more tender-hearted, and she,

who was the idol of England's nobility, went about doing good. And in

her early, happy death, he who stood beside her bed and smoothed her

pillow, and lightened her last moments by his undying affection, was

little Pierre of former days, now rich, accomplished, and the most

talented composer of the day.

O singer of the heart,

The heart that never dies!

The Lord's interpreter thou art,

His angel from the skies.

Thy work on earth is great

As his who saves a soul,

Or his who guides the ship of state,

When mountain-billows roll.

The life of Heaven comes down

In gleams of grace and truth;

Sad mortals see the shining crown

Of sweet, perennial youth.

The life of God, in song

Becomes the life of man;

Ashamed is he of sin and wrong

Who hears a Malibran!

* * * * *

X.

GARFIELD.--MAXIMS.

GATHERED FROM HIS SPEECHES, ADDRESSES, LETTERS, ETC.

I would rather be beaten in right than succeed in wrong.

I feel a profounder reverence for a boy than for a man. I never meet a

ragged boy in the street without feeling that I may owe him a salute,

for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned under his coat.

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but, nine times out of ten,

the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard

and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance, I

never knew a man to be drowned who was worth the saving.

If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible

substitute for it.

We can not study nature profoundly without bringing ourselves into

communion with the spirit of art which pervades and fills the universe.

If there be one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire

better than another, it is a brave man; it is a man who dares to look

the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.

It is one of the precious mysteries of sorrow that it finds solace in

unselfish thought.

Every character is the joint product of nature and nurture.