IX

I often wish that our Number Seven could have known and corresponded

with the author of “The Budget of Paradoxes.” I think Mr. De Morgan

would have found some of his vagaries and fancies not undeserving of

a place in his wonderful collection of eccentricities, absurdities,

ingenuities,--mental freaks of all sorts. But I think he would have now

and then recognized a sound idea, a just comparison, a suggestive hint,

a practical notion, which redeemed a page of extravagances and crotchety

whims. I confess that I am often pleased with fancies of his, and should

be willing to adopt them as my own. I think he has, in the midst of his

erratic and tangled conceptions, some perfectly clear and consistent

trains of thought.

So when Number Seven spoke of sending us a paper, I welcomed the

suggestion. I asked him whether he had any objection to my looking it

over before he read it. My proposal rather pleased him, I thought, for,

as was observed on a former occasion, he has in connection with a belief

in himself another side,--a curious self-distrust. I have no question

that he has an obscure sense of some mental deficiency. Thus you may

expect from him first a dogma, and presently a doubt. If you fight his

dogma, he will do battle for it stoutly; if you let him alone, he will

very probably explain its extravagances, if it has any, and tame it into

reasonable limits. Sometimes he is in one mood, sometimes in another.

The first portion of what we listened to shows him at his best; in the

latter part I am afraid you will think he gets a little wild.

I proceed to lay before you the paper which Number Seven read to The

Teacups. There was something very pleasing in the deference which was

shown him. We all feel that there is a crack in the teacup, and are

disposed to handle it carefully. I have left out a few things which he

said, feeling that they might give offence to some of the company. There

were sentences so involved and obscure that I was sure they would not

be understood, if indeed he understood them himself. But there are other

passages so entirely sane, and as it seems to me so just, that if any

reader attributes them to me I shall not think myself wronged by

the supposition. You must remember that Number Seven has had a fair

education, that he has been a wide reader in many directions, and that

he belongs to a family of remarkable intellectual gifts. So it was not

surprising that he said some things which pleased the company, as

in fact they did. The reader will not be startled to see a certain

abruptness in the transition from one subject to another,--it is a

characteristic of the squinting brain wherever you find it. Another

curious mark rarely wanting in the subjects of mental strabismus is an

irregular and often sprawling and deformed handwriting. Many and many

a time I have said, after glancing at the back of a letter, “This

comes from an insane asylum, or from an eccentric who might well be a

candidate for such an institution.” Number Seven's manuscript, which

showed marks of my corrections here and there, furnished good examples

of the chirography of persons with ill-mated cerebral hemispheres.

But the earlier portions of the manuscript are of perfectly normal

appearance.

Conticuere omnes, as Virgil says. We were all silent as Number Seven

began the reading of his paper.

Number Seven reads.

I am the seventh son of a seventh son, as I suppose you all know. It is

commonly believed that some extraordinary gifts belong to the fortunate

individuals born under these exceptional conditions. However this may

be, a peculiar virtue was supposed to dwell in me from my earliest

years. My touch was believed to have the influence formerly attributed

to that of the kings and queens of England. You may remember that the

great Dr. Samuel Johnson, when a child, was carried to be touched by her

Majesty Queen Anne for the “king's evil,” as scrofula used to be called.

Our honored friend The Dictator will tell you that the brother of one

of his Andover schoolmates was taken to one of these gifted persons, who

touched him, and hung a small bright silver coin, either a “fourpence

ha'penny” or a “ninepence,” about his neck, which, strange to say, after

being worn a certain time, became tarnished, and finally black,--a proof

of the poisonous matters which had become eliminated from the system

and gathered upon the coin. I remember that at one time I used to carry

fourpence ha'pennies with holes bored through them, which I furnished

to children or to their mothers, under pledges of secrecy,--receiving

a piece of silver of larger dimensions in exchange. I never felt quite

sure about any extraordinary endowment being a part of my inheritance in

virtue of my special conditions of birth. A phrenologist, who examined

my head when I was a boy, said the two sides were unlike. My hatter's

measurement told me the same thing; but in looking over more than a

bushel of the small cardboard hat-patterns which give the exact shape of

the head, I have found this is not uncommon. The phrenologist made all

sorts of predictions of what I should be and do, which proved about as

near the truth as those recorded in Miss Edith Thomas's charming little

poem, “Augury,” which some of us were reading the other day.

I have never been through college, but I had a relative who was famous

as a teacher of rhetoric in one of our universities, and especially for

taking the nonsense out of sophomorical young fellows who could not say

anything without rigging it up in showy and sounding phrases. I think

I learned from him to express myself in good old-fashioned English, and

without making as much fuss about it as our Fourth of July orators and

political haranguers were in the habit of making.

I read a good many stories during my boyhood, one of which left a

lasting impression upon me, and which I have always commended to young

people. It is too late, generally, to try to teach old people, yet one

may profit by it at any period of life before the sight has become too

dim to be of any use. The story I refer to is in “Evenings at Home,”

and is called “Eyes and No Eyes.” I ought to have it by me, but it is

constantly happening that the best old things get overlaid by the newest

trash; and though I have never seen anything of the kind half so

good, my table and shelves are cracking with the weight of involuntary

accessions to my library.

This is the story as I remember it: Two children walk out, and are

questioned when they come home. One has found nothing to observe,

nothing to admire, nothing to describe, nothing to ask questions about.

The other has found everywhere objects of curiosity and interest. I

advise you, if you are a child anywhere under forty-five, and do not

yet wear glasses, to send at once for “Evenings at Home” and read that

story. For myself, I am always grateful to the writer of it for calling

my attention to common things. How many people have been waked to a

quicker consciousness of life by Wordsworth's simple lines about the

daffodils, and what he says of the thoughts suggested to him by “the

meanest flower that blows”!

I was driving with a friend, the other day, through a somewhat dreary

stretch of country, where there seemed to be very little to attract

notice or deserve remark. Still, the old spirit infused by “Eyes and No

Eyes” was upon me, and I looked for something to fasten my thought upon,

and treat as an artist treats a study for a picture. The first object

to which my eyes were drawn was an old-fashioned well-sweep. It did not

take much imaginative sensibility to be stirred by the sight of this

most useful, most ancient, most picturesque, of domestic conveniences.

I know something of the shadoof of Egypt,--the same arrangement by which

the sacred waters of the Nile have been lifted, from the days of the

Pharaohs to those of the Khedives. That long forefinger pointing to

heaven was a symbol which spoke to the Puritan exile as it spoke of old

to the enslaved Israelite. Was there ever any such water as that which

we used to draw from the deep, cold well, in “the old oaken bucket”?

What memories gather about the well in all ages! What love-matches have

been made at its margin, from the times of Jacob and, Rachel downward!

What fairy legends hover over it, what fearful mysteries has it hidden!

The beautiful well-sweep! It is too rarely that we see it, and as it

dies out and gives place to the odiously convenient pump, with the last

patent on its cast-iron uninterestingness, does it not seem as if the

farmyard aspect had lost half its attraction? So long as the dairy farm

exists, doubtless there must be every facility for getting water in

abundance; but the loss of the well-sweep cannot be made up to us even

if our milk were diluted to twice its present attenuation.

The well-sweep had served its turn, and my companion and I relapsed into

silence. After a while we passed another farmyard, with nothing which

seemed deserving of remark except the wreck of an old wagon.

“Look,” I said, “if you want to see one of the greatest of all the

triumphs of human ingenuity, one of the most beautiful, as it is one

of the most useful, of all the mechanisms which the intelligence of

successive ages has called into being.”

“I see nothing,” my companion answered, “but an old broken-down wagon.

Why they leave such a piece of lumbering trash about their place, where

people can see it as they pass, is more than I can account for.”

“And yet,” said I, “there is one of the most extraordinary products of

human genius and skill,--an object which combines the useful and the

beautiful to an extent which hardly any simple form of mechanism can

pretend to rival. Do you notice how, while everything else has gone to

smash, that wheel remains sound and fit for service? Look at it merely

for its beauty.

“See the perfect circles, the outer and the inner. A circle is in itself

a consummate wonder of geometrical symmetry. It is the line in which

the omnipotent energy delights to move. There is no fault in it to

be amended. The first drawn circle and the last both embody the same

complete fulfillment of a perfect design. Then look at the rays which

pass from the inner to the outer circle. How beautifully they bring the

greater and lesser circles into connection with each other! The flowers

know that secret,--the marguerite in the meadow displays it as clearly

as the great sun in heaven. How beautiful is this flower of wood and

iron, which we were ready to pass by without wasting a look upon it! But

its beauty is only the beginning of its wonderful claim upon us for

our admiration. Look at that field of flowering grass, the triticum

vulgare,--see how its waves follow the breeze in satiny alternations

of light and shadow. You admire it for its lovely aspect; but when you

remember that this flowering grass is wheat, the finest food of the

highest human races, it gains a dignity, a glory, that its beauty alone

could not give it.

“Now look at that exquisite structure lying neglected and disgraced,

but essentially unchanged in its perfection, before you. That slight

and delicate-looking fabric has stood such a trial as hardly any

slender contrivance, excepting always the valves of the heart, was ever

subjected to. It has rattled for years over the cobble-stones of a rough

city pavement. It has climbed over all the accidental obstructions it

met in the highway, and dropped into all the holes and deep ruts that

made the heavy farmer sitting over it use his Sunday vocabulary in a

week-day form of speech. At one time or another, almost every part of

that old wagon has given way. It has had two new pairs of shafts. Twice

the axle has broken off close to the hub, or nave. The seat broke when

Zekle and Huldy were having what they called 'a ride' together. The

front was kicked in by a vicious mare. The springs gave way and the

floor bumped on the axle. Every portion of the wagon became a prey of

its special accident, except that most fragile looking of all its parts,

the wheel. Who can help admiring the exact distribution of the power

of resistance at the least possible expenditure of material which is

manifested in this wondrous triumph of human genius and skill? The

spokes are planted in the solid hub as strongly as the jaw-teeth of a

lion in their deep-sunken sockets. Each spoke has its own territory in

the circumference, for which it is responsible. According to the

load the vehicle is expected to carry, they are few or many, stout or

slender, but they share their joint labor with absolute justice,--not

one does more, not one does less, than its just proportion. The outer

end of the spokes is received into the deep mortise of the wooden

fellies, and the structure appears to be complete. But how long would

it take to turn that circle into a polygon, unless some mighty

counteracting force should prevent it? See the iron tire brought hot

from the furnace and laid around the smoking circumference. Once in

place, the workman cools the hot iron; and as it shrinks with a force

that seems like a hand-grasp of the Omnipotent, it clasps the

fitted fragments of the structure, and compresses them into a single

inseparable whole.

“Was it not worth our while to stop a moment before passing that old

broken wagon, and see whether we could not find as much in it as Swift

found in his 'Meditations on a Broomstick'? I have been laughed at for

making so much of such a common thing as a wheel. Idiots! Solomon's

court fool would have scoffed at the thought of the young Galilean who

dared compare the lilies of the field to his august master. Nil admirari

is very well for a North American Indian and his degenerate successor,

who has grown too grand to admire anything but himself, and takes a

cynical pride in his stolid indifference to everything worth reverencing

or honoring.”

After calling my companion's attention to the wheel, and discoursing

upon it until I thought he was getting sleepy, we jogged along until we

came to a running stream. It was crossed by a stone bridge of a single

arch. There are very few stone arches over the streams in New England

country towns, and I always delighted in this one. It was built in the

last century, amidst the doubting predictions of staring rustics, and

stands to-day as strong as ever, and seemingly good for centuries to

come.

“See there!” said I,--“there is another of my 'Eyes and No Eyes'

subjects to meditate upon. Next to the wheel, the arch is the noblest of

those elementary mechanical composites, corresponding to the proximate

principles of chemistry. The beauty of the arch consists first in its

curve, commonly a part of the circle, of the perfection of which I

have spoken. But the mind derives another distinct pleasure from the

admirable manner in which the several parts, each different from all

the others, contribute to a single harmonious effect. It is a typical

example of the piu nel uno. An arch cut out or a single stone would not

be so beautiful as one of which each individual stone was shaped for

its exact position. Its completion by the locking of the keystone is a

delight to witness and to contemplate. And how the arch endures, when

its lateral thrust is met by solid masses of resistance! In one of the

great temples of Baalbec a keystone has slipped, but how rare is that

occurrence! One will hardly find another such example among all the

ruins of antiquity. Yes, I never get tired of arches. They are noble

when shaped of solid marble blocks, each carefully beveled for its

position. They are beautiful when constructed with the large thin tiles

the Romans were so fond of using. I noticed some arches built in this

way in the wall of one of the grand houses just going up on the bank of

the river. They were over the capstones of the windows,--to take off

the pressure from them, no doubt, for now and then a capstone will crack

under the weight of the superincumbent mass. How close they fit, and how

striking the effect of their long radiations!”

The company listened very well up to this point. When he began the

strain of thoughts which follows, a curious look went round The Teacups.

What a strange underground life is that which is led by the organisms

we call trees! These great fluttering masses of leaves, stems, boughs,

trunks, are not the real trees. They live underground, and what we see

are nothing more nor less than their tails.

The Mistress dropped her teaspoon. Number Five looked at the Doctor,

whose face was very still and sober. The two Annexes giggled, or came

very near it.

Yes, a tree is an underground creature, with its tail in the air. All

its intelligence is in its roots. All the senses it has are in its

roots. Think what sagacity it shows in its search after food and drink!

Somehow or other, the rootlets, which are its tentacles, find out that

there is a brook at a moderate distance from the trunk of the tree,

and they make for it with all their might. They find every crack in the

rocks where there are a few grains of the nourishing substance they care

for, and insinuate themselves into its deepest recesses. When spring

and summer come, they let their tails grow, and delight in whisking them

about in the wind, or letting them be whisked about by it; for these

tails are poor passive things, with very little will of their own, and

bend in whatever direction the wind chooses to make them. The leaves

make a deal of noise whispering. I have sometimes thought I could

understand them, as they talk with each other, and that they seemed to

think they made the wind as they wagged forward and back. Remember what

I say. The next time you see a tree waving in the wind, recollect

that it is the tail of a great underground, many-armed, polypus-like

creature, which is as proud of its caudal appendage, especially in

summer-time, as a peacock of his gorgeous expanse of plumage.

Do you think there is anything so very odd about this idea? Once get

it well into your heads, and you will find it renders the landscape

wonderfully interesting. There are as many kinds of tree-tails as there

are of tails to dogs and other quadrupeds. Study them as Daddy Gilpin

studied them in his “Forest Scenery,” but don't forget that they are

only the appendage of the underground vegetable polypus, the true

organism to which they belong.

He paused at this point, and we all drew long breaths, wondering what

was coming next. There was no denying it, the “cracked Teacup” was

clinking a little false,--so it seemed to the company. Yet, after all,

the fancy was not delirious,--the mind could follow it well enough; let

him go on.

What do you say to this? You have heard all sorts of things said in

prose and verse about Niagara. Ask our young Doctor there what it

reminds him of. Is n't it a giant putting his tongue out? How can you

fail to see the resemblance? The continent is a great giant, and the

northern half holds the head and shoulders. You can count the pulse of

the giant wherever the tide runs up a creek; but if you want to look at

the giant's tongue, you must go to Niagara. If there were such a

thing as a cosmic physician, I believe he could tell the state of the

country's health, and the prospects of the mortality for the coming

season, by careful inspection of the great tongue, which Niagara is

putting out for him, and has been showing to mankind ever since the

first flint-shapers chipped their arrow-heads. You don't think the idea

adds to the sublimity and associations of the cataract? I am sorry for

that, but I can't help the suggestion. It is just as manifestly a tongue

put out for inspection as if it had Nature's own label to that effect

hung over it. I don't know whether you can see these things as clearly

as I do. There are some people that never see anything, if it is as

plain as a hole in a grindstone, until it is pointed out to them; and

some that can't see it then, and won't believe there is any hole till

they've poked their finger through it. I've got a great many things

to thank God for, but perhaps most of all that I can find something

to admire, to wonder at, to set my fancy going, and to wind up my

enthusiasm pretty much everywhere.

Look here! There are crowds of people whirled through our streets on

these new-fashioned cars, with their witch-broomsticks overhead,--if

they don't come from Salem, they ought to,--and not more than one in a

dozen of these fish-eyed bipeds thinks or cares a nickel's worth about

the miracle which is wrought for their convenience. They know that

without hands or feet, without horses, without steam, so far as they can

see, they are transported from place to place, and that there is nothing

to account for it except the witch-broomstick and the iron or copper

cobweb which they see stretched above them. What do they know or care

about this last revelation of the omnipresent spirit of the material

universe? We ought to go down on our knees when one of these mighty

caravans, car after car, spins by us, under the mystic impulse which

seems to know not whether its train is loaded or empty. We are used to

force in the muscles of horses, in the expansive potency of steam, but

here we have force stripped stark naked,--nothing but a filament to

cover its nudity,--and yet showing its might in efforts that would task

the working-beam of a ponderous steam-engine. I am thankful that in an

age of cynicism I have not lost my reverence. Perhaps you would wonder

to see how some very common sights impress me. I always take off my hat

if I stop to speak to a stone-cutter at his work. “Why?” do you ask me?

Because I know that his is the only labor that is likely to endure.

A score of centuries has not effaced the marks of the Greek's or

the Roman's chisel on his block of marble. And now, before this new

manifestation of that form of cosmic vitality which we call electricity,

I feel like taking the posture of the peasants listening to the Angelus.

How near the mystic effluence of mechanical energy brings us to the

divine source of all power and motion! In the old mythology, the right

hand of Jove held and sent forth the lightning. So, in the record of the

Hebrew prophets, did the right hand of Jehovah cast forth and direct

it. Was Nahum thinking of our far-off time when he wrote, “The chariots

shall rage in the streets, they shall justle one against another in

the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the

lightnings”?

Number Seven had finished reading his paper. Two bright spots in his

cheeks showed that he had felt a good deal in writing it, and the

flush returned as he listened to his own thoughts. Poor old fellow! The

“cracked Teacup” of our younger wits,--not yet come to their full

human sensibilities,--the “crank” of vulgar tongues, the eccentric, the

seventh son of a seventh son, too often made the butt of thoughtless

pleasantry, was, after all, a fellow-creature, with flesh and blood like

the rest of us. The wild freaks of his fancy did not hurt us, nor did

they prevent him from seeing many things justly, and perhaps sometimes

more vividly and acutely than if he were as sound as the dullest of us.

The teaspoons tinkled loudly all round the table, as he finished

reading. The Mistress caught her breath. I was afraid she was going

to sob, but she took it out in vigorous stirring of her tea. Will you

believe that I saw Number Five, with a sweet, approving smile on her

face all the time, brush her cheek with her hand-kerchief? There must

have been a tear stealing from beneath its eyelid. I hope Number Seven

saw it. He is one of the two men at our table who most need the tender

looks and tones of a woman. The Professor and I are hors de combat;

the Counsellor is busy with his cases and his ambitions; the Doctor

is probably in love with a microscope, and flirting with pathological

specimens; but Number Seven and the Tutor are, I fear, both suffering

from that worst of all famines, heart-hunger.

Do you remember that Number Seven said he never wrote a line of “poetry”

in his life, except once when he was suffering from temporary weakness

of body and mind? That is because he is a poet. If he had not been one,

he would very certainly have taken to tinkling rhymes. What should you

think of the probable musical genius of a young man who was particularly

fond of jingling a set of sleigh-bells? Should you expect him to turn

out a Mozart or a Beethoven? Now, I think I recognize the poetical

instinct in Number Seven, however imperfect may be its expression, and

however he may be run away with at times by fantastic notions that come

into his head. If fate had allotted him a helpful companion in the shape

of a loving and intelligent wife, he might have been half cured of his

eccentricities, and we should not have had to say, in speaking of him,

“Poor fellow!” But since this cannot be, I am pleased that he should

have been so kindly treated on the occasion of the reading of his paper.

If he saw Number Five's tear, he will certainly fall in love with her.

No matter if he does Number Five is a kind of Circe who does not turn

the victims of her enchantment into swine, but into lambs. I want to see

Number Seven one of her little flock. I say “little.” I suspect it is

larger than most of us know. Anyhow, she can spare him sympathy and

kindness and encouragement enough to keep him contented with himself and

with her, and never miss the pulses of her loving life she lends him.

It seems to be the errand of some women to give many people as much

happiness as they have any right to in this world. If they concentrated

their affection on one, they would give him more than any mortal could

claim as his share. I saw Number Five watering her flowers, the other

day. The watering-pot had one of those perforated heads, through which

the water runs in many small streams. Every plant got its share: the

proudest lily bent beneath the gentle shower; the lowliest daisy held

its little face up for baptism. All were refreshed, none was flooded.

Presently she took the perforated head, or “rose,” from the neck of the

watering-pot, and the full stream poured out in a round, solid column.

It was almost too much for the poor geranium on which it fell, and it

looked at one minute as if the roots would be laid bare, and perhaps the

whole plant be washed out of the soil in which it was planted. What if

Number Five should take off the “rose” that sprinkles her affections on

so many, and pour them all on one? Can that ever be? If it can, life is

worth living for him on whom her love may be lavished.

One of my neighbors, a thorough American, is much concerned about the

growth of what he calls the “hard-handed aristocracy.” He tells the

following story:--

“I was putting up a fence about my yard, and employed a man of whom I

knew something,--that he was industrious, temperate, and that he had a

wife and children to support,--a worthy man, a native New Englander.

I engaged him, I say, to dig some post-holes. My employee bought a new

spade and scoop on purpose, and came to my place at the appointed

time, and began digging. While he was at work, two men came over from

a drinking-saloon, to which my residence is nearer than I could desire.

One of them I had known as Mike Fagan, the other as Hans Schleimer. They

looked at Hiram, my New Hampshire man, in a contemptuous and threatening

way for a minute or so, when Fagan addressed him:

“'And how much does the man pay yez by the hour?'

“'The gentleman does n't pay me by the hour,' said Hiram.

“'How mosh does he bay you by der veeks?' said Hans.

“'I don' know as that's any of your business,' answered Hiram.

“'Faith, we'll make it our business,' said Mike Fagan. 'We're Knoights

of Labor, we'd have yez to know, and ye can't make yer bargains jist as

ye loikes. We manes to know how mony hours ye worrks, and how much ye

gets for it.'

“'Knights of Labor!' said I. 'Why, that is a kind of title of nobility,

is n't it? I thought the laws of our country did n't allow titles of

that kind. But if you have a right to be called knights, I suppose I

ought to address you as such. Sir Michael, I congratulate you on the

dignity you have attained. I hope Lady Fagan is getting on well with

my shirts. Sir Hans, I pay my respects to your title. I trust that Lady

Schleixner has got through that little difficulty between her ladyship

and yourself in which the police court thought it necessary to

intervene.'

“The two men looked at me. I weigh about a hundred and eighty

pounds, and am well put together. Hiram was noted in his village as

a 'rahstler.' But my face is rather pallid and peaked, and Hiram had

something of the greenhorn look. The two men, who had been drinking,

hardly knew what ground to take. They rather liked the sound of Sir

Michael and, Sir Hans. They did not know very well what to make of their

wives as 'ladies.' They looked doubtful whether to take what had been

said as a casus belli or not, but they wanted a pretext of some kind or

other. Presently one of them saw a label on the scoop, or longhandled,

spoon-like shovel, with which Hiram had been working.

“'Arrah, be jabers!' exclaimed Mike Fagan, 'but has n't he been

a-tradin' wid Brown, the hardware fellah, that we boycotted! Grab it,

Hans, and we'll carry it off and show it to the brotherhood.'

“The men made a move toward the implement.

“'You let that are scoop-shovel alone,' said Hiram.

“I stepped to his side. The Knights were combative, as their noble

predecessors with the same title always were, and it was necessary to

come to a voie de fait. My straight blow from the shoulder did for

Sir Michael. Hiram treated Sir Hans to what is technically known as a

cross-buttock.

“'Naow, Dutchman,' said Hiram, 'if you don't want to be planted in that

are post-hole, y'd better take y'rself out o' this here piece of private

property. “Dangerous passin,” as the sign-posts say, abaout these

times.'

“Sir Michael went down half stunned by my expressive gesture; Sir

Hans did not know whether his hip was out of joint or he had got a bad

sprain; but they were both out of condition for further hostilities.

Perhaps it was hardly fair to take advantage of their misfortunes to

inflict a discourse upon them, but they had brought it on themselves,

and we each of us gave them a piece of our mind.

“'I tell you what it is,' said Hiram, 'I'm a free and independent

American citizen, and I an't a-gon' to hev no man tyrannize over me, if

he doos call himself by one o' them noblemen's titles. Ef I can't work

jes' as I choose, fur folks that wants me to work fur 'em and that I

want to work fur, I might jes' as well go to Sibery and done with it. My

gran'f'ther fit in Bunker Hill battle. I guess if our folks in them days

did n't care no great abaout Lord Percy and Sir William Haowe, we an't

a-gon' to be scart by Sir Michael Fagan and Sir Hans What 's-his-name,

nor no other fellahs that undertakes to be noblemen, and tells us common

folks what we shall dew an' what we sha'n't. No, sir!'

“I took the opportunity to explain to Sir Michael and Sir Hans what it

was our fathers fought for, and what is the meaning of liberty. If these

noblemen did not like the country, they could go elsewhere. If they

did n't like the laws, they had the ballot-box, and could choose new

legislators. But as long as the laws existed they must obey them. I

could not admit that, because they called themselves by the titles the

Old World nobility thought so much of, they had a right to interfere in

the agreements I entered into with my neighbor. I told Sir Michael that

if he would go home and help Lady Fagan to saw and split the wood for

her fire, he would be better employed than in meddling with my domestic

arrangements. I advised Sir Hans to ask Lady Schleimer for her bottle

of spirits to use as an embrocation for his lame hip. And so my two

visitors with the aristocratic titles staggered off, and left us plain,

untitled citizens, Hiram and myself, to set our posts, and consider the

question whether we lived in a free country or under the authority of a

self-constituted order of quasi-nobility.”

It is a very curious fact that, with all our boasted “free and equal”

superiority over the communities of the Old World, our people have the

most enormous appetite for Old World titles of distinction. Sir Michael

and Sir Hans belong to one of the most extended of the aristocratic

orders. But we have also “Knights and Ladies of Honor,” and, what is

still grander, “Royal Conclave of Knights and Ladies,” “Royal Arcanum,”

and “Royal Society of Good Fellows,” “Supreme Council,” “Imperial

Court,” “Grand Protector,” and “Grand Dictator,” and so on. Nothing less

than “Grand” and “Supreme” is good enough for the dignitaries of our

associations of citizens. Where does all this ambition for names without

realities come from? Because a Knight of the Garter wears a golden

star, why does the worthy cordwainer, who mends the shoes of his

fellow-citizens, want to wear a tin star, and take a name that had a

meaning as used by the representatives of ancient families, or the men

who had made themselves illustrious by their achievements?

It appears to be a peculiarly American weakness. The French republicans

of the earlier period thought the term citizen was good enough for

anybody. At a later period, “Roi Citoyen”--the citizen king was a

common title given to Louis Philippe. But nothing is too grand for

the American, in the way of titles. The proudest of them all signify

absolutely nothing. They do not stand for ability, for public service,

for social importance, for large possessions; but, on the contrary,

are oftenest found in connection with personalities to which they are

supremely inapplicable. We can hardly afford to quarrel with a national

habit which, if lightly handled, may involve us in serious domestic

difficulties. The “Right Worshipful” functionary whose equipage stops

at my back gate, and whose services are indispensable to the health and

comfort of my household, is a dignitary whom I must not offend. I must

speak with proper deference to the lady who is scrubbing my floors,

when I remember that her husband, who saws my wood, carries a string of

high-sounding titles which would satisfy a Spanish nobleman.

After all, every people must have its own forms of ostentation,

pretence, and vulgarity. The ancient Romans had theirs, the English and

the French have theirs as well,--why should not we Americans have ours?

Educated and refined persons must recognize frequent internal conflicts

between the “Homo sum” of Terence and the “Odi profanum vulgus” of

Horace. The nobler sentiment should be that of every true American,

and it is in that direction that our best civilization is constantly

tending.

We were waited on by a new girl, the other evening. Our pretty maiden

had left us for a visit to some relative,--so the Mistress said. I

do sincerely hope she will soon come back, for we all like to see her

flitting round the table.

I don't know what to make of it. I had it all laid out in my mind. With

such a company there must be a love-story. Perhaps there will be, but

there may be new combinations of the elements which are to make it up,

and here is a bud among the full-blown flowers to which I must devote a

little space.

Delilah.

I must call her by the name we gave her after she had trimmed the Samson

locks of our Professor. Delilah is a puzzle to most of us. A pretty

creature, dangerously pretty to be in a station not guarded by all the

protective arrangements which surround the maidens of a higher social

order. It takes a strong cage to keep in a tiger or a grizzly bear, but

what iron bars, what barbed wires, can keep out the smooth and subtle

enemy that finds out the cage where beauty is imprisoned? Our young

Doctor is evidently attracted by the charming maiden who serves him and

us so modestly and so gracefully. Fortunately, the Mistress never

loses sight of her. If she were her own daughter, she could not be more

watchful of all her movements. And yet I do not believe that Delilah

needs all this overlooking. If I am not mistaken, she knows how to take

care of herself, and could be trusted anywhere, in any company, without

a duenna. She has a history,--I feel sure of it. She has been trained

and taught as young persons of higher position in life are brought up,

and does not belong in the humble station in which we find her. But

inasmuch as the Mistress says nothing about her antecedents, we do

not like to be too inquisitive. The two Annexes are, it is plain, very

curious about her. I cannot wonder. They are both good-looking girls,

but Delilah is prettier than either of them. My sight is not so good

as it was, but I can see the way in which the eyes of the young people

follow each other about plainly enough to set me thinking as to what is

going on in the thinking marrow behind them. The young Doctor's follow

Delilah as she glides round the table,--they look into hers whenever

they get a chance; but the girl's never betray any consciousness of it,

so far as I can see. There is no mistaking the interest with which the

two, Annexes watch all this. Why shouldn't they, I should like to know?

The Doctor is a bright young fellow, and wants nothing but a bald spot

and a wife to find himself in a comfortable family practice. One of

the Annexes, as I have said, has had thoughts of becoming a doctress.

I don't think the Doctor would want his wife to practise medicine, for

reasons which I will not stop to mention. Such a partnership sometimes

works wonderfully well, as in one well-known instance where husband and

wife are both eminent in the profession; but our young Doctor has said

to me that he had rather see his wife,--if he ever should have one,--at

the piano than at the dissecting-table. Of course the Annexes know

nothing about this, and they may think, as he professed himself willing

to lecture on medicine to women, he might like to take one of his pupils

as a helpmeet.

If it were not for our Delilah's humble position, I don't see why she

would not be a good match for any young man. But then it is so hard

to take a young woman from so very lowly a condition as that of a

“waitress” that it would require a deal of courage to venture on such a

step. If we could only find out that she is a princess in disguise, so

to speak,--that is, a young person of presentable connections as well as

pleasing looks and manners; that she has had an education of some kind,

as we suspected when she blushed on hearing herself spoken of as a

“gentille petite,” why, then everything would be all right, the young

Doctor would have plain sailing,--that is, if he is in love with her,

and if she fancies him,--and I should find my love-story,--the one I

expected, but not between the parties I had thought would be mating with

each other.

Dear little Delilah! Lily of the valley, growing in the shade

now,--perhaps better there until her petals drop; and yet if she is all

I often fancy she is, how her youthful presence would illuminate and

sweeten a household! There is not one of us who does not feel interested

in her,--not one of us who would not be delighted at some Cinderella

transformation which would show her in the setting Nature meant for her

favorite.

The fancy of Number Seven about the witches' broomsticks suggested to

one of us the following poem:

THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN;

OR, THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES.

Lookout! Look out, boys! Clear the track!

The witches are here! They've all come back!

They hanged them high,--No use! No use!

What cares a witch for a hangman's noose?

They buried them deep, but they would n't lie, still,

For cats and witches are hard to kill;

They swore they shouldn't and wouldn't die,

Books said they did, but they lie! they lie!

--A couple of hundred years, or so,

They had knocked about in the world below,

When an Essex Deacon dropped in to call,

And a homesick feeling seized them all;

For he came from a place they knew full well,

And many a tale he had to tell.

They long to visit the haunts of men,

To see the old dwellings they knew again,

And ride on their broomsticks all around

Their wide domain of unhallowed ground.

In Essex county there's many a roof

Well known to him of the cloven hoof;

The small square windows are full in view

Which the midnight hags went sailing through,

On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high,

Seen like shadows against the sky;

Crossing the track of owls and bats,

Hugging before them their coal-black cats.

Well did they know, those gray old wives,

The sights we see in our daily drives

Shimmer of lake and shine of sea,

Brown's bare hill with its lonely tree,

(It wasn't then as we see it now,

With one scant scalp-lock to shade its brow;)

Dusky nooks in the Essex woods,

Dark, dim, Dante-like solitudes,

Where the tree-toad watches the sinuous snake

Glide through his forests of fern and brake;

Ipswich River; its old stone bridge;

Far off Andover's Indian Ridge,

And many a scene where history tells

Some shadow of bygone terror dwells,

Of “Norman's Woe” with its tale of dread,

Of the Screeching Woman of Marblehead,

(The fearful story that turns men pale

Don't bid me tell it,--my speech would fail.)

Who would not, will not, if he can,

Bathe in the breezes of fair Cape Ann,

Rest in the bowers her bays enfold,

Loved by the sachems and squaws of old?

Home where the white magnolias bloom,

Sweet with the bayberry's chaste perfume,

Hugged by the woods and kissed by the seal

Where is the Eden like to thee?

For that “couple of hundred years, or so,”

There had been no peace in the world below;

The witches still grumbling, “It is n't fair;

Come, give us a taste of the upper air!

We've had enough of your sulphur springs,

And the evil odor that round them clings;

We long for a drink that is cool and nice,

Great buckets of water with Wenham ice;

We've served you well up-stairs, you know;

You're a good old-fellow--come, let us go!”

I don't feel sure of his being good,

But he happened to be in a pleasant mood,

As fiends with their skins full sometimes are,

(He'd been drinking with “roughs” at a Boston bar.)

So what does he do but up and shout

To a graybeard turnkey, “Let 'em out!”

To mind his orders was all he knew;

The gates swung open, and out they flew.

“Where are our broomsticks?” the beldams cried.

“Here are your broomsticks,” an imp replied.

“They've been in--the place you know--so long

They smell of brimstone uncommon strong;

But they've gained by being left alone,

Just look, and you'll see how tall they've grown.”

--And where is my cat? “a vixen squalled.

Yes, where are our cats?” the witches bawled,

And began to call them all by name:

As fast as they called the cats, they came

There was bob-tailed Tommy and long-tailed Tim,

And wall-eyed Jacky and green-eyed Jim,

And splay-foot Benny and slim-legged Beau,

And Skinny and Squally, and Jerry and Joe,

And many another that came at call,

It would take too long to count them all.

All black,--one could hardly tell which was which,

But every cat knew his own old witch;

And she knew hers as hers knew her,

Ah, did n't they curl their tails and purr!

No sooner the withered hags were free

Than out they swarmed for a midnight spree;

I could n't tell all they did in rhymes,

But the Essex people had dreadful times.

The Swampscott fishermen still relate

How a strange sea-monster stole thair bait;

How their nets were tangled in loops and knots,

And they found dead crabs in their lobster-pots.

Poor Danvers grieved for her blasted crops,

And Wilmington mourned over mildewed hops.

A blight played havoc with Beverly beans,

It was all the work of those hateful queans!

A dreadful panic began at “Pride's,”

Where the witches stopped in their midnight rides,

And there rose strange rumors and vague alarms

'Mid the peaceful dwellers at Beverly Farms.

Now when the Boss of the Beldams found

That without his leave they were ramping round,

He called,--they could hear him twenty miles,

From Chelsea beach to the Misery Isles;

The deafest old granny knew his tone

Without the trick of the telephone.

“Come here, you witches! Come here!” says he,

--“At your games of old, without asking me

I'll give you a little job to do

That will keep you stirring, you godless crew!”

They came, of course, at their master's call,

The witches, the broomsticks, the cats, and all;

He led the hags to a railway train

The horses were trying to drag in vain.

“Now, then,” says he, “you've had your fun,

And here are the cars you've got to run.

“The driver may just unhitch his team,

We don't want horses, we don't want steam;

You may keep your old black cats to hug,

But the loaded train you've got to lug.”

Since then on many a car you'll see

A broomstick plain as plain can be;

On every stick there's a witch astride,

The string you see to her leg is tied.

She will do a mischief if she can,

But the string is held by a careful man,

And whenever the evil-minded witch

Would cut come caper, he gives a twitch.

As for the hag, you can't see her,

But hark! you can hear her black cat's purr,

And now and then, as a car goes by,

You may catch a gleam from her wicked eye.

Often you've looked on a rushing train,

But just what moved it was not so plain.

It couldn't be those wires above,

For they could neither pull nor shove;

Where was the motor that made it go

You couldn't guess, but now you know.

Remember my rhymes when you ride again

On the rattling rail by the broomstick train!

X

In my last report of our talks over the teacups I had something to say

of the fondness of our people for titles. Where did the anti-republican,

anti-democratic passion for swelling names come from, and how long has

it been naturalized among us?

A striking instance of it occurred at about the end of the last century.

It was at that time there appeared among us one of the most original

and singular personages to whom America has given birth. Many of our

company,--many of my readers,--all well acquainted with his name, and

not wholly ignorant of his history. They will not object to my giving

some particulars relating to him, which, if not new to them, will be new

to others into whose hands these pages may fall.

Timothy Dexter, the first claimant of a title of nobility among the

people of the United States of America, was born in the town of Malden,

near Boston. He served an apprenticeship as a leather-dresser, saved

some money, got some more with his wife, began trading and speculating,

and became at last rich, for those days. His most famous business

enterprise was that of sending an invoice of warming-pans to the West

Indies. A few tons of ice would have seemed to promise a better return;

but in point of fact, he tells us, the warming-pans were found useful

in the manufacture of sugar, and brought him in a handsome profit. His

ambition rose with his fortune. He purchased a large and stately house

in Newburyport, and proceeded to embellish and furnish it according to

the dictates of his taste and fancy. In the grounds about his house, he

caused to be erected between forty and fifty wooden statues of great men

and allegorical figures, together with four lions and one lamb. Among

these images were two statues of Dexter himself, one of which held a

label with a characteristic inscription. His house was ornamented with

minarets, adorned with golden balls, and surmounted by a large gilt

eagle. He equipped it with costly furniture, with paintings, and a

library. He went so far as to procure the services of a poet laureate,

whose business it seems to have been to sing his praises. Surrounded

with splendors like these, the plain title of “Mr.” Dexter would have

been infinitely too mean and common. He therefore boldly took the step

of self-ennobling, and gave himself forth--as he said, obeying “the

voice of the people at large”--as “Lord Timothy Dexter,” by which

appellation he has ever since been known to the American public.

If to be the pioneer in the introduction of Old World titles into

republican America can confer a claim to be remembered by posterity,

Lord Timothy Dexter has a right to historic immortality. If the true

American spirit shows itself most clearly in boundless self-assertion,

Timothy Dexter is the great original American egotist. If to throw

off the shackles of Old World pedantry, and defy the paltry rules and

examples of grammarians and rhetoricians, is the special province and

the chartered privilege of the American writer, Timothy Dexter is the

founder of a new school, which tramples under foot the conventionalities

that hampered and subjugated the faculties of the poets, the dramatists,

the historians, essayists, story-tellers, orators, of the worn-out races

which have preceded the great American people.

The material traces of the first American nobleman's existence have

nearly disappeared. The house is still standing, but the statues, the

minarets, the arches, and the memory of the great Lord Timothy Dexter

live chiefly in tradition, and in the work which he bequeathed to

posterity, and of which I shall say a few words. It is unquestionably a

thoroughly original production, and I fear that some readers may think I

am trifling with them when I am quoting it literally. I am going to

make a strong claim for Lord Timothy as against other candidates for a

certain elevated position.

Thomas Jefferson is commonly recognized as the first to proclaim before

the world the political independence of America. It is not so

generally agreed upon as to who was the first to announce the literary

emancipation of our country.

One of Mr. Emerson's biographers has claimed that his Phi Beta Kappa

Oration was our Declaration of Literary Independence. But Mr. Emerson

did not cut himself loose from all the traditions of Old World

scholarship. He spelled his words correctly, he constructed his

sentences grammatically. He adhered to the slavish rules of propriety,

and observed the reticences which a traditional delicacy has considered

inviolable in decent society, European and Oriental alike. When he wrote

poetry, he commonly selected subjects which seemed adapted to poetical

treatment,--apparently thinking that all things were not equally

calculated to inspire the true poet's genius. Once, indeed, he ventured

to refer to “the meal in the firkin, the milk in the pan,” but

he chiefly restricted himself to subjects such as a fastidious

conventionalism would approve as having a certain fitness for poetical

treatment. He was not always so careful as he might have been in the

rhythm and rhyme of his verse, but in the main he recognized the old

established laws which have been accepted as regulating both. In short,

with all his originality, he worked in Old World harness, and cannot

be considered as the creator of a truly American, self-governed,

self-centred, absolutely independent style of thinking and writing,

knowing no law but its own sovereign will and pleasure.

A stronger claim might be urged for Mr. Whitman. He takes into his

hospitable vocabulary words which no English dictionary recognizes

as belonging to the language,--words which will be looked for in vain

outside of his own pages. He accepts as poetical subjects all things

alike, common and unclean, without discrimination, miscellaneous as the

contents of the great sheet which Peter saw let down from heaven.

He carries the principle of republicanism through the whole world of

created objects. He will “thread a thread through [his] poems,” he tells

us, “that no one thing in the universe is inferior to another thing.”

No man has ever asserted the surpassing dignity and importance of the

American citizen so boldly and freely as Mr. Whitman. He calls himself

“teacher of the unquenchable creed, namely, egotism.” He begins one of

his chants, “I celebrate myself,” but he takes us all in as partners in

his self-glorification. He believes in America as the new Eden.

“A world primal again,--vistas of glory incessant and branching, A

new race dominating previous ones and grander far, New politics--new

literature and religions--new inventions and arts.”

Of the new literature be himself has furnished specimens which certainly

have all the originality he can claim for them. So far as egotism is

concerned, he was clearly anticipated by the titled personage to whom

I have referred, who says of himself, “I am the first in the East, the

first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world.”

But while Mr. Whitman divests himself of a part of his baptismal name,

the distinguished New Englander thus announces his proud position: “Ime

the first Lord in the younited States of A mercary Now of Newburyport.

it is the voice of the peopel and I cant Help it.” This extract is from

his famous little book called “A Pickle for the Knowing Ones.” As an

inventor of a new American style he goes far beyond Mr. Whitman, who,

to be sure, cares little for the dictionary, and makes his own rules of

rhythm, so far as there is any rhythm in his sentences. But Lord Timothy

spells to suit himself, and in place of employing punctuation as it is

commonly used, prints a separate page of periods, colons, semicolons,

commas, notes of interrogation and of admiration, with which the reader

is requested to “peper and soolt” the book as he pleases.

I am afraid that Mr. Emerson and Mr. Whitman must yield the claim of

declaring American literary independence to Lord Timothy Dexter, who not

only taught his countrymen that they need not go to the Heralds' College

to authenticate their titles of nobility, but also that they were

at perfect liberty to spell just as they liked, and to write without

troubling themselves about stops of any kind. In writing what I suppose

he intended for poetry, he did not even take the pains to break up his

lines into lengths to make them look like verse, as may be seen by the

following specimen: