PART II.

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XVIII.--DECEMBER, 1866.--NO. CX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR

AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the

District of Massachusetts.

[Transcriber's note: Minor typos corrected and footnotes moved to end of

article.]

* * * * *

JOHN PIERPONT.

Most men of "fourscore and upwards," like Lear, and who, like Lear, have

been "mightily abused" in their day, are found, upon diligent inquiry,

to have long outlived themselves, like the Archbishop of Granada; but

here is a man, or was but the other day, in his eighty-second year, with

the temper and edge and "bright blue rippling glitter" of a Damascus

blade up to the very last; or rather, considering how he was last

employed, with the temper of that strange tool, found among the ruins of

Thebes, with which they used to smooth and polish their huge monoliths

of granite, until they murmured a song of joy, whenever the morning

sunshine fell upon them.

This remarkable man--remarkable under many aspects--died at Medford,

Massachusetts, on Monday morning, August 27th; and it is now said of

heart-disease,--that other name for a mysterious and sudden death,

happen how it may, and when it may. He had been perfectly well the day

before, attended church, and called on some of his neighbors; he retired

to rest as usual, and nothing more was heard of him till Monday morning,

when he was found asleep in Jesus, prepared, as we humbly trust, to hear

the greeting of "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!" Says a

friend, in a letter now lying before me, of August 27th: "On Saturday

afternoon, day before yesterday, your friend and my friend, Rev. John

Pierpont, called upon me, and we had a very interesting interview of

about an hour. I never saw him look better or appear happier. Although

eighty-one years of age the 6th of last April, he seemed to have the

elasticity of youth, and he was perfectly erect. I gave him what he

wanted very much,--a copy of his trial before an ecclesiastical council

in this city, several years ago. He gave me his photograph, and, taking

his gold pen, wrote underneath, in a beautiful hand, 'John Pierpont,

aged 81.' He said he was doing some work at Washington, which he hoped

to live long enough to complete.... When I published my last book, I

sent him a copy. He acknowledged the receipt of it in a letter of eight

or ten pages, which is now a treasure to me. His name on the photograph

was probably the last time he ever wrote it,"--another treasure, which

my friend would not now be likely to part with for any consideration.

My acquaintance with Mr. Pierpont began in the fall or winter of 1814,

just when the war had assumed such proportions, that men's hearts were

failing them for fear, and prodigies and portents were of daily

occurrence. New England too--finding herself defenceless and left to the

mercy of our foe--began to think, not of setting up for herself, not of

withdrawing from the copartnership, without the consent of the whole

sisterhood, but of coming together for conference and proposing to the

general government, not to become neutral after the fashion of Kentucky,

in our late misunderstanding, not of playing the part of umpire between

the belligerents, like that heroic embodiment of Southern chivalry, nor

of holding the balance of power, but, on being allowed her just

proportion of the public revenues, to undertake for herself, and agree

to give a good account of the enemy, if he should throw himself upon her

bulwarks, whether along the seaboard, or upon her great northern

frontier.

He had just escaped from Newburyport, after writing the "Portrait," a

severe and truthful picture of the times, which went far to give him a

national reputation--for the day; and opened a law office at 103 Court

Street, Boston, where he found nothing to do, and spent much of his time

in cutting his name on little ivory seals, and engraving

ciphers--"J.P."--so beautiful in their character, and so graceful, that

one I have now before me, an impression taken by him in wax, with a

vermilion bed,--for in all such matters he was very particular,--were

enough to establish any man's reputation as a seal engraver. It bears

about the same relationship to what are _called_ ciphers, that Benvenuto

Cellini's flower-cups bore to the clumsy goblets of his day.

He was never a great reader, not being able to read more than fifty

pages of law and miscellany in a day, though he managed, for once, while

a tutor in Colonel Alston's family at Charleston, South Carolina,

beginning by daylight and continuing as long as he could see, in

midsummer, to get through with one hundred pages of Blackstone; but the

"grind" was too much for him,--he never tried it again. He read Gibbon,

and Chateaubriand's "Genius of Christianity," and St. Pierre, and Jeremy

Bentham's "Theory of Rewards and Punishments," but never to my knowledge

a novel, a romance, or a magazine article, except an occasional review;

but Joanna Baillie,--that female Shakespeare of a later age,--and

Beattie, and Campbell, and the British poets, and dramatic writers, were

always at hand, when he had nothing better to do, with no seals to cut,

no ciphers, no razor-strops, no stoves, and no clients. Over that field

of enchantment and illusion he wandered with lifted wings, month after

month, and year after year.

At this time he was in his thirtieth year, and I in my twenty-second. No

two persons were ever more unlike; and yet we grew to be intimate

friends after a while; and at the time of his death our friendship had

lasted more than fifty years, with a single interruption of a

twelvemonth or so while I was abroad, which was put an end to by our

letters of reconciliation crossing each other almost on the same day.

With a young family on his hands, precarious health and a feeble

constitution, as we then believed, which drove him to Saratoga every two

or three years, and no property, what had he to look forward to, unless

he could manage to go through a course of starvation at half-price, or

diet with the chameleons?--though great things were expected of him by

those who knew him best, and the late Mr. Justice Story could not bear

to think of his abandoning the profession, so long as there was a decent

chance of living through such a course of preparation.

After all that he has done as a poet, as a preacher, as a reformer, and

as a lecturer, I must say that I think he was made for a lawyer.

Vigorous and acute, clear-sighted, self-possessed, and logical to a

fault, if he had not married so early, or if a respectable inheritance

had fallen to him, after he had learned to do without help or patronage,

as Dr. Samuel Johnson did, while undergoing Lord Chesterfield, he might

have been at the head of the Massachusetts bar,--a proud position, to be

sure, at any time within the last fifty years,--or, at any rate, in the

foremost rank, long before his death.

He had, withal, a great fondness for mechanics, and one at least of his

inventions, the "Pierpont or Doric Stove," was a bit of concrete

philosophy,--a miniature temple glowing with perpetual fire,--a

cast-iron syllogism of itself, so classically just in its proportions,

and so eminently characteristic, as to be a type of the author. He had

been led through a long course of experiment in the structure of grates

and stoves, and in the consumption of fuel, with the hope of superseding

Saratoga, for himself at least, by making our terrible winters and our

east winds a little more endurable. No man ever suffered more from what

people sometimes call, without meaning to be naughty, _damp cold

weather_.

In addition to the "Portrait," he had written a New-Year's Address or

two, and a fine lyric, which was said or sung--I forget which--at the

celebration of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow; so that after he went off

to Baltimore, and the "Airs of Palestine" appeared in 1816, those who

knew him best, instead of being astonished like the rest of the world,

regarded it as nothing more than the fulfilment of a promise, and went

about saying, or looking as if they wanted to say, "Didn't we tell you

so?"

And yet, with the exception of two or three outbreaks and flashes, there

was really nothing in his earlier manifestations to prefigure the

"unrolling glory" of the "Airs," or to justify the extravagant

expectations people had entertained from the first, if you would believe

them.

Robert Treat Paine having disappeared from the stage, there was nobody

left but Lucius Manlius Sargent and John Pierpont for celebrations and

sudden emergencies. But Sargent never tried the heroic, and was

generally satisfied with imitations of Walter Scott, and others, who

were given to oddities and quaintness. For example, "I thought," says

he, in the longest poem he ever wrote, which appeared in quarto,--

"I thought, than as a feather fair

More light is filmy gossamer,

So woman's heart is lighter far

Than lightest breath of summer air,

Which is so light it scarce can bear

The filmiest thread of gossamer," etc., etc., etc.

While Mr. Pierpont flung himself abroad--like Handel, over the great

organ-keys at Haarlem--as if he never knew before what legs and arms

were good for, after the following fashion:--

"The misty hall of Odin

With mirth and music swells,

Rings with the harps and songs of bards,

And echoes to their shells.

"See how amid the cloud-wrapped ghosts

Great Peter's awful form

Seems to smile,

As the while,

Amid the howling storm,

He hears his children shout, Hurrah!

Amid the howling storm," etc., etc.

Few men ever elaborated as he did,--not even Rousseau, when he wrote

over whole pages and chapters of his "Confessions," I forget how many

times. Fine thoughts were never spontaneous with him, never unexpected,

never unwaited for,--never, certainly till long after he had got his

growth. In fact, some of the happiest passages we have seem to be

engraved, letter by letter, instead of being written at once, or

launched away into the stillness, like a red-hot thunderbolt. Well do I

remember a little incident which occurred in Baltimore, soon after the

failure of Pierpont and Lord--and Neal, when we were all dying of sheer

inaction, and almost ready to hang ourselves--in a metaphorical

sense--as the shortest way of scoring off with the world.

We were at breakfast,--it was rather late.

"Where on earth is your good husband?" said I to Mrs. Pierpont.

"In bed, making poetry," said she.

"Indeed!"

"Yes, flat on his back, with his eyes rolled up in his head."

Soon after, the gentleman himself appeared, looking somewhat the worse

for the labor he had gone through with, and all the happier, that the

throes were over, and the offspring ready for exhibition. "Here," said

he, "tell me what you think of these two lines,"--handing me a paper on

which was written, with the clearness and beauty of copperplate,

"Their reverend beards that sweep their bosoms wet

With the chill dews of shady Olivet."

"Charming," said I. "And what then? What are you driving at?"

"Well, I was thinking of Olivet, and then I wanted a rhyme for Olivet;

and rhymes are the rudders, you know, according to Hudibras; and then

uprose the picture of the Apostles before me,--their reverend beards all

dripping with the dews of night."

How little did he or I then foresee what soon followed,--soon, that is,

in comparison with all he had ever done before! The "Airs of Palestine,"

like the night-blooming cereus,--the century-plant,--flowering at last,

and all at once and most unexpectedly too, after generations have waited

for it, as for the penumbra of something foretold, until both their

patience and their faith have almost failed. But, from the very first,

there were signs of growth not to be mistaken,--of inward growth,

too,--and oftentimes an appearance of slowly gathered strength, as if it

had been long husbanded, and for a great purpose. For example,--

"There the gaunt wolf sits on his rock and howls,

And there, in painted pomp, the savage Indian prowls."

What a picture of brooding desolation! How concentrated and how

unpretending, in its simplicity and strength!

And again, having had visions, and having begun to breathe a new

atmosphere, with Sinai in view, he says,

"There blasts of unseen trumpets, long and loud,

Swelled by the breath of whirlwinds, rent the cloud,"--

two of the grandest lines to be found anywhere, out of the Hebrew.

But grandeur and strength were never his characteristics; the natural

tendency of the man was toward the harmonious, the loving, and the

beautiful, as in the following lines from the title-page of his poem,

"By J. Pierpont, _Esquire_":--

"I love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm;

I love to walk on Jordan's banks of palm;

I love to wet my foot in Hermon's dews;

I love the promptings of Isaiah's muse;

In Carmel's paly grots I'll court repose,

And deck my mossy couch with Sharon's deathless rose."

About this time it was, just before he went off to Baltimore, that we

began to have occasional glimpses of that inward fire shut up in his

bones, that subterranean sunshine, that golden ore, which, smelted as

the constellations were, makes what men have agreed to call

poetry,--which, after all, is but another name for inspiration; although

the very first outbreak I remember happened at the celebration already

referred to, where men saw

"The Desolator desolate, the Victor overthrown,

The Arbiter of others' fate a suppliant for his own,"

and began to breathe freely once more; and the shout of "Glory, glory!

Alleluiah!" went up like the roar of many waters from all the cities of

our land, as if they themselves had been delivered from the new

Sennacherib; yet, after a short season of rest, like one of our Western

prairies after having been over-swept with fire, he began to flower

anew, and from his innermost nature, like some great aboriginal plant of

our Northern wilderness suddenly transferred to a tropical region, roots

and all, by some convulsion of nature,--by hurricane, or drift, or

shipwreck. And always thereafter, with a very few brief exceptions,

instead of echoing and re-echoing the musical thunders of a buried

past,--instead of imitating, oftentimes unconsciously (the worst kind of

imitation, by the way, for what can be hoped of a man whose

individuality has been tampered with, and whose own perceptions mislead

him?)--instead of counterfeiting the mighty minstrels he had most

reverenced, and oftentimes ignorantly worshipped, as among the unknown

gods, in his unquestioning, breathless homage, he began to look upward

to the Source of all inspiration, while

"Princely visions rare

Went stepping through the air,"

and to walk abroad with all his "singing robes about him," as he had

never done before. Hitherto it had been otherwise. Campbell had opened

the "Pleasures of Hope" with

"Why to yon mountains turns the musing eye,

Whose sunbright summits mingle with the sky?"

and _therefore_ Pierpont began his "Portrait" with

"Why does the eye with greater pleasure rest

On the proud oak with vernal honors drest?"

But now, instead of diluting Beattie, with all his "pomp of groves and

long resounding shore," and recasting portions of Akenside or Pope, and

rehashing "Ye Mariners of England," for public celebrations, or

converting Moore himself into "Your glass may be purple and mine may be

blue," while urging the claims of what is called Liberal Christianity in

a hymn written for the new Unitarian church of Baltimore, he

would break forth now and then with something which really seemed

unpremeditated,--something he had been surprised into saying in spite of

himself, as where he finishes a picture of Moses on Mount Nebo, after a

fashion both startling and effective in its abruptness, and yet

altogether his own:--

"His sunny mantle and his hoary locks

Shone like the robe of Winter on the rocks.

Where is that mantle? Melted into air.

Where is the Prophet? God can tell thee where."

And yet in the day of his strength he was sometimes capable of strange

self-forgetfulness, and once wrote, in his reverence for the classic,

what, if it were not blasphemy, would be meaningless:--

"O thou dread Spirit! being's End and Source!

O check thy chariot in its fervid course;

_Bend from thy throne of darkness and of fire_,

_And with one smile immortalize oar lyre!_"

Think of a Christian poet apostrophizing the Ancient of Days--Jehovah

himself--in the language of idolatrous and pagan Rome!

At another time,--but these are among the last of his transgressions,

and they happened nearly fifty years before his death,--having in view

that epitaph on an infant where a father says of his child,

"Like a dewdrop on the early morn

She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven,"

Mr. Pierpont says of the frozen heart, when religion's "mild and genial

ray" falls upon it, with music,

"The fire is kindled and the flame is bright;

And that cold mass, with either power assailed,

_Is warmed, made liquid, and to heaven exhaled_."

And this by a man who talks about "the glow-worm burning _greenly_ on

the wall," and the "_unrolling glory_" of the empyrean, as if he

understood what both meant.

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding these aberrations, my friend--the

truest friend I ever had in my life, on some accounts, for he was not

afraid to tell me of my faults when he saw them, and the man after all,

to whom I am under greater obligations than to any other, living or

dead, for bringing me acquainted with myself--held on his upward course

for the last thirty years of his life without faltering, and without any

visible perturbation, like the planets, if not like the stars, along

their appointed path, never so as to astonish perhaps, but almost always

so as to convince, whatever might be the manner of his approach, and

whether in prose or poetry.

But we are anticipating. At the time of our first acquaintance, he

certainly entertained very different views upon the subjects which have

made him so conspicuous within the last twenty-five years.

Instead of being an Abolitionist, or a Garrisonian, and insisting upon

immediate, universal, and unconditional emancipation, he was a

colonizationist, rather tolerant of the evil, as it existed in the

South, and very patient under the wrongs of our black brethren; and so

was I.

Instead of being a teetotaler, he was hardly what the temperance men of

our day would call a temperance man; for he had wine upon his table when

he gave dinners, and never shrank from the interchange of courtesies,

nor refused a pledge,--though I did, even then. Yet more, as brandy had

been prescribed for Mrs. Pierpont by the family physician, Dr. Randall,

her husband used to take his brandy and water with her sometimes, just

before dinner, by way of a "whet."

Again: he had been brought up, like St. Paul, at the very feet of

Gamaliel. He was born Orthodox,--he lived Orthodox,--he sat for years

under the preaching of Dr. Lyman Beecher, whom he looked upon as a

"giant among pygmies,"--and well he might, as a metaphysician and as a

controversialist, if not as a theologian,--and was, I have lately been

told, a member of Dr. Spring's Orthodox church at Newburyport, before

his removal to Boston. But once there, in that overcharged atmosphere,

he took a pew in the Brattle Street Unitarian church,--without being

then a Unitarian, or dreaming of the great change that was to follow

within two or three years,--and was a regular attendant under the

preaching of Mr. Everett up to the last. On his removal to Baltimore, he

swung round again toward Orthodoxy,--that Orthodoxy which has been so

wittily defined as _my_ doxy, while heterodoxy is _your_ doxy,--and sat

for three years under the preaching of Dr. Ingals, the highly gifted

gentleman to whom he dedicated his poem--_in blank_--when it first

appeared, being perhaps a little afraid of committing himself in

advance; and then, at the very first gathering of the Baltimore

Unitarians in a large auction-room, which led to the organization of a

church within a few months, the erection of a beautiful building, and to

the settlement of our friend, the late Dr. Jared Sparks, he came out

fair and square upon the great question, and led, or helped lead, the

exercises. The result of which was, that in due time, after his failure

in business, he became a student of theology at Cambridge, and within a

year was called to the ministry of reconciliation over Hollis Street

Church, as a successor to Mr. Holly, at that time a most captivating

preacher, with a congregation and church eminently fastidious and

exacting, and not easily satisfied; yet Mr. Pierpont labored with them

and for them over twenty-five years, with an earnestness, a

comprehensiveness, and a faithfulness, for which some of them have not

forgiven him to this day. He entered upon the ministry there in April,

1819, and resigned in 1845; when he became the first pastor of a

Unitarian church in Troy, remained there four years, and then took

charge of a church in Medford; where he was living when the Rebellion

broke out, and he entered the army as chaplain, under an express

stipulation that the regiment was _not to go round Baltimore_.

But I am fully justified in saying that, when I first knew him in

Boston, he did not know himself. He had entirely mistaken his vocation,

and was about the last man in the world to enter into trade, though

pre-eminently fitted for business, if he had been properly

encouraged,--the business of law certainly, and the business of

statesmanship. He saw nothing of what was before him,--nothing of the

field he was to occupy till the Master came,--nothing of the influence,

nothing of the authority, he was to exercise over the minds and hearts

of men,--and nothing of that huge oriflamme which was coming up slowly,

to be sure, but certainly, over the distant verge of an ever-widening

horizon. He was utterly discouraged as a lawyer; he knew nothing of

business; he had no capital; and what on earth was he good for? Whither

should he go? What undertake?

And yet he bore up manfully through all this discouragement, and no word

of complaint or murmuring ever escaped his lips. On the whole, he was

one of the most truly conscientious men I ever knew,--and why not one

of the most truly religious, notwithstanding his obnoxious faith?--so

even-tempered that I never saw him disturbed more than once or twice in

all my life, and so patient under wrong that one could hardly believe in

his withering sarcasm, and scorching indignation when he took the field

as a reformer, "in golden panoply complete."

Let me now describe his personal appearance, for the help of those who

have only heard of the man. He was tall, straight, and spare,--six feet,

I should say, and rather ungraceful in fact, though called by the women

of his parish, not only the most graceful, but the most finished of

gentlemen. That he was dignified, courteous, and prepossessing, very

pleasant in conversation, a capital story-teller, and a tolerable--no,

intolerable--punster, exceedingly impressive both in the pulpit and

elsewhere, when much in earnest, and in after life a great lecturer and

platform speaker, I am ready to acknowledge; but he wanted ease of

manner--the readiness and quiet self-possession of a high-bred man, who

cannot be taken by surprise, and is neither afraid of being

misunderstood nor afraid of letting himself down--till after he had

passed the age of threescore.

The first impression he made on me was that of a country schoolmaster,

or of a professor, on his good behavior, who had got his notions of the

polite world from Chesterfield; though, when I knew him better, and

learned that he had been a tutor in the Alston family of South Carolina,

I detected the original type of his perpendicularity, serious composure,

and stateliness,--the archetype. I was constantly reminded of John C.

Calhoun, a fellow-student with him at Yale, and a man he always

mentioned, with a strange mixture of admiration and awe, as if he

thought him an offshoot from the Archfiend himself, "skilled to make the

worse appear the better reason." His tall figure, his erect, positive

bearing, and somewhat uncompromising, severe expression of countenance,

when much in earnest, with black, heavy eyebrows, clear blue eyes which

passed for black, and stiff black hair, were all of that Huguenot

Southern type, which, like the signs of the Scotch Covenanter or of the

old English Puritan, are as unlikely to die out as the Canada thistle,

where they who sow the wind are content to reap the whirlwind. In their

steadfast pertinacity, whether right or wrong, in their adamantine

logic, as unyielding as death, and calm, serious energy of action, and

in a part of their transcendental theories, they were alike; and alike,

too, in their tried honesty. The great Nullifier and the great Reformer

were both Titanic, in the vastness and comprehensiveness of their views,

in their unrelenting self-assertion, in their metaphysics, and in their

theories of government. If the dark Southron made open war upon his

country till it grew to be unsafe, the dark Northerner would tear the

Constitution of that country to tatters, and trample it under foot, as

he did upon one occasion, without remorse or compunction, because it was

held by others to give property in man, though for himself he denied

that it did so, or that it sanctioned slavery in any shape,--as he did,

I say, though I was not an eyewitness of the outrage, and have only the

report from others who were. If it was only a flourish, like that of

Edmund Burke, when he suddenly lugged out the dagger before the upturned

smiling eyes of his patient compeers, and Sheridan--or was it

Fox?--begged the gentleman to tell him where the _fork_ was to be had

which belonged to the knife, why, even that were not only unworthy of

the man, but so utterly unlike him, for he never indulged in rhetoric or

rhodomontade or claptrap, that one would be inclined to think he was

beside himself, or had been dining out, like Daniel Webster when he

proposed, in the Senate Chamber, to plant our starry banner on the

outermost verge, the Ultima Thule, of our disputed territory, heedless

of consequences. Both Pierpont and Calhoun certainly forgot the

injunction to be "temperate in all things"; and allow me to add, that,

in my judgment, it mattered little who was with, or who against them,

after they had once set the lance in rest, with a windmill in

view,--they only spurred the harder for opposition, and lashed out all

the more vehemently for being cheered, even by the lowliest.

Encouragement and opposition were alike to both, after the rowels were

set, and their beavers closed.

At the time I speak of, Mr. Pierpont and his brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph

L. Lord, kept house together on a street running down hill back of the

State-House,--Hancock Street, if I do not mistake. They had always two

or three boarders, and sometimes more, and among them Erastus A. Lord, a

brother of Joseph, and myself. With these, and with the neighbors,--the

whole neighborhood, I might say, and with all their visiting-list,--our

friend Pierpont was an oracle from the first, and in the church and

parish, after he had been set up in the pulpit, an idol. It was thought

presumptuous for anybody to differ with him upon any subject. Whatever

he said, or thought, or did, was never to be questioned,--never! His

opinions were maxims, his utterances apothegms, his lightest word

authority. And the worst of it all, and the hardest thing for me to

stomach, was, that in all our controversies, for a long time, if he was

not always right, and I always wrong, I was quite sure to come out

second best, in the judgment of his friends and worshippers, who had no

sympathy for anybody who ventured to tilt with their champion.

Nevertheless I persisted, and, not standing much in awe of the pedant

and the pedagogue, however much I admired the logician and the poet or

the lawyer, I lost no opportunity of asserting my independence, and

took, I am afraid, a sort of malicious pleasure in showing that I had

views and opinions of my own, and was determined to do my own thinking,

come what might. For a while this operated against me,--if not always

with Mr. Pierpont, certainly with all his immediate personal friends and

family; but in time, I believe, he began to like me the better for my

presumption, or foolhardiness, in battling the watch with him, whenever

he laid down a proposition, with a calm, dictatorial air, which did not

strike me at first either as clearly self-evident, or, after a thorough

investigation, as indisputably true, so that I do on my conscience

believe that I was fast growing, not only unmanageable, but unbearable.

Mr. Pierpont was no judge of painting, though he relished a good

picture, and had no taste for drawing, or rather no talent for drawing,

though he saw readily enough certain errors of exaggeration that

abounded in the engravings of the day; and I well remember his calling

my attention to the preposterously small feet of the female figures for

which Messrs. Draper and Company, the bank-note engravers of that day,

were so famous; and yet his handwriting was very beautiful, and the

ciphers I have mentioned were neither more nor less than exquisite

drawings. Nor had he any ear for music, to borrow the language we hear

at every turn,--as if all persons who are not deaf by nature had not

ears for music, so far as they can hear at all,--or as if he who can

distinguish voices, or learn a language, so far as to be understood when

he talks it, had not necessarily an ear for music, in other words, an

ear for sounds and for the rhythm of speech; but he was deficient in the

organ of tune, phrenologically speaking, though I have heard him

warble a Scotch air on the flute with uncommon sweetness--and

feebleness--without _tonguing_, and play two or three other tunes, which

had been adapted in the choir of his church, upon glass goblets, partly

filled with water and set upon a table before him, as if he enjoyed

every touch and thrill,--his long, thin fingers travelling over the damp

edges of the glass, and bringing forth "Bonnie Doon," or "There's

nothing true but Heaven,"--with his cuffs rolled up as if he were

driving a lathe, and turning off some of the little thin boxes and other

exquisite toys, in wood or ivory, which he was addicted to, about

fifteen years ago, in what he called his workshop. Like Johnson,

however, and Alexander Pope, who, according to Leigh Hunt,

"Spoiled the ears of the town

With his cuckoo-song verses, two up and two down,"

he must have had "time" large; for the music of his rhythm was

absolutely faultless,--cloying indeed, so that he introduced the double

rhymes to roughen it, just as he indulged in alliteration, where the

"lordly lion leaves his lonely lair," that he might not be supposed

incapable of running off upon another track, or into another channel.

But I never heard him sing or try to sing, though he had a deep, manly

voice, read as very few are able to read, and his modulation was rich

and varied, and very agreeable, both to the understanding and the ear.

His pronunciation was a marvel for correctness. In all our intercourse I

never knew him to give a word otherwise than "according to Walker," so

long as Walker was the standard with him,--or never but once, when he

said cli-mac'ter-ic, instead of cli-mac-ter'ic; and when I remonstrated

with him, he lugged out Webster, whom he adhered to forever after. So

exceedingly fastidious and sensitive was he, about the time he left

Baltimore for Cambridge, that in his desire to give the pure sound of

_e_, as in _met_, instead of the sound of _u_, which is so common as to

be almost universal where _e_ is followed by _r_ and another consonant,

so that _person_ is pronounced _purson_, he gave a sound which most

people misunderstood for _pairson_, and went away and laughed at, for

pedantry and affectation.

So, too, when I first knew him, and for a long time after, he was

incapable of making a speech. Even a few sentences were too much for

him; and though he argued at least one case to the court, while in

business at Newburyport, I am persuaded, from what I afterward knew of

him, that he must have done what he did by jerks, or have committed the

whole to memory. And this, strange as it may now appear to those who

knew him only as a lecturer and platform-speaker, continued long after

he had entered upon the ministry; but of this more hereafter. Even his

prayers were written out, and learned by heart, years after he took

charge of the Hollis Street Church, though I dare say it was not known

by his people. Perhaps, too, I may as well say here, lest I may forget

to say it hereafter, that, at the time I speak of, he was neither a

phrenologist, nor a spiritualist, nor a conscientious believer in

witchcraft, or rather in the phenomena that used to be called

witchcraft, in the days of Cotton Mather.

Soon after the beginning of our acquaintance, Mr. Joseph L. Lord, the

brother of his first wife,--and he too has just passed away,--seeing

what the prospect was for the brother-in-law he was so proud of,

persuaded him to abandon the law at once, and forever, and go into the

jobbing and retail dry-goods business with him, on the corner of Court

and Marlborough, now Washington Street. He had no capital, to be sure,

but then he wrote a beautiful hand, was very methodical, and had made

himself acquainted with bookkeeping, after the Italian method, from

Rees's Cyclopædia. I took the chamber which Mr. Pierpont left, and went

into the jobbing business also, with a capital of between two and three

hundred--dollars, and a credit amounting to perhaps five hundred more,

which enterprise terminated after a few months, not in my failure, but

in my taking a trip to New York with a large quantity of smuggled goods,

belonging to Messrs. Pierpont and Lord, where I disposed of them to such

advantage, that, on my return, I was persuaded to go into the retail

haberdashery line, at 103 Court Street, next door to Pierpont and Lord,

and just underneath the chamber, not chambers, which I had occupied at

first with my wholesale establishment. I had for a partner, at first,

Erastus, a brother of "Joe's," whom I had known as a bookbinder in

Portland two or three years before. He was now manufacturing

pocket-books, and appeared to be doing, not only a large and profitable,

but safe business,--selling for cash, running a horse and gig, and

paying the bills of all the "dear five hundred friends" who rode with

him.

Our copartnership did not last long. His brother "Joe," being a shrewd

man of business, of uncommon foresight and comprehensiveness, though

rather adventurous, gave me a hint, and soon provided me with another

partner, a graduate of Cambridge, named Fisher, with whom I was

associated a few months longer. Then came the peace of 1815, which threw

the whole country into a paroxysm of joy, unsettling business

everywhere, at home and abroad, and setting people together by the ears

upon all the great questions of the day.

And here began the new and very brief career of Mr. Pierpont as a man of

business. Wholly unfitted as he was for even the regular course of

trade, he was the last man in the world for the great emergencies of the

hour. The whole business of the country was little better than gambling.

Our largest importing houses were lotteries or faro-banks; and we had no

manufactures worth mentioning. We made no woollen goods, and our few

cottons, if sold at all, were sold for British, and stood no chance with

the trash that came from beyond the Cape of Good Hope, "warped with

hoop-poles, and filled with oven-wood." Our foreign merchandise came

tumbling down so fast, that no prospective calculations could be made

upon their value. Not having manufactured ourselves, we knew nothing

about the cost of production, and had no idea how much our friends over

sea could afford to fall, even from the lowest prices ever heard of.

British calicoes, or prints, for example, which I sold by the case for

eighty-five cents cash, at auction, were in every way inferior to our

own, which were retailed before the Rebellion broke out for ten cents a

yard. In fact, if we had known the real cost of production, it would

have made but little difference; for long after all our foreign

merchandise had fallen from thirty-three and a third to fifty per cent,

some of our shrewdest calculators were utterly ruined by purchasing at

much lower prices, on what they believed to be a rising market.

Under such circumstances, what was a poet, a scholar, and a lawyer,

without any knowledge of business, to do? Pierpont and Lord were large

dealers, and had a heavy stock on hand, not paid for. Their notes were

maturing with frightful rapidity, and Mr. Lord wanted all his available

funds for "transactions" in gold, and other perilous "operations" along

the Canada frontier. Specie was twenty-five per cent above par, or

rather banknotes, everywhere but in a part of New England, where they

continued to pay specie to the last, were at twenty-five per cent

discount; and "Boston money," upon the average, about one per cent above

gold and silver, so as to cover the cost and risk of transportation.

But something had to be done. A consultation was held between the

members of "our house," and it was finally arranged that Mr. Pierpont,

as the man we could best spare from the salesroom and the shop, and the

partner who would best represent what was called, with singular

propriety, "our concern," should go to Baltimore with the best of

letters, and open a way for me in that city, which I had visited once,

and once only, for the purpose of buying exchange on England,--though

for a time it was thought I had run away with all the funds intrusted to

me. I had taken a prodigious liking to Baltimore from the first, though

I had no idea of going there to live, and was not easily persuaded to

give up my little establishment in Boston. I was doing very well, and

did not care to do better, till business got settled; but we were three,

and I was always in the minority,--Mr. Lord being a shrewd "operator,"

and Mr. Pierpont, of course, deferring to him. They were _my_ partners,

to be sure; but I never had anything to do with their business, apart

from my own.

Nevertheless, when Mr. Pierpont returned, and gave an account of his

doings there, and of the opening there was for just such a man as I had

proved myself to be, I consented to pull up stakes, and transplant

myself to that beautiful city.

I went with no large expectations, intending to open a retail shop, such

as I had left; but within a week, finding that I could sell even my cut

goods for prices much beyond what I had been retailing them for over and

above the exchange, I went into the wholesale business, and with one

clerk, Mr. Jenkins Howland, greatly distinguished in after life as a man

of enterprise at Charleston, S.C., sold more goods, and for cash too,

than perhaps any three or four of what were called the large dealers

about me, with two or three clerks apiece, and at prices which fairly

took away my breath at first;--Irish linens, for example, by the case at

two dollars and fifty cents all round, worth not over eighty cents

before the war; and assorted broadcloths by the bale at fourteen dollars

a yard all round, which, within a twelvemonth, would have hung fire at

three dollars and fifty cents. And this, it will be remembered, was

after goods had been falling--falling--falling--for six months.

No wonder people's heads were turned--those of Pierpont and Lord among

the rest. We, who had large stocks on hand, were growing rich too fast.

I remember selling fourteen thousand dollars' worth of goods one day for

a clear profit of more than forty per cent, and this while my poor

friends at Boston were gasping for breath in that exhausted receiver;

but they were kept alive by the remittances I made from Baltimore, which

not only furnished them with funds for immediate use, but gave them for

a few months almost unbounded credit.

This was in the fall and winter of 1815, only a few months after the

Bramble arrived with the news from Ghent that our last negotiations had

been successful, and that the war was over most gloriously for _us_, the

United States. We were almost ready, in our thankfulness and joy, to

canonize the ship and crew, and cut her up into snuffboxes and

toothpicks.

And now--what next? "as the tadpole said, when he his tail dropped off."

Weary of the growing distrust they saw, after my remittances began to

fall off, and heartily sick of the Gerrymandering about them, of the

usurers and money-changers and Shylocks, who were bleeding them to

death, by lending them money upon pledges of merchandise, the two elder

partners, Pierpont and Lord, lost no time in following their junior. He

had opened on South Calvert Street; they took the whole of a large

building opposite, opened below their wholesale business, and after a

few months went to housekeeping overhead, both families living together.

Then, to get rid of our stock, Mr. Pierpont went off to Charleston,

S.C., where he had served his time as a tutor, and there set up a retail

establishment, under the charge of a former clerk in their service, and

of another man, a heartless vagabond, whom they had happened to get

acquainted with at a boarding-house on their first arrival, and took a

fancy to, nobody ever knew why. He was an Englishman, had probably been

upon the stage, and lived from hand to mouth, nobody knew how, until we

took him _up_, and he took us _in_ most pitiably.

After a brief struggle, and the establishment of another retail store in

Calvert Street, which I took charge of, with what there was left of the

Charleston adventure, we failed outright, and all this within six or

eight months after we had called our creditors together and obtained an

extension of twelve months and testimonials in our favor of the most

gratifying character, and within little more than a year after leaving

Boston.

And then, for want of anything better to do, I began writing for the

papers, for the "Portico," and at last for the public, as an editor and

as an author, mainly at the instigation of Mr. Pierpont, for whom I

wrote both "Niagara"[1] and "Guldau," and a part of "Allen's" American

Revolution, studying law, and languages by the half-dozen at the same

time, and laboring upon the average about sixteen hours a day, while Mr.

Pierpont struck out boldly for a far-off perilous and rocky shore, with

a lighthouse, in the shape of a pulpit, before him, and achieved the

"Airs of Palestine" while undergoing the process of regeneration, and

starving by inches upon what there were left of his wife's teaspoons,

which were sold one by one to pay the rent of a cheap room in Howard

Street. So poor indeed were we at one time, that we could hardly muster

enough between us to pay our bootblack.

I have already said that Mr. Pierpont had no aptitude for extemporaneous

speaking; and what was even worse, he had no hope of being able to

overcome the difficulty. Once, and once only, did I ever hear him try

his hand in that way, until many years after he had entered upon the

ministry. A club had been organized among us for literary purposes. We

were both members, and he the Vice-President. We called ourselves the

Delphians, and passed among our contemporaries for the _male_ Muses, our

number being limited to nine,--not seven, as I see it stated in the

Boston Advertiser, on the authority of our friend Paul Allen. The rest

of the story is near enough to the truth, although the verses therein

mentioned were written by Mr. Pierpont as a volunteer offering, after

the Della-Cruscan school, or manner of "Laura Matilda," and not upon the

spur of the occasion, as there related, nor as a trial of wit; and the

last line should be, "Pulls where'er the zephyr _roves_"--not, as given

there, "Pulls where'er the zephyr moves."

It was in this club that Mr. Pierpont first tried himself--and the

brethren--with extemporaneous speaking. It was a pitiable failure, worse

if possible than my own, and I never made another attempt. Even General

Winder, who was a fine advocate, and a capital speaker before a jury,

boggled wretchedly before the club, and our President, Watkins, who was

said to be exceedingly eloquent before the great Masonic lodges, where

he occupied the highest position, could not be persuaded to open his

mouth, and all the rest of the brethren were mutes. True, it was like

apostrophizing your own grandmother, in the hope of raising a laugh or

of bringing tears into her eyes, to make speeches at one another across

the table, whatever Molière might be able to do, when alone with his

aged servant. Nor did it much help the matter, when, with a view to the

treasury, which began to threaten a collapse, we made a law, like that

of the Medes and Persians which altereth not, whereby it was provided,

among other things, that no member should ever talk over five minutes,

nor stop short of three, under any circumstances,--the President being

timekeeper, and the sufferer not being allowed to look at a watch. Fines

of course were inevitable, and we were once more able to luxuriate on

bread and cheese, with an occasional pot of beer,--nothing better or

stronger being tolerated among us under any pretence, except on our

anniversaries, when the President, or sometimes a member, stood treat,

and gave us a comfortable, though not often a costly or showy supper.

Among that strange, whimsical brotherhood--consisting of Dr. Tobias

Watkins, editor of the "Portico"; General Winder (William H.), who had

been "captivated" by the British, along with General Chandler, at the

first invasion of Canada; William Gwin, editor of the "Federal Gazette";

Paul Allen, editor of the "Federal Republican," and of Lewis and

Clarke's "Tour," and author of "Noah"; Dr. Readel, "a fellow of infinite

jest"; Brackenridge, author of "Views in Louisiana," and "History of the

War"; Dennison, an Englishman, who wrote clever doggerel; and, at

different times, two or three more, not worth mentioning, even if I

remembered their names--we passed every Saturday evening, after the club

was established, until it was broken up by President Watkins's going to

Washington, Vice-President Pierpont to the Divinity School at Cambridge,

and Jehu O'Cataract abroad. All the members bore "clubicular" names, by

which they were always to be addressed or spoken to, under another

penalty; and most of them held "clubicular" offices and

professorships,--Dr. Readel being Professor of Crambography, and

somebody else--Gwin perhaps--Professor of Impromptology. The name given

to Mr. Pierpont was Hiero Heptaglott, under an idea that he was a

prodigious linguist,--another Sir William Jones, at least, if not

another Learned Blacksmith; and the President himself went so far as to

say so in the "Portico," where he pretended to give an account of the

Delphians. Nothing could well be further from the truth, however; for,

instead of being a great Hebrew scholar, and learned in the Chaldee,

Coptic, and other Eastern languages, he knew very little of Hebrew, and

absolutely nothing of the rest. With "a little Latin and less Greek," he

was a pretty fair Latin and Greek scholar in the judgment of those who

are satisfied with what we are doing in our colleges; and he was

sufficiently acquainted with French to enjoy Chateaubriand, St. Pierre,

Rousseau, and Lamartine, and to write the language with correctness,

though not idiomatically; but he was never able to make himself

understood in conversation, beyond a few phrases, uttered with a

deplorable accent,--not being able to carry the flavor in his

mouth,--and, though free and sprightly enough in talking English, having

no idea of what passes for freedom and sprightliness with the French. He

knew nothing of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, or Dutch, nor

indeed of any other modern language.

And now let me say how he came to be an extemporaneous speaker, and

sometimes not only logical and convincing, but truly eloquent. On my

return from abroad, in 1826, I passed through Boston, on my way to

Portland, for a visit to my family, and was taken possession of by him,

and went to Hollis Street Church, where I heard my friend, for the

second time, in the pulpit. He was exceedingly impressive, and the

sermon itself was one of the best I ever heard,--calm, serious, and

satisfying; not encumbered with illustration, but full of significance.

Although the discourse was carefully written out, word for word, and

almost committed to memory, yet he ventured to introduce a

paragraph--one paragraph only--which had not been prepared beforehand.

My eyes were upon him, and he told me at dinner that he saw by my look

how well I understood his departure, and how soon I detected it. "And

now," said he, "I hope you are satisfied. You see now that I shall never

be able to extemporize. I put that paragraph into my sermon this morning

to see how you would take it, after having urged me, year after year, to

extemporize at least occasionally. No, no, John; though writing two

sermons a week is no trifling labor, I must continue writing to the end;

for, if I cannot extemporize a single paragraph, how can I hope to

extemporize a whole sermon?"

"Suffer me to say that I think you misunderstand the whole question,"

said I. "The difficulty is in beginning. After you are well under way,

if you can talk sitting, you may talk standing. Better take with you

into the pulpit the merest outline of the discourse, and then trust to

the inspiration of the subject, or to the feeling of the hour, when you

have the audience before you, and can look into their eyes, than to have

a discourse partly written, with blanks to be filled up as you go along;

for then you are always beginning afresh, and by the time you have got

easy in your spontaneous effort, you are obliged to go back to what you

have written, and of course can never get warmed up with your subject,

nor try any new adaptations, whatever may be the character of your

hearers."

He shook his head. "No, no," said he, "you will never be able to

persuade me that it is easier to say over the whole alphabet than to say

only a part."

I persisted, urging the great advantage of spontaneous adaptation to the

people. He agreed with me altogether, provided it were _possible_ for

him to do it, which he denied, though he promised to take the subject

into serious consideration once more, to oblige me.

From Boston I went to Portland, where I had a similar talk with that

most amiable and excellent man, the late Dr. Nichols, who labored under

a similar disqualification, owing to a similar misapprehension of what

was required for extemporaneous speaking, either on the platform or in

the pulpit. I told him the story, and urged the same considerations; but

he, like Mr. Pierpont, only smiled,--compassionately, as I thought, and

rather as if he pitied the delusion I was laboring under. Yet within two

years both of these remarkable men became free and natural spontaneous

speakers, and both acknowledged to me that they had always misunderstood

the difficulty. Dr. Nichols began afar off, as I suggested, in the

Sabbath school; and Mr. Pierpont, after making two or three attempts in

a small way, which were anything but satisfactory to himself,--as I told

him they would be for a while, if he had the true stuff in him,--was at

last surprised into doing what he believed to be impossible, by the

merest accident in the world; after which he had no further trouble. It

seems that he had engaged to supply a neighboring pulpit,--perhaps that

of his son John, who was newly settled at Lynn. He thought he had his

sermon in his pocket; but, on entering the pulpit, found that he had

either left it at home or lost it on the way. What was to be done?

Luckily, he had just read it over the night before, and was full of the

subject therein treated. Remembering what I said, as he told me himself,

he determined to go to work, hit or miss, and either make a spoon or

spoil a horn.

The result was, that, after a little hesitation and floundering, he got

fairly in earnest, and threw off a discourse which so delighted those

who were best acquainted with him, that they stopped round the door to

shake hands and congratulate him. He had never preached so well in all

his life, they said. This settled the question forever; and from that

day forward he began to believe that anybody who can talk in his chair

can talk standing up, after he has got over his first impressions, and

all the better for having a large auditory, with upturned faces, before

him; so that he became at last, and within a few years, one of the

finest pulpit orators of the day, and one of the best platform speakers,

though not, perhaps, what the multitude consider eloquent; for, at the

best, he was only argumentative and earnest and clear and convincing, in

his highest manifestations.

Of his career after this, I cannot say anything as I wish, without the

risk of saying too much. He had one of the wealthiest and most liberal

congregations of New England. He was their idol. He was in every way

most agreeably situated, with a large family flowering into usefulness

about him, and hosts of friends, enthusiastic and devoted.

Nevertheless, believing that, as a servant of God, he had no right to

preach smooth things where rough things were needed, and that

acknowledging other people's transgressions would not satisfy the law,

he came out boldly, with helm and spear, against two of the worst forms

of human slavery,--the slavery of the body and the slavery of the soul,

the slavery of the wine-cup, and the slavery of bondage to a master.

Whether his beloved people would hear or whether they would forbear,

being all the more beloved because of their danger, he must preach what

he believed to be the truth, and the whole truth. It was like a fire

shut up in his bones. He persisted, and they remonstrated, or rather a

part of them did so; and the result was a speedy and hopeless

alienation, followed by years of strife and bitter controversy at law,

and a final separation; though by far the larger part of the church and

congregation, if I do not mistake, upheld him to the last, and adhered

to him through good report and through evil report,--Deacon Samuel May,

a host in himself, being of their number.

During this protracted and sorrowful controversy, he became a

phrenologist,--a believer in phrenology,--at any rate, following the

lead of Spurzheim; and after many years, a Spiritualist,--in which faith

he died,--one of his last, if not the very last, of his appearances

before the public being as President of a convention held by the leading

Spiritualists of the land at Philadelphia.

He could not be a materialist; and having faith in the evidence of his

own senses, and being as truly conscientious a man as ever breathed, and

accustomed to the closest reasoning, what was he to do? There were the

_facts_. They were not to be controverted; they could not be explained;

they could not be reconciled to any hypothesis in physics. If he was

given over to delusion, to be buffeted by Satan, whose fault was it?

That he was by nature somewhat credulous, and, though patient enough in

his investigations, rather too fond of the marvellous, may be

acknowledged; but what then? His conclusions might be wrong, his

inferences faulty, though honest; but how were they to be counteracted?

That he sometimes took too much for granted, I believe, nay, more, _I

know_; because I myself have seen him grossly imposed on by a woman he

took me to see, whose impersonations were thought most wonderful. But

then he was a devout man, a close observer, an admirable logician,

accustomed to the "competition of opposite analogies" and to weighing

evidence; and if he misunderstood the _facts_, or misinterpreted them,

or inferred the supernatural from false premises, why then let us grieve

for his delusion, and wait patiently for the phenomena which led him

astray to be explained.

He went abroad for a time, while pastor of the Hollis Street Church, and

visited the Holy Land, in devout pilgrimage; and though he lost his

first wife, the mother of all his children, and a most worthy

gentlewoman, but the other day, and married another superior woman after

a brief widowhood, his last days have been, I should say, most

emphatically his best days; for he has lectured through the length and

breadth of the land on Temperance, and, after enduring all sorts of

persecution as one of the anti-slavery leaders, he lived to see the

whole system against which they had been warring so long, and with so

little apparent effect, utterly overthrown throughout the land, and the

great God of heaven and earth acknowledged as the God of the black man.

Thousands and thousands of miles he travelled, not only after having

passed the meridian of his life, but after he had reached the allotted

term, when life begins to be a heaviness for most, as a laborer in the

cause of truth,--often of unacknowledged truth; and if mistaken, as a

theologian, or as a Spiritualist, or as a man,--being what he was,--let

us remember that he was never false to his convictions, never a

hypocrite nor a deceiver, and that he died with his harness on, having

been occupied for the last five years of his life in digesting the

treasury decisions, often contradictory, and always inaccessible, for

there was no index, until he took them in hand, going back thirty years,

I believe, and reducing the whole to a system which need be no longer

unintelligible to the Department.

One word more. Among the scores of letters I had from him in the day of

his bitterest trials and sorest temptations, there was one which he sent

off in the midst of his first great triumph,--with no date now, although

I find a mark upon it which leads me to suppose it was written November

16, 1818, and from which I must venture to take a single paragraph.

"My God!" he says,--"my God! I do most devoutly thank Thee. My prayer

has reached Thee, and been accepted. My dear friend, join with me in

thanking Him in whom I put my trust,--to whom alone I look, or to whom I

_have_ looked, for a smile. He has blessed me. I have been heard by man,

and have not been forsaken by God. Though I have not done _perfectly_, I

have done as well as I could rationally wish, and better than my most

sanguine hopes. At Brattle Square _this_ morning, and at the New South

(late Mr. Thacher's) _this_ afternoon. Lord! now let thy servant depart

in peace; for thou hast lifted the cloud under which he has so long

moved, and he may now die in thy light."

Can such a temper as this be misunderstood? Was he not a man fearing God

in 1818,--forty-eight years ago?--or, rather, loving God with that

perfect love which casteth out all fear?

But we need not stop here. After he had become a Spiritualist, that is,

on the 5th of April, 1862, the evening before his seventy-seventh

birthday, he wrote a poem of one hundred and sixty lines, entitled

"Meditations of a Birthday Eve," a copy of which he sent me on the 10th

of November following, upon the express condition that nobody but myself

was to see it, until it should be all over with him. It must have been

written without labor, as one would breathe a prayer upon a death-bed.

The following extracts--I wish we had room for more--will show what were

his feelings and what his aspirations at this time.

"Spirit, my spirit, hath each stage

That brought thee up from youth

To thy now venerable age

Seen thee in search of Truth?

"Hast thou in search of Truth been true,--

True to thyself and her,--

And been with many or with few

Her _honest_ worshipper?

* * * * *

"Spirit, thy race is nearly run;

Say, hast thou run it well?

Thy work on earth is almost done;

_How_ done, no _man_ can tell.

"Spirit, toil on! thy house, that stands

Seventy years old and seven,

Will fall; but one 'not made with hands'

Awaiteth thee in heaven.

"WASHINGTON, D.C., 5 April, 1862."

With the foregoing came another poem, "In Commemoration of a Silver

Wedding," October 2, 1863, full of tenderness and pleasantry,--the

wedding of Mr. and Mrs. J. Pierpont Lord.

And on his eighty-first birthday, called by a strange mistake his

eightieth, there was another celebration, yet more solemn and affecting,

where the greetings and congratulations of his brother-poets, all over

the land, were sent to him and published in the newspapers of the day.

Among his later poems, the "E Pluribus Unum" appears to me most worthy

of his reputation, and least like the doings of his early manhood.

And now, though we had little reason to look for the prolongation of

such a life;--a continued miracle from the age of thirty or thirty-five,

after which he built himself up anew, by living as well in cold water as

in hot, and luxuriating in cold baths, and working hard,--harder,

perhaps, on the whole, at downright drudgery, than any other man of his

age, like Rousseau in copying music, as a relief from writing

poetry,--yet when death happens we are all taken by surprise, just as if

we thought God had overlooked his aged servant, or made him an exception

to the great, inflexible law of our being; or as if a whisper had

reached us, saying, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that

to thee?"

But enough; a volume of such memoranda would be far short of what such a

man deserves when he is finally translated. Faithful among the

faithless, may we not hope that his grandeur and strength of purpose,

and downright, fearless honesty, will have their appropriate reward,

both here and hereafter?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] And here I may as well mention a curious incident. When I wrote my

poem, I had never seen Niagara; but we agreed to go together on a

pilgrimage at our earliest convenience. One thing and another happened,

until I had been abroad and returned, without our seeing it together. At

last, being about to go to the South of Europe, I made a new arrangement

with him; but just as we--my wife and I--were ready to go, he was called

away to consecrate some church in the West, and we started on a journey

of two thousand miles through portions of our country I had never seen,

and was ashamed to go abroad again without seeing. On my way back we

stopped in Buffalo, and as I stood in the piazza I saw a little card on

one of the pillars saying that the Rev. Mr. Pierpont would preach in the

evening somewhere. I found him, and we went _together_ at last, and saw

Niagara together, as we had agreed to do forty years before. And that

night the heavens rained fire upon us, and the great November

star-shooting occurred, and our landlord, being no poet, was unwilling

to disturb us, so that we missed the show altogether.

* * * * *

MY GARDEN.

If I could put my woods in song,

And tell what's there enjoyed,

All men would to my gardens throng,

And leave the cities void.

In my plot no tulips blow,

Snow-loving pines and oaks instead,

And rank the savage maples grow

From spring's faint flush to autumn red.

My garden is a forest-ledge,

Which older forests bound;

The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,

Then plunge in depths profound.

Here once the Deluge ploughed,

Laid the terraces, one by one;

Ebbing later whence it flowed,

They bleach and dry in the sun.

The sowers made haste to depart,

The wind and the birds which sowed it;

Not for fame, nor by rules of art,

Planted these and tempests flowed it.

Waters that wash my garden-side

Play not in Nature's lawful web,

They heed not moon or solar tide,--

Five years elapse from flood to ebb.

Hither hasted, in old time, Jove,

And every god,--none did refuse;

And be sure at last came Love,

And after Love, the Muse.

Keen ears can catch a syllable,

As if one spake to another

In the hemlocks tall, untamable,

And what the whispering grasses smother.

Æolian harps in the pine

Ring with the song of the Fates;

Infant Bacchus in the vine,--

Far distant yet his chorus waits.

Canst thou copy in verse one chime

Of the wood-bell's peal and cry?

Write in a book the morning's prime,

Or match with words that tender sky?

Wonderful verse of the gods,

Of one import, of varied tone;

They chant the bliss of their abodes

To man imprisoned in his own.

Ever the words of the gods resound,

But the porches of man's ear

Seldom in this low life's round

Are unsealed that he may hear.

Wandering voices in the air,

And murmurs in the wold,

Speak what I cannot declare,

Yet cannot all withhold.

When the shadow fell on the lake,

The whirlwind in ripples wrote

Air-bells of fortune that shine and break,

And omens above thought.

But the meanings cleave to the lake,

Cannot be carried in book or urn;

Go thy ways now, come later back,

On waves and hedges still they burn.

These the fates of men forecast,

Of better men than live to-day;

If who can read them comes at last,

He will spell in the sculpture, "Stay."

* * * * *

BORNEO AND RAJAH BROOKE.

Off the southeastern extremity of Asia, and separated from it by the

Chinese Sea, lies a cluster of great islands, comprising that portion of

Oceanica commonly called Malaysia. Of these islands Borneo is the most

extensive, and, if you call Australia a continent, it is by far the

largest island in the world. Situated on the equator, stretching from 7°

of north to 4° of south latitude, and from 108° to 119° of east

longitude, its extreme length is 800 miles, its breadth 700, and it

contains 320,000 square miles,--an area seven times as great as that of

the populous State of New York.

But though its size and importance are so great, though it was

discovered by the Portuguese as early as 1518, though several European

nations have at various times had settlements on its coasts, though it

is rich in all the products of a tropical clime, and in base and

precious metals, diamonds and stones, and though its climate, contrary

to what might have been expected, is in many localities salubrious even

to an American or European constitution, yet until recently almost

nothing was known by the world of its surface, its products, or its

inhabitants.

The causes of this ignorance are obvious. The very shape of Borneo is

unfavorable to discovery. A lumpish mass, like Africa and Australia, the

ocean has nowhere pierced it with those deep bays and gulfs in which

commerce delights to find a shelter and a home. And though it has

navigable rivers, their course is through the almost impenetrable

verdure of the tropics, and they reach the sea amid unwholesome jungles.

The coast, moreover, is in most places marshy and unhealthy, for the

distance of twenty or thirty miles inland; while the interior is filled

with vast forests and great mountain ranges, almost trackless to any but

native feet. Besides, the absence of all just and stable government has

reduced society to a state of chaos. And to all this must be added

piracy, from time immemorial sweeping the sea and ravaging the land.

Under such circumstances, if there were little opportunity for commerce,

there was none for scientific investigations; and only by the

enterprises of commerce or the researches of science do we know of new

and distant countries.

Many races inhabit Borneo; but the Malays and Sea and Land Dyaks greatly

preponderate. The Malays, who came from continental Asia, are the

conquering and governing race. In their native condition they are

indolent, treacherous, and given to piracy. The very name Malay has come

to stand for cruelty and revenge. But well governed, they prove to be

much like other people, susceptible to kindness, capable of affection,

amiable, fond to excess of their children, and courteous to strangers.

The Sea Dyaks are piratical tribes, dwelling on the coasts or borders of

rivers, and subsisting by rapine and violence. The Land Dyaks are the

descendants of the primitive inhabitants. They are a mild, industrious

race, and remarkably honest. One hideous custom, that of preserving the

heads of their fallen enemies as ghastly tokens of victory, has invested

the name of Dyak with a reputation of cruelty which is not deserved.

This singular practice, originating, it is said, in a superstitious

desire to propitiate the Evil Spirit by bloody offerings, has in process

of time become connected with all their ideas of manly prowess. The

young girl receives with proud satisfaction from her lover the gift of a

gory head, as the noblest proof both of his affection and his heroism.

This custom is woven, too, into the early traditions of the race. The

Sakarrans tell us that their first mother, who dwells now in heaven

near the evening star, asked of her wooer a worthy gift; and that when

he presented her a deer she rejected it with contempt; when he offered

her a mias, the great orang-outang of Borneo, she turned her back upon

it; but when in desperation he went out and slew a man, brought back his

head, and threw it at her feet, she smiled upon him, and said that was

indeed a gift worthy of her. This legend shows, at any rate, how fixed

is this habit, not alone in the passions of the people, but also in

their traditional regard. Yet, strange as it may seem, they are an

attractive race. A missionary's wife who has known them well declares

that they are gentle and kindly, simple as children, disposed to love

and reverence all who are wiser and more civilized than themselves. Ida

Pfeiffer concludes that the Dyaks pleased her best, not only among the

races of Borneo, but among all the races of the earth with which she has

come in contact. And a cultivated Englishman, with wealth and social

position at command, has been so attracted to them, that he has lavished

both his fortune and his best years in the work of their elevation. The

social condition of the Dyaks has been sufficiently wretched. Subjected

to the Malays, they have been forced to work in the mines without pay,

while they were liable at any moment to be robbed of their homes, and

even of their wives and children. "We do not live like men," said one of

them, with great pathos. "We are like monkeys, hunted from place to

place. We have no houses, and we dare not light a fire lest the smoke

draw our enemies upon us."

Running along the whole northern coast of Borneo, eight hundred miles,

and inland perhaps two hundred, is found Borneo Proper, one of the three

great Mohammedan kingdoms into which the island was divided as early as

the sixteenth century. This state is governed, or rather misgoverned, by

a sultan, and, under him, by rajahs and pangerans,--officials who give

to the commands of their nominal superior but a scanty obedience. For

two centuries Borneo Proper has been steadily settling into anarchy and

barbarism. With a government both feeble and despotic, it was torn by

intestine wars, crushed within by oppression and ravaged without by

piracy, until commerce and agriculture, the twin pillars of the state,

were equally threatened, and not one element of ruin seemed to be

wanting. What evidence of decay could be more striking than the simple

fact that Bruni, its capital, which in the sixteenth century was crowded

with a population of more than two hundred thousand souls, had in 1840

scarcely fourteen thousand inhabitants?

* * * * *

To one corner of this wasting empire came, twenty-five years ago, a

young Englishman. Simply a gentleman, he had no governmental alliances

to help him, and no advantages of any sort for founding empire, except

such as sprang from the possession of a sagacious mind, an undaunted

temper, and a heart thoroughly in sympathy with the oppressed. Alone he

has built up a flourishing state, introducing commercial activity and

the habits of civilized life where only oppression and misery were, and

has achieved an enterprise which seems to belong rather to the days of

chivalry than to a plodding, utilitarian age,--an enterprise which, in

romance and success, but not in carnage, calls to mind the deeds of the

great Spanish captains in the New World.

James Brooke, the second and only surviving son of Thomas Brooke, a

gentleman who had acquired a fortune in the service of the East India

Company, was born in India, April 29, 1803. At an early age he entered

the employ of the same company to whose interests his father had given

his best days. In 1826, as a cadet, he accompanied the British army to

the Burmese war, was dangerously wounded, received a furlough, and came

to England. To restore his health and gratify his curiosity he spent the

year 1827 in travelling on the Continent. His furlough having nearly

expired, he embarked for India, but was wrecked on the voyage, and could

not report for duty in proper season. This was one of those apparently

fortuitous circumstances which so often change the whole aspect of a

man's life. At any rate, it was the turning-point in Mr. Brooke's

career. Finding that his misfortune had cost him his position, and that

he could not recover it without tedious formalities, he left the

service. Uncontrolled master of himself, and endowed with sagacity and

courage of no ordinary stamp, he was ready for any undertaking which his

adventurous spirit or his love of research might dictate. In fact, it

was during this interval of leisure that he embarked for China, and on

his passage saw for the first time the Eastern Archipelago. He was

painfully interested in the condition of Borneo and Celebes, those great

islands, sinking apparently into hopeless decay. His sympathies were

awakened by the sufferings of the helpless natives, and his indignation

was aroused by the outrages of an unbridled piracy. His feelings can be

best gathered from his own language. "These unhappy countries afford a

striking proof how the fairest and richest lands under the sun may

become degraded by a continuous course of oppression and misrule. Whilst

extravagant dreams of the progressive advancement of the human race are

entertained, a large tract of the globe has been gradually relapsing

into barbarism. Whilst the folly of fashion requires an acquaintance

with the deserts of Africa, and a most ardent thirst for a knowledge of

the customs of Timbuctoo,--whilst the trumpet tongue of many an orator

excites thousands to the rational and charitable object of converting

the Jews or of reclaiming the Gypsies,--not a single prospectus is

spread abroad, not a single voice is raised in Exeter Hall, to relieve

the darkness of this paganism and the horrors of this slave-trade. Under

these circumstances I have considered that individual exertions may be

usefully applied to rouse the zeal of slumbering philanthropy."

The feelings thus awakened were not of a transient character. His dreams

henceforth were to visit these islands, see them for himself, study

their natural history, understand their social condition, and ascertain

what avenues could be opened for trade, and what steps taken to redeem

the oppressed native races.

* * * * *

In 1835 the death of his father, leaving him master of an independent

fortune, enabled him to realize his dreams. He was a member of the Royal

Yacht Club, as well as owner and commander of a yacht,--a position which

admitted him in foreign ports to all the privileges of an English naval

officer. In this little vessel he resolved to undertake an adventurous

voyage of discovery. He approached his enterprise with a wary

forethought. "I was convinced," he says, "that it was necessary to form

men to my purpose, and by a line of steady and kind conduct to raise up

a personal regard for myself and an attachment to the vessel." He

cruised three years in the Mediterranean, carefully selecting and

training his crew. He studied thoroughly the whole subject of the

Eastern Archipelago, and acquainted himself as perfectly as possible

with the minutiæ of seamanship and with every useful art. And when his

preparations were all complete, on the 16th of December, 1838, he set

sail for Singapore, in the yacht Royalist, a vessel of one hundred and

forty-two tons, manned by twenty men and officers, with an armament of

six six-pounders and a full supply of small arms of all sorts. Such were

the mighty resources wherewith he began an enterprise which has ended in

raising him to the government of a petty kingdom, and to almost

sovereign influence over the whole empire of Borneo Proper.

The reader has already had glimpses of the feelings which prompted this

expedition. In a communication to the "Geographical Register" he more

fully unfolds his views; and from this and from his familiar letters it

is not difficult to gain a clear idea of the character and motives of

the man. That his ardent mind had been fired by a study of the career of

his great predecessor, Stamford Raffles, is evident. That he was himself

one of those energetic, restless natures, to which idleness or mere

routine-work is the severest of penalties, is equally evident. He had,

moreover, a large share of that kind of enthusiasm which the cool,

sagacious men of this world call romance, and which delights to fasten

on objects seemingly impossible. He was like the old knights, rejoicing

most when the field of their devoir was distant and dangerous. Yet not

altogether like them. He was rather a man of the twelfth century,

disciplined and invigorated by the hard common-sense and sharp

utilitarianism of the nineteenth century. And we must not forget that he

honestly wished to benefit the native races. Every page, nay, almost

every line, in his journals and letters, bears witness to his profound

compassion for the despised and downtrodden Dyaks. Aside from this, when

we remember that he was a genuine Englishman, proud of his native land

and thoughtful always of her aggrandizement, we need be at no loss to

understand his motives. He went forth to gratify a love of adventure,

"to see something of the world and come back again," to extend a little

the realms of scientific knowledge, to suggest, perhaps, some plans for

the improvement of native character, and last, but not least, to learn

whether there might not be opened new avenues for the extension of

British trade and British power.

That the methods by which these objects were to be attained were not

very well defined even to his own mind is clear. He himself said, "I

cast myself upon the waters, like Southey's little book; but whether the

world will know me after many days, is a question I cannot answer." And

some years after, alluding to a charge of inconsistency, he said, "I did

not embrace my position _at once_; and indeed the position itself

altered very rapidly; and I am free to confess before the world that my

views of duty and responsibility were not so high at first as they have

since been." Without doubt his direct and primary purpose was

investigation. He took with him men of some scientific knowledge,

himself being no mean observer; and he proposed to prosecute, wherever

opportunity occurred, researches into the geography, natural history,

and commercial resources of these islands. If he had ulterior ends, as

yet they existed in his mind as fascinating dreams, rather than

well-defined plans.

* * * * *

After a tedious voyage of nearly six months, the Royalist reached

Singapore, June 1, 1839. While Mr. Brooke was engaged in refitting his

yacht, and anxiously revolving in his mind how he should obtain

permission to penetrate into the neighboring kingdom of Borneo, he

learned that Muda Hassim, uncle of the Sultan, and Rajah of Sarawak, the

northwestern province of Borneo, had displayed great humanity towards a

crew of shipwrecked Englishmen. On receiving this information he started

at once for Sarawak, hoping to get some hold upon the Rajah, and by such

help to pursue his researches. But the time of his visit was most

unfortunate. The whole province was in a state of open rebellion; so

that, while he was received courteously, and permitted to make some

local surveys, nothing of importance could be accomplished. Baffled and

wearied by delay, he sailed back to Singapore, and from thence to

Celebes, where he remained several months, engaged in extensive

explorations, and in collecting specimens to illustrate the natural

history of that island.

Mr. Brooke returned from Celebes worn out and sick, and was obliged to

remain at Singapore several months to recruit his strength. In August,

1840, he made a second visit to Sarawak, intending to tarry there a few

days, and then proceed homeward by the way of Manilla and China. "I

have done fully as much as I promised the public," he writes. He found

things in much the same state as when he left. No progress had been made

in the suppression of the rebellion. Few lives indeed had been lost, but

the most bloody war could hardly have produced worse results. The

country was filled with combatants. Every straggler was cut off.

Violence and rapine were the law. Trade and agriculture languished. A

rich province was fast relapsing into a wilderness; and all its people

were beginning to suffer alike for shelter and sustenance. As our hero

was about to set sail, the Rajah opened his whole heart to him. His

prospects were anything but flattering. He found himself unequal to the

reduction of the rebels. He was surrounded by traitors. At the court of

the Sultan, a hostile cabal, taking advantage of his ill-fortune,

threatened his power and his life. In this strait, he besought his

visitor to remain and give him aid, promising in event of success to

confer upon him the government of the province. After a few days'

reflection, Mr. Brooke, believing, as he declares, that the cause of the

Sultan was just, believing also that what the whole people needed most

was peace, and that peace would place him in a position to render them

the greatest service, acceded to this request, without, however, be it

observed, binding Muda Hassim to any precise stipulations concerning the

government.

Many pages of his journal are devoted to an account of this war; and a

most curious story it is of cowardice, bravado, and inefficiency. It was

advance and retreat, boastful challenge and as boastful reply, marching

and countermarching, day after day, and month after month. "Like the

heroes of old, the adverse parties spoke to each other: 'We are coming,

we are coming; lay aside your muskets and fight us with your swords';

and so the heroes ceased not to talk, but always forgot to fight";--the

sum of all their achievements being to lay waste the country, to

interrupt honest industry, and to put in peril the lives of the

unoffending. Mr. Brooke soon tired of this farce. Gathering a motley

force, consisting of Malays, Dyaks, Chinese, and his own crew, he

prepared for an assault. Then, planting his cannon where they commanded

the stronghold of the enemy, with a few well-directed volleys he brought

its walls tumbling about their ears. The insurgents, driven to the open

country, and altogether amazed by this specimen of Saxon energy,

surrendered at discretion. At one blow a desolating war was ended.

* * * * *

Peace being restored, Mr. Brooke did not insist on the literal

fulfilment of the terms which Muda Hassim had in his extremity been so

ready to proffer. He chose to occupy a position of influence, rather

than one of outward authority. A contract was entered into by which he

became Resident of Sarawak. The conditions of the agreement were, that

the Rajah on his part should repress piracy, protect legitimate

commerce, and as far as possible remove from the Dyaks unjust burdens;

while his ally, in return for these concessions, should open trade,

sending a vessel to and fro between Singapore and Sarawak, exchanging

foreign luxuries for native products, and more especially for antimony,

of which article the Rajah had the monopoly. In fulfilment of his part

of the treaty, Mr. Brooke proceeded to Singapore, purchased a schooner,

loaded her with an assorted cargo, returned to Sarawak, and at the

earnest request of Muda Hassim landed and distributed his goods.

But auspicious as was the commencement of this alliance, soon grave

causes of complaint arose. On every point the deceitful Malay came short

of his agreement. Having obtained valuable property, he showed no

alacrity in paying for it; weeks and months passed without bringing him

apparently any nearer to a pecuniary settlement. So far from repressing

piracy, he encouraged it; and a fleet of one hundred and twenty prahus,

with his tacit consent, actually put to sea. When a crew of English

seamen were enslaved and carried to Bruni, under the most frivolous

pretexts he refused to intercede with the Sultan for these unfortunate

men. And so this strange friendship cooled. It was no slight proof

either of his courage or his humanity to despatch at this very time, as

Mr. Brooke did, his yacht to Bruni, to attempt something in behalf of

his enslaved countrymen, and to remain himself with only three men at

Sarawak. The yacht came back, however, having effected nothing.

By this time the patience of the creditor was exhausted. Despoiled of

his goods, finding that, despite his remonstrances, the Dyaks were

cruelly oppressed, and that piracy was encouraged, he resolved to try

the effect of threats. He repaired on board his yacht, loaded her guns

with grape and canister, and brought her broadside to bear upon the

Rajah's palace. Then taking a small, but well-armed guard, he sought an

interview with Muda Hassim. The terror of that functionary was extreme.

The native tribes openly sided with their English friend. The Chinese

residents remained obstinately neutral. The Malays, between cowardice

and treachery, afforded him no efficient support. To crown all, his

resolute and incensed ally had only to wave his hand to bring down upon

him swift destruction. "After this demonstration, things went cheerily

to a conclusion." Muda Hassim, finding that his creditor was inflexible,

and being unable or unwilling to pay for the goods which he had

fraudulently obtained, offered in payment of all debts to surrender the

government. The offer was accepted, the agreement drawn up, signed,

sealed, guns fired and flags waved, and on September 24, 1841, Mr.

Brooke became Rajah of Sarawak. In August of the following year the

Sultan solemnly confirmed the agreement.

The territory thus strangely passing into the hands of a private English

gentleman was a tract of country bordering upon the sea sixty miles, and

extending inland from seventy to eighty miles. Situated at the

northeastern extremity of Borneo, pierced by two small, but navigable

rivers, its position is most favorable for commerce. Its soil is deep

and rich, yielding under any proper culture large crops of all tropical

products. Its forests are filled with trees fit for shipbuilding, and

abound in that variety from which is obtained the gutta percha of

commerce. The hills are rich in iron and tin of the best quality. The

mountain streams wash down gold. In the beds of smaller rivers are found

diamonds, in such profusion that most of the Malays wear them set in

rings and other ornaments. From this single province comes nearly the

whole supply of antimony in the world. "I do not believe," says a

resident, "that in the same given space there can be found so great

mineral and vegetable wealth in any land in the whole world."

* * * * *

With what sentiments the new Rajah entered upon his duties can be best

understood by a perusal of his familiar letters. He writes to his

mother: "Do not start when I say that I am going to settle in Borneo,

that I am about to endeavor to plant there a mixed colony amid a wild

but not unvirtuous race, and to become the pioneer of European knowledge

and improvement. The diffusion of civilization, commerce, and religion

through so vast an island as Borneo, I call a grand object,--so grand

that self is quite lost when I consider it; and even failure would be

much better than the non-attempt." "A few days ago I was up a high

mountain and looked over the country. It is a prospect which I have

rarely seen equalled; and sitting there, lazily smoking a cigar, I

called into existence the coffee plantations, the sugar plantations, the

nutmeg plantations, and pretty white villages and tiny steeples, and

dreamed that I heard the buzz of life and the clang of industry amid the

jungles, and that the China Colins whistled as they went, for want of

thought, as they homeward bent."

The first duty which claimed attention was the relief of the native

Dyaks. A shrewd Dyak once defined the Malay government as "a plantain in

the mouth and a thorn in the back." A plantain giving to their poor

subjects a little to keep life in them; a thorn stripping them to the

skin and piercing them to the bone. The description is pithy, and it is

true. The exactions of the Malay chiefs were almost beyond belief.

Seizing and monopolizing some article of prime necessity,--salt

perhaps,--they would force the natives to buy at the rate of fifty

dollars' worth of rice for a teacup of salt; until the wretched

cultivator, who had raised a plentiful crop, was brought to the verge of

starvation. They reserved to themselves the right of purchasing the

articles which the Dyaks had to sell, and then affixed to those articles

an arbitrary price, perhaps less than a five-hundredth of their real

value. They would send a bar of iron two or three feet long, and having

an intrinsic worth of a few cents, to the head mart of a tribe,

demanding that his village should give for it a sum equal to five, ten,

or twenty dollars. Another was sent in the same way, and another, and

another, until the rapacity of the chiefs was satisfied, or the wretched

natives had no more to give. Often, when the latter had been robbed of

everything, the Malays would seize and sell their wives and children. It

is recorded of one tribe, that there was not so much as one woman or

child to be found in it. All had been swept off by these remorseless

slave-hunters. Nor did their wrongs end here. If a Dyak killed a Malay

"under any circumstances of aggression," he was put to death, often with

every possible addition of torture. If he accidentally injured one of

the ruling caste, he was fortunate to escape with the loss of half or

two thirds of his little savings. On the other hand, a Malay might kill

as many Dyaks as he pleased, and if perchance justice were a little

sterner than usual, he might be fined a few cents or a few dollars.

Volumes are contained in this one statement, that in the ten years from

1830 to 1840, the Dyaks in the province of Sarawak dwindled from 14,000

to 6,000 souls.

A blow was immediately struck at the root of this black oppression. As

soon as the new government was fairly established, a few simple

enactments were published. They declared that every man, Dyak as well as

Malay, should enjoy unmolested all the gains of his toil; that all

exactions of every name and nature should cease, and that only a small

tax, evenly distributed, should be levied for the support of government;

that all roads and rivers should be free to all; that all molestation of

the Dyaks should be punished with severity. The proclamation which

contains these laws concludes with exhorting all persons who are

disposed to disturb the public peace to take flight speedily to some

other country, where they can break with impunity the laws of God and

man. These enactments were firmly executed, without fear and without

partiality. Wonderful were the results! Internal violence ceased. The

confidence of the natives was awakened. Industry and enterprise sprang

up on every hand as by magic. Sarawak became a city of refuge. Sometimes

as many as fifty fled thither in a day. In 1844, in the short space of

two months, five hundred families took shelter in the province. In 1850,

three thousand Chinese fled from Sambas to Sarawak. The Dyaks returned

the good-will of their Rajah with love and reverence. During one of his

tours in the interior, delegations from tribes numbering six thousand

souls came to seek his protection. "We have heard," said they, in simple

but touching language, "that a son of Europe has arrived, who is a

friend of the Dyaks." When he visited the native hamlets, the women

would throw themselves on the ground and clasp his feet, and the whole

tribe would spend the night in joyful feasting and merriment. It is

soberly affirmed by a credible witness, that on one occasion messengers

came fifteen days' journey from a distant province to see if there were

such a phenomenon as Dyaks living in comfort.

* * * * *

Mr. Brooke soon found that all his efforts for internal reform must be

in a comparative sense futile so long as piracy, that curse of Borneo,

was permitted to ravage unchecked. "It is in a Malay's nature," says the

Dutch proverb, "to rove on the seas in his prahu, as it is in that of

the Arab to wander with his steed on the sands of the desert." No person

who has not investigated the subject can appreciate how wide-spread and

deep-seated this plague of piracy is. The mere statistics are appalling.

It was estimated, in 1840, that one hundred thousand men made

freebooting their trade. One single chief had under control seven

hundred prahus. Whole tribes, whole groups of islands, almost whole

races, despising even the semblance of honest industry, depended upon

rapine for a livelihood. "It is difficult to catch fish, but it is easy

to catch Borneans," said the Soloo pirates scornfully; and, acting upon

that principle, they fitted out their fleets and planned their voyages

with all the method of honest tradesmen.

This piracy was divided into two branches,--coastwise piracy and piracy

on the broad seas. The Sea Dyaks built boats called bangkongs, sixty to

a hundred feet long, narrow and sharp, propelled by thirty to fifty

oars, and so swift that nothing but a steamer could overtake them. These

freebooters were the terror of all honest laborers and tradesmen.

Skulking along the coast, pushing up rivers and creeks, landing anywhere

and every where without warning, they mercilessly destroyed the native

villages and swept the inhabitants into captivity. Or else, impelling

with the force of fifty men their snaky craft, which were swift as

race-boats and noiseless as beasts of prey, they would surprise at dead

of night some defenceless merchantman, overwhelm their victims with

showers of spears, and with morning light a plundered boat, a few dead

bodies, were the silent witnesses of their ferocity. On the other hand,

the Illanum and Balanini tribes, infesting the islands to the northeast

of Borneo, undertook far grander enterprises. Putting to sea, prepared

for a long voyage, in fleets of two or three hundred prahus, propelled

by wind and oars, armed with brass cannon, and manned by ten thousand

bold buccaneers, they swept through the whole length of the Chinese Sea,

and, turning the southernmost point of Borneo, penetrated the straits

and sounds between Java and Celebes, never stopping in their ruthless

course until they came face to face with the sturdy pirates of New

Guinea, and returned, after a voyage of ten thousand miles and an

absence of two years, laden with spoils and captives. How hapless was

the fate of the poor Dyak! If he stayed at home, cultivating his fields,

his Malay lord fleeced him to the skin. If, thinking to engage in

gainful traffic, he hugged the shore with his little bark, the

river-pirate snatched him up. If he stood out upon the broad waters, he

could scarcely hope to escape the Northern hordes who swarmed in every

sea.

Mr. Brooke's most terrible assailants were the Sakarran and Sarebus

pirates, two tribes of freebooters whose seats of power were on the

Sarebus and Batang Lupar rivers, two streams fifty or sixty miles east

of Sarawak. These tribes were encouraged and secretly helped by his own

Malay chiefs, and insolently defied his power, continuing their

depredations, capturing every vessel which ventured out, and ravaging

all the adjacent coasts. The strength of these confederacies was so

great, that it was no unusual thing for them to muster a hundred

war-boats; and they had built, on the banks of the rivers which they

infested, strong forts at every point which commanded the channel. That

the new Rajah was not able with his slender resources to curb these

sea-robbers is not surprising. The only wonder is, that he was able to

protect his own capital from the assaults which they often threatened

but never dared to attempt.

But efficient aid was at hand. In the summer of 1843 the British ship

Dido anchored off the entrance of Sarawak River. She was commissioned to

suppress piracy in and about the Chinese Sea. Her commander readily

entered into the views of the English Rajah. A boat expedition against

the strongholds of the Sarebus pirates was projected. Mr. Brooke

assisted with seven hundred Dyaks. A curious incident occurred, showing

how clearly the natives appreciated their dependence on their English

friend. When he asked their chiefs if they would aid him, they besought

him not to risk his life in so desperate an enterprise. But when he

assured them that his purpose was fixed, that he should go, alone if

necessary, they replied: "What is the use of our remaining behind? You

die, we die; you live, we live. We will go too." The expedition was

perfectly successful. Three fortified villages were stormed, many guns

spiked, many boats destroyed, and their defenders driven to the jungles.

This chastisement not sufficing, in the following year another

expedition from the same vessel attacked the Sakarran pirates and

inflicted upon them a punishment even more severe than that which had

fallen to the lot of their Sarebus brethren. Six forts, one mounting

fifty-six guns, scores of war-boats, and more than a thousand huts, were

burned. These lessons, though sharp, did not permanently subdue.

The blow which broke the power of these confederacies was inflicted in

1849. News came to Sarawak that the pirates had put to sea, marking

their course by fearful atrocities. At once Mr. Brooke applied to the

English Admiral for assistance, and the steamer Nemesis was despatched

to the scene of action. The Rajah joined her with eighteen war-boats, to

which were afterwards added eleven hundred Dyaks, in their bangkongs. On

the 31st of July, at night, they encountered the great war-fleet of the

Sarebus and Sakarran pirates, numbering one hundred and fifty bangkongs,

returning home laden with plunder. The pirates found the entrances of

the river occupied by their enemies,--the English, Malay, and Dyak

forces being placed in three detachments, while the Nemesis was fully

prepared to assist whenever the attack should begin. "Then there was a

dead silence, broken only by three strokes of a gong, which called the

pirates to a council of war. A few minutes afterwards a fearful yell

gave notice of their advance, and the fleet approached in two divisions.

In the dead of the night there ensued a terrible scene. The pirates

fought bravely, but they could not withstand the superior forces of

their enemy. Their boats were upset by the paddles of the steamer. They

were hemmed in on every side, and five hundred men were killed sword in

hand, while twenty-five hundred escaped to the jungles, many of them to

perish. The morning light showed a sad spectacle of ruin and defeat.

Upwards of eighty prahus and bangkongs were captured, and many more

destroyed." The English officers would have gladly saved life; but the

pirates would take no quarter, and the prisoners were few. It was a

striking fact, that one of the war-boats under Mr. Brooke was manned by

some thirty Malays, every one of whom had lost during the year a near

relative, killed by these same pirates. The confederacy has never risen

from this defeat, and for years the tribes composing it have returned to

the labors of peaceful life. Writing twelve months afterwards to a

friend, Rajah Brooke says: "Pray keep the 31st of July apart for a

special bumper, for during the last year not a single innocent life has

been taken by these pirates, nor a single prahu fallen into their

hands." Many a victory, famous in story, has accomplished less.

The next year a fleet of sixty-four prahus, manned by northern pirates,

and carrying 1224 guns, was destroyed by British gunboats in the Gulf of

Tonquin. This was followed by an attack of the Spaniards upon the haunts

of the Soloo pirates. A lull ensued. For three or four years almost

nothing was heard of freebooting; but it was a deceitful calm, not a

final cessation of the storm. The freebooting spirit was not taken out

of the blood of the Malay. Now piracy is said to be on the increase

again. Only three years since six Balanini pirates had the audacity to

sail into Sarawak Bay and commence depredations along its coasts. But

not one returned to tell the tale. The whole six were captured or

destroyed, and their crews killed or taken prisoners. The only permanent

remedy for the evil is just, settled, and efficient government, such as

has been established at Sarawak, destroying not simply the fleets, but

breaking up the piratical haunts, and with firm hand forcing their

people back into the habits and pursuits of civilized life.

* * * * *

Being delivered for a time at least from these perils, the new Rajah was

at liberty to devote himself to the welfare of his subjects. It is not

possible, in a brief notice, even to hint at all the events and efforts

of the next fifteen years of his government,--to say how he repressed

the cupidity and lawlessness of the Malay chiefs; how he encouraged and

protected the poor Dyaks; how he opened new channels for trade; how,

from year to year, he resisted the fierce pirates, who, coming from the

neighboring islands with strong fleets, sought to sweep the adjacent

seas. Of course the prime need was to restore confidence, and to assure

to all honest workers, of every race, the gains of their industry. The

first question, indeed, of the Chinese emigrant was, "Will you protect

us, or will our plantations, so soon as they are worth anything, be

stripped by your chiefs?" It has been beautiful to behold order coming

out of chaos, peace out of violence, whole districts redeemed from

anarchy, simply by giving efficient support to the orderly part of the

population. Another object of not less importance was to create in this

people something of the feeling of nationality, and to make them

comprehend that they were citizens, with the duties of citizens. It

certainly was no easy task to awaken much of the sentiment of lofty

patriotism in the minds of those whose only common memories were of

lawless misrule and oppression. Every possible effort has been made in

this direction. The struggle has been, not to plant an English colony,

but to create a Bornean state. The laws are not English, nor built upon

English precedents. They are simply the old Bornean statutes, made

conformable to the principles of equity, and administered with just

regard to the customs and traditions of the people. The offices of

government are filled to the least possible degree with foreigners;

while native chiefs and even reclaimed pirates are associated with them,

and thus habituated to all the forms of a civilized state. Mr. Brooke,

with a rare courage and wisdom, has always trusted for his safety to the

good-will of his native subjects. He has never been sustained by

mercenary bands. At a time when piratical violence was most threatening,

when disorders were yet rife in his own state, and when his subjects but

poorly appreciated his benevolent purposes towards them, his whole

English force was twenty-four men. It is pleasant to add, that this

confidence was not misplaced. A younger generation is now springing up,

with larger views of life, and with a better appreciation of the

workings and value of equitable government. To sum up all in a brief

sentence, it may be said with truth that the administration has been

marked by rare sagacity, firmness, and comprehensiveness of view, and

that it has been crowned with success.

In 1845, Mr. Brooke came for the first time into official relations

with the British government, by accepting the office of confidential

agent in Borneo. We have already alluded to his warm love of his native

country. As early as 1841, he had expressed a willingness to sacrifice

his large outlays, and to relinquish all his rights and interests to the

crown, if a guaranty could be given that piracy would be checked and the

native races protected in all their proper rights and privileges. He

accepted gladly, therefore, a post which promised to increase his power

to benefit his people, and entered upon its duties with vigor.

Immediately upon his appointment, he was requested to make

investigations as to the existence of a harbor fit for the shelter and

victualling of ships bound from Hong-Kong to Singapore. He reported that

Labuan, a small island north of Borneo, was in every way suitable; that

it was about equidistant from the two parts; that it had a fine harbor,

or rather roadstead; that it was healthy; that it abounded in coal of

the best quality; that, finally, the Sultan stood pledged to convey it

upon reasonable terms.

But before legal papers could be drawn, the whole policy of the court of

Bruni had changed. The Sultan was a monarch with "the head of an idiot

and the heart of a pirate." All his sympathies were with violence and

robbery. Under the influence of others, he had agreed to use his power

against piracy, and had even been brought to say, in fawning phrase,

that "he wanted the English near to him." But he suddenly repented of

his good purposes. In a fit of Oriental fickleness he caused Muda Hassim

and all who favored the English alliance to be put to death, despatched

a messenger secretly to administer poison to Mr. Brooke, and entered

into even closer friendship than before with the piratical tribes. A

confidential servant of Pangeran Budrudeen, the brother of Muda Hassim,

with difficulty escaped, and fled to Sarawak. He related that his master

had bravely resisted, but, overpowered by numbers and desperately

wounded, had committed to his charge a ring, bidding him deliver it to

Rajah Brooke as a dying memento, and to tell him that he died faithful

to his pledges to the Queen; then, setting fire to a keg of powder, he

blew himself with his family into the air.

These tidings filled Mr. Brooke with grief and indignation. Every

passion of his fiery and energetic nature was aroused. He repaired on

board the British fleet, which, upon receipt of this news, had put into

Sarawak. Without delay the fleet sailed for Bruni. An immediate

explanation was demanded of the Sultan. The reply was a volley from the

forts which commanded the river. Without ceremony the ships returned the

fire. In a brief time these strongholds were stormed, and Bruni itself

was at the mercy of the enemy. The Sultan fled to the swamps. Sailing

out of Borneo River, the fleet swept along the whole northern coast,

taking in rapid succession the forts of the Illanum pirates who had

instigated the murders at Bruni, and inflicting upon them a signal

chastisement.

By this time the Sultan wearied of jungles and sighed for his palace. He

wrote a cringing letter, promising amendment, agreeing to ratify all his

former engagements, and as a sign of his true penitence was ready even

to pay royal honors to the memory of the men whom he had slain. There

was no further difficulty in respect to the cession of Labuan, and it

was taken possession of December 24, 1846,--Mr. Brooke being appointed

governor. It is said that the possession of this island goes far to make

England mistress of the Chinese Sea,--a statement easily to be credited

by any one conversant with English policy. At any rate, he who observes

how, at apparently insignificant stations,--on little islands, on a

marshy peninsula,--mere dots on the map,--England has established her

commercial depots,--at Hong-Kong in the north, at Labuan in the centre,

and at Singapore in the south,--will gain new respect for the sagacity

which in the councils of the mother country always lurks behind the

red-tapism of which we hear so much.

* * * * *

After an absence of nine years, Rajah Brooke revisited England in the

year 1847. He was the hero of the hour. Every honor was showered upon

him. He was invited to visit Windsor Castle, received the freedom of

London, and then or soon after was knighted. Owing to his

representations of the readiness of the Dyaks to receive instruction, a

meeting was held in London, at which funds were obtained to build a

church and school-houses. Two missionaries and their families were sent

to Sarawak. The buildings were erected long since, and these Christian

means are in full activity. Brooke's language upon the proper

qualifications of a missionary exhibits in a striking light his

straightforward resolution and enlarged liberality. "Above all things, I

beg of you to save us from such a one as some of the committee desire to

see at Sarawak. Zealots, and intolerants, and enthusiasts, who begin the

task of tuition by a torrent of abuse against all that their pupils hold

sacred, shall not come to Sarawak. Whilst our endeavors to convert the

natives are conducted with charity, I am a warm friend of the mission.

But whenever there is a departure from the only visible means God has

placed at our disposal,--time, reason, patience,--and the Christian

faith is to be heralded in its introduction by disturbances and

heart-burnings and bloodshed, I want it not; and you are quite at

liberty to say, that I would rather that the mission were withdrawn."

* * * * *

About the year 1850, Mr. Brooke became the object of a virulent attack,

continued several years, both in the public prints and in Parliament.

Prompted originally by the petty malice of those whose tool for the

advancement of their personal schemes he had refused to become, this

attack was taken up by a few persons of influence, who seem to have

misunderstood utterly both his character and work. He has been termed a

mere adventurer. He has been accused of avarice, of wringing from the

natives great sums, and receiving from England large salaries as Consul

at Borneo and as Governor of Labuan. It has been asserted that he has

been guilty of wholesale slaughter of the innocent, interfering with

tribal wars under the pretence of extirpating piracy. None of these

charges have been sustained. On the contrary, it has been conclusively

shown that he has sunk more than £20,000 of his private fortune in this

enterprise. The piracy, so mildly called intertribal war, is undoubtedly

robbery, both on the sea and on the land, and conducted with all fitting

accompaniments of cruelty and bloodshed. This persecution has not been

borne by its object with much patience, and, indeed, like Rob Roy's

Highlander, "he does not seem to be famous for that gude gift." "I am no

tame lion to be cowed by a pack of hounds. These intertribal wars are

such as the wolf wages against the lamb. I should like to ask the most

peaceable man in England what he would do if a horde of bandits

frequently burst forth from Brest and Cherbourg, ravaging the shores of

the Channel, and carrying women and children into captivity, with the

heads of their decapitated husbands and fathers? Would he preach? Would

he preach when he saw his daughter dishonored and his son murdered? And

then would he proclaim his shame and cowardice among men? What do some

gentlemen expect? They particularly desire to suppress piracy. Do they

really imagine that piracy is to be suppressed by argument and

preaching?"

Mr. Brooke's enemies have three times pressed their accusations before

the House of Commons, and three times have been defeated by overwhelming

majorities,--the last vote being 230 to 19. Finally, to end the

controversy, a royal commission was appointed to visit the scene of

these transactions, and upon the spot to decide their merits. The report

of this commission has not reached us, if indeed it has ever been made

public; but the practical results of it are certain. Mr. Brooke has

severed his official connection with the British government by a

resignation of the offices which he held under it; while he retains his

sovereignty at Sarawak, with the undiminished love of his subjects and

an unimpaired influence over the native tribes. There seems to be no

doubt that the intelligent public opinion of England fully sustains him.

And it is safe to predict that with that opinion the final verdict of

history will coincide. That, placed in circumstances of great

difficulty, he may have taken steps not to be squared with the nicest

morality, is possible; for that is what must be said of every man who

has borne the burden of great public responsibility. Neither is it

surprising that a man of such boldness of speech and such almost

Cromwellian vigor in action should have enemies; that is a necessity.

But that he has been a true and sagacious friend of the natives, and

that his career has been for the increase of human happiness, are facts

as certain as any can be.

His best defence is his works. In 1842, when he took the government of

Sarawak, it was a feeble province, torn by dissension, crushed by

slavery, and ravaged by lawless violence. Now it is a peaceful,

prosperous commonwealth. In 1842, its capital, Kuching, was a wretched

village, whose houses were miserable mud huts or tents of leaves, and

containing but fifteen hundred inhabitants. Now it numbers fifteen

thousand,--an increase almost rivalling that of our Western cities. In

1842, no boat put to sea without terror. As a result, the amount of

trade was contemptible. Now Sarawak has enterprising native merchants,

owning vessels of two hundred tons, having regular transactions with

Singapore and all the neighboring ports. This trade, as early as 1853,

employed twenty-five thousand tons of shipping, and the exports for the

year were valued at more than a million of dollars. In 1842, deaths by

violence were of almost daily occurrence. Twelve years later, a resident

could boast that for three years only one person had lost his life by

other than natural causes. How would American cities appear in

comparison with this poor Dyak and heathen metropolis? Well does Rajah

Brooke proudly ask, "Could such success spring from a narrow and sordid

policy?" Mrs. McDougall, the missionary's wife, says: "We have now a

beautiful church at Sarawak, and the bell calls us there to worship

every morning at six, and at five every evening. Neither is there

anything in this quiet, happy place to prevent our thus living in God's

presence."

Mrs. McDougall adds a story which shows the estimation in which the

natives hold their Rajah. "Pa Jenna paid me a visit at Sarawak. The

Rajah was then in England. But Pa Jenna, coming into my sitting-room,

immediately espied his picture hanging against the wall. I was much

struck with the expression of respect which both the face and attitude

of this untutored savage assumed as he stood before the picture. He

raised his handkerchief from his head, and, saluting the picture with a

bow, such as a Roman Catholic would make to his patron saint's altar,

whispered to himself, 'Our great Rajah.'" And this man was a reclaimed

pirate.

This reverential love of the natives is the one thing which does not

admit of a doubt. The proofs are constant and irresistible. Some years

since a lady with a few attendants was pushing her boat up a Bornean

river, many leagues away from Sarawak, when she encountered a wild Dyak

tribe on a warlike expedition. The sight of more than a hundred

half-naked savages, crowning a little knoll which jutted into the river

a half-dozen rods in advance of her boat, dancing frantically like

maniacs, brandishing their long knives, and yelling all the while like

demons, was not cheering. Yet at the sight of the Sarawak flag raised at

the bow of the boat, every demonstration of hostility ceased. She was

overpowered by their noisy welcome, and received from them the kindest

attention. A dozen years ago, at the very time that the accusations of

cruelty and wholesale slaughter of innocent people were most recklessly

made, a party of Englishmen, and among them the adopted son of the

Rajah, went on an exploring expedition to the extreme northeast corner

of Borneo, more than six hundred miles from Sarawak. While they were

seated one evening around their fire, the whole air resounded with the

cries, "Tuan Brooke! Tuan Brooke!" and presently the natives drew near

and expressed their joy at seeing a son of the great Rajah, and

wondering that he who had so blessed the southern Dyaks did not extend

his protection to their northern brethren. One anecdote more. During the

Chinese insurrection, of which we shall soon speak, a Malay chief,

fighting desperately against the insurgents, was mortally wounded, only

lingering long enough to be assured of the Rajah's victory, and to

exclaim with his dying breath, "I would rather be in hell with the

English, than in heaven with my own countrymen."

* * * * *

The loyalty of the native population was thoroughly tested in the year

1857. It was the time of the second British war against China. Now the

Chinese are in one sense the most cosmopolitan of races. Wherever bread

is to be won, or gold amassed, there they go, thus becoming scattered

all through Southeastern Asia and the adjoining islands. In one aspect

they are a great blessing. They are a most laborious and thrifty race,

of almost incalculable benefit in the development of the material

resources of a country. But in some respects they are also an element of

danger. They never identify themselves with the country in which they

dwell. They simply come to get a living out of it. They band themselves

in secret societies or other exclusive organizations, and seem to get no

real love for the land which gives them bread, or the people among whom

they live. Under a peaceful rule, this race had greatly multiplied at

Sarawak. Some branches of industry had indeed almost fallen into their

hands. Especially in all mining operations was their help a positive

necessity. For the Dyak, though industrious enough on his little

plantation, will not work, except on compulsion, in the mines. These

places are bitter to him with the memory of forced labor and unrequited

misery. Besides, he believes that the bowels of the earth are filled

with demons, and no amount of pay gives him courage to face these. As a

result, the conduct of the mines was left to the Chinese, and they were

unwisely permitted to work them in large companies of several hundred,

under their own overseers. This gave them the advantages of a compact

organization: to a dangerous degree they became a state within the

state.

When the war in China broke out, the Chinese residents at Sarawak,

sympathizing with their countrymen, were naturally greatly excited; and

when tidings came that the English fleet had been repulsed from before

the Canton forts, they were emboldened to take the desperate step of

attempting to put to death or to drive out of the country Rajah Brooke

and the rest of the English people, that they themselves might take

possession of it. About dusk on a February night, six hundred of them

gathered under their chiefs, armed themselves, went on board

cargo-boats, and began to float down the river towards the capital. At

midnight they attacked the Rajah's house. Its inmates were forced to

flee to the jungles. The Rajah rose from a sick-bed, ran to the banks of

the stream, dove under one of the Chinese boats, swam the river, and

took refuge with the Malays. Several of his countrymen were murdered.

His own house, filled with the priceless collections of a lifetime,

together with a costly library, was burned.

It was a gloomy morning which succeeded the night of this catastrophe.

Though he did not doubt for a moment the ultimate suppression of the

rebellion, what ruin might not be wrought in the few days or weeks which

should elapse before that event! And where, now that he had been driven

from his capital, he should find a base of operations to which he might

gather the scattered native forces, was the perplexing question of the

hour,--when, joyful sight, he beheld a merchant steamer sailing up the

river! He hailed her, went on board, and with a sufficient force steamed

up to Sarawak. With his appearance the last vestige of hope for the

insurrection disappeared.

Meanwhile stirring events had taken place. At first the natives were

stunned. They were roused at dead of night, to find the Chinese in

possession of the town, their Rajah's house in flames, the Rajah

missing, while the rumor was that he had been killed. For a time they

wandered about listlessly, vacantly staring each other in the face, and

it seemed as though they were about to submit without a struggle. In the

midst of this gloom and uncertainty, up spoke a Malay trader, whose

veins, despite his peaceful occupation, were full of the old pirate

blood: "Are we going to submit to be governed by these Chinese, or are

we going to be faithful to our Rajah? I am no talker, but I will never

be governed by any but him, and to-night I commence war to the knife

with his enemies." This broke the spell. Both Malays and Dyaks, in city

and country alike, rose _en masse_, and after a severe fight, prolonged

till the reappearance of Mr. Brooke, drove the Chinese to the forests,

and pursued them with unrelenting fury. Many of the insurgents perished

by the sword. Many more wandered about till they died of starvation.

Some threw themselves down in their tracks, expiring from fatigue and

utter wretchedness. Some hung themselves to escape their misery. In

despair and exasperation, they even turned their arms against each

other. Of the six hundred who made the original attack, sixty escaped.

Of the four thousand who composed the Chinese population, a forlorn and

wearied remnant of two thousand took refuge in the Dutch part of the

island. This lamentable destruction was the result neither of the order

nor the permission of the Rajah. It was accomplished by the unreasoning

fury of an outraged people. In a few days the formidable insurrection

was ended. The places of the insurgents were filled as rapidly as they

had been vacated. Scarcely a trace was left of the ravages of the

rebellion; and it accomplished nothing, save to convince all doubters

that the government of the province rested, as all stable government

must rest, on the good-will of the subject.

At the height of the insurrection a striking incident occurred. While

their brethren were being hurled in utter confusion across the Dutch

borders, several hundred Chinese fled from those very Dutch territories

and sought refuge in Sarawak. Though harassed by care, the Rajah did not

neglect their appeal, but sent trustworthy men, who piloted them safely

through the incensed Dyaks, who on their part by no means appreciated

the virtue of such a step, but thought rather that every man "who wore a

tail" ought to be put to death, though they bowed to the better judgment

of their chief.

* * * * *

The latest accounts represent the province as continuing in a state of

unabated prosperity. Its bounds, by more recent cessions, have been so

largely increased, that its shore line is now three hundred miles long,

and the whole population of the state two hundred and fifty thousand.

The haunts of the Sarebus and Sakarran pirates are included in the new

limits; and these once-dreaded freebooters have learned the habits of

honest industry. Indeed, during the days of the insurrection the state

found no more faithful or courageous defenders than they, although their

old corsair blood was visible in the relentless tenacity with which they

tracked the flying foe. Sir James Brooke, with increasing years, has

retired somewhat from the active care of the government, leaving the

conduct of affairs very much to his nephew, Captain Brooke, whom he has

designated as his heir and successor, and who is represented as being

also heir in a large degree to his uncle's principles, courage, and

sagacity.

Rajah Brooke sought persistently for many years to give perpetuity to

his life's work by placing Sarawak under British protection. He made

repeated offers to surrender to the Queen all right and title which he

had acquired, on any terms which would secure the welfare of the

natives. But these offers have been definitely rejected; the seeming

protection which Sarawak enjoyed through the position of its ruler as

Governor of Labuan has been withdrawn, and the little state left to work

out unaided its destiny. What shall be the final fate of this

interesting experiment, whether there shall arise successors to the

founder wise enough to maintain the government so bravely established,

or whether the infant state shall perish with the man who called it into

existence, and become only a memory, it is impossible to foretell; but,

living or dead, its annals will always be a noble monument to him whose

force of character and undaunted persistency created it.

* * * * *

The earlier portraits we have of Rajah Brooke depict him as a man of a

peculiarly frank, open, and pleasing exterior, yet with a countenance

marked by intelligence, thought, and energy; but underneath all a

certain dreaminess of expression, found often in the faces of those born

for adventure and to seek for the enterprise of their age fresh fields,

new El Dorados hidden in strange lands and unfamiliar seas.

The later portraits give us a face, plain, sagacious, yet full of an

expression of kindly benevolence. The exigencies of a busy life have

transformed romance into reality and common-sense; the adventurer and

knight-errant has but obeyed the law of his age, and become a noble

example of the power of the Anglo-Saxon mind to organize in the face of

adverse circumstances a state, and to construct out of most unpromising

elements the good fabric of orderly social life.

* * * * *

PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

XII.

_March_, 1845.--Nature sometimes displays a little tenderness for our

vanity, but is never careful for our pride. She is willing that we

should look foolish in the eyes of others, but keeps our little

nonsensicalnesses from ourselves.

* * * * *

Perhaps there are higher intelligences that look upon all the

manifestations of the human mind--metaphysics, ethics, histories,

politics, poems, stories, etc., etc.--with the same interest that we

look upon flowers, or any other humble production of nature,--finding a

beauty and fitness even in the poorest of them, which we cannot see in

the best.

* * * * *

A child or a young girl so sweet and beautiful, that God made new

flowers on purpose for her.

_May 4._--On the river-side, by the Promontory of Columbines. The river

here makes a bend, nearly at a right angle. On the opposite side, a high

bank descends precipitately to the water; a few apple-trees are

scattered along the declivity. A small cottage, with a barn, peeps over

the top of the bank; and at its foot, with their roots in the water, is

a picturesque clump of several maple-trees, their trunks all in a

cluster, and their tops forming a united mass of new fast-budding

foliage. At the foot of this clump of trees lies a boat, half in the

water, half drawn up on the bank. A tract of flags and water-weeds

extends along the base of the bank, outside of which, at a late period,

will grow the flat, broad leaves of the yellow water-lily, and the

pond-lily. A southwestern breeze is ruffling the river, and drives the

little wavelets in the same direction as the current. Most of the course

of the river in this vicinity is through marshy and meadowy ground, as

yet scarcely redeemed from the spring-time overflow, and which at all

seasons is plashy and unfit for walking. At my feet the water overbrims

the shore, and kisses the new green grass, which sprouts even beneath

it.

The Promontory of Columbines rises rugged and rocky from amidst

surrounding lowlands, (in a field next to that where the monument is

erected, near the Old Manse,) and it forms the forth-putting angle at

the bend of the river. In earlier spring the river embraces it all

round, and converts it into an island. Rocks, with flakes of dry moss

covering them, peep out everywhere; and abundant columbines grow in the

interstices of these rocks, and wherever else the soil is scanty and

difficult enough to suit their fancy,--avoiding the smoother and better

sites, which they might just as well have chosen, close at hand. They

are earlier on this spot than anywhere else, and are therefore doubly

valuable, though not nearly so large, nor of so rich a scarlet and gold,

as some that we shall gather from the eastern slope of a hill, two or

three weeks hence. The promontory is exposed to all winds, and there

seems no reason why it should produce the earliest flowers, unless that

this is a peculiar race of columbines, which has the precious gift of

earlier birth assigned to them in lieu of rich beauty. This is the first

day of the present spring that I have found any quite blown; but last

year, I believe, they came considerably earlier. Here and there appeared

a blue violet, nestling close to the ground, pretty, but inconvenient to

gather and carry home, on account of its short stalk. Houstonias are

scattered about by handfuls. Anemones have been in bloom for several

days on the edge of the woods, but none ever grow on the Promontory of

Columbines.

The grass is a glad green in spots; but this verdure is very partial,

and over the general extent the old, withered stalks of last year's

grass are found to predominate. The verdure appears rich, between the

beholder and the sun; in the opposite direction, it is much less so. Old

mullein-stalks rise tall and desolate, and cling tenaciously to the soil

when we try to uproot them. The promontory is broken into two or three

heads. Its only shadow is from a moderately-sized elm, which, from year

to year, has flung down its dead branches, all within its circumference,

where they lie in various stages of decay. There are likewise rotten and

charred stumps of several other trees.

* * * * *

The fence of our avenue is covered with moss on the side fronting

towards the north, while the opposite side is quite free from it,--the

reason being, that there is never any sunshine on the north side to dry

the moisture caused by rains from the northeast. The moss is very

luxuriant, sprouting from the half-decayed wood, and clinging to it as

if partially incorporated therewith.

* * * * *

Towards the dimness of evening a half-length figure appearing at a

window,--the blackness of the background, and the light upon the face,

cause it to appear like a Rembrandt picture.

* * * * *

On the top of Wachusett, butterflies, large and splendid; also bees in

considerable numbers, sucking honey from the alpine flowers. There is a

certain flower, a species of Potentilla, I think, which is found on

mountains at a certain elevation, and inhabits a belt, being found

neither above nor below it. On the highest top of Wachusett there is a

circular foundation, built evidently with great labor, of large, rough

stones, and rising perhaps fifteen feet. On this basis formerly rose a

wooden tower, the fragments of which, a few of the timbers, now lie

scattered about. The immediate summit of the mountain is nearly bare and

rocky, although interspersed with bushes; but at a very short distance

below there are trees, though slender, forming a tangled confusion, and

among them grows the wild honeysuckle pretty abundantly, which was in

bloom when we were there (Sunday, June 17th). A flight of rude stone

steps ascends the circular stone foundation of the round tower. By the

by, it cannot be more than ten feet high, at the utmost, instead of

fifteen.

The prospect from the top of Wachusett is the finest that I have

seen,--the elevation being not so great as to snatch the beholder from

all sympathy with earth. The roads that wind along at the foot of the

mountain are discernible; and the villages, lying separate and

unconscious of one another, each with their little knot of peculiar

interests, but all gathered into one category by the observer above

them. White spires, and the white glimmer of hamlets, perhaps a dozen

miles off. The gleam of lakes afar, giving life to the whole landscape.

Much wood, shagging hills and plains. On the west, a hill-country,

swelling like waves, with these villages sometimes discovered among

them. On the east it looks dim and blue, and affects the beholder like

the sea, as the eye stretches far away. On the north (?) appears

Monadnock, in his whole person, discernible from the feet upwards,

rising boldly and tangibly to the sense, so that you have the figure

wholly before you, fair and blue, but not dim and cloudlike.

On the road from Princeton to Fitchburg we passed fields which were

entirely covered with the mountain-laurel in full bloom,--as splendid a

spectacle, in its way, as could be imagined. Princeton is a little town,

lying on a high ridge, exposed to all the stirrings of the upper air,

and with a prospect of a score of miles round about. The great family of

this place is that of the Boylstons, who own Wachusett, and have a

mansion, with good pretensions to architecture, in Princeton.

Notables: Old Gregory, the dweller of the mountain-side; his

high-spirited wife; the son, speaking gruffly from behind the scenes, in

answer to his father's inquiries as to the expediency of lodging us. The

brisk little landlord at Princeton, recently married, intelligent,

honest, lively, agreeable; his wife, with her young-ladyish manners

still about her; the second class of annuals, and other popular

literature, in the parlors of the house; colored engraving of the

explosion of the Princeton's gun, with the principal characters in that

scene, designated by name; also Death of Napoleon, &c. A young Mr.

Boylston boarding at the inn, and driving out in a beautiful, city-built

phaeton, of exquisite lightness. We met him and a lady in the phaeton,

and two other ladies on horseback, in a narrow path, densely wooded, on

the ascent of a hill. It was quite romantic. Likewise old Mr. Boylston,

frequenting the tavern, coming in after church, and smoking a cigar,...

entering into conversation with strangers about the ascent of the

mountain. The tailor of the place, with his queer advertisement pasted

on the wall of the barroom, comprising certificates from tailors in New

York City, and various recommendations, from clergymen and others, of

his moral and religious character. Two Shakers in the cars,--both, if I

mistake not, with thread gloves on. The foundation of the old

meeting-house of Princeton, standing on a height above the village, as

bleak and windy as the top of Mount Ararat; also the old deserted

town-house. The edifices were probably thus located in order to be more

exactly in the centre of the township.

* * * * *

From July 25 to August 9, 1845, at Portsmouth Navy Yard. Remarkables:

the free and social mode of life among the officers and their families,

meeting at evening on the door-steps or in front of their houses, or

stepping in familiarly; the rough-hewn first lieutenant, with no ideas

beyond the service; the doctor, priding himself on his cultivation and

refinement, pretending to elegance, sensitive, touchy; the

sailing-master, an old salt, of the somewhat modernized Tom Bowline

pattern, tossed about by fifty years of stormy surges, and at last swept

into this quiet nook, where he tells yarns of his cruises and duels,

repeats his own epitaph, drinks a reasonable quantity of grog, and

complains of dyspepsia; the old fat major of marines, with a brown wig

not pretending to imitate natural hair, but only to cover his baldness

and grayness with something that he imagines will be less unsightly: he

has a potent odor of snuff, but has left off wine and strong drink for

the last twenty-seven years. A Southerner, all astray among our New

England manners, but reconciling himself to them, like a long practised

man of the world, only somewhat tremulous at the idea of a New England

winter. The lieutenant of marines, a tall, red-haired man, between

thirty and forty, stiff in his motions from the effect of a palsy

contracted in Florida,--a man of thought, both as to his profession and

other matters, particularly matters spiritual,--a convert, within a few

years, to Papistry,--a seer of ghosts,--a dry joker, yet sad and earnest

in his nature,--a scientific soldier, criticising Jackson's military

talent,--fond of discussion, with much more intellect than he finds

employment for,--withal, somewhat simple. Then the commandant of the

yard, Captain S----, a man without brilliancy, of plain aspect and

simple manners, but just, upright, kindly, with an excellent practical

intellect; his next in rank, Commander P----, an officer-like,

middle-aged man, with such cultivation as a sensible man picks up about

the world; and with what little tincture he imbibes from a bluish wife.

In the vicinity of the Navy Yard, an engineer-officer, stationed for a

year or two past on a secluded point of the coast, making a map,

minutely finished, on a very extensive scale, of country and coast near

Portsmouth; he is red-nosed, and has the aspect of a free liver; his

companion, a civil engineer, with much more appearance of intellectual

activity. Their map is spread out in a room that looks forth upon the

sea and islands, and has all the advantages of sea-air,--very desirable

for summer, but gloomy as a winter residence.

At Fort Constitution are many officers,--a major and two lieutenants,

the former living in a house within the walls of the fort, the latter

occupying small residences outside. They are coarse men, apparently of

few ideas, and not what one can call gentlemen. They are likewise less

frank and hospitable than the navy officers. Their quarters have not the

aspect of homes, although they continue for a term of years, five or

more, on one station, whereas the navy officers are limited to two or

three. But then the former migrate with their families to new stations,

whereas the wives of the naval officers, though ejected from the

navy-yard houses, yet, not accompanying their husbands on service,

remain to form a nucleus of home.

Two or three miles from the Navy Yard, on Kittery Point, stands the

former residence of Sir William Pepperell. It is a gambrel-roofed house,

very long and spacious, and looks venerable and imposing from its

dimensions. A decent, respectable, intelligent woman admitted us, and

showed us from bottom to top of her part of the house; she being a

tenant of one half. The rooms were not remarkable for size, but were

panelled on every side. The staircase is the best feature, ascending

gradually, broad and square, and with an elaborate balustrade; and over

the front door there is a wide window and a spacious breadth, where the

old baronet and his guests, after dinner, might sit and look out upon

the water and his ships at anchor. The garret is one apartment,

extending over the whole house. The kitchen is very small,--much too

small for the credit of the house, were it not redeemed by the size of

the fireplace, which originally could not have been less than fourteen

feet, though now abridged by an oven, which has been built within it.

The hearth extends half-way across the floor of the kitchen. On one

side, the road passes close by the house; on the other, it stands within

fifty yards of the shore. I recollect no outhouses. At a short distance,

across the road, is a marble tomb, on the level slab of which is the

Pepperell coat of arms, and an inscription in memory of Sir William's

father, to whom the son seems to have erected it,--although it is the

family tomb. We saw no other trace of Sir William or his family.

Precisely a hundred years since he was in his glory. None of the name

now exist here,--or elsewhere, as far as I know. A descendant of the

Sparhawks, one of whom married Pepperell's daughter, is now keeper of a

fort in the vicinity,--a poor man. Lieutenant Baker tells me that he has

recently discovered a barrel full of the old family papers.

The house in Portsmouth now owned and occupied by the Rev. Mr. Burroughs

was formerly the mansion of Governor Langdon. It contains noble and

spacious rooms. The Doctor's library is a fine apartment, extending, I

think, the whole breadth of the house, forty or fifty feet, with

elaborate cornices, a carved fireplace, and other antiquated

magnificences. It was, I suppose, the reception-room, and occasionally

the dining-hall. The opposite parlor is likewise large, and finished in

excellent style, the mantelpiece being really a fine architectural

specimen.... Doctor Burroughs is a scholar, rejoicing in the possession

of an old, illuminated missal, which he showed us, adorned with

brilliant miniatures and other pictures by some monkish hand. It was

given him by a commodore in the navy, who picked it up in Italy, without

knowing what it was, nor could the learned professors of at least one

college inform him, until he finally offered it to Dr. Burroughs, on

condition that he should tell him what it was. We likewise saw a copy of

the famous "Breeches Bible," and other knicknacks and curiosities which

people have taken pleasure in giving to one who appreciated such things,

and whose kindly disposition makes it a happiness to oblige him. His

house has entertained famous guests in the time of the old

Governor,--among them Louis Philippe, Talleyrand, Lafayette, and

Washington, all of whom occupied successively the same chamber; besides,

no doubt, a host of less world-wide distinguished persons.

* * * * *

A battery of thirty-two pound periods.

* * * * *

In the eyes of a young child or other innocent person, the image of a

cherub or an angel to be seen peeping out,--in those of a vicious

person, a devil.

* * * * *

_October 11._ In Boston, a man passing along Colonnade Row, grinding a

barrel-organ, and attended by a monkey, dressed in frock and pantaloons,

and with a tremendously thick tail appearing behind. While his master

played on the organ, the monkey kept pulling off his hat, bowing and

scraping to the spectators, round about,--sometimes, too, making a

direct application to an individual,--by all this dumb show, beseeching

them to remunerate the organ-player. Whenever a coin was thrown on the

ground, the monkey picked it up, clambered on his master's shoulder, and

gave it into his keeping, then descended, and repeated his pantomimic

entreaties for more. His little, old, ugly, wrinkled face had an

earnestness that looked just as if it came from the love of money deep

within his soul. He peered round, searching for filthy lucre on all

sides. With his tail and all, he might be taken for the Mammon of

copper coin,--a symbol of covetousness of small gains,--the lowest form

of the love of money.

Baby was with us, holding by my forefinger, and walking decorously along

the pavement. She stopped to contemplate the monkey, and after a while,

shocked by his horrible ugliness, began to cry.

* * * * *

A disquisition or a discussion between two or more persons, on the

manner in which the Wandering Jew has spent his life. One period,

perhaps, trying over and over again to grasp domestic happiness; then a

soldier, then a statesman, &c., at last realizing some truth.

* * * * *

The most graceful way in which a man can signify that he feels that he

is growing old, and acquiesces in it, is by adhering to the fashion of

dress which chances to be in vogue when the conviction comes upon him.

Thus, in a few years, he will find himself quietly apart from the crowd

of young men.

* * * * *

Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the

best of our nature.

* * * * *

Nothing comes amiss to Nature,--all is fish that comes to her net. If

there be a living form of perfect beauty, instinct with soul,--why, it

is all very well, and suits Nature well enough. But she would just as

lief have that beautiful, soul-illumined body for worms' meat and

earth's manure!

* * * * *

Instances of two ladies, who vowed never again to see the light of the

sun, on account of disappointments in love. Each of them kept her vow,

living thenceforth, and dying after many years, in apartments closely

shut up, and lighted by candles. One appears to have lived in total

darkness.

* * * * *

The infirmities that come with old age may be the interest on the debt

of nature, which should have been more seasonably paid. Often the

interest will be a heavier payment than the principal.

* * * * *

By a Lord of the Admiralty, (in a speech in Parliament during our

Revolution,) the number of American sailors employed in the British navy

previous to the Revolution was estimated at eighteen thousand.

* * * * *

Some men have no right to perform great deeds, or think high thoughts;

and when they do so, it is a kind of humbug. They had better keep within

their own propriety.

* * * * *

In England, in 1761, a man and his wife, formerly in good circumstances,

died very poor, and were buried at the expense of the parish. This

coming to the ears of the friends of their better days, they had the

corpses taken out of the ground and buried in a more genteel manner!

* * * * *

In the "Annual Register," Vol. IV., for 1761, there is a letter from

Cromwell to Fleetwood, dated August 22, 1653, which Carlyle appears not

to have given. Also one, without date, to the Speaker of the House of

Commons, narrating the taking of Basing House.

* * * * *

Recently, in an old house which has been taken down at the corner of

Bulfinch Street and Bowdoin Square, a perfect and full-grown skeleton

was discovered, concealed between the ceiling and the floor of a room in

the upper story. Another skeleton was not long since found in similar

circumstances.

* * * * *

In a garden, a pool of perfectly transparent water, the bed of which

should be paved with marble, or perhaps with mosaic work in images and

various figures, which through the clear water would look wondrously

beautiful.

* * * * *

_October 20, 1847._--A walk in a warm and pleasant afternoon to Browne's

Hill, not uncommonly called Browne's Folly, from the mansion which one

of that family, before the Revolution, erected on its summit. (On

October 14, 1837, I recorded a walk thither.) In a line with the length

of the ridge, the ascent is gradual and easy, but straight up the sides

it is steep. There is a large and well-kept orchard at the foot, through

which I passed, gradually ascending; then, surmounting a stone wall,

beneath chestnut-trees which had thrown their dry leaves down, I climbed

the remainder of the hill. There were still the frequent

barberry-bushes; and the wood-wax has begun to tuft itself over the

sides and summit, which seem to be devoted to pasture. On the very

highest part are still the traces of the foundation of the old mansion.

The hall had a gallery running round it beneath the ceiling, and was a

famous place for dancing. The house stood, I believe, till some years

subsequent to the Revolution, and was then removed in three portions,

each of which became a house somewhere on the plain, and perhaps they

are standing now. The proprietor, being a royalist, became an exile when

the Revolution broke out, and I suppose died abroad. I know not whether

the house was intended as a permanent family-residence or merely as a

pleasure-place for the summer; but from its extent I should conceive the

former to have been its purpose. Be that as it may, it has perpetuated

an imputation of folly upon the poor man who erected it, which still

keeps his memory disagreeably alive after a hundred years. The house

must have made a splendid appearance for many miles around; and the

glare of the old-fashioned festivities would be visible, doubtless, in

the streets of Salem, when he illuminated his windows to celebrate a

king's birthday, or some other loyal occasion. The barberry-bushes,

clustering within the cellars, offer the harsh acidity of their fruit

to-day, instead of the ripe wines which used to be stored there.

Descending the hill, I entered a green, seldom-trodden lane, which runs

along at a hundred yards or two from its base, and parallel with its

ridge. It was overshadowed by chestnut-trees, and bordered with the

prevalent barberry-bush, and between ran the track,--the beaten path of

the horses' feet, and the even way of either wheel, with green strips

between. It was a very lonely lane, and very pleasant in the warm,

declining sun; and, following it a third of a mile, I came to a place

that was familiar to me when I was a child, as the residence of a

country cousin whom I used to be brought to see. There was his old house

still standing, but deserted, with all the windows boarded up, and the

door likewise, and the chimneys removed,--a most desolate-looking place.

A young dog came barking towards me as I approached,--barking, but

frisking, between play and watchfulness. Within fifty yards of the old

house, farther back from the road, stands a stone house, of some dozen

or twenty years' endurance,--an ugly affair, so plain is it,--which was

built by the old man in his latter days. The well of the old house, out

of which I have often drunk, and over the curb of which I have peeped to

see my own boy-visage closing the far vista below, seems to be still in

use for the new edifice. Passing on a little farther, I came to a brook,

which, I remember, the old man's son and I dammed up, so that it almost

overflowed the road. The stream has strangely shrunken now; it is a mere

ditch, indeed, and almost a dry one. Going a little farther, I came to a

graveyard by the roadside,--not apparently a public graveyard, but the

resting-place of a family or two, with half a dozen gravestones. On two

marble stones, standing side by side, I read the names of Benjamin

Foster and Anstiss Foster, the people whom I used to be brought to

visit. He had died in 1824, aged seventy-five; she in 1837, aged

seventy.

* * * * *

A young woman in England, poisoned by an East Indian barbed dart, which

her brother had brought home as a curiosity.

* * * * *

The old house on Browne's Hill was removed from the summit to the plain,

at a short distance from the foot of the hill. Colonel Putnam, of the

Custom-House, recollects it there, standing unoccupied, but with the

furniture still in it. It seems to have been accessible to all who

wished to enter. It was at that time under the care of Richard Derby, an

ancestor of the present Derbys, who had a claim to the property through

his wife, who was a Browne. The owner of the house had fled during the

Revolution, and Richard Derby seems to have held the estate as it was

when the refugee left it, in expectation of his eventual return. There

was one closet in the house which everybody was afraid to open, it being

supposed that the Devil was in it. One day, above fifty years ago, or

threescore it may have been, Putnam and other boys were playing in the

house, and took it into their heads to peep into this closet. It was

locked, but Putnam pried open the door, with great difficulty and much

tremor. At last it flew open, and out fell a great pile of family

portraits, faces of gentlemen in wigs, and ladies in quaint

head-dresses, displaying themselves on the floor, startling the urchins

out of their wits. They all fled, but returned after a while, piled up

the pictures again, and nailed up the door of the closet.

The house, according to the same authority, was not tenanted after the

earthquake of 1775; at least, it was removed from the summit of the hill

on that occasion, it having been greatly shaken by the earthquake.

The house formerly inhabited by Rev. Mr. Paris, and in which the

witchcraft business of 1692 had its origin, is still standing in the

north parish of Danvers. It has been long since removed from its

original site. The workmen at first found great difficulty in removing

it; and an old man assured them that the house was still under the

influence of the Devil, and would remain so unless they took off the

roof. Finally they did take off the roof, and then succeeded in moving

the house. Putnam was personally cognizant of this fact.

* * * * *

_November 17_.--A story of the effects of revenge in diabolizing him who

indulges in it.

* * * * *

The Committee of Vigilance, instituted to promote the discovery of old

Mr. White's murderers,--good as the machinery of a sketch or story.

* * * * *

A story of the life, domestic and external, of a family of birds in a

marten-house, for children.

* * * * *

The people believed that John Hancock's uncle had bought an immense

diamond at a low price, and sold it for its value,--he having grown rich

with a rapidity inexplicable to them. The fact was, however, according

to Hutchinson, that he made his fortune by smuggling tea in molasses

hogsheads from St. Eustatia.

* * * * *

An old French Governor of Acadie, the predecessor of D'Aulnay, paid for

some merchandise, which he bought of the captain of an English vessel,

with six or seven hundred buttons of massive gold, taken from one of his

suits. (Mass. Hist. Coll.)

* * * * *

An apparition haunts the front yard. I have often, while sitting in the

parlor, in the daytime, had a perception that somebody was passing the

windows; but, looking towards them, nobody is there. The appearance is

never observable when looking directly towards the window, but only by

such a sidelong or indirect glance as one gets while reading, or when

intent on something else. But I know not how many times I have raised my

head or turned with the certainty that somebody were passing. The other

day I found that my wife was equally aware of the spectacle, and that,

as likewise agrees with my own observation, it always appears to be

entering the yard from the street, never going out.

* * * * *

The immortal flowers,--a child's story.

* * * * *

"He looked as if he had been standing up thirty years against a

northeast storm." Description of an old mate of a vessel, by Pike.

* * * * *

Death possesses a good deal of real estate, namely, the graveyards in

every town. Of late years, too, he has pleasure-grounds, as at Mount

Auburn and elsewhere.

* * * * *

Corwin is going to Lynn; Oliver proposes to walk thither with him. "No,"

says Corwin, "I don't want you. You take great, long steps; or, if you

take short ones, 'tis all hypocrisy. And, besides, you keep humming all

the time."

* * * * *

_May 18, 1848._--Decay of the year has already commenced. I saw a

dandelion gone to seed, this afternoon, in the Great Pasture.

* * * * *

Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a

dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of

one who knows how to combine them.

* * * * *

Captain B---- tells a story of an immense turtle which he saw at sea, on

a voyage to Batavia,--so long, that the look-out at the mast-head

mistook it for a rock. The ship passed close to it, and it was

apparently longer than the long-boat, "with a head bigger than any dog's

head you ever see," and great prickles on his back a foot long. Arriving

at Batavia, he told the story, and an old pilot exclaimed, "What! have

you seen Bellysore Tom?" It seems that the pilots had been acquainted

with this turtle as many as twelve years, and always found him in the

same latitude. They never did him any injury, but were accustomed to

throw him pieces of meat, which he received in good part, so that there

was a mutual friendship between him and the pilots. Old Mr. L----, in

confirmation of the story, asserted that he had often heard other

shipmasters speak of the same, monster; but he being a notorious liar,

and Captain B---- an unconscionable spinner of long yarns and

travellers' tales, the evidence is by no means perfect. The pilots

estimated his length at not less than twenty feet.

* * * * *

The Grey Property Case. Mrs. Grey and her child three years old were

carried off by the Indians in 1756 from the Tuscarora valley in

Pennsylvania. The father, going on a campaign in search of them, was

exhausted by fatigue, and came home only to die, bequeathing half his

property to his child, if living. The mother, his wife, being redeemed,

and there being several children who had been captive to the Indians to

be seen at Philadelphia, went thither to see and recognize her little

three years' old daughter, from whom, in her captivity, she had been

separated. Her child proved not to be among the little captives; but, in

order to get possession of her husband's property, she claimed another

child, of about the same age. This child grew up gross, ugly, awkward, a

"big, black, uncomely Dutch lump, not to be compared to the beautiful

Fanny Grey," and moreover turned out morally bad. The real daughter was

said to have been married, and settled in New York, "a fine woman, with

a fair house and fair children." At all events, she was never recovered

by her relatives, and her existence seems to have been doubtful. In

1789, the heirs of John Grey, the father, became aware that the claimed

and recovered child was not the child that had been lost. They commenced

a lawsuit for the recovery of John Grey's property, consisting of a farm

of three or four hundred acres. This lawsuit lasted till 1834, when it

was decided against the identity of the recovered child. (Sherman Day's

Hist. Coll. of Penn.)

* * * * *

Bethuel Vincent, carried by the Indians to Canada, being then recently

married. A few years after, a rough-looking man fell in with a

sleighing party at a tavern, and inquired if they knew anything of Mrs.

Vincent. She was pointed out to him. He gave her news of her husband,

and, joining the sleighing party, began to grow familiar with Mrs.

Vincent, and wished to take her upon his lap. She resisted,--but behold!

the rough-looking stranger was her long-lost husband. There are good

points in this story. (Ibid.)

* * * * *

Among the survivors of a wreck are two bitter enemies. The parties,

having remained many days without food, cast lots to see who shall be

killed as food for the rest. The lot falls on one of the enemies. The

other may literally eat his heart!

* * * * *

_October 13._--During this moon, I have two or three evenings sat for

some time in our dining-room without light except from the coal fire and

the moon. Moonlight produces a very beautiful effect in the room,

falling so white upon the carpet, and showing its figures so distinctly,

and making all the room so visible, and yet so different from a morning

or noontide visibility. There are all the familiar things, every chair,

the tables, the couch, the bookcase, all that we are accustomed to see

in the daytime; but now it seems as if we were remembering them through

a lapse of years, rather than seeing them with the immediate eye. A

child's shoe, the doll, sitting in her little wicker-carriage, all

objects that have been used or played with during the day, though still

as familiar as ever, are invested with something like strangeness and

remoteness. I cannot in any measure express it. Then the somewhat dim

coal fire throws its unobtrusive tinge through the room,--a faint

ruddiness upon the wall,--which has a not unpleasant effect in taking

from the colder spirituality of the moonbeams. Between both these lights

such a medium is created that the room seems just fit for the ghosts of

persons very dear, who have lived in the room with us, to glide

noiselessly in and sit quietly down, without affrighting us. It would be

like a matter of course to look round and find some familiar form in one

of the chairs. If one of the white curtains happen to be drawn before

the windows, the moonlight makes a delicate tracery with the branches of

the trees, the leaves somewhat thinned by the progress of autumn, but

still pretty abundant. It is strange how utterly I have failed to give

anything of the effect of moonlight in a room.

The firelight diffuses a mild, heart-warm influence through the parlor,

but is scarcely visible, unless you particularly look for it; and then

you become conscious of a faint tinge upon the ceiling, of a reflected

gleam from the mahogany furniture, and, if your eyes happen to fall on

the looking-glass, deep within it you perceive the glow of the burning

anthracite. I hate to leave such a scene; and when retiring to bed,

after closing the door, I reopen it again and again, to peep back at the

warm, cheerful, solemn repose, the white light, the faint ruddiness, the

dimness,--all like a vision, and which makes me feel as if I were in a

conscious dream.

* * * * *

The first manufacture of the kind of candy called Gibraltar rock, for a

child's story; to be told in a romantic, mystic, marvellous style.

* * * * *

An angel comes from heaven, commissioned to gather up, put into a

basket, and carry away everything good that is not improved by mankind,

for whose benefit it was intended. The angel distributes these good

things where they will be appreciated.

* * * * *

Annals of a kitchen.

* * * * *

A benevolent person going about the world and endeavoring to do good to

everybody; in pursuance of which object, for instance, he gives, a pair

of spectacles to a blind man, and does all such ill-suited things.

* * * * *

Beautiful positions of statues to one intellectually blind.

* * * * *

A man, arriving at the extreme point of old age, grows young again at

the same pace at which he has grown old; returning upon his path,

throughout the whole of life, and thus taking the reverse view of

matters. Methinks it would give rise to some odd concatenations.

* * * * *

Little gnomes, dwelling in hollow teeth. They find a tooth that has been

plugged with gold, and it serves them as a gold mine.

* * * * *

The wizard, Michael Scott, used to give a feast to his friends, the

dishes of which were brought from the kitchens of various princes in

Europe, by devils at his command. "Now we will try a dish from the King

of France's kitchen," etc. A modern sketch might take a hint from this,

and the dishes be brought from various restaurants.

* * * * *

"Pixilated,"--a Marblehead word, meaning bewildered, wild about any

matter. Probably derived from Pixy, a fairy.

* * * * *

For a child's story,--imagine all sorts of wonderful playthings.

* * * * *

Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas More, Algernon Sidney, or some other

great man, on the eve of execution, to make reflections on his own

head,--considering and addressing it in a looking-glass.

* * * * *

_March 16, 1849._--J---- ... speaking of little B. P----: "I will hug

him, so that not any storm can come to him."

* * * * *

A story, the principal personage of which shall seem always on the point

of entering upon the scene, but never shall appear.

* * * * *

In the "New Statistical Account of Scotland," (Vol. I.,) it is stated

that a person had observed, in his own dairy, that the milk of several

cows, when mixed together and churned, produced much less butter

proportionably than the milk of a single cow; and that the greater the

number of cows which contributed their milk, the smaller was the

comparative product. Hence, this person was accustomed to have the milk

of each cow churned separately.

* * * * *

A modern magician to make the semblance of a human being, with two laths

for legs, a pumpkin for a head, etc., of the rudest and most meagre

materials. Then a tailor helps him to finish his work, and transforms

this scarecrow into quite a fashionable figure. At the end of the story,

after deceiving the world for a long time, the spell should be broken,

and the gray dandy be discovered to be nothing but a suit of clothes,

with a few sticks inside of them. All through his seeming existence as a

human being there shall be some characteristics, some tokens, that to

the man of close observation and insight betray him to be a thing of

mere talk and clothes, without heart, soul, or intellect. And so this

wretched old creature shall become the symbol of a large class.

* * * * *

The golden sands that may sometimes be gathered (always, perhaps, if we

know how to seek for them) along the dry bed of a torrent adown which

passion and feeling have foamed, and passed away. It is good, therefore,

in mature life, to trace back such torrents to their source.

* * * * *

The same children who make the little snow image shall plant dry sticks,

etc., and they shall take root and grow in mortal flowers, etc.

* * * * *

_Monday, September 17._--Set out on a journey to Temple, N.H., with E.F.

M----, to visit his father. Started by way of Boston, in the half past

ten train, and took the Lowell and Nashua Railroad at twelve, as far as

Danforth's Corner, about fifty miles, and thence in stage-coach to

Milford, four miles farther, and in a light wagon to Temple, perhaps

twelve miles farther. During the latter drive, the road gradually

ascended, with tracts of forest land alongside, and latterly a brook,

which we followed for several miles, and finally found it flowing

through General M----'s farm. The house is an old country dwelling, in

good condition, standing beside the road, in a valley surrounded by a

wide amphitheatre of high hills. There is a good deal of copse and

forest on the estate, high hills of pasture land, old, cultivated

fields, and all such pleasant matters. The General sat in an easy-chair

in the common room of the family, looking better than when in Salem,

with an air of quiet, vegetative enjoyment about him, scarcely alive to

outward objects. He did his best to express a hospitable pleasure at

seeing me; but did not succeed, so that I could distinguish his words.

He loves to sit amidst the bustle of his family, and is dimly amused by

what is going forward; is pleased, also, to look out of the open window

and see the poultry--a guinea-hen, turkeys, a peacock, a tame deer,

etc.--which feed there. His mind sometimes wanders, and he hardly knows

where he is; will not be convinced that he is anywhere but at Salem,

until they drag his chair to a window from which he can see a great

elm-tree of which he is very fond, standing in front of the house. Then

he acknowledges that he must be at the farm, because, he says, they

never could have transplanted that tree. He is pleased with flowers,

which they bring him,--a kind-hearted old man. The other day a live

partridge was sent him, and he ordered it to be let go, because he would

not suffer a life to be taken to supply him with a single meal. This

tenderness has always been characteristic of the old soldier. His

birthplace was within a few miles of this spot,--the son and descendant

of husbandmen,--and character and fortune together have made him a man

of history.

This is a most hospitable family, and they live in a style of plain

abundance, rural, but with traits of more refined modes. Many domestics,

both for farm and household work. Two unmarried daughters; an old maiden

aunt; an elderly lady, Mrs. C. of Newburyport, visiting; a young girl of

fifteen, a connection of the family, also visiting, and now confined to

her chamber by illness. Ney, a spaniel of easy and affable address, is a

prominent personage, and generally lies in the parlor or sits beside the

General's chair; always ready, too, to walk out with anybody so

inclined. Flora, a little black pony, is another four-footed favorite.

In the warm weather, the family dine in a large room on one side of the

house, rough and rustic looking, with rude beams overhead. There were

evergreens hanging on the walls, and the figures 1776, also in

evergreen, and a national flag suspended in one corner,--the blue being

made out of old homespun garments, the red stripes out of some of the

General's flannel wrappings, and the eagle copied from the figure on a

half-dollar,--all being the handiwork of the ladies, on occasion of the

last Fourth of July. It is quite a pleasant dining-hall; and while we

were eating fruit, the deer, which is of a small and peculiar breed from

the South, came and thrust its head into the open window, looking at us

with beautiful and intelligent eyes. It had smelt the fruit, and wished

to put in its claim for a share.

Tuesday morning, before breakfast, E---- and I drove three or four

miles, to the summit of an intervening ridge, from which we had a wide

prospect of hill and dale, with Monadnock in the midst. It was a good

sight, although the atmosphere did not give the hills that aspect of

bulk and boldness which it sometimes does. This part of the country is

but thinly inhabited, and the dwellings are generally small. It is said

that, in the town of Temple, there are more old cellars, where dwellings

have formerly stood, than there are houses now inhabited. The town is

not far from a hundred years old, but contains now only five or six

hundred inhabitants. The enterprising young men emigrate elsewhere,

leaving only the least energetic portions to carry on business at home.

There appear to be but few improvements, the cultivated fields being of

old date, smooth with long cultivation. Here and there, however, a tract

newly burned over, or a few acres with the stumps still extant. The

farm-houses all looked very lonesome and deserted to-day, the

inhabitants having gone to the regimental muster at New Ipswich.

As we drove home, E---- told a story of a child who was lost, seventy or

eighty years ago, among the woods and hills. He was about five years

old, and had gone with some work-people to a clearing in the forest,

where there was a rye-field, at a considerable distance from the

farm-house. Getting tired, he started for home alone, but did not

arrive. They made what search for him they could that night, and the

next day the whole town turned out, but without success. The day

following, many people from the neighboring towns took up the search,

and on this day, I believe, they found the child's shoes and stockings,

but nothing else. After a while, they gave up the search in despair; but

for a long time, a fortnight or three weeks or more, his mother fancied

that she heard the boy's voice in the night, crying, "Father! father!"

One of his little sisters also heard this voice; but people supposed

that the sounds must be those of some wild animal. No more search was

made, and the boy never was found.

But it is not known whether it was the next autumn, or a year or two

after, some hunters came upon traces of the child's wanderings among the

hills, in a different direction from the previous search, and farther

than it was supposed he could have gone. They found some little houses,

such as children build of twigs and sticks of wood, and these the little

fellow had probably built for amusement in his lonesome hours. Nothing,

it seems to me, was ever more strangely touching than this

incident,--his finding time for childish play, while wandering to his

death in these desolate woods,--and then pursuing his way again, till at

last he lay down to die on the dark mountain-side. Finally, on a hill

which E---- pointed out to me, they found a portion of the child's hair

adhering to the overthrown trunk of a tree; and this is all that was

ever found of him. But it was supposed that the child had subsisted,

perhaps for weeks, on the berries and other sustenance such as a

forest-child knew how to find in the woods. I forgot to say, above, that

a piece of birch or other bark was found, which he appeared to have

gnawed. It was thought that the cry of "Father! father!" which the

mother and little sister heard in the night-time, was really the little

fellow's voice, then within hearing of his home; but he wandered away

again, and at last sank down, and Death found him and carried him up to

God. His bones were never found; and it was thought that the foxes or

other wild animals had taken his little corpse, and scattered the bones,

and that, dragging the body along, one lock of his flaxen hair had

adhered to a tree.

I asked a physician whether it were possible that a child could live so

long in the woods; and he thought it was, and said that children often

show themselves more tenacious of life than grown people, and live

longer in a famine. This is to me a very affecting story; and it seems

to be felt as such by the people of the country. The little boy's

parents, and his brothers and sisters, who probably lived to maturity or

old age, are all forgotten; but he lives in tradition, and still causes

wet eyes to strangers, as he did to me.

To account for the singularity of his not having been found by such

numbers as took up the search, it is suggested that he was perhaps

frightened, and perhaps concealed himself when he heard the noise of

people making their way through the forest, people being apt to do so,

when they get mazed with wandering in the woods. But it is strange that

old hunters, with dogs, should have failed to find him. However, there

is the fact.

After breakfast (a broiled chicken and excellent coffee) I walked out by

myself. The brook would be a beautiful plaything for my children, and I

wish I had such a one for them. As I looked down into it from the

bridge, I saw little fish, minnows, small chubs, and perch sporting

about and rising eagerly to anything that was thrown in. Returning

towards the house, I encountered an ass, who seemed glad to see me, in

its donkeyish way. Afterwards, E---- and I took a ramble among some of

his old haunts, which took up pretty much all the remainder of the

forenoon. After dinner we drove to New Ipswich, expecting to see the

closing scenes of the muster, but found the regiment dismissed, and the

spectators taking their departure. We visited a cousin of E----, and

took tea; borrowed two great-coats (it having grown from summer to

autumn very rapidly since nightfall), and drove home, six miles or

thereabouts. A new moon and the long twilight gleamed over the first

portion of our drive, and then the northern lights kindled up and shot

flashes towards the zenith as we drove along, up hill and down dale, and

most of the way through dense woods.

The next morning, after breakfast, we got into our wagon and returned to

Milford, thence by stage to Danforth's Corner, thence to Boston by rail.

Nothing noteworthy occurred, except that we called on Mr. Atherton and

lady at Nashua. We reached Boston at three o'clock. I visited the Town

and Country Club, and read the papers and journals, took the three

quarters past five train and reached home at half past six.

* * * * *

In the new statistical account of Scotland, in the volume about the

Hebrides, it is stated that a child was born, and lived to the age of, I

think, two years, with an eye in the back of its head, in addition to

the usual complement in front. It could evidently see with this eye; for

when its cap was drawn down over it, it would thrust it upward.

* * * * *

_October 27._--Mrs.---- gave a black woman six dollars for a dress of

pine-apple cloth, sixteen yards, perhaps worth ten times as much,--the

owner being ignorant of the value.

* * * * *

To inherit a great fortune.--To inherit a great misfortune.

* * * * *

Reflections in a mud-puddle;--they might be pictures of life in a mean

street of a city.

* * * * *

_February 16, 1850._--The sunbeam that comes through a round hole in the

shutter of a darkened room, where a dead man sits in solitude.

* * * * *

The hoary periwig of a dandelion gone to seed.

* * * * *

_Lenox, July 14, 1850._--Language,--human language,--after all, is but

little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances

of brute nature, sometimes not so adequate.

* * * * *

The queer gestures and sounds of a hen looking about for a place to

deposit her egg, her self-important gait, the sideway turn of her head

and cock of her eye, as she pries into one and another nook, croaking

all the while, evidently with the idea that the egg in question is the

most important thing that has been brought to pass since the world

began. A speckled black and white and tufted hen of ours does it to most

ludicrous perfection.

* * * * *

_July 25._--As I sit in my study, with the windows open, the occasional

incident of the visit of some winged creature,--wasp, hornet, or

bee,--entering out of the warm, sunny atmosphere, soaring round the room

with large sweeps, then buzzing against the glass, as not satisfied with

the place, and desirous of getting out. Finally, the joyous uprising

curve with which, coming to the open part of the window, it emerges into

the cheerful glow outside.

* * * * *

_August 4._--Dined at hotel with J.T. Fields. Afternoon drove with him

to Pittsfield, and called on Dr. Holmes.

* * * * *

_August 5._--Drove with Fields to Stockbridge, being thereto invited by

Mr. Field of Stockbridge, in order to ascend Monument Mountain. Found at

Mr. Field's, Dr. Holmes, Mr. Duyckink of New York; also Mr. Cornelius

Matthews and Herman Melville. Ascended the mountain,--that is to say,

Mrs. Fields and Miss Jenny Field, Mr. Field and Mr. J.T. Fields, Dr.

Holmes, Mr. Duyckink, Matthews, Melville, Mr. Harry Sedgwick, and

I,--and were caught in a shower. Dined at Mr. Field's. Afternoon, under

guidance of J.F. Headley, the party scrambled through the Ice Glen. Left

Stockbridge and arrived at home about eight P.M.

* * * * *

_August 7._--Messrs. Duyckink, Matthews, and Melville called in the

forenoon. Gave them a couple of bottles of Mr. Mansfield's champagne,

and walked down to the lake with them. At twilight Mr. Edwin P. Whipple

and wife called from Lenox.

* * * * *

_August 19._--Monument Mountain, in the early sunshine; its base

enveloped in mist, parts of which are floating in the sky; so that the

great hill looks really as if it were founded on a cloud. Just emerging

from the mist is seen a yellow field of rye, and above that, forest.

* * * * *

_August 24._--In the afternoons, this valley in which I dwell seems like

a vast basin filled with golden sunshine, as with wine.

* * * * *

_August 31._--J.R. Lowell called in the evening. September 1st, he

called with Mrs. Lowell in the forenoon, on their way to Stockbridge or

Lebanon, to meet Miss Bremer.

* * * * *

_September 2_.--"When I grow up," quoth J----, in illustration of the

might to which he means to attain,--"when I grow up, I shall be _two_

men!"

* * * * *

_September 3._--Foliage of maples begins to change.

* * * * *

In a wood, a heap or pile of logs and sticks that had been cut for

firewood, and piled up square, in order to be carted away to the house

when convenience served, or rather to be sledded in sleighing-time. But

the moss had accumulated on them, and, leaves falling over them from

year to year, and decaying, a kind of soil had quite covered them,

although the softened outline of the woodpile was perceptible in the

green mound. It was perhaps fifty years, perhaps more, since the woodman

had cut and piled these logs and sticks, intending them for his winter

fire. But he probably needs no fire now. There was something strangely

interesting in this simple circumstance. Imagine the long-dead woodman,

and his long-dead wife and family, and one old man who was a little

child when the wood was cut, coming back from their graves, and trying

to make a fire with this mossy fuel.

* * * * *

_September 19._--Lying by the lake yesterday afternoon, with my eyes

shut, while the breeze and sunshine were playing together on the water,

the quick glimmer of the wavelets was perceptible through my closed

eyelids.

* * * * *

_October 13._--A cool day,--the wind northwest, with a general

prevalence of dull gray clouds over the sky, but with brief, sudden

glimpses of sunshine. The foliage having its autumn hues, Monument

Mountain looks like a headless Sphinx, wrapt in a rich Persian shawl.

Yesterday, through a diffused mist, with the sun shining on it, it had

the aspect of burnished copper. The sun-gleams on the hills are

peculiarly magnificent, just in these days.

* * * * *

_October 13._--One of the children, drawing a cow on the blackboard,

says, "I'll kick this leg out a little more,"--a very happy energy of

expression, completely identifying herself with the cow; or, perhaps, as

the cow's creator, conscious of full power over its movements.

* * * * *

_October 14._--The brilliancy of the foliage has past its acme; and,

indeed, it has not been so magnificent this season as usual, owing to

the gradual approaches of cool weather, and there having been slight

frosts instead of severe ones. There is still a shaggy richness on the

hillsides.

* * * * *

_October 16._--A morning mist, filling up the whole length and breadth

of the valley, between the house and Monument Mountain, the summit of

the mountain emerging. The mist reaches to perhaps a hundred yards of

me, so dense as to conceal everything, except that near its hither

boundary a few ruddy or yellow tree-tops rise up, glorified by the early

sunshine, as is likewise the whole mist-cloud. There is a glen between

our house and the lake, through which winds a little brook, with pools

and tiny waterfalls, over the great roots of trees. The glen is deep and

narrow, and filled with trees; so that, in the summer, it is all in dark

shadow. Now, the foliage of the trees being almost entirely of a golden

yellow, instead of being obscure, the glen is absolutely full of

sunshine, and its depths are more brilliant than the open plain or the

mountain-tops. The trees are sunshine, and, many of the golden leaves

having freshly fallen, the glen is strewn with light, amid which winds

and gurgles the bright, dark little brook.

* * * * *

_October 28._--On a walk yesterday forenoon, my wife and children

gathered Houstonias. Before night there was snow, mingled with rain. The

trees are now generally bare.

* * * * *

_December 1._--I saw a dandelion in bloom near the lake, in a pasture by

the brookside. At night, dreamed of seeing Pike.

* * * * *

_December 19._--If the world were crumbled to the finest dust, and

scattered through the universe, there would not be an atom of the dust

for each star.

* * * * *

KATHARINE MORNE.

PART II.