CHAPTER IV.

[Illustration: STUDY FROM NATURE. BY JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co.]

[Illustration: MILLET'S COAT OF ARMS.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. A facsimile of one of

the little drawings which Millet was accustomed to make for

acquaintances and collectors of autographs, and which he laughingly

called his "_armes parlantes_."]

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET, DRAWN BY HIMSELF.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. Of this portrait, drawn

in 1847, Sensier, in his "Life" of Millet, says: "It is in crayon, and

life-sized. The head is melancholy, like that of Albert Dürer; the

profound regard is filled with intelligence and goodness."]

MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE.

VOL. VI.

MAY, 1896.

No. 6.

A CENTURY OF PAINTING.

JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET.--PARENTAGE AND EARLY INFLUENCES.--HIS LIFE AT

BARBIZON.--VISITS TO MILLET IN HIS STUDIO.--HIS PERSONAL

APPEARANCE.--HIS OWN COMMENTS ON HIS PICTURES.--PASSAGES FROM HIS

CONVERSATION.

BY WILL H. LOW.

These papers, disclaiming any other authority than that which appertains

to the conclusions of a practising painter who has thought deeply on the

subject of his art, have nevertheless avoided the personal equation as

much as possible. A conscientious endeavor has been made to consider the

work of each painter in the place which has been assigned him by the

concensus of opinion in the time which has elapsed since his work was

done. In the consideration of Jean François Millet, however, I desire

for the nonce to become less impersonal, for the reason that it was my

privilege to know him slightly, and in the case of one who as a man and

as a painter occupies a place so entirely his own, the value of recorded

personal impressions is greater, at least for purposes of record, than

the registration of contemporary opinion concerning him.

I must further explain that, as a young student who received at his

hands the kindly reception which the master, stricken in health, and

preoccupied with his work, vouchsafed, I could only know him

superficially. It may have been the spectacle of youthful enthusiasm, or

the modest though dignified recognition of the reverence with which I

approached him, that made this grave man unbend; but it is certain that

the few times when I was permitted to enter the rudely built studio at

Barbizon have remained red-letter days in my life, and on each occasion

I left Millet with an impression so strong and vital that now, after a

lapse of twenty years, the work which he showed me, and the words which

he uttered, are as present as though it all had occurred yesterday. The

reverence which I then felt for this great man was born of his works, a

few of which I had seen in 1873 in Paris; and their constant study, and

the knowledge of his life and character gained since then, have

intensified this feeling.

[Illustration: THE SHEEP-SHEARERS. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN FRANÇOIS

MILLET.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. A replica of Millet's

picture in the Salon of 1861, which is now owned by Mr. Quincy Shaw,

Boston, Massachusetts. Charles Jacque, who had quarrelled with Millet,

after seeing this picture, went to him and said: "We cannot be friends;

but I have come to say that you have painted a masterpiece."]

Jean François Millet was born October 4, 1814, in the hamlet of Gruchy,

a mere handful of houses which lie in a valley descending to the sea, in

the department of the Manche, not far from Cherbourg. He was the

descendant of a class which has no counterpart in England or America,

and which in his native France has all but disappeared. The rude

forefathers of our country may have in a degree resembled the French

peasant of Millet's youth; but their Protestant belief made them more

independent in thought, and the problems of a new country, and the lack

of stability inherent to the colonist, robbed them of the fanatical love

of the earth, which is perhaps the strongest trait of the peasant. Every

inch of the ground up to the cliffs above the sea, in Millet's country,

represented the struggle of man with nature; and each parcel of land,

every stone in the walls which kept the earth from being engulfed in the

floods beneath, bore marks of his handiwork. Small wonder, then, that

this rude people should engender the painter who has best expressed the

intimate relation between the man of the fields and his ally and foe,

the land which he subjugates, and which in turn enslaves him. The

inherent, almost savage, independence of the peasant had kept him freer

and of a nobler type than the English yokel even in the time before the

Revolution, and in the little hamlet where Millet was born, the great

upheaval had meant but little. Remote from the capital, cultivating land

which but for their efforts would have been abandoned as worthless,

every man was a land-owner in a small degree, and the patrimony of

Millet sufficed for a numerous family of which he was the eldest son.

Sufficed, that is, for a Spartan subsistence, made up of unrelaxing

toil, with few or no comforts, save those of a spiritual nature which

came in the guise of religion.

[Illustration: PEASANT REPOSING. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN FRANCOIS

MILLET, EXHIBITED IN THE SALON OF 1863.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. This picture, popularly

known as "The man with the hoe," was the cause of much discussion at the

time of its exhibition. Millet was accused of socialism; of inciting the

peasants to revolt; and from his quiet retreat in the country, he

defended himself in a letter to his friend Sensier as follows: "I see

very clearly the aureole encircling the head of the daisy, and the sun

which glows beyond, far, far over the country-side, its glory in the

skies; I see, not less clearly, the smoking plough-horses in the plain,

and in a rocky corner a man bent with labor, who groans as he works, or

who for an instant tries to straighten himself to catch his breath. The

drama is enveloped in splendor. This is not of my creation; the

expression, 'the cry of the earth,' was invented long ago."]

Millet was reared by his grandmother, such being the custom of the

country; the younger women being occupied in the service of the

mastering earth, and the elders, no longer able to go afield, bringing

up the children born to their children, who in turn replaced their

parents in the never-ending struggle. This grandmother, Louise Jumelin,

widow of Nicolas Millet, was a woman of great force of character, and

extremely devout. The most ordinary occupation of the day was made the

subject not of uttered prayer, for that would have entailed suspension

of her ceaseless activity, but of spiritual example tersely expressed,

which fell upon the fruitful soil of Millet's young imagination, and

left such a lasting impression that to the end of his life his natural

expression was almost Biblical in character of language.

Another formative influence of this young life was that of a granduncle,

Charles Millet, a priest who, driven from his church by the Revolution,

had returned to his native village and taken up the simple life of his

people, without, however, abandoning his vocation. He was to be seen

behind his plough, his priest's robe gathered up about his loins, his

breviary in one hand, following the furrow up and down the undulating

fields which ran to the cliffs.

[Illustration: THE MILK-CARRIER. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN FRANÇOIS

MILLET.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. Probably commenced at

Cherbourg, where Millet took refuge with his family during the

Franco-Prussian War, as Sensier mentions it on Millet's return. This

picture, or a replica of it (Millet was fond of repeating his subjects,

with slight changes in each case), was in his studio in 1873, and called

forth the remark quoted in the text, about the women in his country.]

Gifted with great strength, he piled up great masses of granite, to

reclaim a precious morsel of earth from the hungry maw of the sea;

lifting his voice, as he worked, in resonant chants of the church. He it

was who taught Millet to read; and, later, it was another priest, the

Abbé Jean Lebrisseux, who, in the intervals of the youth's work in the

fields, where he had early become an efficient aid to his father,

continued his instruction. With the avidity of intelligence Millet

profited by this instruction, not only in the more ordinary studies, but

in Latin, with the Bible and Virgil as text-books. His mind was also

nourished by the books belonging to the scanty library of his

granduncle. These were of a purely religious character--the "History of

the Saints," the "Confessions" of St. Augustine, the letters of St.

Jerome, and the works of Bossuet and Fénelon.

[Illustration: THE GLEANERS. FROM A PAINTING IN THE LOUVRE, BY JEAN

FRANÇOIS MILLET, EXHIBITED IN THE SALON OF 1857.

"The three fates of pauperism" was the disdainful appreciation of Paul

de Saint-Victor on the first exhibition of this picture, while Edmond

About wrote: "The picture attracts one from afar by its air of grandeur

and serenity. It has the character of a religious painting. It is drawn

without fault, and colored without crudity; and one feels the August sun

which ripens the wheat." Sensier says: "The picture sold with difficulty

for four hundred dollars. What is it worth to-day?"]

In his father, whose strongest characteristic was an intense love of

nature, Millet found an unconscious influence in the direction which his

life was to follow. Millet recalled in after life that he would show him

a blade of grass or a flower, and say: "See how beautiful; how the

petals overlap; and the tree there, how strong and fine it is!" It was

his father who was attentive to the youth's first rude efforts, and who

encouraged him when the decisive step was to be taken, which Millet,

feeling that his labor in the fields was necessary to the common good of

the family, hesitated to take. The boy was in his eighteenth year when

his father said:

"My poor François, you are tormented between your desire to be an artist

and your duty to the family. Now that your brothers are growing, they

can take their turn in the fields. I have long wished that you could be

instructed in the craft of the painter, which I am told is so noble, and

we will go to Cherbourg and see what can be done."

[Illustration: THE ANGELES, MILLET'S MOST FAMOUS PICTURE.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. Despite its fame, this

is distinctly not Millet's masterpiece. During his life it sold for

about ten thousand dollars, and later for one hundred and fifty

thousand.]

Thus encouraged, the boy made two drawings--one of two shepherds in

blouse and _sabots_, one listening while the other played a rustic

flute; and a second where, under a starlit sky, a man came from out a

house, carrying bread for a mendicant at his gate. Armed with these two

designs--typical of the work which in the end, after being led astray by

schools and popular taste, he was to do--the two peasants sought a local

painter named Mouchel at Cherbourg. After a moment of doubt as to the

originality of the youth's work, Mouchel offered to teach him all that

he knew.

Millet stayed with Mouchel some months. Then his father's death recalled

him home, where his honest spirit prompted him to remain as the eldest

son and head of the family, although his heart was less than ever in the

fields. But this the mother, brought up in the spirit of resignation,

would not allow him to do. "God has made you a painter. His will be

done. Your father, my Jean Louis, has said it was to be, and you must

return to Cherbourg."

Millet returned to Cherbourg, this time to the studio of one Langlois, a

pupil of Gros, who was the principal painter of the little city. But

Langlois, like his first master, Mouchel, kept him at work copying

either his own studies or pictures in the city museum. After a few

months, though, he had the honesty to recognize that his pupil needed

more efficient instruction than he could give him, and in August, 1836,

he addressed a petition to the mayor and common council of the city of

Cherbourg, who took the matter into consideration, and, with the

authorities of the department, voted a sum of one thousand francs--two

hundred dollars--as a yearly allowance to Millet, in order that he might

pursue his studies in Paris. Langlois in his petition asks that he be

permitted to "raise without fear the veil of the future, and to assure

the municipal council a place in the memory of the world for having been

the first to endow their country with one more great name."

Grandiloquent promise has often been made without result; but one must

admire the hard-headed Norman councillors who, representing a little

provincial city which in 1884 had but thirty-six thousand inhabitants,

gave even this modest sum to assure a future to one who might reflect

honor on his country.

[Illustration: NESTLINGS. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET, IN

THE MUSEUM AT LILLE.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. A notable instance of

the scope of Millet's power, as tender in depicting children as it is

austere in "The Gleaners."]

With a portion, of this allowance, and a small addition from the

"economies" of his mother and grandmother, Millet went to Paris in 1837.

The great city failed to please the country-bred youth, and, indeed,

until the end of his life, Millet disliked Paris. I remember his saying

that, on his visits from Barbizon to the capital, he was happy on his

arrival at the station, but when he arrived at the column of the

Bastille, a few squares within the city, the _mal du pays_ took him

by the throat.

At first he spent all his time in the Louvre, which revealed to him what

the little provincial museum of Cherbourg had but faintly suggested.

Before long, however, he entered the studio of Paul Delaroche, who was

the popular master of the time. There he won the sobriquet of the "man

of the woods," from a savage taciturnity which was his defence in the

midst of the _atelier_ jokes. He had come to work, and to work he

addressed himself, with but little encouragement from master or

comrades. Strong as a young Hercules, with a dignity which never forsook

him, his studies won at least the success of attention. When a favorite

pupil of the master remonstrated that his men and women were hewed from

stone, Millet replied tranquilly, "I came here because there are Greek

statues and living men and women to study from, not to please you or any

one. Do I preoccupy myself with your figures made of honey and butter?"

Delaroche, won by the strength of the man, at length unbent, and showed

him such favor as a commonplace mind could accord to native superiority.

He advised him to compete for the Prix de Rome, warning him, however,

that whatever might be the merit of his work, he could not take it that

year, as it was arranged that another, approaching the limit of age,

must have it. This revolted the simple nature of Millet, who refused to

compete, and left the school.

A return to Cherbourg, where he married his first wife, who died at the

end of two years; another sojourn in Paris, and a visit home of some

duration; a number of portraits and pictures painted in Cherbourg and

Havre, in which his talent was slowly asserting itself, brings us to

1845, when he remarried. Returning to Paris with his wife, he remained

there until 1849, when he went to Barbizon "for a time," which was

prolonged to twenty-seven years.

In all the years preceding his final return to the country, Millet was

apparently undecided as to the definite character of his work. Out of

place in a city, more or less influenced by his comrades in art, and

forced to follow in a degree the dictation of necessity in the choice of

subject, as his brush was his only resource and his family constantly

increasing, his work of this period is always tentative. In painting it

is luscious in color and firmly drawn and modelled, but it lacks the

perception of truth which, when once released from the bondage of the

city, began to manifest itself in his work. The first indication of the

future Millet is in a picture in the Salon of 1848, "The Winnower,"

which has, in subject at least, much the character of the work which

followed his establishment at Barbizon. For the rest, although the world

is richer in beautiful pictures of charmingly painted nymphs, and of

rustic scenes not altogether devoid of a certain artificiality, and in

at least one masterly mythological picture of Oedipus rescued from the

tree, through Millet's activity in these years, yet his work, had it

continued on this plane, would have lacked the high significance which

the next twenty-five years were to show.

Having endeavored to make clear the source from which Millet came, and

indicated the formative influences of his early life, I may permit

myself (as I warned my readers I should do) to return to my

recollections of Barbizon in 1873, and the glimpses of Millet which my

sojourn there in that and the following year afforded me.

Barbizon lies on a plain, more vast in the impression which it makes on

the eye than in actual area, and the village consists of one long

street, which commences at a group of farm buildings of some importance,

and ends in the forest of Fontainebleau. About midway down this street,

on the way to the forest, Millet's home stood, on the right of the road.

The house, of two low stories, had its gable to the street, and on the

first floor, with the window breast high from the ground, was the

dining-room. Here, in pleasant weather, with the window wide open, sat

Millet at the head of his patriarchal table, his children, of whom there

were nine, about him; his good wife, their days of acute misery past,

smiling contentedly on her brood, which, if I remember rightly, already

counted a grandchild or more: as pleasant a sight as one could readily

see. Later, in the autumn evenings, a lamplit replica of the same

picture presented itself. Or, if the dinner was cleared away, one would

see Madame Millet busy with her needle, the children at their lessons,

and the painter, whom even then tradition painted a sad and cheerless

misanthrope, contentedly playing at dominoes with one of the children,

or his honest Norman face wreathed in smiles as the conversation took an

amusing turn. This, it is true, was when the master of the house was

free from his terrible enemy, the headache, which laid him low so often,

and which in these days became more and more frequent.

[Illustration: FIRST STEPS. FROM A PASTEL BY JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET.

Reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. As Sensier remarks,

Millet, with nine children, had abundant opportunity to study them. This

charming drawing was one of the collection of Millet's pastels formed by

M. Gavet, which was unfortunately dispersed by auction soon after the

artist's death.]

The house, to resume the description of Millet's home, went back at

right angles from the street, and contained the various apartments of

the family, many of them on the ground floor, and all of the most modest

character. It was a source of wonder how so large a family could inhabit

so small a house. The garden lay in front, and extended back of the

house. A high wall with a little door, painted green, by which you

entered, ran along the street, and ended at the studio, which was, like

the dining-room, on the street. The garden was pleasant with flowers and

trees, the kitchen garden being at the rear. But a few short years ago,

within its walls Madame Millet plucked a red rose, and gave it to me,

saying: "My husband planted this." Outside the little green door, on

either hand, were stone benches set against the wall, on which the

painter's children sometimes sat and played; but it is somewhat strange

that I never remember Millet at his door or on the village street. He

walked a great deal, but always went out of the garden to the fields

back of the house, and from there gained the forest or the plain. Among

the young painters who frequented Barbizon in those days (which were,

however, long after the time when the men of Millet's age established

themselves there), there were, strange as it may seem, few who cared for

Millet's work, and many who knew little or nothing of it. The prejudices

of the average art student are many and indurated. His horizon is apt to

be bounded by his master's work or the last Salon success, and as Millet

had no pupils, and had ceased to exhibit at the Salon, he was little

known to most of the youths who, as I look back, must have made Barbizon

a most undesirable place for a quiet family to live in. An accident

which made me acquainted with Millet's eldest son, a painter of talent,

seemed for a time to bring me no nearer to knowing the father until one

day some remark of mine which showed at least a sincere admiration for

his work made the son suggest that I should come and see a recently

completed picture.

If the crowd of young painters who frequented the village were

indifferent to Millet, such was not the case with people from other

places. The "personally conducted" were then newly invented, and I have

seen a wagon load of tourists, who had been driven to different points

in the forest, draw up before Millet's modest door and express

indignation in a variety of languages when they were refused admittance.

There were many in those days who tried with little or no excuse to

break in on the work of a man whose working days were already counted,

and who was seldom free from his old enemy _migraine_. I was to

learn this when--I hope after having had the grace to make it plain

that, though I greatly desired to know Millet, I felt no desire to

intrude--the son had arranged for a day when, at last, I was admitted to

the studio.

Millet did not make his appearance at once; and when he came, and the

son had said a few kindly words of presentation, he seemed so evidently

in pain that I managed, in a French which must have been distinguished

by a pure New York accent and a vocabulary more than limited, to express

a fear that he was suffering, and suggested that my visit had better be

deferred.

"No, it will pass," was his answer; and going to his easel he placed,

with the help of his son, picture after picture, for my delectation.

It was Millet's habit to commence a great number of pictures. On some of

them he would work as long, according to his own expression, as he saw

the scene in nature before him; for, at least at this epoch, he never

painted directly from nature. For a picture which I saw the following

summer, where three great hay-stacks project their mass against a heavy

storm cloud, the shepherd seeking shelter from the impending rain, and

the sheep erring here and there, affected by the changing weather--for

this picture, conveying, as it did, the most intense impression of

nature, Millet showed me (in answer to my inquiry and in explanation of

his method of work) in a little sketch-book, so small that it would slip

into a waistcoat pocket, the pencilled outline of the three hay-stacks.

"It was a stormy day," he said, "and on my return home I sat down and

commenced the picture, but of direct studies--_voila tout_." Of

another picture, now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, of a young girl,

life size, with a distaff, seated on a hillock, her head shaded by a

great straw hat relieved against the sky, he told me that the only

direct painting from nature on the canvas was in a bunch of grass in the

foreground, which he had plucked in the fields and brought into his

studio.

[Illustration: THE SOWER. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET.

From the original painting, now in the collection of Mrs. W.H.

Vanderbilt; reproduced by permission of Braun, Clement & Co. In his

criticism of the Salon of 1850, where the picture was first exhibited,

Théophile Gautier thus described it: "The sower advances with rhythmic

step, casting the seed into the furrowed land; sombre rags cover him; a

formless hat is drawn down over his brow; he is gaunt, cadaverous, and

thin under his livery of misery; and yet life is contained in his large

hand, as with a superb gesture he who has nothing scatters broadcast on

the earth the bread of the future."]

On this first day, it would be difficult to say how many pictures in

various states of advancement I saw. The master would occasionally say,

reflectively: "It is six months since I looked at that, and I must get

to work at it," as some new canvas was placed on the easel. At first,

fearing that he was too ill to have me stay, I made one or two motions

to leave. But each time, with a kindly smile, I was bidden to stay, with

the assurance that the headache was "going better." After a time I quite

forgot everything in enthusiasm at what I saw and the sense that I was

enjoying the privilege of a lifetime. The life of the fields seemed to

be unrolled before me like some vast panorama. Millet's comments were

short and descriptive of what he aimed to represent, seldom or never

concerning the method of his work. "Women in my country," meaning Lower

Normandy, of course, "carry jars of milk in that way," he said,

indicating the woman crossing the fields with the milk-can supported by

a strap on her shoulder. "When I was a boy there were great flights of

wild pigeons which settled in the trees at night, when we used to go

with torches, and the birds, blinded by the light, could be killed by

the hundred with clubs," was his explanation of another scene full of

the confusion of lights and the whirr of the bewildered pigeons.

[Illustration: CHURNING. FROM A PASTEL BY JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET, IN THE

LUXEMBOURG GALLERY, PARIS.

Delightful for a sense of air through the cool and spacious room, and

for the sculpturesque solidity of the group composed of the woman, the

churn, and the cat.]

"And you have not seen it since you were a boy?" I asked.

"No; but it all comes back to me as I work," was his answer.

From picture to picture, from question to kindly answer, the afternoon

sped, and at length, in response to a question as to the relative

importance of subject, the painter sent his son into the house whence he

returned with a panel a few inches square. The father took it, wiped the

dust from it, absent-mindedly, on his sleeve, with a half caressing

movement, and placed it on the easel. "_Voila!_ (There!)" was all

he said. The panel represented three golden juicy pears, their fat sides

relieved one against the other, forming a compact group which, through

the magic of color, told of autumn sun, and almost gave the odor of

ripened fruit. It was a lovely bit of painting, and much interested, I

said: "Pardon me, but you seem as much or more proud of this than

anything you have shown."

"Exactly," answered Millet, with an amused smile at my eagerness.

"Everything in nature is good to paint, and the painter's business is to

be occupied with his manner of rendering it. These pears, a man or a

woman, a flock of sheep, all have the same qualities for a painter.

There are," with a gesture of his hands to make his meaning clear,

"things that lie flat, that are horizontal, like a plain; and there are

others which stand up, are perpendicular; and there are the planes

between: all of which should be expressed in a picture. There are the

distances between objects also. But all this can be found in the

simplest thing as in the most complicated."

"But," I again ventured, "surely some subjects are more important than

others."

"Some are more interesting in the sense that they add to the problems of

a painter. When he has to paint a human being, he has to represent truth

of action, the particular character of an individual; but he must do the

latter when he paints a pear. No two pears are alike."

I fear at the time I hardly understood the importance of the lesson

which I then received; certainly not to the degree with which experience

has confirmed it. But I have written it here, the sense, if not the

actual language, because Millet has been so often misrepresented as

seeking to point a moral through the subject of his pictures. When we

recall the manner in which "The Angelus" was paraded through the country

a few years ago, and the genuine sentiment of the simple scene--where

Millet had endeavored to express "the things that lie flat, like a

plain; and the things that stand up," like his peasants--was travestied

by gushing sentimentalists, it is pleasant to think of the wholesome

common sense of the great painter.

[Illustration: A YOUNG SHEPHERDESS. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN FRANCOIS

MILLET.

The background here is typical of that part of the forest of

Fontainebleau which borders the plain of Barbizon.]

The picture which I had specially come to see was meanwhile standing

covered with a drapery, on another easel, and at length the resources of

the studio were apparently exhausted. Millet asked me to step back a few

paces to where a short curtain was placed on a light iron rod at right

angles from the studio window, so that a person standing behind it saw

into the studio while his eyes were screened from the glare of the

window. The painter then drew the covering, and--I feel that what I am

about to say may seem superlative, and I am quite willing to-day to

account for it by the enthusiasm for the painter's work, which had been

growing _crescendo_ with each successive moment passed in the

studio. Be that as it may, the picture which I saw caused me to forget

where I was, to forget painting, and to look, apparently, on a more

enchanting scene than my eyes had ever beheld--one more enchanting than

they have since seen. It was a landscape, "Springtime," now in the

Louvre. Ah me! I have seen the picture since, not once, but many times,

and he who will go to Paris may see it. A beautiful picture; but of the

transcendent beauty which transfigured it that day, it has but the

suggestion. It is still a masterpiece, however, and still conveys, by

methods peculiarly Millet's own, a satisfying sense of the open air, and

the charm of fickle spring. The method is that founded on the constant

observation of nature by a mind acute to perceive, and educated to

remember. The method is one which misses many trivial truths, and

thereby loses the superficial look of reality which many smaller men

have learned to give; but it retains the larger, more essential truths.

Though dependence on memory carried to the extent of Millet's practice

would be fatal to a weaker man, it can hardly be doubted that it was the

natural method for him.

I left the studio that day, walking on clouds. When I returned it was

always to receive kindly and practical counsel. For Millet, though

conscious, as such a man must be, of his importance, was the simplest of

men. In appearance the portrait published here gives him in his youth.

At the time of which I speak he was heavier, with a firm nose, eyes

that, deeply set, seemed to look inwards, except, when directly

addressing one, there was a sudden gleam. His manner of speech was slow

and measured, perhaps out of kindness to the stranger, though I am

inclined to think that it was rather the speech of one who arrays his

thoughts beforehand, and produces them in orderly sequence. In dress he

was like the ordinary _bourgeois_ in the country, wearing generally

a woven coat like a cardigan jacket in the studio, at the door of which

he would leave his _sabots_ and wear the felt slippers, or

_chaussons_, which are worn with the wooden shoes. This was not the

affectation of remaining a peasant; every one in the country in France

wears _sabots_, and very comfortable they are.

One more visit stands out prominently in my memory. It came about in

this wise. In the summer of 1874 the "two Stevensons," as they were

known, the cousins Robert Louis and Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (the

author of the recent "Life of Velasquez," and the well-known writer on

art), were in Barbizon. It fell that the cousins, in pessimistic vein,

were decrying modern art--the great men were all dead; we should never

see their like again; in short, the mood in which we all fall at times

was dominant. As in duty bound, I argued the cause of the present and

future, and as a clinching argument told them that I had it in my power

to convince them that at least one of the greatest painters of all time

was still busy in the practice of his art. Millet was not much more than

a name to my friends, and I am certain that that day when we talked over

our coffee in the garden of Siron's inn, they had seen little or none of

his work. I ventured across the road, knocked at the little green door,

and asked permission to bring my friends, which was accorded for the

same afternoon. In half an hour, therefore, I was witness of an object

lesson of which the teacher was serenely unconscious. Of my complete

triumph when we left there was no doubt, though one of my friends rather

begged the question by insisting that I had taken an unfair advantage;

and that, as he expressed it, "it was not in the game, in an ordinary

discussion, between gentlemen, concerning minor poets, to drag in

Shakespeare in that manner."

I saw Millet but once after this, when late in the autumn I was

returning to Paris, and went, out of respect, to bid him farewell. He

was already ill, and those who knew him well, already feared for his

life. Not knowing this, it was a shock to learn of his death a few

months after--January 20, 1875. The news came to me in the form of the

ordinary notification and convocation to the funeral, which, in the form

of a _lettre de faire part_, is sent out on the occasion of a death

in France, not only to intimate friends, but to acquaintances.

Determined to pay what honor I could, I went to Barbizon, to find, as

did many others gone for the same sad purpose, that an error in the

notices sent, discovered too late to be rectified, had placed the date

of the funeral a day later than that on which it actually occurred.

Millet rests in the little cemetery at Chailly, across the plain from

Barbizon, near his lifetime friend, Theodore Rousseau, who is buried

there. I will never forget the January day in the village of Barbizon.

Though Millet had little part in the village life, and was known to few,

a sadness, as though the very houses felt that a great man had passed

away, had settled over the place. I sought out a friend who had been

Millet's friend for many years and was with him at the last, and as he

told me of the last sad months, tears fell from his eyes.

CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE.

BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS,

Author of "The Gates Ajar," "A Singular Life," etc.

"THE GATES AJAR" WITH THE CRITICS AND THE PUBLIC.--THE AUTHOR'S FIRST

STUDY.--READING REVIEWS OF ONE'S OWN BOOKS.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH READERS

OF "THE GATES AJAR."

As was said in the last paper, "The Gates Ajar" was written without hope

or expectation of any especial success, and when the happy storm broke

in truth, I was the most astonished girl in North America.

From the day when Mr. Fields's thoughtful note reached the Andover

post-office, that miracle of which we read often in fiction, and

sometimes in literary history, touched the young writer's life; and it

began over again, as a new form of organization.

As I look back upon them, the next few years seem to have been a series

of amazing phantasmagoria. Indeed, at the time, they were scarcely more

substantial. A phantom among phantoms, I was borne along. Incredulous of

the facts, and dubious of my own identity, I whirled through

readjustments of scene, of society, of purposes, of hopes, and now, at

last, of ambitions; and always of hard work, and plenty of it. Really, I

think the gospel of work then, as always, and to all of us, was

salvation from a good deal of nonsense incident to the situation.

I have been told that the American circulation of the book, which has

remained below one hundred thousand, was rather more than that in Great

Britain. Translations, of course, were manifold. The French, the German,

the Dutch, the Italian have been conscientiously sent to the author;

some others, I think, have not. More applications to republish my books

have reached me from Germany than from any other country. For a while,

with the tenderness of a novice in such experience, I kept all these

foreign curiosities on my book-shelves; but the throes of several New

England "movings" have scattered their ashes.

Not long ago I came across a tiny pamphlet in which I used to feel more

honest pride than in any edition of "The Gates Ajar" which it has ever

been my fortune to handle. It is a sickly yellow thing, covered with a

coarse design of some kind, in which the wings of a particularly sprawly

angel predominate.

The print is abhorrent, and the paper such as any respectable publisher

would prepare to be condemned for in this world and in that to come. In

fact, the entire book was thus given out by one of the most enterprising

of English pirates, as an advertisement for a patent medicine. I have

never traced the chemical history of the drug; but it has pleased my

fancy to suppose it to be the one in which Mrs. Holt, the mother of

Felix, dealt so largely; and whose sale Felix put forth his mighty

conscience to suppress.

Of course, owing to the state of our copyright laws at that time, all

this foreign publication was piratical; and most of it brought no

visible consequence to the author, beyond that cold tribute to personal

vanity on which our unlucky race is expected to feed. I should make an

exception. The house of Sampson, Low and Company honorably offered me,

at a very early date, a certain recognition of their editions. Other

reputable English houses since, in the case of succeeding books, have

passed contracts of a gentlemanly nature, with the disproportionately

grateful author, who was, of course, entirely at their mercy. When an

American writer compares the sturdy figures of the foreign circulation

with the attenuated numerals of such visible returns as reach him, he is

more puzzled in his mind than surfeited in his purse. But the relation

of foreign publishers to "home talent" is an ancient and honorable

conundrum, which it is not for this paper or its writer to solve.

Nevertheless, I found the patent medicine "Gates Ajar" delicious, and

used to compare it with Messrs. Fields and Osgood's edition _de

luxe_ with an undisguised delight, which I found it difficult to

induce the best of publishers to share.

Like most such matters, the first energy of the book had its funny and

its serious side. A man coming from a far Western village, and visiting

Boston for the first time, is said to have approached a bartender, in an

exclusive hotel, thus confidentially:

"Excuse me, but I am a stranger in this part of the country, and I want

to ask a question. Everywhere I go, I see posters up like this--'The

Gates Ajar!' 'The Gates Ajar!' I'm sick to death of the sight of the

durn thing; I haven't darst to ask what it is. Do _tell_ a fellar!

Is it a new kind of drink?"

There was a "Gates Ajar" tippet for sale in the country groceries; I

have fancied that it was a knit affair of as many colors as the jewels

in the eternal portals, and extremely openwork. There was a "Gates Ajar"

collar--paper, I fear--loading the city counters. Ghastly rumors have

reached me of the existence of a "Gates Ajar" cigar. I have never

personally set my eyes upon these tangible forms of earthly fame. If the

truth must be told, I have kept a cowardly distance from them. Music, of

course, took her turn at the book, and popular "pieces" warbled under

its title. One of these, I think, is sung in Sunday-schools to this day.

Then there was, and still exists, the "Gates Ajar" funeral piece. This

used to seem to me the least serious of them all; but, by degrees, when

I saw the persistence of force in that elaborate symbol, how many

mourning people were so constituted as to find comfort in it, I came to

have a tolerance for it which even grows into a certain tenderness. I

may frankly admit that I have begun to love it since I heard about the

two ragged little newsboys who came to the eminent city florist, with

all their savings clenched in their grimy fists, and thus made known

their case:

"Ye see, Larks he was our pardner--him an' us sold on the same beat--and

he jes' got run over by a 'lectric, and it went over his back. So they

tuk him to the horspittle, 'n Larks he up an' died there yestiddy. So us

fellars we're goin' to give Larks a stylish funeril, you bet. We liked

Larks--an' it went over his back. Say, mister, there ain't nothin' mean

'bout _us_, come to buryin' of Larks; 'n we've voted to settle on

one them 'Gates Ajar' pieces--made o'flowers, doncherknow. So me 'n him

an' the other fellars we've saved up all our propurty, for we're agoin'

ter give Larks a stylish funeril--an' here it is, mister. I told the

kids ef there was more'n enough you's trow in a few greens, anyhow. Make

up de order right away, mister, and give us our money's worf now,

sure--for Larks."

The gamin proudly counted out upon the marble slab of that fashionable

flower store the sum of seventy-five cents.

The florist--blessings on him--is said not to have undeceived the little

fellows, but to have duly honored their "order," and the biggest and

most costly "Gates Ajar" piece to be had in the market went to the

hospital, and helped to bury Larks.

Of course, as is customary in the case of all authors who have written

one popular book, requests for work at once rained in on the new study

on Andover Hill. For it soon became evident that I must have a quiet

place to write in. In the course of time I found it convenient to take

for working hours a sunny room in the farm-house of the Seminary estate,

a large, old-fashioned building adjoining my father's house. In still

later years I was allowed to build over, for my own purposes, the

summer-house under the big elm in my father's garden, once used by my

mother for her own study, and well remembered by all persons interested

in Andover scenery. This building had been for some years used

exclusively as a mud-bakery by the boys; it was piled with those clay

turnovers and rolls and pies in whose manufacture the most select

circles of Andover youth delighted.

But the bakery was metamorphosed into a decent, dear little room, about

nine by eleven, and commanding the sun on the four sides of its

quadrangle. In fact, it was a veritable sun-bath; and how dainty was the

tip-drip of the icicles from the big elm-bough, upon the little roof! To

this spot I used to travel down in all weathers; sometimes when it was

so slippery on the hill behind the carriage-house (for the garden paths

were impassable in winter) that I have had to return to primitive

methods of locomotion, and just sit down and coast half the way on the

crust. Later still, when an accident and crutches put this delightful

method of travelling out of the question, the summer-house (in a

blizzard I delighted in the name) was moved up beside my father's study.

I have, in fact, always had an out-of-door study, apart from the house I

lived in, and have come to look upon it as quite a necessity; so that we

have carried on the custom in our Gloucester house. We heartily

recommend it to all people who live by their brains and pens. The

incessant trotting to and fro on little errands is a wholesome thing.

Proof-sheets, empty ink-stands, dried-up mucilage, yawning wood-boxes,

wet feet, missing scissors, unfilled kerosene lamps, untimely thirst, or

unromantic lunches, the morning mail, and the dinner-bell, and the

orders of one's pet dog--all are so many imperious summonses to breathe

the tingling air and stir the blood and muscle.

Be as uncomfortable or as cross about it as you choose, an out-of-door

study is sure to prove your best friend. You become a species of

literary tramp, and absorb something of the tramp's hygiene. It is

impossible to be "cooped" at your desk, if you have to cross a garden or

a lawn thirty times a day to get to it. And what reporter can reach that

sweet seclusion across the distant housemaid's wily and experienced art?

What autograph or lion hunter can ruin your best chapter by bombardment

in mid-morning?

In the farm-house study I remember one of my earliest callers from the

publishing world, that seems always to stand with clawing fingers

demanding copy of the people least able to give it. He was an emissary

from the "Youth's Companion," who threatened or cajoled me into a vow to

supply him with a certain number of stories. My private suspicion is

that I have just about at this present time completed my share in that

ancient bargain, so patient and long-suffering has this pleasant paper

been with me. I took particular delight in that especial visit,

remembering the time when the "Companion" gave my first pious little

sentence to print, and paid me with the paper for a year.

"The Gates Ajar" was attacked by the press. In fact it was virulently

bitten. The reviews of the book, some of them, reached the point of

hydrophobia. Others were found to be in a milder pathological condition.

Still others were gentle or even friendly enough. Religious papers waged

war across that girl's notions of the life to come as if she had been an

evil spirit let loose upon accepted theology for the destruction of the

world. The secular press was scarcely less disturbed about the matter,

which it treated, however, with the more amused good-humor of a man of

the world puzzled by a religious disagreement.

In the days of the Most Holy Inquisition there was an old phrase whose

poignancy has always seemed to me to be but half appreciated. One did

not say: He was racked. She was burned. They were flayed alive, or

pulled apart with little pincers, or clasped in the arms of the red-hot

Virgin. One was too well-bred for so bald a use of language. One

politely and simply said: He was put to the question.

The young author of "The Gates Ajar" was only put to the question.

Heresy was her crime, and atrocity her name. She had outraged the

church; she had blasphemed its sanctities; she had taken live coals from

the altar in her impious hand. The sacrilege was too serious to be

dismissed with cold contempt.

Opinion battled about that poor little tale as if it had held the power

to overthrow church and state and family.

It was an irreverent book--it was a devout book. It was a strong

book--it was a weak book. It was a religious book--it was an immoral

book (I have forgotten just why; in fact, I think I never knew). It was

a good book--it was a bad book. It was calculated to comfort the

comfortless--it was calculated to lead the impressionable astray. It was

an accession to Christian literature--it was a disgrace to the religious

antecedents of the author; and so on, and so forth.

At first, when some of these reviews fell in my way, I read them,

knowing no better. But I very soon learned to let them alone. The kind

notices, while they gave me a sort of courage which by temperament

possibly I needed more than all young writers may, overwhelmed me, too,

by a sense of my own inadequacy to be a teacher of the most solemn of

truths, on any such scale as that towards which events seemed to be

pointing. The unfair notices put me in a tremor of distress. The brutal

ones affected me like a blow in the face from the fist of a ruffian.

None of them, that I can remember, ever helped me in any sense

whatsoever to do better work.

I quickly came to the conclusion that I was not adapted to reading the

views of the press about my own writing. I made a vow to let them alone;

and, from that day to this, I have kept it. Unless in the case of

something especially brought to my attention by friends, I do not read

any reviews of my books. Of course, in a general way, one knows if some

important pen has shown a comprehension of what one meant to do and

tried to do, or has spattered venom upon one's poor achievement. Quite

fairly, one cannot sit like the Queen in the kitchen, eating only bread

and honey--and venom disagrees with me.

I sometimes think--if I may take advantage of this occasion to make the

only reply in a working life of thirty years to any of the "slashers"

with whose devotion I am told that I have been honored--I sometimes

think, good brother critics, that I have had my share of the attentions

of poisoned weapons.

But, regarding my reviewers with the great good humor of one who never

reads what they say, I can afford to wish them lively luck and better

game in some quivering writer who takes the big pile of what it is the

fashion to call criticisms from the publisher's table, and

conscientiously reads them through. With _this_ form of being "put

to the question" I will have nothing to do. If it gives amusement to the

reviewers, they are welcome to their sport. But they stab at the summer

air, so far as any writer is concerned who has the pertinacity of

purpose to let them alone.

Long after I had adopted the rule to read no notices of my work, I

learned from George Eliot that the same had been her custom for many

years, and felt reënforced in the management of my little affairs by

this great example. Discussing the question once, with one of our

foremost American writers, I was struck with something like holy envy in

his expression. He had received rough handling from those "critics" who

seem to consider authors as their natural foes, and who delight in

aiming the hardest blows at the heaviest enemy. His fame is immeasurably

superior to that of all his reviewers put together.

"Don't you really read them?" he asked, wistfully. "I wish I could say

as much. I'm afraid I shouldn't have the perseverance to keep that up

right along."

In interesting contrast to all this discord from the outside, came the

personal letters. The book was hardly under way before the storm of them

set in. It began like a New England snow-storm, with a few large,

earnest flakes; then came the swirl of them, big and little, sleet and

rain, fast and furious, regular and irregular, scurrying and tumbling

over each other through the Andover mails.

The astonished girl bowed her head before the blast at first, with a

kind of terrified humility. Then, by degrees, she plucked up heart to

give to each letter its due attention.

It would not be very easy to make any one understand, who had not been

through a closely similar experience, just what it meant to live in the

centre of such a whirlwind of human suffering.

It used to seem to me sometimes, at the end of a week's reading of this

large and painful mail, as if the whole world were one great outcry.

What a little portion of it cried to the young writer of one little book

of consolation! Yet how the ear and heart ached under the piteous

monotony! I made it a rule to answer every civil letter that I received;

and as few of them were otherwise, this correspondence was no light

load.

I have called it monotonous; yet there was a curious variety in

monotony, such as no other book has brought to the author's attention.

The same mail gave the pleasant word of some distinguished writer who

was so kind as to encourage a beginner in his own art, or so much kinder

as gently and intelligently to point out her defects; and beneath this

welcome note lay the sharp rebuke of some obscure parishioner who found

the Temple of Zion menaced to its foundation by my little story. Hunters

of heresy and of autograph pursued their game side by side. Here, some

man of affairs writes to say (it seemed incredible, but it used to

happen) that the book has given him his first intelligent respect for

religious faith. There, a poor colored girl, inmate of a charitable

institution, where she has figured as in deed and truth the black sheep,

sends her pathetic tribute:

"If heaven is like _that_, I want to go, and I mean to."

To-day I am berated by the lady who is offended with the manner of my

doctrine. I am called hard names in no soft language, and advised to

pray heaven for forgiveness for the harm I am doing by this ungodly

book.

To-morrow I receive a widower's letter, of twenty-six pages, rose-tinted

and perfumed. He relates his personal history. He encloses the

photographs of his dead wife, his living children, and himself. He adds

the particulars of his income, which, I am given to understand, is

large. He adds--but I turn to the next.

This correspondent, like scores upon scores of others, will be told

instanter if I am a spiritualist. On this vital point he demands my

confession or my life.

The next desires to be informed how much of the story is autobiography,

and requires the regiment and company in which my brother served.

And now I am haughtily taken to task by some unknown nature for allowing

my heroine to be too much attached to her brother. I am told that this

is impious; that only our Maker should receive such adoring affection as

poor Mary offered to dead Roy.

Having recovered from this inconceivable slap in the face, I go bravely

on. I open the covers of a pamphlet as green as Erin, entitled,

"Antidote to the Gates Ajar;" consider myself as the poisoner of the

innocent and reverent mind, and learn what I may from this lesson in

toxicology.

There was always a certain share of abuse in these outpourings from

strangers; it was relatively small, but it was enough to save my

spirits, by the humor of it, or they would have been crushed with the

weight of the great majority.

I remember the editor of a large Western paper, who enclosed a clipping

from his last review for my perusal. It treated, not of "The Gates Ajar"

just then, but of a magazine story in "Harper's," the "Century," or

wherever. The story was told in the first person fictitious, and began

after this fashion:

"I am an old maid of fifty-six, and have spent most of my life in

boarding-houses." (The writer was, be it said, at that time, scarcely

twenty-two.)

"Miss Phelps says of herself," observed this oracle, "that she is

fifty-six years old; and we think she is old enough to know better than

to write such a story as this."

At a summer place where I was in the early fervors of the art of making

a home, a citizen was once introduced to me at his own request. I have

forgotten his name, but remember having been told that he was

"prominent." He was big, red, and loud, and he planted himself with the

air of a man about to demolish his deadliest foe.

"So you are Miss Phelps. Well, I've wanted to meet you. I read a piece

you wrote in a magazine. It was about Our Town. It did not please Me."

I bowed with the interrogatory air which seemed to be expected of me.

Being just then very much in love with that very lovable place, I was

puzzled with this accusation, and quite unable to recall, out of the

warm flattery which I had heaped upon the town in cool print, any

visible cause of offence.

"You said," pursued my accuser, angrily, "that we had odors here. You

said Our Town smelled of fish. Now, you know, _we_ get so used to

these smells _we like 'em!_ It gave great offence to the community,

madam. And I really thought at one time--feelin' ran so high--I thought

it would kill the sale of your book!"

From that day to this I do not believe the idea has visited the brain of

this estimable person that a book could circulate in any other spot upon

the map than within his native town. This delicious bit of provincialism

served to make life worth living for many a long day.

There was fun enough in this sort of thing to "keep one up," so that one

could return bravely to the chief end of existence; for this seemed for

many years to be nothing less, and little else, than the exercise of

those faculties called forth by the wails of the bereaved. From every

corner of the civilized globe, and in its differing languages, they came

to me--entreaties, outpourings, cries of agony, mutterings of despair,

breathings of the gentle hope by which despair may be superseded;

appeals for help which only the Almighty could have given; demands for

light which only eternity can supply.

A man's grief, when he chooses to confide it to a woman, is not an easy

matter to deal with. Its dignity and its pathos are never to be

forgotten. How to meet it, Heaven only teaches; and how far Heaven

taught that awed and humbled girl I shall never know.

But the women--oh, the poor women! I felt less afraid to answer them.

Their misery seemed to cry in my arms like a child who must be

comforted. I wrote to them--I wrote without wisdom or caution or skill;

only with the power of being sorry for them, and the wish to say so; and

if I said the right thing or the wrong one, whether I comforted or

wearied, strengthened or weakened, that, too, I shall not know.

Sometimes, in recent years, a letter comes or a voice speaks: "Do you

remember--so many years ago--when I was in great trouble? You wrote to

me." And I am half ashamed that I had forgotten. But I bless her because

_she_ remembers.

But when I think of the hundreds--it came into the thousands, I

believe--of such letters received, and how large a proportion of them

were answered, my heart sinks. How is it possible that one should not

have done more harm than good by that unguided sympathy? If I could not

leave the open question to the Wisdom that protects and overrules

well-meaning ignorance, I should be afraid to think of it. For many

years I was snowed under by those mourners' letters. In truth, they have

not ceased entirely yet, though of course their visits are now

irregular.

I am so often asked if I still believe the views of another life set

forth in "The Gates Ajar" that I am glad to use this opportunity to

answer the question; though, indeed, I have been led to do so, to a

certain extent, in another place, and may, perhaps, be pardoned for

repeating words in which the question first and most naturally answered

itself:

"Those appeals of the mourning, black of edge and blurred with tears,

were a mass high beneath the hand and heavy to the heart. These letters

had the terrible and unanswerable power of all great, natural voices;

and the chiefest of these are love and grief. Year upon year the

recipient has sat dumb before these signs of human misery and hope. They

have rolled upon the shore of life, a billow of solemn inspiration. I

have called them a human argument for faith in the future life, and see

no reason for amending the term."

But why dwell on the little book, which was only the trembling

organ-pipe through which the music thrilled? Its faults have long since

ceased to trouble, and its friends to elate me. Sometimes one seems to

one's self to be the least or last agency in the universe responsible

for such a work. What was the book? Only an outcry of nature--and nature

answered it. That was all. And nature is of God, and is mighty before

Him.

Do I believe in the "middle march" of life, as the girl did in the

morning, before the battle of the day?

For nature's sake--which is for God's sake--I cannot hesitate.

Useless suffering is the worst of all kinds of waste. Unless He created

this world from sheer extravagance in the infliction of purposeless

pain, there must be another life to justify, to heal, to comfort, to

offer happiness, to develop holiness. If there be another world, and

such a one, it will be no theologic drama, but a sensible, wholesome

scene. The largest and the strongest elements of this experimental life

will survive its weakest and smallest. Love is "the greatest thing in

the world," and love "will claim its own" at last.

The affection which is true enough to live forever, need have no fear

that the life to come will thwart it. The grief that goes to the grave

unhealed, may put its trust in unimagined joy to be. The patient, the

uncomplaining, the unselfish mourner, biding his time and bearing his

lot, giving more comfort than he gets, and with beautiful wilfulness

believing in the intended kindness of an apparently harsh force which he

cannot understand, may come to perceive, even here, that infinite power

and mercy are one; and, I solemnly believe, is sure to do so in the life

beyond, where "God keeps a niche in heaven to hold our idols."

FOUR-LEAF CLOVER.

BY ELLA HIGGINSON.

I know a place where the sun is like gold,

And the cherry blooms burst with snow;

And down underneath is the loveliest nook,

Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith,

And one is for love, you know;

And God put another one in for luck--

If you search, you will find where they grow.

But you must have hope, and you must have faith;

You must love and be strong--and so--

If you work, if you wait, you will find the place

Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

A LEAP IN THE DARK

BY JAMES T. MCKAY,

Author of "Stella Grayland," "Larcone's Little Chap," and other stories.

The Windhams and Mandisons were old neighbors, and Phil Windham had

always been very much at home among the Mandisons, and especially with

Mary, the oldest daughter, who was like a wise, kind sister to him. Now

his own house began to break up--his brothers went West; his sisters

married; his father, who was a chemist and inventor, was killed one day

by an explosion. In these trying times the Mandison household was his

chief resource, and Mary most of all.

Then the Mandisons moved away. That seemed to Windham like the end of

things. He was awfully lonely, and thought a great deal about Mary in

the months that followed, but was not quite sure of himself; though he

was certain there was no one else he liked and admired half so much. But

in the following winter he went to spend the holidays with the

Mandisons, and when he came away he and Mary were engaged.

The next summer the Mandisons took a cottage at the shore, and Windham

went to spend some weeks with them. Idly busy and calmly happy in the

pleasant company of Mary and all the friendly house, the sunny days

slipped by till one came that disturbed his dream. An aunt of Mary's

arrived with her husband, Dr. Saxon, and his niece, Agnes Maine. At the

first glance Miss Maine challenged Windham's attention. She was a tall

and striking person, with a keen glance that he felt took his measure at

the first look. She piqued his curiosity, and interested him more and

more.

One day he saw her and Mary together, and caught himself comparing them,

not in Mary's favor. Panic seized him, and he turned his back on Miss

Maine and devoted himself to Mary. Miss Maine went to stay with some

neighbors, the Colemans. One night she was caught at the Mandisons by a

storm. Mary asked Windham to entertain her, and he went and asked her to

play chess. She declined coldly, and Windham turned away with such a

look that Mary wondered what Agnes could have said so unkind. And the

next day Miss Maine spoke so gently to him that it warmed him all

through. Still he persistently avoided her.

The Colemans got up a play in the attic of their large old house. On the

night of the performance the place was crowded. The first two acts went

off smoothly.

Windham had been helping to shift the scenes, and was standing alone,

looking over the animated spectacle as the audience chatted and laughed.

Something in the play had made him think of Agnes Maine, though she was

not in the cast, and he had not seen her. Suddenly, without any notice

of her approach, she stood close to him, looking in his face. Her face

was paler than usual, and her eyes had a startling light in them. She

said only half a dozen low words, but they made him turn ghastly white.

What she said was:

"The house is on fire down-stairs."

He stood looking at her an instant, long enough to reflect that any

alarm would result in piling those gay people in an awful mass at the

foot of the one steep and fragile stairway. The stage entrance was

little better than an enclosed ladder, and not to be thought of.

"Go and stand at the head of the stairs," he said to her.

The bell rang for the curtain to rise, but he slipped back behind it,

and it did not go up. Instead, Jeffrey Coleman appeared before it,

bowing and smiling with exaggeration, and announced that the

continuation of the performance had been arranged as a surprise

below-stairs, and would be found even more exciting and interesting than

the part already given. The audience were requested to go below quickly,

but at the same time were cautioned against crowding, as the stair was

rather steep and temporary. As they did not start at once, he came off

the stage and led the way, going on down the stairs, and calling gayly

to the rest to follow.

Windham had got to the stairhead by this time. Agnes Maine stood there,

on one side, looking calm and contained, and he took up his position on

the other, and followed the cue given by young Coleman. He began to call

out, extolling the absorbing and thrilling character of the performance

down-stairs, with the extravagant epithets of the circus posters,

laughing all the while. He urged them on when they lingered, and

restrained them when they came too fast, addressing one and another with

jocularity, laying his hands on some and pushing them on with assumed

playfulness, keeping up the fire of raillery with desperate resistance.

When screams were heard now and then from below, he made it appear to be

only excited feminine merriment, directing attention to it, and calling

out to those yet to come:

"You hear them? Oh, yes; you'll scream, too, when you see it!"

All the time, though his faculties were sufficiently strained by the

effort he was making, he was watching Agnes Maine, who stood opposite,

doing nothing, but looking her calm, pale self, and now and then smiling

slightly at his extravagant humor. And he thought admiringly that her

simple quiet did more to keep up the illusion than all his labored and

violent simulation.

It seemed as if there never would be an end to the stream of leisurely

people who answered his banter with laugh and joke. But finally the last

of them were fairly on the stair, and he turned to Agnes Maine with a

suddenly transformed face.

"Now--be quick!" he called.

But she gave a low cry, looking away toward the farther end, where she

caught sight of a young couple still lingering. She ran toward them,

calling to them to hurry, and as they did not understand, she took hold

of the girl, and made her run. Windham had followed her, and the four

came together to the stairhead, but there they stopped, and the young

girl broke into wild screams. The foot of the stairway was wrapped in

smoke and flames.

There was an observatory upon the house, into which Windham had once

gone with Jeffrey Coleman, and he turned to it now, and made the three

go up before him. He stopped and cut away a rope that held some of the

hangings, and took it up with him. Miss Maine was standing with her arm

about Fanny Lee, whom she had quieted.

"Had she better go first?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," Miss Maine answered.

He fastened the rope about the girl, assured her they would let her down

safely, and between them they persuaded her, shrinkingly, to let herself

be swung over, and lowered to the ground. In this Miss Maine gave more

help than young Pritchard, who shook and chattered so much as to be of

little use. And as soon as the girl was down and Windham turned toward

Miss Maine, Pritchard took a turn of the rope around the railing, with a

hasty knot, went over, and slid down it, out of sight. But before he

reached the ground, the rope broke loose, and slipped out of Windham's

grasp as he tried to catch it.

A cry came up from below. Windham turned toward Miss Maine, and they

looked at one another, but said nothing. She was very pale and still.

Windham glanced down and around; the fire was already following them up

the tower. He made her come to the other side, where the balcony

overhung the ridge of the sloping roof, got over the railing, and helped

her to do the same, and to seat herself on the narrow ledge outside,

holding on by the bars with her arms behind her. He let himself down by

his hands till within two or three feet of the roof, and dropped safely

upon it. Then he stood up, facing her just below, braced himself with

one foot on each side of the ridge, and told her to loosen her hold and

let herself fall forward. She did so, and he caught her in his arms as

she fell.

It was a struggle for a minute to keep his balance; and whether in the

involuntary stress of the effort, or by an instinctive impulse,

conscious or otherwise, he clasped her close for a moment, till her face

touched his own. Then he put her down, and they sat on the ridge near

each other, flushed, and short of breath. Below, on the lawn, a throng

of people looked up at them, some motionless, some gesticulating, and

some shouting in dumb show, their voices drowned in the fierce roar and

crackling that raged beneath the roof and shut in the two above it in a

kind of visible privacy. They were still a while; then Agnes asked: "Can

we do anything more?"

"No," he answered, "nothing but wait."

Both saw that men were running for ladders and ropes. Presently he asked

quietly:

"Why did you come to me?"

She looked up at him for a moment, then answered:

"I suppose I thought you would know what to do."

"Thank you," he said, in a grave, low voice.

After a little the tower blazed out above them, and they moved along the

ridge till stopped by a chimney, against which he made her lean. Then

they sat still again. The flames rose above the eaves on one side, and

flared higher and hotter. Soon they grew scorching, and Agnes said, with

quickened breathing:

"We couldn't stay here long."

He looked at her, and the side of her face toward the fire glowed bright

red. He took off his coat, moved close to her, and held it up between

their faces and the flames; and they sat together so, breathing audibly,

but not speaking, till the head of a ladder rose suddenly above the

eaves, and a minute later the head and shoulders of Jeffrey Coleman. He

flung a rope to Windham, who in another minute had let Miss Maine slip

down by it to the ladder; then, throwing a noose of it over the chimney,

he slid down himself to the eaves, and so to the ground.

[Illustration: "AGNES SAID, WITH QUICKENED BREATHING, 'WE COULDN'T STAY

HERE LONG.'"]

Miss Maine stood waiting for him, pale and trembling now, but said

nothing. Mary Mandison was with her; she had made no scene, and made

none now.

But there were sharper eyes than Mary's. That night, as Windham strolled

on the lawn alone, Dr. Saxon confronted him, grimly puffing at his pipe.

Then he said:

"I thought you were an honest fellow."

Windham leaned against a tree.

"I want to be," he said feebly.

"Then you'll have to look sharp," the doctor retorted. "You'd better go

fishing with me up-country in the morning."

He went, Mary making him promise to return in time for an excursion to

Blackberry Island which he had helped her plan. He got back the night

before; and in the morning the party set out, some going round the shore

by stage, and some in the boat down the bay.

Miss Maine went with those in the boat, and Windham went with Mary in

the stage. Both on the way and after their arrival, he stayed by her,

and did all he could to be useful and amusing.

They lunched on a grassy bank, in the shade of a cliff, by a tumbling

brook that streamed down from the rocks. By and by Mary remarked that

she would like to see where the little torrent came from, and Windham

said he would try and find out for her. He scrambled up, and soon passed

out of sight among the bowlders. He found some tough climbing, but kept

on, and after a while traced the stream to a clear pool where a spring

bubbled out of a rock wall in a cave-like chamber near the top.

As he reached its edge, he caught sight of the reflection in the pool of

a woman's white dress; and, glancing up, saw Agnes Maine standing a

little above him, on a sort of natural pedestal, in a rude niche at one

side. She looked so like a statue that she smiled slightly at the

confused thought of it which she saw for an instant in his face, but she

turned grave then as their eyes met for a moment in a look of intimate

recognition. Then he turned his away, with a sudden terror at himself,

and leaned back against the wall, white in the face.

She stepped down and passed by him. He half put out his hand to stop

her, but drew it back, and she partly turned at the gesture, but went on

out of his sight.

He stood there for some time; then climbed down the rocks again, shaping

his features into a careless form as he went, and came back to Mary with

a forced smile on his face. But he forgot what he had gone for, and

looked confused when Mary asked him if he had found it. And she

commented:

"Why, Philip, what has happened? You look as if you had seen a ghost."

"I have," he answered.

Mary asked no more, except by her look. Some one came and proposed a

sail, and Windham eagerly agreed, and went out in the boat with Mary and

others.

They sailed down the bay. On the return the wind died away, and when

they got back, the stage had gone with more than half the party, and

Agnes Maine was not among those who were waiting. They came on board,

and the boat headed away for home.

After landing they had to walk across some fields. When near the house,

Mary missed something, and Windham went back for it. He had to cross the

road, and as he came near it the stage passed along, with its merry

company laughing and singing. They did not notice him among the trees,

but he distinctly saw all who were in the open vehicle, and Miss Maine

was not among them.

She had climbed up the cliff by a gradual, roundabout path; and after

Windham saw her, she had wandered on, lost herself for a while, and got

back after both stage and boat had left, each party supposing she had

gone with the other.

Windham found a row-boat and started back. He knew nothing about boats;

but the bay was very smooth, it was yet early, and he got across in due

time. As he neared the island he saw her, in her white dress, standing

on the bluff, and looking out toward him.

Off the shore, rocks and bowlders stood thickly out of the water, and

Windham threaded his way in among them, thinking nothing of those

underneath. The skiff was little better than an egg-shell, being built

of half-inch cedar; and before he knew what had happened, the point of a

sunken rock had cut through the bows, and the boat was filling with

water. With a landsman's instinct, he stood up on a thwart; the boat

tipped over and went from under him. In the effort to right it, he made

a thrust downward with one of the oars, but found no bottom; and the

next minute Agnes saw him clinging to the side of a steep rock, with

only his head and shoulders out of water.

She did not cry out; but after he had struggled vainly to get up the

rock, and found no other support for foot or hand than the one

projection just above him, by which he held, he looked toward her as he

clung there out of breath, and saw her eagerly watching him from the

water's edge. And her voice showed the stress of her feeling, though it

was quite clear when she called:

"Can't you climb up?"

"No, there is nothing to hold by."

"Can you swim?"

"No."

She looked all about, then back to him. There was no one in sight; the

island was out of the lines of communication, and a point just north of

them shut off the open water. But she saw that the reef to which Windham

clung trended in to the shore a little way off, and she called:

"I think I can get out to you--keep hold till I come."

She ran along the beach, but not all the way. As soon as she was

opposite a part of the reef that seemed accessible, she walked straight

into the water, and made her way through it, though it was two or three

feet deep near the rocks. He saw her clamber upon them and start toward

him, springing from one to another, wading across submerged places,

climbing around or over the higher points. And even there, in his

desperate plight, as he watched her coming steadily toward him, her eyes

fixed on the difficult path, and her skirt instinctively gathered a

little in one hand, the sight of her fearless grace thrilled through

him, and filled him with despairing admiration.

She came presently to the edge of a wider gap with clear water beneath,

and paused for an instant. Windham called out:

"Don't jump; you'll be lost!"

She looked at him a moment, studied the rocks again, stepped back, then

forward quickly, and sprang across. She slipped and fell, but got to her

feet again, and came on as before. She went out of Windham's sight, but

in another minute he heard a rustle above him, looked up, and saw her

standing very near the edge, and looking down at him, panting a little,

but otherwise calm.

"Don't stand there; you will fall!" he called to her.

She kneeled down and tried to reach over, but could not. She raised

herself again, and looked all around anxiously, but saw no one; she had

not seen any one since she left him hours before on the cliff. She

looked down at him and asked:

"Can you hold on long?"

"No," he answered, "not very long."

She moved back and lay down on the rock, with her face over the edge. It

was wet and slippery, and inclined forward, so that she had to brace

herself with one hand by a projection just below the brink. Lying so,

she could reach down very near him.

"Take hold of my hand," she said.

He raised one arm with an effort, so that she caught him by the wrist,

and his fingers closed about hers. She tried to pull him up slowly, but

he felt that it was hopeless, and would only result in drawing her off

the rock; so he settled back as before. He noticed that she had given

him her left hand, and saw that there was another reason besides the

necessity of bracing herself with her right. Her wrist was cut and

bleeding.

"Oh, you are hurt!" he exclaimed.

"Never mind," she replied; "that is nothing."

He looked up in her face with passionate regret. Her lips were parted,

and her breathing came quick and deep. He felt in her wrist the hot

blood with which all her pulses throbbed, and it went through him as

though one current flowed in their veins. Her eyes looked full into his,

and did not turn away till the lashes trembled over them suddenly, and

tears gushed out upon her face. An agony of yearning took hold of

Windham and wrung his heart.

"Agnes, do you know?" he asked.

And she answered, "Yes."

When she could see him again, drops stood out on his forehead, and his

eyes looked up at her with a despairing tenderness. Her lips closed, and

her features settled into a look of answering resolve.

"You must not give up," she urged. "Don't let go of my hand."

"Oh, I must!" he answered. "You couldn't hold me; I should only draw you

down."

She neither looked away nor made any reply.

"It would do no good," he went on. "I should only drown you too."

"I don't care," she answered. "I will not let you go."

"Oh, Agnes!" he responded, the faintness of exhaustion creeping over

him, and mingling with a sharp but sweet despair.

Mary was standing at the door when the stage arrived, and she saw that

Agnes was not there. She took one of her brothers who was a good

boatman, and started back at once. When their boat rounded the point of

the island she was on the lookout, and was the first to see the two they

came to succor none too soon. And before they saw her she caught sight,

with terrible clearness, of the look in the two faces that were bent

upon one another. It was she who supported Windham until Agnes could be

taken off, and preparations made for getting him on board; but she

turned her eyes away, and did not speak to him.

On the way back she hardly noticed the dreary and draggled pair, who had

little to say for themselves. Many things that had puzzled and troubled

her ranged themselves in a dreadful sequence and order now in her

unsuspicious mind. On their arrival she made some arrangements for their

comfort, quietly; then went to her room, and did not come down again.

Windham left early in the morning, went straight back to Dr. Saxon, and

told him the whole story.

"I hardly know whether I'm a villain or not," Windham concluded.

"You might as well be," the doctor growled. "You've been a consummate

fool, and one does about as much harm as the other. Go home now and stay

there; and don't do anything more, for heaven's sake, until you hear

from me."

Windham went home, and was very miserable, as may be supposed. Hearing

nothing for some time, he could not bear it, and wrote to Mary that he

honored and admired her, and thought everything of her that he ever had

or could. In a week he got this reply:

"Mary Mandison has received Philip Windham's letter, and can only reply

that there is nothing to be said."

This stung him more deeply than silence, and he wrote that he was going

to see her on a certain day, and begged her not to deny him. He went at

the time, and she saw him, simply sitting still, and hearing what he had

to say. He hardly knew what to say then, but vowed and protested, and

finally complained of her coldness and cruelty. She replied that she was

not cold or cruel, but only, as she had told him, there was nothing to

be said. In the end he found this was true, and rushed away in despair.

Mary had seemed calm; but when her mother came in that afternoon and

looked for her, she found her in her room, lying on her face.

When she knew who it was, she raised herself silently, looked in her

mother's face a moment, put her arms about her neck, and hid her hot,

dry eyes there as she used to do when a child.

Late that night those two were alone together in the same place, and,

before they parted, the mother said:

"You were always my brave child, and you are going to be my brave Mary

still."

And Mary answered with a low cry:

"Yes--yes; but not now--not now!"

For a good while Windham felt the sensation of having run headlong upon

a blank wall and been flung back and crippled. But the feeling wore

itself out as the months passed.

It was nearly a year before he heard from Dr. Saxon, and he had given up

looking for anything from him, when he received a cold note, inviting

him to call at the doctor's home, if he chose, at a certain date and

hour. At the time set he went to the city, and rang the doctor's bell as

the hour was striking.

[Illustration: "'AGNES, DO YOU KNOW?' HE ASKED. AND SHE ANSWERED, 'YES.'"]

He was shown into the library, and when the door closed behind him, he

fell back against it. Dr. Saxon was not the only person in the room; at

the farther end sat Agnes Maine. She knew nothing of his coming; and

when she glanced round and saw him, she stood up and faced him, with her

hands crossed before her, her breathing quickened, and her face flushed

blood-red.

The old doctor leaned back and looked from one to the other, studying

them openly and keenly. When he was satisfied, he ordered Windham to

take a chair near the window and told Agnes she might go out. She faced

him a moment; then went away with her straight, proud carriage. The

doctor finished something he was at, then got his pipe and filled and

lighted it, backed up against the chimney-piece, and stood eying Windham

with something more than his usual scowl.

"Well, young man," he asked, finally, "what did you come here for?"

"I came here because you asked me to."

"No, sir; you didn't," the old man retorted. "I said you might come if

you liked."

Windham stood up, trembling, and replied with suppressed passion:

"I came on your invitation. I did not come to be insulted."

"Tut, tut," the doctor rejoined. "You needn't be so hoity-toity; you

haven't much occasion; sit down. Have you been making any more of your

'mistakes,' as you call them?"

Windham answered emphatically: "No!"

"Are you going to?" the doctor continued.

"No, sir; I am not," Windham replied, with angry decision.

"Well, I wouldn't; you've done enough," the doctor commented roughly.

"You call it a mistake, but I call it blind stupidity, worse than many

crimes. Mary is worth three of Agnes, to begin with; but it would be

just as bad if she were a doll or a dolt. Any fellow out of

swaddling-clothes, who has brains in his body, and isn't made of wood,

ought to know that passion is as hard a fact as hunger, and no more to

be left out of account. You were bound to know the chances were that it

would have to be reckoned with, first or last, and you deliberately took

the risk of wrecking two women's lives. I don't say anything about your

own; you richly deserve all you got, and all that's coming to you. If

law could be made to conform to abstract justice, it would rank your

offence worse than many for which men pay behind bars."

He went out abruptly, and after a few minutes returned with Agnes, who

came in lingering, and apparently unwilling.

"Here, Agnes, I am going out," he said. "I've been giving this young man

my opinion of him, and haven't any more time to waste. You can tell him

what you think of him, and send him off."

He went out, and banged the door after him. Agnes leaned against it, and

stood there downcast and perfectly still. Windham sat sunk together, as

the doctor had left him, waiting for her to speak. But she did not, and

after a while he got up and stood by the high desk, looking at her.

Finally he spoke low:

"Are you going to scold me, too? Mary has discarded me, and your uncle

says I am a miserable sinner, and ought to be in the penitentiary. I

don't deny it; but if I went there it would be for your sake. Do you

condemn me, too? Have you no mercy for me?"

A flush spread slowly over her pale face. Then she replied softly:

"No, I have no right. I am no better than you."

Two or three hours later Dr. Saxon sat at his desk, when Agnes entered

and came silently and stood beside him. He did not look up, but asked

quietly:

"Well, have you packed him off?"

"No," she answered under her breath; "you know I haven't."

He smiled up at her. This gruff old man had a rare smile on occasion for

those he liked. And he said:

"Well, he isn't the worst they make; he's got spirit, and he can take a

drubbing, too, when it's deserved. I tried him pretty well. Didn't I

fire into him, though, hot shot!" He fairly grinned at the recollection.

"I had to, you know, to keep myself in countenance. I suppose I said

rather more than I meant--but don't you tell him so."

She smiled. "I have told him so already; I told him you didn't mean a

word you said."

"You presumptuous baggage!" The doctor scowled now. "Then you told him a

tremendous fib. I meant a deal of it. Well, he'll get his deserts yet,

if he gets you, you deceiving minx. I told him one thing that was true

enough, anyway"--he smiled broadly again--"I told him Mary was worth

half a dozen of you."

Agnes turned grave, and put down her head so that she hid her face.

"So she is," she answered. "Oh, I'm very sorry--and ashamed!"

"Well, well," the old doctor responded soberly, stroking her cheek, "it

is a pity; but I suppose it can't be helped. Mary's made of good stuff,

and will pull through. It wouldn't do her any good if three lives were

spoiled instead of one. It's lucky she found out before it was too

late."

THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY IDA M. TARBELL.

LINCOLN IN CONGRESS

_The following article is made up almost entirely of new matter. It

includes six hitherto unpublished letters, all of them of importance in

illustrating Lincoln's political methods and his views on public

questions from 1843 to 1848, and an excellent report of a speech

delivered in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1848, hitherto unknown to

Lincoln's biographers, discovered in course of a search instituted by

this Magazine through the files of the Boston and Worcester newspapers

of September, 1848. The article also comprises various reminiscences of

Lincoln in the period covered, gathered especially for this Magazine

from associates of his who are still living._

For eight successive years Lincoln had been a member of the General

Assembly of Illinois. It was quite long enough, in his judgment. He

wanted something better. In 1842 he declined re-nomination, and became a

candidate for Congress. He did not wait to be asked, nor did he leave

his case in the hands of his friends. He frankly announced his desire,

and managed his own canvass. There was no reason, in Lincoln's opinion,

for concealing political ambition. He recognized, at the same time, the

legitimacy of the ambition of his friends, and entertained no suspicion

or rancor if they contested places with him.

"Do you suppose that I should ever have got into notice if I had waited

to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?" he wrote his friend

Herndon once, when the latter was complaining that the older men did not

help him on. "The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself

every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.

Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any

man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep

a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to

be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you

have ever known to fall into it."

Lincoln had something more to do, however, in 1842, than simply to

announce himself in the innocent manner of earlier politics. The

convention system introduced into Illinois in 1835 by the Democrats had

been zealously opposed by all good Whigs, Lincoln included, until

constant defeat taught them that to resist organization by an

every-man-for-himself policy was hopeless and wasteful, and that if they

would succeed they must meet organization with organization. In 1841 a

Whig State convention had been called to nominate candidates for the

offices of governor and lieutenant-governor; and now, in March, 1843, a

Whig meeting was held again at Springfield, at which the party's

platform was laid, and a committee, of which Lincoln was a member, was

appointed to prepare an "Address to the People of Illinois." In this

address the convention system was earnestly defended. Against this rapid

adoption of the abominated system many of the Whigs protested, and

Lincoln found himself supporting before his constituents the tactics he

had once warmly opposed. In a letter to his friend John Bennett of

Petersburg, written in March, 1843, and now for the first time

published[1], he said:

[Footnote 1: The term "unpublished" is employed in this series of

articles to cover documents that have never been published in any

authoritative or permanent way. Most of the documents so designated have

never, so far as we know, been published at all; but a few have been

printed in local newspapers, though so long ago, and under such

circumstances, as to be practically unpublished now.]

"Your letter of this day was handed me by Mr. Miles. It is too late now

to effect the object you desire. On yesterday morning the most of the

Whig members from this district got together and agreed to hold the

convention at Tremont, in Tazewell County. I am sorry to hear that any

of the Whigs of your county, or of any county, should longer be against

conventions.

"On last Wednesday evening a meeting of all the Whigs then here from all

parts of the State was held, and the question of the propriety of

conventions was brought up and fully discussed, and at the end of the

discussion a resolution recommending the system of conventions to all

the Whigs of the State was unanimously adopted. Other resolutions also

were passed, all of which will appear in the next 'Journal.' The meeting

also appointed a committee to draft an address to the people of the

State, which address will also appear in the next 'Journal.' In it you

will find a brief argument in favor of conventions, and, although I

wrote it myself, I _will_ say to you that it is conclusive upon the

point, and cannot be reasonably answered.

"The right way for you to do is to hold your meeting and appoint

delegates anyhow, and if there be any who will not take part, let it be

so.

"The matter will work so well this time that even they who now oppose

will come in next time. The convention is to be held at Tremont on the

fifth of April; and, according to the rule we have adopted, your county

is to have two delegates--being double the number of your

representation.

"If there be any good Whig who is disposed still to stick out against

conventions, get him, at least, to read the argument in their favor in

the 'Address.'"[2]

[Footnote 2: The original of this letter is owned by E.R. Oeltjen of

Petersburg, Illinois.]

The "brief argument" which Lincoln thought so conclusive, "if he did

write it himself," justified his good opinion. After its circulation

there were few found to "stick out against conventions." The Whigs of

the various counties in the Congressional district met as they had been

ordered to do, and chose delegates. John J. Hardin of Jacksonville,

Edward D. Baker and Abraham Lincoln of Springfield, were the three

candidates for whom these delegates were instructed.

To Lincoln's keen disappointment, the delegation from Sangamon County

was instructed for Baker. A variety of social and personal influences,

besides Baker's popularity, worked against Lincoln. "It would astonish,

if not amuse, the older citizens," wrote Lincoln to a friend, "to learn

that I (a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a

flat-boat at ten dollars per month) have been put down here as the

candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction." He was

not only accused of being an aristocrat, he was called "a deist." He had

fought, or been about to fight, a duel. His wife's relations were

Episcopalian and Presbyterian. He and she attended a Presbyterian

church. These influences alone could not be said to have defeated him,

he wrote, but "they levied a tax of considerable per cent. upon my

strength."

The meeting that named Baker as its choice for Congress appointed

Lincoln one of the delegates to the convention. "In getting Baker the

nomination," Lincoln wrote to Speed, "I shall be fixed a good deal like

a fellow who is made a grooms-man to a man that has cut him out, and is

marrying his own dear 'gal.'" From the first, however, he stood bravely

by Baker. "I feel myself bound not to hinder him in any way from getting

the nomination; I should despise myself were I to attempt it," he wrote

certain of his constituents who were anxious that he should attempt to

secure the nomination in spite of his instructions. It was soon evident

to both Lincoln and Baker that John J. Hardin was probably the strongest

candidate in the district, and so it proved when the convention met in

May, 1843, at Pekin.

It has frequently been charged that in this Pekin convention, Hardin,

Baker, and Lincoln agreed to take in turn the three next nominations to

Congress, thus establishing a species of rotation in office. This charge

cannot be sustained. What occurred at the Pekin convention has been

written out for this magazine by one of the only two surviving

delegates, the Hon. J.M. Ruggles of Havana, Illinois.

"When the convention assembled," writes Mr. Ruggles, "Baker was there

with his friend and champion delegate, Abraham Lincoln. The ayes and

noes had been taken, and there were fifteen votes apiece, and one in

doubt that had not arrived. That was myself. I was known to be a warm

friend of Baker, representing people who were partial to Hardin. As soon

as I arrived Baker hurried to me, saying: 'How is it? It all depends on

you.' On being told that notwithstanding my partiality for him, the

people I represented expected me to vote for Hardin, and that I would

have to do so, Baker at once replied: 'You are right--there is no other

way.' The convention was organized, and I was elected secretary. Baker

immediately arose, and made a most thrilling address, thoroughly

arousing the sympathies of the convention, and ended by declining his

candidacy. Hardin was nominated by acclamation; and then came the

episode.

"Immediately after the nomination, Mr. Lincoln walked across the room to

my table, and asked if I would favor a resolution recommending Baker for

the next term. On being answered in the affirmative, he said: 'You

prepare the resolution, I will support it, and I think we can pass it.'

The resolution created a profound sensation, especially with the friends

of Hardin. After an excited and angry discussion, the resolution passed

by a majority of one."

Lincoln supported Hardin as energetically as he had Baker. In a

letter[3] to the former, hitherto unpublished, written on May 11th, just

after the convention, he says:

"Butler informs me that he received a letter from you in which

you expressed some doubt as to whether the Whigs of Sangamon

will support you cordially. You may at once dismiss all fears on

that subject. We have already resolved to make a particular

effort to give you the very largest majority possible in our

county. From this no Whig of the county dissents. We have many

objects for doing it. We make it a matter of honor and pride to

do it; we do it because we love the Whig cause; we do it because

we like you personally; and, last, we wish to convince you that

we do not bear that hatred to Morgan County that you people have

seemed so long to imagine. You will see by the 'Journal' of this

week that we propose, upon pain of losing a barbecue, to give

you twice as great a majority in this county as you shall

receive in your own. I got up the proposal.

"Who of the five appointed is to write the district address? I

did the labor of writing one address this year, and got thunder

for my reward. Nothing new here.

Yours as ever,

"A. LINCOLN."

"P.S. I wish you would measure one of the largest of those

swords we took to Alton, and write me the length of it, from tip

of the point to tip of the hilt, in feet and inches. I have a

dispute about the length[4].

A. L."

[Footnote 3: The originals of both the letters on this page addressed by

Lincoln to Hardin are owned by the daughter of General Hardin, Mrs.

Ellen Hardin Walworth of New York City.]

[Footnote 4: The swords referred to in this postscript are those used in

the Shields-Lincoln duel. See MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for April, 1896.]

LINCOLN WORKS FOR THE NOMINATION IN 1846.

Hardin was elected, and in 1844 Baker was nominated and elected. Lincoln

had accepted his defeat by Hardin manfully. He had secured the

nomination for Baker in 1844. He felt that his duty toward his friends

was discharged, and that the nomination in 1846 belonged to him. Through

the terms of both Hardin and Baker, he worked persistently and carefully

to insure his own nomination. With infinite pains-taking he informed

himself about the temper of every individual whom he knew or of whom he

heard. In an amusing letter to Hardin, hitherto unpublished, written in

May, 1844, while the latter was in Congress, he tells him of one

disgruntled constituent who must be pacified, giving him, at the same

time, a hint as to the temper of the "Locofocos."

"Knowing that you have correspondents enough, I have forborne to

trouble you heretofore," he writes; "and I now only do so to get

you to set a matter right which has got wrong with one of our

best friends. It is old Uncle Thomas Campbell of Spring Creek

(Berlin P.O.). He has received several documents from you, and

he says they are old newspapers and old documents, having no

sort of interest in them. He is, therefore, getting a strong

impression that you treat him with disrespect. This, I know, is

a mistaken impression, and you must correct it. The way, I leave

to yourself. Robert W. Canfield says he would like to have a

document or two from you.

"The Locos here are in considerable trouble about Van Buren's

letter on Texas, and the Virginia electors. They are growing

sick of the tariff question, and consequently are much

confounded at Van Buren's cutting them off from the new Texas

question. Nearly half the leaders swear they won't stand it. Of

those are Ford, T. Campbell, Ewing, Calhoun, and others. They

don't exactly say they won't go for Van Buren, but they say he

will not be the candidate, and that _they_ are for Texas

anyhow.

"As ever yours,

"A. LINCOLN."

[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1860.--HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.

From an ambrotype taken in Springfield, Illinois, in 1860, and given by

Lincoln to J. Henry Brown, a miniature artist who had gone to

Springfield to paint a portrait of the President for Judge Read of

Pennsylvania. The ambrotype is now in a collection in Boston. A

companion picture, made at the same time, is owned by Mr. William H.

Lambert of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was reproduced as the

frontispiece to MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for March, 1896 (see note to this

frontispiece).]

[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN J. HARDIN.

After a portrait owned by Mrs. Julia Duncan Kirby, Jacksonville,

Illinois. John J. Hardin was born at Frankfort, Kentucky, January 6,

1810; was educated at Transylvania University; removed to Jacksonville,

Illinois, in 1830, and there began practising law. He at once became

active in politics, and in 1834 was a candidate for Prosecuting

Attorney, an officer at that time chosen by the legislature. He was

defeated by Stephen A. Douglas, then a recent arrival from Vermont. In

1836 he was elected to the lower branch of the General Assembly, and

served three terms. In the session of 1836-37, he was one of the few

members who opposed the internal improvements scheme. He was elected to

Congress from the Sangamon district in 1843, and served until 1845. For

some time he was a general in the State militia. In the Mexican War, he

was colonel of the First Illinois Regiment, and was killed at the battle

of Buena Vista, February 23, 1847. General Hardin was a man of brilliant

parts. He was an able lawyer, and at the time of his death had risen to

the leadership of the Whig party in his State. It was through his

intercession, aided by Dr. R.W. English, that the unpleasantness between

Lincoln and Shields in 1842 was amicably settled and a duel

prevented.--_J. McCan Davis_.]

[Illustration: COLONEL EDWARD D. BAKER.

From the Civil War collection of Mr. Robert Coster. Edward Dickinson

Baker was born in London, February 24, 1811. In his infancy his parents

emigrated to America, and his father became a teacher at Philadelphia.

There Edward was apprenticed to a weaver; but he disliked the trade, and

soon gave it up and left home. He drifted to Belleville, Illinois, about

1826, and was followed a year later by his parents. For several months

he drove a dray in St. Louis, Missouri; then removed to Carrollton,

Illinois, and studied law. His early experience at the bar was

disheartening, and upon becoming a member of the Christian church he

resolved to enter the ministry; but political success about this time

caused a change of mind, and robbed the pulpit of a splendid ornament.

In 1835 he removed to Springfield, and in 1837 was elected to the

legislature. He achieved immediate distinction as an orator, and for the

ensuing fifteen years he ranked among the foremost lawyers and

politicians of the State. He was reflected to the House in 1838, served

in the State Senate from 1840 to 1844, and was then elected to Congress.

Upon the breaking out of the Mexican War he returned home, and raised a

regiment of which he was commissioned colonel. After the war he removed

to Galena, and was there sent back to Congress. In 1851 he went to the

Isthmus of Panama with four hundred laborers to engage in the

construction of the Panama Railroad. In 1852 he went to San Francisco,

California, where he at once became the leader of the bar. He was not

successful there in any of his political aspirations, and removed to

Oregon. That State at once made him a United States Senator. The Civil

War coming on, he resigned his seat in the Senate, raised "the

California regiment," immediately went to the front, and was killed at

Ball's Bluff, October 20, 1861.--. _J. McCan Davis_.]

In 1844, being a presidential elector, Lincoln entered the canvass with

ardor. Henry Clay was the candidate, and Lincoln shared the popular

idolatry of the man. His devotion was not merely a sentiment, however.

He had been an intelligent student of Clay's public life, and his

sympathy was all with the principles of the "gallant Harry of the West."

Throughout the campaign he worked zealously, travelling all over the

State, speaking and talking. As a rule he was accompanied by a Democrat.

The two went unannounced, simply stopping at some friendly house. On

their arrival the word was sent around, "the candidates are here," and

the men of the neighborhood gathered to hear the discussion, which was

carried on in the most informal way, the candidates frequently sitting

tipped back against the side of the house, or perched on a rail,

whittling during the debates. Nor was all of this electioneering done by

argument. Many votes were still cast in Illinois out of personal liking,

and the wily candidate did his best to make himself agreeable,

particularly to the women of the household. The Hon. William L.D. Ewing,

a Democrat who travelled with Lincoln in one campaign, used to tell a

story of how he and Lincoln were eager to win the favor of one of their

hostesses, whose husband was an important man in his neighborhood.

Neither had made much progress until at milking-time Mr. Ewing started

after the woman of the house as she went to the yard, took her pail, and

insisted on milking the cow himself. He naturally felt that this was a

master stroke. But receiving no reply from the hostess, to whom he had

been talking loudly as he milked, he looked around, only to see her and

Lincoln leaning comfortably over the bars, engaged in an animated

discussion. By the time he had his self-imposed task done, Lincoln had

captivated the hostess, and all Mr. Ewing received for his pains was

hearty thanks for giving her a chance to have so pleasant a talk with

Mr. Lincoln.[5]

[Footnote 5: Interview with Judge William Ewing of Chicago.]

[Illustration: THE CARTER SCHOOLHOUSE PRECINCT, INDIANA, WHERE LINCOLN

RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE WITH OLD NEIGHBORS IN 1844.]

Lincoln's speeches at this time were not confined to his own State. He

made several in Indiana, being invited thither by prominent Whig

politicians who had heard him speak in Illinois. The first and most

important of his meetings in Indiana was at Bruceville. The Democrats,

learning of the proposed Whig gathering, arranged one, for the same

evening, with Lieutenant William W. Carr of Vincennes as speaker. As

might have been expected from the excited state of politics at the

moment, the proximity of the two mass-meetings aroused party loyalty to

a fighting pitch. "Each party was determined to break up the other's

speaking," writes Miss O'Flynn, in a description of the Bruceville

meeting prepared for this Magazine from interviews with those who took

part in it. "The night was made hideous with the rattle of tin pans and

bells and the blare of cow-horns. In spite of all the din and uproar of

the younger element, a few grown-up male radicals and partisan women

sang and cheered loudly for their favorites, who kept on with their flow

of political information. Lieutenant Carr stood in his carriage, and

addressed the crowd around him, while a local politician acted as grand

marshal of the night, and urged the yelling Democratic legion to surge

to the schoolhouse, where Abraham Lincoln was speaking, and run the

Whigs from their headquarters. Old men now living, who were big boys

then, cannot remember any of the burning eloquence of either speaker. As

they now laughingly express it: 'We were far more interested in the

noise and fussing than the success of the speakers, and we ran backward

and forward from one camp to the other.'

Fortunately, the remaining speeches in Indiana were made under more

dignified conditions. One was delivered at Rockport; another "from the

door of a harness shop" near Gentryville, Lincoln's old home in Indiana;

and a third at the "Old Carter School" in the same neighborhood. At the

delivery of the last many of Lincoln's old neighbors were present, and

they still tell of the cordial way in which he greeted them and of the

interest he showed in every familiar spot.

"'I was a young fellow,' Mr. Redmond Grigsby says, 'and took a long time

to get to the speaking. When I got to the out-skirts of the crowd, Mr.

Lincoln saw me, and called out: "If that isn't Red Grigsby, then I'm a

ghost." He then came through the crowd and met me. We shook hands and

talked a little. His speech was good, and was talked about for a long

while around in this section. The last words of his speech at the Carter

schoolhouse were: 'My fellow-citizens, I may not live to see it, but

give us protective tariff, and we will have the greatest country on the

globe.'"

"After the speaking was over, Mr. Josiah Crawford invited Abraham

Lincoln and John W. Lamar to go home with him. As they rode along, Mr.

Lincoln talked over olden times. He asked about a saw pit in which he

had worked when a young boy. Mr. Crawford said it was still in

existence, and that he would drive around near it. The three men,

Lincoln, Crawford, and Lamar, went up into the woods where the old pit

was. It had partly fallen down; the northwest corner, where Lincoln used

to stand when working, was propped up by a large forked stick against a

tree. Mr. Lincoln said: 'This looks more natural than I thought it would

after so many years since I worked here.' During the time spent at Mr.

Crawford's home, Mr. Lincoln went around inspecting everything."[6]

[Footnote 6: Lincoln in Indiana in 1844. Unpublished MS. by Anna

O'Flynn.]

So vivid were the memories which this visit to Gentryville aroused, so

deep were Lincoln's emotions, that he even attempted to express them in

verse.

[Illustration: THE REV. PETER CARTWRIGHT.

The Rev. Peter Cartwright, the most famous itinerant preacher of the

pioneer era, was born in Amherst County, Virginia, on James River,

September 1, 1785. His father was a Revolutionary soldier, and soon

after peace was declared the family moved to the wildest region of

Kentucky. The migrating party consisted of two hundred families, guarded

by an armed escort of one hundred men. Peter was a wild boy; but in his

sixteenth year he was persuaded by his mother to join the Methodist

Church. He at once displayed a wonderful talent for exhorting, and at

the age of seventeen he became a licensed exhorter. A year later he

became a regular travelling preacher. His reputation soon spread over

Kentucky and Ohio. He hated slavery, and in 1823, to get into a free

State, he and his wife (he had married Frances Gaines in 1808) and their

seven children removed to Illinois. They settled in the Sangamon valley,

near Springfield. For the next forty years he travelled over the State,

most of the time on horseback, preaching the gospel in his unique and

rugged fashion. His district was at first so large (extending from

Kaskaskia to Galena) that he was unable to traverse the whole of it in

the same year. He was elected to the legislature in 1828 and again in

1832; Lincoln, in the latter year, being an opposing candidate. In 1846

he was the Democratic nominee for Congress against Lincoln, and was

badly beaten. Peter Cartwright enjoyed, perhaps, a larger personal

acquaintance with the people of Illinois than any other man ever had.

His name was familiar in every household in the West. Up to 1856 (he

wrote an autobiography in that year) he had baptized twelve thousand

persons and preached five hundred funeral sermons. His personality was

quaint and original. A native vigor of intellect largely overbalanced

the lack of education. He was a great wit, and often said startling

things. His religion sometimes bordered upon fanaticism. He was fearless

and aggressive, and was no respecter of persons. It was not a rare thing

for him to descend from the pulpit, and by sheer physical force subdue a

disorderly member of his congregation. On one occasion, attending a

dinner given by Governor Edwards, he requested the governor to "say

grace," observing that the ceremony was about to be dispensed with. The

wife of a Methodist brother objected to family worship; Peter Cartwright

shut her outdoors and kept her there until she became convinced of her

error. At Nashville, Tennessee, as he was about to begin a sermon, a

distinguished-looking stranger entered the church; some one whispered to

him that it was Andrew Jackson; whereupon he at once blurted out, "Who

is General Jackson? If he don't get his soul converted, God will damn

him as quick as he would a Guinea nigger!" Attending the general

conference in New York, he astonished the hotel clerk by asking for an

axe "to blaze his way" up the six flights of stairs, so that he would

not get lost on the return trip. He died in 1872, after having been a

member of the Methodist Church for more than seventy-one years.--_J.

McCan Davis_.]

LINCOLN'S POSITION IN 1845 ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

In this campaign of 1844 the annexation of Texas was one of the most

hotly discussed questions. The Whigs opposed annexation, but their

ground was not radical enough to suit the growing body of Abolitionists

in the country, who nominated a third candidate, James G. Birney.

Lincoln was obliged to meet the arguments of the Abolitionists

frequently in his campaigning. In 1845, while working for Congress, he

found the abolition sentiment stronger than ever. Prominent among the

leaders of the third party in the State were two brothers, Williamson

and Madison Durley of Hennepin, Illinois. They were outspoken advocates

of their principles, and even operated a station of the underground

railroad. Lincoln knew the Durleys, and, when visiting Hennepin to

speak, solicited their support. They opposed their liberty principles.

When Lincoln returned to Springfield he wrote Williamson Durley a letter

which has never before been published,[7] and which sets forth with

admirable clearness his exact position on the slavery question at that

period. It must be regarded, we think, as the most valuable document on

the question which we have up to this point in Lincoln's life.

[Footnote 7: This letter is dated October 3, 1845. It is now owned by

the son of Williamson Durley, Mr. A.W. Durley of West Superior,

Wisconsin. Mr. C.W. Durley of Princeton, Illinois, kindly secured the

copy for us from his brother.]

[Illustration: SCHOOLHOUSE AT BRUCEVILLE, INDIANA, WHERE LINCOLN SPOKE

FOR CLAY IN 1844.]

"When I saw you at home," Lincoln began, "it was agreed that I

should write to you and your brother Madison. Until I then saw

you I was not aware of your being what is generally called an

Abolitionist, or, as you call yourself, a Liberty man, though I

well knew there were many such in your county.

"I was glad to hear that you intended to attempt to bring about,

at the next election in Putnam, a union of the Whigs proper and

such of the Liberty men as are Whigs in principle on all

questions save only that of slavery. So far as I can perceive,

by such union neither party need yield anything on _the_

point in difference between them. If the Whig abolitionists of

New York had voted with us last fall, Mr. Clay would now be

President, Whig principles in the ascendant, and Texas not

annexed; whereas, by the division, all that either had at stake

in the contest was lost. And, indeed, it was extremely probable,

beforehand, that such would be the result. As I always

understood, the Liberty men deprecated the annexation of Texas

extremely; and this being so, why they should refuse to cast

their votes [so] as to prevent it, even to me seemed wonderful.

What was their process of reasoning, I can only judge from what

a single one of them told me. It was this: 'We are not to do

_evil_ that _good_ may come.' This general proposition

is doubtless correct; but did it apply? If by your votes you

could have prevented the _extension_, etc., of slavery,

would it not have been _good_, and not _evil_, so to

have used your votes, even though it involved the casting of

them for a slave-holder? By the _fruit_ the tree is to be

known. An _evil_ tree cannot bring forth _good_ fruit.

If the fruit of electing Mr. Clay would have been to prevent the

extension of slavery, could the act of electing have been evil?

"But I will not argue further. I perhaps ought to say that

individually I never was much interested in the Texas question.

I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as

they were already a free republican people on our own model. On

the other hand, I never could very clearly see how the

annexation would augment the evil of slavery. It always seemed

to me that slaves would be taken there in about equal numbers,

with or without annexation. And if more _were_ taken

because of annexation, still there would be just so many the

fewer left where they were taken from. It is possibly true, to

some extent, that, with annexation, some slaves may be sent to

Texas and continued in slavery that otherwise might have been

liberated. To whatever extent this may be true, I think

annexation an evil. I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in

the free States, due to the Union of the States, and perhaps to

liberty itself (paradox though it may seem), to let the slavery

of the other States alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it

to be equally clear that we should never knowingly lend

ourselves, directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from

dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in,

when it can no longer exist in the old. Of course I am not now

considering what would be our duty in cases of insurrection

among the slaves. To recur to the Texas question, I understand

the Liberty men to have viewed annexation as a much greater evil

than ever I did; and I would like to convince you, if I could,

that they could have prevented it, without violation of

principle, if they had chosen.

"I intend this letter for you and Madison together; and if you

and he or either shall think fit to drop me a line, I shall be

pleased.

"Yours with respect,

"A. LINCOLN."

LINCOLN AND HARDIN.

As the time drew near for the convention of 1846 Lincoln learned that

Hardin proposed to contest the nomination with him. Hardin certainly was

free to do this. He had voluntarily declined the nomination in 1844,

because of the events of the Pekin convention, but he had made no

promise to do so in 1846. Many of the Whigs of the district had not

expected him to be a candidate, however, arguing that Lincoln, because

of his relation to the party, should be given his turn. "We do not

entertain a doubt," wrote the editor of the "Sangamo Journal," in

February, 1846, "that if we could reverse the positions of the two men,

a very large portion of those who now support Mr. Lincoln most warmly

would support General Hardin quite as warmly." Although Lincoln had

anticipated that Hardin would enter the race, it made him anxious and a

little melancholy.

"Since I saw you last fall," he wrote on January 7, 1846, to his friend

Dr. Robert Boal of Lacon, Illinois, in a letter hitherto unpublished[8],

"I have often thought of writing you, as it was then understood I would;

but, on reflection, I have always found that I had nothing new to tell

you. All has happened as I then told you I expected it would--Baker's

declining, Hardin's taking the track, and so on.

[Footnote 8: This letter is still in the possession of Dr. Boal of

Lacon, Illinois, and the right of publication was secured for the

Magazine by W.B. Powell of that city.]

"If Hardin and I stood precisely equal--that is, if _neither_ of us

had been to Congress, or if we _both_ had--it would not only accord

with what I have always done, for the sake of peace, to give way to him;

and I expect I should do it. That I _can_ voluntarily postpone my

pretensions, when they are no more than equal to those to which they are

postponed, you have yourself seen. But to yield to Hardin under present

circumstances seems to me as nothing else than yielding to one who would

gladly sacrifice me altogether. This I would rather not submit to. That

Hardin is talented, energetic, unusually generous and magnanimous, I

have, before this, affirmed to you, and do not now deny. You know that

my only argument is that 'turn about is fair play.' This he, practically

at least, denies.

"If it would not be taxing you too much, I wish you would write me,

telling the aspect of things in your county, or rather your district;

and also send the names of some of your Whig neighbors to whom I might,

with propriety, write. Unless I can get some one to do this, Hardin,

with his old franking list, will have the advantage of me. My reliance

for a fair shake (and I want nothing more) in your county is chiefly on

you, because of your position and standing, and because I am acquainted

with so few others. Let me hear from you soon."

[Illustration: HENRY CLAY.

From a carbon reproduction, by Sherman and McHugh of New York City, of a

daguerreotype in the collection of Peter Gilsey, Esq., and here

reproduced through his courtesy.]

Lincoln followed the vibrations of feeling in the various counties with

extreme nicety, studying every individual whose loyalty he suspected or

whose vote was not yet pledged. "Nathan Dresser is here," he wrote to

his friend Bennett, on January 15, 1846, "and speaks as though the

contest between Hardin and me is to be doubtful in Menard County. I know

he is candid, and this alarms me some. I asked him to tell me the names

of the men that were going strong for Hardin; he said Morris was about

as strong as any. Now tell me, is Morris going it openly? You remember

you wrote me that he would be neutral. Nathan also said that some man

(who, he could not remember) had said lately that Menard County was

again to decide the contest, and that made the contest very doubtful. Do

you know who that was?

"Don't fail to write me instantly on receiving, telling me

all--particularly the names of those who are going strong against

me[9]."

[Footnote 9: This letter, hitherto unpublished, is owned by E. R.

Oeltjen of Petersburg, Illinois.]

In January, General Hardin suggested that, since he and Mr. Lincoln were

the only persons mentioned as candidates, there be no convention, but

the selection be left to the Whig voters of the district. Lincoln

refused.

"It seems to me," he wrote Hardin, "that on reflection you will see the

fact of your having been in Congress has, in various ways, so spread

your name in the district as to give you a decided advantage in such a

stipulation. I appreciate your desire to keep down excitement; and I

promise you to 'keep cool' under all circumstances.... I have always

been in the habit of acceding to almost any proposal that a friend would

make, and I am truly sorry that I cannot in this. I perhaps ought to

mention that some friends at different places are endeavoring to secure

the honor of the sitting of the convention at their towns respectively,

and I fear that they would not feel much complimented if we shall make a

bargain that it should sit nowhere."[10]

[Footnote 10: From a letter published in the "Sangamo Journal" of

February 26, 1846, and which is not found in any collection of Lincoln's

letters and speeches.]

After General Hardin received this refusal he withdrew from the contest,

in a manly and generous letter which was warmly approved by the Whigs of

the district. Both men were so much loved that a break between them

would have been a disastrous thing for the party. "We are truly glad

that a contest which in its nature was calculated to weaken the ties of

friendship has terminated amicably," said the "Sangamo Journal."

[Illustration: ROBERT C. WINTHROP, SPEAKER OF THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS.

Born in Boston in 1809, graduated at Harvard, and studied law with

Daniel Webster. Winthrop's career as a statesman began with his election

to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1834. He remained there

until elected to Congress in 1840, where he served ten years. In 1847 he

was elected Speaker by the Whigs. In 1850 Winthrop was appointed Senator

to take Daniel Webster's place, but he was defeated in his efforts to be

re-elected. Candidate for governor in the same year, he was also

defeated. He retired from politics after this, though often offered

various candidacies. Winthrop was especially noted as an orator.]

The charge that Hardin, Baker, and Lincoln tried to ruin one another in

this contest for Congress has often been denied by their associates, and

never more emphatically than by Judge Gillespie, an influential

politician of the State. In an unpublished letter Judge Gillespie says:

"Hardin was one of the most unflinching and unfaltering Whigs that ever

drew the breath of life. He was a mirror of chivalry, and so was Baker.

Lincoln had boundless respect for, and confidence in, them both. He knew

they would sacrifice themselves rather than do an act that could savor

in the slightest degree of meanness or dishonor. Those men, Lincoln,

Hardin, and Baker, were bosom friends, to my certain knowledge....

Lincoln felt that they could be actuated by nothing but the most

honorable sentiments towards him. For although they were rivals, they

were all three men of the most punctilious honor, and devoted friends. I

knew them intimately, and can say confidently that there never was a

particle of envy on the part of one towards the other. The rivalry

between them was of the most honorable and friendly character, and when

Hardin and Baker were killed (Hardin in Mexico, and Baker at Ball's

Bluff) Lincoln felt that in the death of each he had lost a dear and

true friend[11]."

[Footnote 11: From an unpublished letter by Joseph Gillespie, owned by

Mrs. Ellen Hardin Walworth of New York City.]

[Illustration: COURTHOUSE AT PETERSBURG, MENARD COUNTY, WHERE LINCOLN

WAS NOMINATED FOR CONGRESS.]

After Hardin's withdrawal, Lincoln went about in his characteristic way

trying to soothe his and Hardin's friends. "Previous to General Hardin's

withdrawal," he wrote one of his correspondents,[12] "some of his

friends and some of mine had become a little warm; and I felt ... that

for them now to meet face to face and converse together was the best way

to efface any remnant of unpleasant feeling, if any such existed. I did

not suppose that General Hardin's friends were in any greater need of

having their feelings corrected than mine were."

[Footnote 12: From an unpublished letter to Judge James Berdan of

Jacksonville, Illinois, dated April 26, 1846. The original is now owned

by Mrs. Mary Berdan Tiffany of Springfield, Illinois.]

In May, Lincoln was nominated. His Democratic opponent was Peter

Cartwright, the famous Methodist exhorter. Cartwright had been in

politics before, and made an energetic canvass. His chief weapon against

Lincoln was the old charges of deism and aristocracy; but they failed of

effect, and in August, Lincoln was elected.

The contest over, sudden and characteristic disillusion seized him.

"Being elected to Congress, though I am grateful to our friends for

having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected," he wrote

Speed.

LINCOLN GOES TO WASHINGTON.

In November, 1847, Lincoln started for Washington. The city in 1848 was

little more than the outline of the Washington of 1896. The Capitol was

without the present wings, dome, or western terrace. The White House,

the City Hall, the Treasury, the Patent Office, and the Post-Office were

the only public buildings standing then which have not been rebuilt or

materially changed. The streets were unpaved, and their dust in summer

and mud in winter are celebrated in every record of the period. The

parks and circles were still unplanted. Near the White House were a few

fine old homes, and Capitol Hill was partly built over. Although there

were deplorable wastes between these two points, the majority of the

people lived in this part of the city, on or near Pennsylvania Avenue.

The winter that Lincoln was in Washington, Daniel Webster lived on

Louisiana Avenue, near Sixth Street; Speaker Winthrop and Thomas H.

Benton on C Street, near Third; John Quincy Adams and James Buchanan,

the latter then Secretary of State, on F Street, between Thirteenth and

Fourteenth. Many of the senators and congressmen were in hotels, the

leading ones of which were Willard's, Coleman's, Gadsby's, Brown's,

Young's, Fuller's, and the United States. Stephen A. Douglas, who was in

Washington for his first term as senator, lived at Willard's. So

inadequate were the hotel accommodations during the sessions that

visitors to the town were frequently obliged to accept most

uncomfortable makeshifts for beds. Seward, visiting the city in 1847,

tells of sleeping on "a cot between two beds occupied by strangers."

The larger number of members lived in "messes," a species of

boarding-club, over which the owner of the house occupied usually

presided. The "National Intelligencer" of the day is sprinkled with

announcements of persons "prepared to accommodate a mess of members."

Lincoln went to live in one of the best known of these clubs, Mrs.

Sprigg's, in "Duff Green's Row," on Capitol Hill. This famous row has

now entirely disappeared, the ground on which it stood being occupied by

the new Congressional Library.

[Illustration: ROBERT SMITH, COLLEAGUE OF LINCOLN'S IN CONGRESS.

Born in New Hampshire in 1802; removed to Illinois in 1832. A member of

the legislature from 1836 to 1840, and of Congress from 1843 to 1849.

During the war, paymaster in the United States Army at St. Louis. Died

at Alton in 1868.]

At Mrs. Sprigg's, Lincoln had as mess-mates several Congressmen: A.R.

McIlvaine, James Pollock, John Strohm, and John Blanchard, all of

Pennsylvania, Patrick Tompkins of Mississippi, Joshua R. Giddings of

Ohio, and Elisha Embree of Indiana. Among his neighbors in messes on

Capitol Hill were Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, Alexander H. Stephens of

Georgia, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. Only one of the members of

the mess at Mrs. Sprigg's in the winter of 1847-1848 is now living, Dr.

S.C. Busey of Washington, D.C. He sat nearly opposite Lincoln at the

table.

"I soon learned to know and admire him," says Dr. Busey[13], "for his

simple and unostentatious manners, kind-heartedness, and amusing jokes,

anecdotes, and witticisms. When about to tell an anecdote during a meal

he would lay down his knife and fork, place his elbows upon the table,

rest his face between his hands, and begin with the words, 'That reminds

me,' and proceed. Everybody prepared for the explosions sure to follow.

I recall with vivid pleasure the scene of merriment at the dinner after

his first speech in the House of Representatives, occasioned by the

descriptions, by himself and others of the Congressional mess, of the

uproar in the House during its delivery.

[Footnote 13: "Personal Reminiscences and Recollections," by Samuel C.

Busey, M.D., LL.D., Washington, D.C., 1895.]

[Illustration: "LONG JOHN" WENTWORTH, COLLEAGUE OF LINCOLN'S IN

CONGRESS.

Wentworth removed to Chicago from New Hampshire in 1836, where he

published the "Chicago Democrat." He was twice Mayor of Chicago, and

served in Congress from 1843 to 1851. He was an ardent anti-slavery man.

He died in 1888.]

"Congressman Lincoln was always neatly but very plainly dressed, very

simple and approachable in manner, and unpretentious. He attended to his

business, going promptly to the House and remaining till the session

adjourned, and appeared to be familiar with the progress of

legislation."

The town offered then little in the way of amusement. The Adelphi

Theatre was opened that winter for the first time, and presented a

variety of mediocre plays. At the Olympia were "lively and beautiful

exhibitions of model artists." Herz and Sivori, the pianists, then

touring in the United States, played several times in the season; and

there was a Chinese Museum. Add the exhibitions of Brown's paintings of

the heroes of Palo Alto, Resaca, Monterey, and Buena Vista, and of

Powers's "Greek Slave," the performances of Dr. Valentine, "Delineator

of Eccentricities," a few lectures, and numerous church socials, and you

have about all there was in the way of public entertainment in

Washington in 1848. But of dinners, receptions, and official gala

affairs there were many. Lincoln's name appears frequently in the

"National Intelligencer" on committees to offer dinners to this or that

great man. He was, in the spring of 1849, one of the managers of the

inaugural ball given to Taylor. His simple, sincere friendliness and his

quaint humor won him soon a sure, if quiet, social position. He was

frequently invited to Mr. Webster's Saturday breakfasts, where his

stories were highly relished for their originality and drollery.

[Illustration: STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, COLLEAGUE OF LINCOLN'S IN CONGRESS.

Member of the United States House of Representatives during the

twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth Congresses. In 1846 Douglas was chosen

Senator by the Democrats.]

[Illustration: WILLIAM A. RICHARDSON, COLLEAGUE OF LINCOLN'S IN

CONGRESS.

Richardson removed to Illinois from Kentucky about 1831. He was a

prominent Democratic politician, serving in the state legislature and in

Congress. He was a captain in the Mexican War, Governor of the territory

of Nebraska in 1858, and in 1863 the successor of Douglas in the United

States Senate. He died in 1875.]

[Illustration: SIDNEY BREESE, COLLEAGUE OF LINCOLN'S IN CONGRESS.

Sidney Breese was born at Whitesboro, New York, July 15, 1800; graduated

from Union College, New York, in 1818; and at once removed to Illinois,

where he was admitted to the bar. He became active in the Democratic

party, and served in many important positions: United States District

Attorney, Judge of the Supreme Court, and United States Senator. He died

in 1878.]

Dr. Busey recalls his popularity at one of the leading places of

amusement on Capitol Hill.

"Congressman Lincoln was very fond of bowling," he says, "and would

frequently join others of the mess, or meet other members in a match

game, at the alley of James Casparis, which was near the boarding-house.

He was a very awkward bowler, but played the game with great zest and

spirit, solely for exercise and amusement, and greatly to the enjoyment

and entertainment of the other players and bystanders by his criticisms

and funny illustrations. He accepted success and defeat with like good

nature and humor, and left the alley at the conclusion of the game

without a sorrow or disappointment. When it was known that he was in the

alley, there would assemble numbers of people to witness the fun which

was anticipated by those who knew of his fund of anecdotes and jokes.

When in the alley, surrounded by a crowd of eager listeners, he indulged

with great freedom in the sport of narrative, some of which were very

broad. His witticisms seemed for the most part to be impromptu, but he

always told the anecdotes and jokes as if he wished to convey the

impression that he had heard them from some one; but they appeared very

many times as if they had been made for the immediate occasion."

Another place where he became at home and was much appreciated was in

the post-office at the Capitol. "During the Christmas holidays," says

Ben: Perley Poore, "Mr. Lincoln found his way into the small room used

as the post-office of the House, where a few jovial _raconteurs_

used to meet almost every morning, after the mail had been distributed

into the members' boxes, to exchange such new stories as any of them

might have acquired since they had last met. After modestly standing at

the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln was reminded of a story, and by

New Year's he was recognized as the champion story-teller of the

Capitol. His favorite seat was at the left of the open fireplace, tilted

back in his chair, with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb.

He never told a story twice, but appeared to have an endless

_répertoire_ of them always ready, like the successive charges in a

magazine gun, and always pertinently adapted to some passing event. It

was refreshing to us correspondents, compelled as we were to listen to

so much that was prosy and tedious, to hear this bright specimen of

Western genius tell his inimitable stories, especially his reminiscences

of the Black Hawk War."

[Illustration: ORLANDO B. FICKLIN, COLLEAGUE OF LINCOLN'S IN CONGRESS.

Ficklin was a Kentuckian who settled in Illinois in 1830. He served four

terms in the state legislature, four terms in Congress, and filled many

important posts in the Democratic party, of which he was a leader. He

died in 1885.]

LINCOLN'S WORK IN THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS.

But Lincoln had gone to Washington for work, and he at once interested

himself in the Whig organization formed to elect the officers of the

House. There was only a small Whig majority, and it took skill and

energy to keep the offices in the party. Lincoln's share in achieving

this result was generally recognized. As late as 1860, twelve years

after the struggle, Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, who was elected

speaker, said in a speech in Boston wherein he discussed Lincoln's

nomination to the Presidency: "You will be sure that I remember him with

interest, if I may be allowed to remind you that he helped to make me

the speaker of the Thirtieth Congress, when the vote was a very close

and strongly contested vote."

[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN A. MCCLERNAND, COLLEAGUE OF LINCOLN'S IN

CONGRESS.

Came to Illinois from Kentucky when a boy. Served in Black Hawk War, and

was one of the earliest editors of the State. Served three terms in the

state legislature, and in Congress. Was active in the war, rising to the

rank of major-general. General McClernand is still living in

Springfield, Illinois.]

A week after Congress organized, Lincoln wrote to Springfield: "As you

are all so anxious for me to distinguish myself, I have concluded to do

so before long;" and he did it--but not exactly as his Springfield

friends wished. The United States were then at war with Mexico, a war

that the Whigs abhorred. Lincoln had used his influence against it; but,

hostilities declared, he had publicly affirmed that every loyal man must

stand by the army. Many of his friends, Hardin, Baker, and Shields,

among others, were at that moment in Mexico. Lincoln had gone to

Washington intending to say nothing in opposition to the war. But the

administration wished to secure from the Whigs not only votes of

supplies and men, but a resolution declaring that the war was just and

right. Lincoln, with others of his party in Congress, refused his

sanction, voting a resolution that the war had been "unnecessarily and

unconstitutionally" begun. On December 22d he made his debut in the

House by the famous "Spot Resolutions," a series of searching questions

so clearly put, so strong historically and logically, that they drove

the administration step by step from the "spot" where the war began, and

showed that it had been the aggressor in the conquest. In January

Lincoln followed up these resolutions with a speech in support of his

position. His action was much criticised in Illinois, where the sound of

the drum and the intoxication of victory had completely turned attention

from the moral side of the question, and Lincoln found himself obliged

to defend his position with even his oldest friends.

[Illustration: THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON IN 1846]

The routine work assigned him in the Thirtieth Congress was on the

Committee on the Post-office and Post Roads. Several reports were made

by him from this committee. These reports, with a speech on internal

improvements, cover his published work in the House up to July. Then he

made a speech which was at the time quoted far and wide.

In July Zachary Taylor had been nominated at Philadelphia for President

by the Whigs. Lincoln had been at the convention, and went back to

Washington full of enthusiasm. "In my opinion we shall have a most

overwhelming, glorious triumph," he wrote a friend. "One unmistakable

sign is that all the odds and ends are with us--Barnburners, Native

Americans, Tyler men, disappointed office-seekers, Locofocos, and the

Lord knows what. This is important, if in nothing else, in showing which

way the wind blows."

In connection with Alexander H. Stephens, with whom he had become a warm

friend, Toombs, and Preston, Lincoln formed the first Congressional

Taylor Club, known as the "Young Indians." Campaigning had already begun

on the floor of Congress, and the members were daily making speeches for

the various candidates. On July 27th Lincoln made a speech for Taylor.

It was a boisterous election speech, full of merciless caricaturing, and

delivered with inimitable drollery. It kept the House in an uproar, and

was reported the country over by the Whig press. The "Baltimore

American," in giving a synopsis of it, called it the "crack speech of

the day," and said of Lincoln: "He is a very able, acute, uncouth,

honest, upright man, and a tremendous wag, withal.... Mr. Lincoln's

manner was so good-natured, and his style so peculiar, that he kept the

House in a continuous roar of merriment for the last half hour of his

speech. He would commence a point in his speech far up one of the

aisles, and keep on talking, gesticulating, and walking until he would

find himself, at the end of a paragraph, down in the centre of the area

in front of the clerk's desk. He would then go back and take another

_head_, and _work down_ again. And so on, through his capital

speech."

LINCOLN GOES TO NEW ENGLAND.--A NEW SPEECH.

This speech, as well as the respect Lincoln's work in the House had

inspired among the leaders of the party, brought him an invitation to

deliver several campaign speeches in New England at the close of

Congress, and he went there early in September. There was in New

England, at that date, much strong anti-slavery feeling. The Whigs

claimed to be "Free Soilers" as well as the party which appropriated

that name, and Lincoln, in the first speech he made, defined carefully

his position on the slavery question. This was at Worcester,

Massachusetts, on September 12th. The Whig State convention had met to

nominate a candidate for governor, and the most eminent Whigs of

Massachusetts were present. Curiously enough the meeting was presided

over by ex-Governor Levi Lincoln, a descendant, like Abraham Lincoln,

from the original Samuel of Hingham. There were many brilliant speeches

made; but if we are to trust the reports of the day, Lincoln's was the

one which by its logic, its clearness, and its humor, did most for the

Whig cause. "Gentlemen inform me," says one Boston reporter, who came

too late for the exercises, "that it was one of the best speeches ever

heard in Worcester, and that several Whigs who had gone off on the Free

Soil fizzle have come back again to the Whig ranks."

A report was made and printed in the Boston "Advertiser," though it has

hitherto been entirely overlooked by biographers of Lincoln. A search

made for this magazine through the files of the Boston and Worcester

papers of the year brought it to light, and we reprint it here for the

first time. It gives concisely what Lincoln thought about the slavery

question in 1848. The report reads:

"Mr. Lincoln has a very tall and thin figure, with an intellectual

face, showing a searching mind and a cool judgment. He spoke in a

clear and cool and very eloquent manner for an hour and a half,

carrying the audience with him in his able arguments and brilliant

illustrations--only interrupted by warm and frequent applause. He

began by expressing a real feeling of modesty in addressing an

audience this 'side of the mountains,' a part of the country where, in

the opinion of the people of his section, everybody was supposed to be

instructed and wise. But he had devoted his attention to the question

of the coming Presidential election, and was not unwilling to exchange

with all whom he might the ideas to which he had arrived. He then

began to show the fallacy of some of the arguments against General

Taylor, making his chief theme the fashionable statement of all those

who oppose him (the old Locofocos as well as the new), that he _has no

principles_, and that the Whig party have abandoned their principles

by adopting him as their candidate. He maintained that General Taylor

occupied a high and unexceptionable Whig ground, and took for his

first instance and proof of this his statement in the Allison

letter--with regard to the Bank, Tariff, Rivers and Harbors,

etc.--that the will of the people should produce its own results,

without executive influence. The principle that the people should do

what--under the Constitution--they please, is a Whig principle. All

that, General Taylor not only consents to, but appeals to the people

to judge and act for themselves. And this was no new doctrine for

Whigs. It was the 'platform' on which they had fought all their

battles, the resistance of executive influence, and the principle of

enabling the people to frame the government according to their will.

General Taylor consents to be the candidate, and to assist the people

to do what they think to be their duty, and think to be best in their

national affairs; but because _he don't want to tell what we ought to

do_, he is accused of having no principles. The Whigs have maintained

for years that neither the influence, the duress, nor the prohibition

of the executive should control the legitimately expressed will of the

people; and now that on that very ground General Taylor says that he

should use the power given him by the people to do, to the best of his

judgment, the will of the people, he is accused of want of principle

and of inconsistency in position.

"Mr. Lincoln proceeded to examine the absurdity of an attempt to make a

platform or creed for a national party, to _all_ parts of which

_all_ must consent and agree, when it was clearly the intention and

the true philosophy of our government, that in Congress all opinions and

principles should be represented, and that when the wisdom of all had

been compared and united, the will of the majority should be carried

out. On this ground he conceived (and the audience seemed to go with

him) that General Taylor held correct, sound republican principles.

[Illustration: LEVI LINCOLN, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM 1825 TO

1834.

From a photograph kindly loaned by Miss Frances M. Lincoln of Worcester,

Massachusetts, after a painting by Chester Harding. Levi Lincoln was

born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1782, and died there in 1868. He

was a fourth cousin of Thomas Lincoln, father of the President, being

descended from the oldest son of Samuel Lincoln of Hingham,

Massachusetts, from whose fourth son, Mordecai, Abraham Lincoln

descended. Levi Lincoln was a graduate of Harvard, and studied law,

practising in Worcester. He filled many important public positions in

the State, serving in the legislature, and as lieutenant-governor, judge

of the Supreme Court, and from 1825 to 1834 as governor. He represented

the Whigs in Congress from 1835 to 1841, and after the expiration of his

term was made collector of the port of Boston. Levi Lincoln was an

active member of several learned societies, and prominent in all the

public functions of his State. In 1848, when Abraham Lincoln, then

member of Congress, spoke in Worcester, ex-Governor Lincoln presided.]

"Mr. Lincoln then passed to the subject of slavery in the States, saying

that the people of Illinois agreed entirely with the people of

Massachusetts on this subject, except, perhaps, that they did not keep

so constantly thinking about it. All agreed that slavery was an evil,

but that we were not responsible for it, and cannot affect it in States

of this Union where we do not live. But the question of the

_extension_ of slavery to new territories of this country is a part

of our responsibility and care, and is under our control. In opposition

to this Mr. Lincoln believed that the self-named 'Free Soil' party was

far behind the Whigs. Both parties opposed the extension. As he

understood it, the new party had no principle except this opposition. If

their platform held any other, it was in such a general way that it was

like the pair of pantaloons the Yankee peddler offered for sale, 'large

enough for any man, small enough for any boy.' They therefore had taken

a position calculated to break down their single important declared

object. They were working for the election of either General Cass or

General Taylor. The speaker then went on to show, clearly and

eloquently, the danger of extension of slavery likely to result from the

election of General Cass. To unite with those who annexed the new

territory, to prevent the extension of slavery in that territory, seemed

to him to be in the highest degree absurd and ridiculous. Suppose these

gentlemen succeed in electing Mr. Van Buren, they had no specific means

to _prevent_ the extension of slavery to New Mexico and California;

and General Taylor, he confidently believed, would not encourage it, and

would not prohibit its restriction. But if General Cass was elected, he

felt certain that the plans of farther extension of territory would be

encouraged, and those of the extension of slavery would meet no check.

The 'Free Soil' men, in claiming that name, indirectly attempt a

deception, by implying that Whigs were _not_ Free Soil men. In

declaring that they would 'do their duty and leave the consequences to

God,' they merely gave an excuse for taking a course they were not able

to maintain by a fair and full argument. To make this declaration did

not show what their duty was. If it did, we should have no use for

judgment; we might as well be made without intellect; and when divine or

human law does not clearly point out what _is_ our duty, we have no

means of finding out what it is but using our most intelligent judgment

of the consequences. If there were divine law or human law for voting

for Martin Van Buren, or if a fair examination of the consequences and

first reasoning would show that voting for him would bring about the

ends they pretended to wish, then he would give up the argument. But

since there was no fixed law on the subject, and since the whole

probable result of their action would be an assistance in electing

General Cass, he must say that they were behind the Whigs in their

advocacy of the freedom of the soil.

"Mr. Lincoln proceeded to rally the Buffalo convention for forbearing to

say anything--after all the previous declarations of those members who

were formerly Whigs--on the subject of the Mexican War because the Van

Burens had been known to have supported it. He declared that of all the

parties asking the confidence of the country, this new one had

_less_ of principle than any other.

"He wondered whether it was still the opinion of these Free Soil

gentlemen, as declared in the 'whereas' at Buffalo, that the Whig and

Democratic parties were both entirely dissolved and absorbed into their

own body. Had the _Vermont election_ given them any light? They had

calculated on making as great an impression in that State as in any part

of the Union, and there their attempts had been wholly ineffectual.

Their failure there was a greater success than they would find in any

other part of the Union.

"Mr. Lincoln went on to say that he honestly believed that, if all those

who wished to keep up the character of the Union, who did not believe in

enlarging our field, but in keeping our fences where they are, and

cultivating our present possessions, making it a garden, improving the

morals and education of the people, devoting the administrations to this

purpose--all real Whigs, friends of good honest government--will unite,

the race was ours. He had opportunities of hearing from almost every

part of the Union, from reliable sources, and had not heard of a county

in which we had not received accessions from other parties. If the true

Whigs come forward and join these new friends, they need not have a

doubt. We had a candidate whose personal character and principles he had

already described, whom he could not eulogize if he would. General

Taylor had been constantly, perseveringly, quietly standing up, _doing

his duty_, and asking no praise or reward for it. He was and must be

just the man to whom the interests, principles, and prosperity of the

country might be safely intrusted. He had never failed in anything he

had undertaken, although many of his duties had been considered almost

impossible.

"Mr. Lincoln then went into a terse though rapid review of the origin of

the Mexican War, and the connection of the administration and General

Taylor with it, from which he deduced a strong appeal to the Whigs

present to do their duty in the support of General Taylor, and closed

with the warmest aspirations for and confidence in a deserved success.

"At the close of this truly masterly and convincing speech, the audience

gave three enthusiastic cheers for Illinois, and three more for the

eloquent Whig member from that State."

After the speech at Worcester, Lincoln spoke at Dorchester, Dedham,

Roxbury, and Chelsea, and on September 22d, in Tremont Temple,

Boston,[14] following a splendid oration by Governor Seward. His speech

on this occasion was not reported, though the Boston papers united in

calling it "powerful and convincing." His success at Worcester and

Boston was such that invitations came from all over New England asking

him to speak, and "The Atlas," to which many of these requests were

sent, was obliged finally to print the following note:

[Footnote 14: At this meeting the secretary was Ezra Lincoln, also a

descendant of Samuel Lincoln of Hingham.]

HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

In answer to the many applications which we daily receive from

different parts of the State for this gentleman to speak, we

have to say that he left Boston on Saturday morning on his way

home to Illinois.

But Lincoln won something in New England of vastly deeper importance

than a reputation for making popular campaign speeches. He for the first

time caught a glimpse of the utter irreconcilableness of the Northern

conviction that slavery was evil and unendurable, and the Southern claim

that it was divine and necessary; and he began here to realize that

something must be done. Listening to Seward's speech in Tremont Temple,

he seems to have had a sudden insight into the truth, a quick

illumination; and that night, as the two men sat talking, he said

gravely to the great anti-slavery advocate:

"Governor Seward, I have been thinking about what you said in your

speech. I reckon you are right. We have got to deal with this slavery

question, and got to give much more attention to it hereafter than we

have been doing."

[BEGUN IN THE APRIL NUMBER.]

[Illustration: "PHROSO"]

A TALE OF BRAVE DEEDS AND PERILOUS VENTURES

BY ANTHONY HOPE,

Author of "The Prisoner of Zenda," "The Dolly Dialogues," etc.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS ALREADY PUBLISHED.

Lord Charles Wheatley, having taken leave in London (in a

parting not overcharged with emotion) of Miss Beatrice Hipgrave,

to whom he is to be married in a year; of her mother, Mrs.

Kennett Hipgrave. and of Mr. Bennett Hamlyn, a rich young man

who gives promise of seeing that Miss Hipgrave does not wholly

lack a man's attentions in the absence of her lover,--sets put

to enter possession of a remote Greek island, Neopalia, which he

has purchased of the hereditary lord, Stefanopoulos. But on

arriving he finds himself anything but welcome. He and his

companions,--namely, his cousin, Denny Swinton; his factotum,

Hogvardt; and his servant, Watkins,--are at once locked up; and

though released soon, it is with a warning from the populace,

headed by Vlacho, the innkeeper, that if found on the island

after six o'clock the next morning, their lives will not be

worth much. Toward midnight, little disposed to sleep, and

curious to look about somewhat before leaving the island, they

stroll inland, and come by chance upon the manor-house, still

and apparently deserted. Curiosity drives them to enter. They

find Lord Stefanopoulos, whom Vlacho had reported to them as

recently dead of a fever, not dead, but on the point of

dying--from a dagger wound. And the wound, they learn from his

own lips, was given him by his nephew, Constantine, in a tumult

that arose a few hours before when the people came up to protest

against the sale of the island, and to persuade the lord to send

the strangers away. Constantine, it further appears, is making

them all their trouble, having come to the island just ahead of

them to that end, after learning their plans by overhearing

Wheatley talking in a London restaurant. In the darkness, on

their way up, they have met a man and a woman going toward the

village. The man, by his voice, they knew to be Constantine. The

woman, they now learn, was the Lady Euphrosyne, cousin of

Constantine and heiress to the island. From talk overheard

between her and Constantine, she had seemed to be, while

desirous of their departure, also anxious to spare them harm. In

full possession of the house, they decide to stand siege, though

scant of provisions and ammunition, and armed only with their

own revolvers and a rifle left behind by Constantine. Soon

Stefanopoulos dies, and by an old serving-woman they send

warning to Constantine that he shall be brought to justice for

his crime. Thus passes the night. Next morning Wheatley's

attention is engaged by a woman studying them through a

field-glass from before a small bungalow, higher up the

mountain. Then Vlacho, the innkeeper, presents himself for a

parley, of which nothing comes but the disclosure that

Constantine is pledged to marry Euphrosyne, while already

secretly married to another woman. The evening falls with the

"death-chant" sounding in the air--a chant made by Alexander the

Bard when an earlier Lord Stefanopoulos was killed by the people

for having tried to sell the island. Lord Wheatley himself tells

the story.

CHAPTER IV.

A RAID AND A RAIDER.

It was between eight and nine o'clock when the first of the enemy

appeared on the road, in the persons of two smart fellows in gleaming

kilts and braided jackets. It was no more than just dusk, and I saw that

they were strangers to me. One was tall and broad, the other shorter,

and of very slight build. They came on towards us confidently enough. I

was looking over Denny's shoulder; he held Constantine's rifle, and I

knew that he was impatient to try it. But inasmuch as might was

certainly not on our side, I was determined that right should abide with

us, and was resolute not to begin hostilities. Constantine had at least

one powerful motive for wishing our destruction; I would not furnish him

with any plausible excuse for indulging his desire. So we stood, Denny

and I at one window, Hogvardt and Watkins at the other, and watched the

approaching figures. No more appeared; the main body did not show

itself, and the sound of the fierce chant had suddenly died away. But

all at once a third man appeared, running rapidly after the first two.

He caught the shorter by the arm, and seemed to argue or expostulate

with him. For a while the three stood thus talking; then I saw the last

comer make a gesture of protest, and they all came on together.

"Push the barrel of that rifle a little farther out," said I to Denny,

"It may be useful to them to know it's there."

Denny obeyed. The result was a sudden pause in our friends' advance; but

they were near enough now for me to distinguish the last comer, and I

discerned in him, although he wore the native costume, and had discarded

his tweed suit, Constantine Stefanopoulos himself.

"Here's an exercise of self-control," I groaned, laying a detaining hand

on Denny's shoulder.

As I spoke, Constantine put a whistle to his lips and blew loudly. The

blast was followed by the appearance of five more fellows. In three of

them I recognized old acquaintances--Vlacho, Demetri, and Spiro. These

three all carried guns; and the whole eight came forward again, till

they were within a hundred yards of us. There they halted, and, with a

sudden, swift movement, three barrels were levelled at the window where

Denny and I were looking out. Well, we ducked. There is no use in

denying it. For we thought that the fusillade had really begun. Yet no

shot followed, and, after an instant, holding Denny down, I peered out

cautiously myself. The three stood motionless, their aim full on us. The

other five were advancing cautiously, well under the shelter of the

rock, two on one side of the road and three on the other. The slim,

boyish fellow was with Constantine, on our right hand; a moment later

the other three dashed across the road and joined them. Suddenly what

military men call "the objective," the aim of these manoeuvres, flashed

across me. It was simple almost to ludicrousness; yet it was very

serious, for it showed a reasoned plan of campaign, with which we were

very ill prepared to cope. While the three held us in check, the five

were going to carry off our cows. And without our cows we should soon be

hard put to it for food. For the cows had formed in our plans a most

important _pièce de résistance_.

"This won't do," said I. "They're after the cows." And I took the rifle

from Denny's hand, cautioning him not to show his face at the window.

Then I stood in the shelter of the wall, so that I could not be hit by

the three, and levelled the rifle, not at any human enemies, but at the

unoffending cows.

"A dead cow," I remarked, "is a great deal harder to move than a live

one."

The five had now come quite near the pen of rude hurdles in which the

cows were. As I spoke, Constantine appeared to give some order; and

while he and the boy stood looking on, Constantine leaning on his gun,

the boy's hand resting with jaunty elegance on the handle of the knife

in his girdle, the others leaped over the hurdles. Crack, went the

rifle! A cow fell! I reloaded hastily. Crack! And the second cow fell.

It was very fair shooting in such a bad light, for I hit both mortally;

and my skill was rewarded by a shout of anger from the robbers (for

robbers they were; I had bought the live stock).

"Carry them off now!" I cried, carelessly showing myself at the window.

But I did not stay there long, for three shots rang out, and the bullets

pattered on the masonry above me. Luckily the covering party had aimed a

trifle too high.

"No more milk, my lord," observed Watkins, in a regretful tone. He had

seen the catastrophe from the other window.

The besiegers were checked. They leaped out of the pen with alacrity. I

suppose they realized that they were exposed to my fire, while at that

particular angle I was protected from the attack of their friends. They

withdrew to the middle of the road, selecting a spot at which I could

not take aim without showing myself at the window. I dared not look out

to see what they were doing. But presently Hogvardt risked a glance, and

called out that they were in retreat, and had rejoined the three, and

that the whole body stood together in consultation, and were no longer

covering my window. So I looked out, and saw the boy standing in an

easy, graceful attitude, while Constantine and Vlacho talked a little

apart. It was growing considerably darker now, and the figures became

dim and indistinct.

"I think the fun's over for to-night," said I, glad to have it over so

cheaply.

Indeed, what I said seemed to be true, for the next moment the group

turned, and began to retreat along the road, moving briskly out of our

sight. We were left in the thick gloom of a moonless evening and the

peaceful silence of still air.

"They'll come back and fetch the cows," said Hogvardt. "Could we not

drag one in, my lord, and put it where the goat is, behind the house?"

I approved of this suggestion, and Watkins having found a rope, I armed

Denny with the rifle, took from the wall a large, keen hunting-knife,

opened the door, and stole out, accompanied by Hogvardt and Watkins, who

carried their revolvers. We reached the pen without interruption, tied

our rope firmly round the horns of one of the dead beasts, and set to

work to drag it along. It was no child's play, and our progress was very

slow; but the carcass moved, and I gave a shout of encouragement as we

got it down to the smoother ground of the road and hauled it along with

a will. Alas! that shout was a great indiscretion. I had been too hasty

in assuming that our enemy was quite gone. We heard suddenly the rush of

feet; shots whistled over our heads; we had but just time to drop the

rope and turn round when Denny's rifle rang out, and then--somebody was

at us! I really do not know exactly how many there were. I had two at

me, but by great good luck I drove my big knife into one fellow's arm at

the first hazard, and I think that was enough for him. In my other

assailant I recognized Vlacho. The fat innkeeper had got rid of his gun,

and had a knife much like the one I carried myself. I knew him more by

his voice, as he cried fiercely, "Come on," than by his appearance, for

the darkness was thick now. Parrying his fierce thrusts--he was very

active for so stout a man--I called out to our people to fall back as

quickly as they could, for I did not know but that we might be taken in

the rear also.

But discipline is hard to maintain in such a force as mine.

"Bosh!" cried Denny's voice.

"Mein Gott, no!" exclaimed Hogvardt.

Watkins said nothing, but for once in his life he also disobeyed me.

Well, if they would not do as I said, I must do as they did. The line

advanced--the whole line, as at Waterloo. We pressed them hard. I heard

a revolver fired and a cry follow. Fat Vlacho slackened in his attack,

wavered, halted, turned and ran. A shout of triumph from Denny told me

that the battle was going well there. Fired with victory, I set myself

for a chase. But, alas! my pride was checked. Before I had gone two

yards I fell headlong over the body for which we had been fighting (as

Greeks and Trojans fought for the body of Hector), and came to an abrupt

stop, sprawling most ignominiously over the cow's broad back.

"Stop! stop!" I cried. "Wait a bit, Denny. I'm down over this infernal

cow!" It was an inglorious ending to the exploits of the evening.

Prudence, or my cry, stopped them. The enemy were in full retreat; their

steps pattered quick along the rocky road, and Denny observed in a tone

of immense satisfaction:

"I think that's our trick, Charlie,"

"Are you hurt?" I asked, scrambling to my feet.

Watkins owned to a crack from the stock of a gun on his right shoulder;

Hogvardt to a graze of a knife on the arm. Denny was unhurt. We had

reason to suppose that we had left our mark on at least two of the

enemy. For so great a victory it was cheaply bought.

"We'll just drag in the cow," said I--I like to stick to my point--"and

then we might see if there's anything in the cellar."

We did drag in the cow; we dragged it through the house, and finally

bestowed it in the compound behind. Hogvardt suggested that we should

fetch the other also; but I had no mind for another surprise, which

might not end so happily, and I decided to run the risk of leaving the

second animal till the morning. So Watkins went off to seek for some

wine, for which we all felt very ready, and I went to the door with the

intention of securing it. But before I did so I stood for a moment on

the step, looking out into the night, and snuffing the sweet, clear,

pure air. It was in quiet moments like this, not in the tumult that had

just passed, that I had pictured my beautiful island; and the love of it

came on me now, and made me swear that these fellows and their arch

ruffian Constantine should not drive me out of it without some more and

more serious blows than had been struck that night. If I could get away

safely, and return with enough force to keep them quiet, I would pursue

that course. If not--well, I believe I had very blood-thirsty thoughts

in my mind, as even the most peaceable man will have, when he has been

served as I had and his friends roughly handled on his account.

Having registered these determinations, I was about to proceed with my

task of securing the door, when I heard a sound that startled me. There

was nothing hostile or alarming about it, rather it was pathetic and

appealing; and, in spite of my previous truculence of mind, it caused me

to exclaim: "Hullo, is that one of those poor beggars mauled?" For the

sound was a slight, painful sigh, as of somebody in suffering, and it

seemed to come from out of the darkness about a dozen yards ahead of me.

My first impulse was to go straight to the spot; but I had begun by now

to doubt whether the Neopalians were not unsophisticated in quite as

peculiar a sense as that in which they were good-hearted; so I called

Denny and Hogvardt, bidding the latter to bring his lantern with him.

Thus protected, I stepped out of the door, in the direction from which

the sigh had come. Apparently we were to crown our victory by the

capture of a wounded enemy.

An exclamation from Hogvardt told me that he, aided by the lantern, had

come upon the quarry; but Hogvardt spoke in disgust rather than triumph.

"Oh, it's only the little one!" said he. "What's wrong with him, I

wonder." He stooped down, and examined the prostrate form. "By heaven, I

believe he's not touched! Yes, there's a bump on his forehead; but not

big enough for any of us to have given it."

By this time Denny and I were with him, and we looked down on the boy's

pale face, which seemed almost death-like in the glare of the lantern.

The bump was not such a very small one, but it would not have been made

by any of our weapons, for the flesh was not cut. A moment's further

inspection showed that it must be the result of a fall on the hard,

rocky road.

"Perhaps he tripped on the cord, as you did on the cow;" suggested

Denny, with a grin.

It seemed likely enough, but I gave very little thought to it, for I was

busy studying the boy's face.

"No doubt," said Hogvardt, "he fell in running away, and was stunned;

and they did not notice it in the dark, or were afraid to stop. But

they'll be back, my lord, and soon."

"Carry him inside," said I. "It won't hurt us to have a hostage."

Denny lifted the lad in his long arms--Denny was a tall, powerful

fellow--and strode off with him. I followed, wondering who it was that

we had got hold of; for the boy was strikingly handsome. I was last in,

and barred the door. Denny had set our prisoner down in an armchair,

where he sat now, conscious again, but still with a dazed look in his

large, dark eyes, as he looked from me to the rest, and back again to

me, finally fixing a long glance on my face.

"Well, young man," said I, "you've begun this sort of thing early.

Lifting cattle and taking murder in the day's work is pretty good for a

youngster like you. Who are you?"

"Where am I?" he cried, in that blurred, indistinct kind of voice that

comes with mental bewilderment.

"You're in my house," said I, "and the rest of your infernal gang's

outside, and going to stay there. So you must make the best of it."

The boy turned his head away and closed his eyes. Suddenly I snatched

the lantern from Hogvardt. But I paused before I brought it close to the

boy's face, as I had meant to do, and I said:

"You fellows go and get something to eat and a snooze, if you like. I'll

look after this youngster. I'll call you if anything happens outside."

After a few unselfish protests, they did as I bade them. I was left

alone in the hall with the prisoner, and merry voices from the kitchen

told me that the battle was being fought again over the wine. I set the

lantern close to the boy's face.

"H'm!" said I, after a prolonged scrutiny. Then I sat down on the table,

and began to hum softly that wretched chant of One-eyed Alexander's,

which had a terrible trick of sticking in a man's head.

For a few minutes I hummed. The lad shivered, stirred uneasily, and

opened his eyes. I had never seen such eyes, and I could not

conscientiously except even Beatrice Hipgrave's, which were in their way

quite fine. I hummed away, and the boy said, still in a dreamy voice,

but with an imploring gesture of his hand:

"Ah, no, not that! Not that, Constantine!"

"He's a tender-hearted youth," said I; and I was smiling now. The whole

episode was singularly unusual and interesting.

The boy's eyes were on mine again. I met his glance full and square.

Then I poured out some water, and gave it to him. He took it with

trembling hand--the hand did not escape my notice--and drank it eagerly,

setting the glass down with a sigh.

"I am Lord Wheatley," said I, nodding to him. "You came to steal my

cattle, and murder me, if it happened to be convenient, you know."

The boy flashed out at me in a minute:

"I didn't. I thought you'd surrender, if we got the cattle away."

"You thought," said I, scornfully. "I suppose you did as you were bid."

"No; I told Constantine that they weren't to--" The boy stopped short,

looked round him, and said in a questioning voice: "Where are all the

rest of my people?"

"The rest of your people," said I, "have run away. You are in my hands.

I can do just as I please with you."

His lips set in an obstinate curve, but he made no answer. I went on as

sternly as I could: "And when I think of what I saw here yesterday--of

that poor old man stabbed by your blood-thirsty crew--"

"It was an accident," he cried, sharply; the voice had lost its

dreaminess, and sounded clear now.

"We'll see about that when we get Constantine and Vlacho before a

judge," I retorted grimly. "Anyhow, he was foully stabbed in his own

house, for doing what he had a perfect right to do."

"He had no right to sell the island," cried the boy; and he rose for a

moment to his feet, with a proud air, only to sink back again into the

chair and stretch out his hand for water again.

Now at this moment Denny, refreshed by meat and drink, and in the

highest of spirits, bounded into the hall.

"How's the prisoner?" he cried.

"Oh, he's all right. There's nothing the matter with him," I said; and,

as I spoke, I moved the lantern, so that the boy's face and figure were

again in shadow.

"That's all right," observed Denny, cheerfully. "Because I thought,

Charlie, we might get a little information out of him."

"Perhaps he won't speak," I suggested, casting a glance at the captive,

who sat now motionless in the chair.

"Oh, I think he will," said Denny, confidently; and I observed for the

first time that he held a very substantial looking whip in his hand; he

must have found it in the kitchen. "We'll give the young ruffian a taste

of this, if he's obstinate," said Denny; and I cannot say that his tone

witnessed any great desire that the boy should prove at once compliant.

I shifted my lantern so that I could see the proud young face while

Denny could not. The boy's eyes met mine defiantly.

"You hear what he proposes?" I asked. "Will you tell us all we want to

know?"

The boy made no answer, but I saw trouble in his face, and his eyes did

not meet mine so boldly now.

"We'll soon find a tongue for him," said Denny, in cheerful barbarity;

"upon my word, he richly deserves a thrashing. Say the word, Charlie."

"We haven't asked him anything yet," said I.

"Oh, I'll ask him something. Look here, who was the fellow with you and

Vlacho?"

The boy was silent; defiance and fear struggled in the dark eyes.

"You see, he's an obstinate beggar," said Denny, as though he had

observed all necessary forms and could now get to business; and he drew

the lash of the whip through his fingers. I am afraid Denny was rather

looking forward to executing justice with his own hands.

The boy rose again, and stood facing that heartless young ruffian,

Denny--it was thus that I thought of Denny at the moment--then once

again he sank back into his seat, and covered his face with his hands.

"Well, I wouldn't go out killing if I hadn't more pluck than that," said

Denny, scornfully. "You're not fit for the trade, my lad."

The boy had no retort. His face was buried in those slim hands of his.

For a moment he was quite still. Then he moved a little; it was a

movement that spoke of helpless pain, and I heard something very like a

stifled sob.

"Just leave us alone a little, Denny," said I. "He may tell me what he

won't tell you."

"Are you going to let him off?" demanded Denny, suspiciously. "You never

can be stiff in the back, Charlie."

"I must see if he won't speak to me first," I pleaded, meekly.

"But if he won't?" insisted Denny.

"If he won't," said I, "and you still wish it, you may do what you

like."

Denny sheered off to the kitchen, with an air that did not seek to

conceal his opinion of my foolish tender-heartedness. Again I was alone

with the boy.

"My friend is right," said I, gravely. "You are not fit for the trade.

How came you to be in it?"

My question brought a new look, as the boy's hands dropped from his

face.

"How came you," said I, "who ought to restrain these rascals, to be at

their head? How came you, who ought to shun the society of men like

Constantine Stefanopoulos and his tool Vlacho, to be working with them?"

I got no answer; only a frightened look appealed to me in the white

glare of Hogvardt's lantern. I came a step nearer, and leaned forward to

ask my next question:

"Who are you? What's your name?"

"My name--my name?" stammered the prisoner. "I won't tell my name."

"You'll tell me nothing? You heard what I promised my friend?"

"Yes, I heard," said the lad, with a face utterly pale, but with eyes

that were again set in fierce determination. I laughed a low laugh.

"I believe you are fit for the trade, after all," said I; and I looked

with mingled distaste and admiration on him. But I had my last weapon

still, my last question.

I turned the lantern full on his face; I leaned forward again, and said,

in distinct, low tones--and the question sounded an absurd one to be

spoken in such an impressive way:

"Do you generally wear clothes like these?"

I had got home with that question. The pallor vanished; the haughty eyes

sank. I saw long, drooping lashes and a burning flush; and the boy's

face once again sought his hands.

At the moment I heard chairs pushed back in the kitchen. In came

Hogvardt, with an amused smile on his broad face; in came Watkins, with

his impassive acquiescence in anything that his lordship might order; in

came Master Denny, brandishing his whip in jovial relentlessness.

"Well, has he told you anything?" cried Denny. It was plain that he

hoped for the answer "No."

"I have asked him half a dozen questions," said I, "and he has not

answered one."

"All right," said Denny, with wonderful emphasis.

Had I been wrong to extort this much punishment for my most inhospitable

reception? Sometimes now I think that it was cruel. In that night much

had occurred to breed viciousness in a man of the most equable temper.

But the thing had now gone to the extreme limit to which it could; and I

said to Denny:

"It's a gross case of obstinacy, of course, Denny; but I don't see very

well how we can horsewhip the lady!"

A sudden, astounded cry, "The lady!" rang from three pairs of lips; the

lady herself dropped her head on the table, and fenced her face round

about with her protecting arms.

"You see," said I, "this lad is the Lady Euphrosyne."

For who else could it be that would give orders to Constantine

Stefanopoulos, and ask where "my people" were? Who else, I also asked

myself, save the daughter of the noble house, would boast the air, the

hands, the face, that graced our young prisoner? In all certainty it was

Lady Euphrosyne.