CHAPTER XXV.

NOT THE LAST WORD.

As soon as he could decently leave his cousin at home, he did; and then

he walked hastily down to the house in which Mrs. Rosewarne had taken

rooms. Miss Rosewarne was not at home, the small maid-servant said. Was

Mrs. Rosewarne? Yes; so he would see her.

He went up stairs, never thinking how his deep trouble about so

insignificant an incident would strike a third person.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said right out, "I want you to tell me if Wenna

wishes our acquaintance to end. Has she been speaking to you? Just now

she passed me in the street as if she did not wish to see me again."

"Probably," said Mrs. Rosewarne, amused as well as surprised by the

young man's impetuosity, "she did not see you then. Wenna often passes

people so. Most likely she was thinking about other things, for she had

another letter from Jamaica just before she went out."

"Oh, she has had another letter from Jamaica this morning?" Trelyon

said, with an angry light appearing in his eyes. "That is it, is it?"

"I don't understand you," Mrs. Rosewarne was saying, when both of them

heard Wenna enter below.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said with a sudden entreaty in his voice, "would

you mind letting me see Wenna alone for a couple of minutes? I want to

ask her if she is offended with me: you won't mind, will you?"

"Not in the least," she said, good-naturedly; and then she added, at the

door, "Mind, Mr. Trelyon, Wenna is easily hurt. You must speak gently to

her."

About a minute afterward Wenna, having laid her hat and shawl aside,

came into the room. When she found Trelyon there alone, she almost

shrank back, and her face paled somewhat: then she forced herself to go

forward and shake hands with him, though her face still wore a

frightened and constrained look.

"Wenna," he said, "don't go away: I want to speak to you for a minute.

You are offended with me about something, and I want you to tell me why.

If you wish our friendship to cease, say so, and I will obey you; but

you must tell me why first."

"I am not offended with you, Mr. Trelyon," she said in a low and nervous

voice. "Do not think that. But--but I think it will be better if you

will let our friendship cease, as you say."

"Oh no," he said, "I will not in this fashion. You've got to tell me

what is the matter first. Now remember this. Not very long ago you chose

to quarrel with me about nothing--absolutely about nothing. You know

quite well that I meant no harm to you by lending Mr. Roscorla that

money, yet you must needs flare up and give it me as hot as you could,

all for nothing. What could I do? Why, only wait until you saw what a

mistake you had made."

"It was very wrong of me," she said: "I ask your forgiveness. But now it

is quite different: I am not angry with you at all. I should like to

remain your friend, and yet I think it better not. I--I cannot explain

to you, Mr. Trelyon, and I am sure you won't ask me when I say so."

He looked at her for a moment, and then he said, gently and yet firmly,

"Look here, Wenna. You think I am only a boy--that may or may not

be--but I am going to talk reasonably to you for once. Come over to this

chair by the window and sit down."

She followed him in passive obedience. She took the one chair, he the

other.

"Perhaps I am only a boy," he said, "but I have knocked about a good

deal, and I have kept my eyes as wide open as most folks. I suppose

ill-natured people might say that as I had nothing to do at Eglosilyan,

I wanted to have a flirtation with the only girl who was handy. I know

better. Year after year I saw more and more of you, bit by bit, and that

after I had been abroad or living in other places in England from time

to time. I got to believe that I had never seen anywhere any girl or

woman who was so honest as you are, and good in a dozen secret ways that

needed a deal of discovering. I found out far more about you than you

imagined. I heard of you in cottages that you never knew I was in; and

everything I heard made me respect you more and more. Mind this, too. I

had no sort of personal liking for the sort of thing you were doing. I

don't admire beastly little rooms and poverty and sick people as

appealing to a fine sentiment. There never was anything of the parson or

the benevolent old lady about me. I would rather give half a crown to an

impertinent little boy who had just whopped another boy bigger than

himself than give a halfpenny tract to a sickly child in its mother's

arms: that's original sin in me, I suppose. But all that squalid sort of

work you were in only made the jewel shine the more. I used to think I

should like to marry a very grand woman, who could be presented at court

without a tremor, who would come into a drawing-room as if she was

conferring a favor on the world at large; and I certainly never thought

I should find the best and finest woman I had ever seen in back kitchens

sewing pinafores for children. And then when I found her there, wasn't

it natural I should put some store by her friendship? I suppose you

didn't know what I thought of you, Wenna, because I kept chaffing you

and Mabyn? I have told you something of it now; and now I want you to

say whether you have a right to shunt me off like this, without a word

of explanation."

She sat still, silent and nervous. The rude and impetuous eloquence of

his speech, broken by many a hesitating stammer, had touched her. There

was more thoughtfulness and tenderness in this wild lad than she had

supposed.

"How can I explain?" she burst out suddenly. "I should cover myself with

shame!"

"And what have you to be ashamed of?" he said with a stare. The distress

she was obviously suffering was so great that he had almost a mind to

take her at her word and leave the house without further ado.

Just at this moment, when he was considering what would be the most

generous thing to do, she seemed to nerve herself to speak to him, and

in a low and measured voice she said, "Yes, I will tell you. I have had

a letter this morning from Mr. Roscorla. He asks me if it is true that

you are paying me such attention that people notice it; and he asks me

if that is how I keep my promise to him."

Something like a quiver of rage passed through the young man at this

moment, but his teeth were kept firmly together. She did not look up to

his face.

"That is not all. I must tell you that I was deeply shocked and grieved

by this letter; but on looking back over the past six weeks I think a

suspicious person might have been justified in complaining to Mr.

Roscorla. And--and--and, Mr. Trelyon, did you see that dried flower in

my Prayer-book last night?"

Her resolution was fast ebbing away: he could see that her hands were

clasped piteously together.

"Yes, I did," he said boldly.

"And oh what could you have thought of me?" she cried in her distress.

"Indeed, Mr. Trelyon, it was all a mistake. I did not keep the flower--I

did not, indeed. And when I thought you had seen it I could have died

for shame."

"And why?" he said in a way that made her lift up her startled eyes to

his face. There was a strange look there, as of a man who had suddenly

resolved to dare his fate, and yet was imploringly anxious as to the

result. "For you have been frank with me, and so will I be with you. Why

should you not have kept that flower? Yes, I sent it to you, and with

all the purpose that such a thing could carry. Yes, you may be as angry

as you please; only listen, Wenna. You don't love that man whom you are

engaged to marry; you know in your heart that you do not believe in his

love for you; and are you surprised that people should wish to have you

break off an engagement that will only bring you misery?"

"Mr. Trelyon!"

"Wenna, one minute: you must hear me. Do with my offer what you

like--only here it is: give me the power to break off this engagement,

and I will. Give me the right to do that. Don't mind me in the matter.

It is true I love you--there, I will say it again: there is nothing I

think of from morning till night but my love for you--and if you would

say that some time I might ask you to be my wife, you would give me more

happiness than you could dream of. But I don't wish that now. I will

remain your friend if you like, Wenna; only let me do this thing for

you, and when you are free you can then say yes or no."

She rose, not proud and indignant, but weeping bitterly. "I have

deserved this," she said, apparently overwhelmed with mortification and

self-reproach. "I have earned this shame, and I must bear it. I do not

blame you, Mr. Trelyon: it is I who have done this. How many weeks is it

since the man left England to whom I promised to be faithful? and

already--But this I can do, Mr. Trelyon: I will bid you good-bye now,

and I will never see you again."

Her face was quite pale. She held out her hand.

"No," he said firmly. "We don't part like that, Wenna. First, let me say

that you have nothing to accuse yourself of. You have done nothing and

said nothing of which any man, however mean and suspicious, could

complain. Perhaps I was too hasty in speaking of my love for you. In

that case I've got to pay for my folly."

"And it is folly, Mr. Trelyon," she said passionately, and yet with

nothing but tenderness in her face. "How could you have thought of

marrying me? Why, the future that ought to lie before you is far more

than you can imagine yet; and you would go and hamper it by marrying an

innkeeper's daughter! It is folly indeed, and you will see that very

soon. But--but I am very sorry all this has occurred: it is another

grief to me that I have troubled you. I think I was born to bring grief

to all my friends."

He was anxiously debating what he should do; and he needed all his wits

at that moment, for his own feelings were strong within him, and

clamoring for expression. Should he insist? Should he bear down all

opposition? Happily, quieter counsels prevailed, for there was no

mistake as to the absolute truthfulness of what the girl had said.

"Well, Wenna," he said, "I will do anything you like, only to remain

your friend. Is that possible? Will you forgive all that I have said if

I make you a promise not to repeat it, and never again to mention your

engagement to Mr. Roscorla?"

"No, we must part now altogether," she said slowly. Then by haphazard

she glanced up at his face for a moment, and there was a great sadness

in her eyes. "It is a hard thing to part. Perhaps it will not be

necessary that you should never come to see me. But we must not be

friends as we have been, for I have my duty to do toward him."

"Then I may come to see you sometimes?"

She hesitated: "You may come to see my mother sometimes. And I will

always think of you as a dear friend, whether I see you or not."

He went outside, and drew a long breath. "I had to keep a tight grip on

the reins that time," he was thinking to himself--"a precious tight

grip; but I did it."

He thought of the look there was in her eyes when she finally bid him

goodbye. His face grew the happier as he thought of it. He was clearly

not at all down-hearted about his rejection: on the contrary, he went

and told his cousin Juliott that the little affair of the morning had

been quite satisfactorily arranged, that Miss Wenna and he were very

good friends again, and that it was quite a mistake to imagine that she

was already married to Mr. Roscorla.

"Harry," said his cousin, "I strictly forbid you to mention that

gentleman's name."

"Why, Jue?" he said.

"Because I will not listen to the bad language you invariably use

whenever you speak of him; and you ought to remember that you are in a

clergyman's house. I wonder Miss Rosewarne is not ashamed to have your

acquaintance, but I dare say you amend your ways when you are in her

presence. She'll have plenty to reform if ever she takes you for a

husband."

"That's true enough, Jue," the young man said penitently. "I believe I'm

a bad lot, but then look at the brilliant contrast which the future will

present. You know that my old grandmother is always saying to me,

'Harry, you were born with as many manners as most folks, and you've

used none; so you'll have a rare stock to come and go on when you

begin.'"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

FEVER.

At present all branches of Science possess an intrinsic interest for

every intelligent man, but such elementary knowledge as enables its

possessor to understand the explanations of the medical attendant has a

double value. Over and over again I have heard the remark when some bold

successful treatment was being discussed, "But you would not have dared

to do that in private practice." The days of medical mystification are

not yet entirely passed, but year by year the profession is assuredly

losing that peculiar virtue of office which it formerly possessed in so

eminent a degree. The doctor is no longer a dignified personage with

gold-headed cane and powdered wig, mounting the mansion steps with

stately tread, but a busy man in various garb, hurrying from house to

house, studying the multitudinous problems of disease, and applying the

fruits of such study to the relief of individual cases. No longer able

to awe his patients into obedience, he must rely upon his moral and

intellectual powers in controlling them. To enable any one to understand

the explanations of physicians, and to protect himself, by discovery,

against the impudent assumptions of quacks, some knowledge of medical

truths and of the drift of modern medical thought is necessary. Every

successful physician, no matter how independent he may be by nature, is

necessarily more or less cramped by the prejudices of patients--prejudices

which often a little primary instruction would have done away with.

Of all the diseased processes fever is one of the most frequent and one

of the most serious in their results. A discussion, therefore, of its

nature, the method of its production and of its relief, will, it may be

hoped, engage the attention of the general reader.

If the hand be laid upon the skin of a person in a high fever the

attention is at once attracted by the great heat, and if the bulb of a

thermometer be placed under the tongue or in the armpit of the patient

the mercury may indicate a temperature of 107°, 108°, 109°, or even 110°

Fahrenheit, instead of 98° to 99° Fahrenheit, the normal temperature of

the human body. It is a common belief that the skin in fever is always

dry as well as hot, but this is a mistake, as intense fever may coexist

with a reeking perspiration. During the fever the pulse is greatly

increased in frequency, the head aches and throbs, and if the attack be

very severe restlessness, sudden startings, irregular muscular

twitchings, or even violent epileptiform convulsions and stupor,

delirium or coma, indicate the disturbance of the nervous system.

These various symptoms are simply results of the excess of caloric,

which excites universal irritation, and, if prolonged, destroys the

tissues. This fact I have verified by three series of experiments, by

the first of which it was shown that the general application of external

heat so as to raise the bodily temperature produces all the phenomena of

fever; by the second, that the local application of heat to the brain

and to the heart causes the nervous and circulatory disturbances so

universally seen in fever; and by the third that the abstraction of heat

in fever is followed by immediate subsidence of the other symptoms.

If a small animal, such as a dog, cat or rabbit, be placed in a chamber

heated by means of the sun's rays falling upon a slanting glass roof or

by some artificial method to a temperature of considerably over one

hundred degrees, a very constant series of phenomena is developed. The

breathing becomes hurried and the pulse greatly quickened, whilst the

restless movements of the body indicate nervous distress. After a time,

if the exposure be continued, the symptoms are intensified, and

restlessness passes into the weakness of partial paralysis; then

suddenly or gradually, with or without convulsions, stupor sets in,

deepening into coma, and death from arrested respiration is the final

result. If the temperature of the animal be tested from time to time

during the exposure, it will be found to rise steadily, and the severity

of the symptoms will be directly, and in any one species constantly,

proportional to the intensity of the bodily heat.

The nervous system of man apparently resists the action of heat, but in

reality it does not do so. Man, it is true, is the only animal that can

thrive almost equally amidst arctic snows and in tropical jungles. This

is not, however, because his nervous system lacks sensitiveness, but

because he has the power of heating or cooling his body in such a manner

that its temperature is comparatively unaffected by that of the

surrounding air. Man might be well defined as the naked sweating animal.

In the north he strips the bear and the fox of their coat to keep him

warm; in the south his own skin acts as a refrigerator. The dog has a

few sweat-glands about the mouth--man has two millions densely covering

his body. In the horse exposed to heat the hair soon becomes wet and

matted, interfering very greatly with evaporation; in man the bare skin

offers an excellent surface, from which the perspiration passes off

almost as fast as formed. Evaporation, conversion of a liquid into a

vapor, means a steady conversion of sensible heat into what was

formerly called latent heat, but what we now know to be repulsive force:

the heat-energy of the body is lost in driving the particles of sweat

asunder in the form of vapor.

It is possible, however, to have a temperature which even a Hindoo

cannot resist. When a man is exposed to such a heat his bodily

temperature rises, and as it rises the symptoms of fever develop

precisely as they do in the lower animals--sometimes slowly, sometimes

suddenly--with disturbances of the respiration, circulation and

innervation precisely similar to those already noticed as occurring in

the dog, the cat and the rabbit. Sunstroke, or thermic fever, is

generally believed to be instantaneous in its onset, but the wide

experience of the English in India has shown that whilst in some cases

it is thus sudden in its development, in others it is a slow process,

and probably in almost all cases close observation would have revealed

the existence of premonitions.

External heat, by producing an internal rise of temperature, may thus

cause all the phenomena of fever. Of these phenomena the most prominent

is disturbance of the nervous system and of the circulation. In order to

determine whether the heat itself directly causes the nervous

disturbance, or whether it produces it indirectly by causing changes in

the blood, I applied caloric directly to the brains of animals. This was

done by fitting a hog's bladder like a bonnet over the head and allowing

hot water to run through it. It was found that stupor, coma,

convulsions, and finally death from arrest of the respiration, were

produced, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, precisely as in the

case of exposure of the animal in a hot chamber. Moreover, on opening

the skull and plunging a thermometer into the cerebrum immediately after

death or the supervention of unconsciousness, it was found that these

phenomena were developed at the same brain-temperature when the heat was

locally applied as when the animal was exposed in the hot box. Thus, if

any given species in the hot box became unconscious when the temperature

reached 110° Fahrenheit, this species also became unconscious when the

locally-heated brain attained a temperature of 110°; or if death

occurred by arrest of the respiration in the hot box at 114°, so did it

when the locally-heated brain reached that point.

Dr. Lauder Brunton of England has performed a series of experiments upon

the circulation parallel to those just narrated. Anæsthetizing animals

and exposing the heart, he has found that the action of that organ is

accelerated and weakened by the local application of heat, precisely as

occurs in fever.

In order to test the effect of the withdrawal of heat, I have taken a

rabbit out of the hot chamber, in which it lay upon its side totally

unconscious, and plunged it into a bucket of cold water. The temperature

of the water rose rapidly, whilst that of the rabbit fell even more

rapidly. As soon as the bodily heat approached its normal intensity

consciousness returned, and in a few moments the animal, which had just

before been at the point of death, was running about the grass.

Some months since I had an opportunity of repeating this experiment upon

a human being.

In acute inflammatory rheumatism it sometimes happens that the swelling

and pain of the joints suddenly disappear, and the patient becomes

comatose or wildly delirious. It has been customary to explain these

symptoms as the result of the rheumatism leaving the joints and

attacking the brain. Evidently, this being the case, the proper thing to

do was to irritate the joints so as to draw the rheumatism back to them.

This method was formerly practiced, and the almost invariable result was

death in a few hours.

In most if not all of these frightful cases of sudden accession of

severe nervous symptoms in rheumatism the temperature will be found, on

testing it, to be exceedingly high--108°, 109° or even 110° Fahrenheit.

If the views advocated in this paper be correct, it is not the

rheumatism, but the intense bodily heat, which causes the severe

symptoms, and finally death. The joints lose their sensitiveness, not

because the disease has left them, but because the heat so overpowers

the brain that it has lost its power of perception: the patient's leg

might be cut off without his feeling it. In such a case the proper

treatment is to take away the heat by plunging the patient into a cold

bath. But can there be anything more shocking to the universal belief

and prejudices than to put a patient dying of acute rheumatism into an

almost ice-cold bath?

Last spring there was in my ward in the Philadelphia Hospital a stout

young Irishman who had passed through an acute attack of inflammatory

rheumatism, and was suffering from a sharp relapse. Entering the ward

one day, I saw at once that the man was unconscious, and turning to the

resident physician asked, "What is the matter with James?" "Nothing,"

was the reply: "I saw him an hour and a half ago, and he was doing very

well, except that the fever was very high." "He is dying now, at any

rate," was my rejoinder. On going to the bedside the patient was found

perfectly unconscious, the skin dry and intensely hot, the affected

joints pale and devoid of sensibility, the breathing irregular and

jerking, the pulse 170 and scarcely perceptible, every muscle relaxed as

in death, every power of perception abolished. A thermometer placed in

the armpit registered 108-4/5° Fahrenheit.

Believing that the symptoms were due simply to this excessive

temperature, I ordered the man to be at once stripped and put in a full

bath drawn from the cold-water spigot. The temperature of this bath was

found to be 60° Fahrenheit. In one minute and a half after the patient

had been placed in the tub he recovered consciousness sufficiently to

put out his tongue when told to do so in a loud, commanding tone. In

three minutes he began to struggle to get out and to complain of the

cold. In six minutes and a half he had become quite rational. He was now

taken out, only partially wiped, laid upon an India-rubber blanket and

covered with a single sheet, the temperature of the room being between

65° and 70°. Three minutes after this the temperature in the armpit was

94°, in the mouth 105-3/5°; five minutes later the mouth-thermometer

marked 103°, and the pain and tenderness had reappeared in the affected

joints. It would be out of place here to give further details as to his

treatment. It is enough to state that, although owing to a

misunderstanding of my orders, the man was left in a cool room for

twelve hours upon the gum blanket, wet and covered only with a sheet--or

possibly because he was so left--he recovered without a relapse or any

bad symptoms.

The first case in which the cold-water treatment was practiced in the

Philadelphia Hospital was that of a woman suffering from a desperate

relapse of typhoid fever. She was semi-comatose, with a pulse of 150 and

a temperature of 107° Fahrenheit: death was seemingly inevitable and

imminent. As the bath-tubs were not convenient, the order was given that

the woman be laid upon an India-rubber cloth, and be wrapped simply in a

sheet constantly wet with water at a temperature as near 32° as

practicable. The nurses, aghast, refused at first to carry out the

order, but the physician's power being despotic, obedience was enforced.

About three pints of whisky were given in the twenty-four hours, besides

drugs, the whole treatment being successful.

It has been shown that excessive bodily heat is capable of producing the

various symptoms of fever, and that its withdrawal is followed by the

immediate relief of these symptoms; and since excessive heat is always

present in fever, it is a logical deduction that it is the cause of

fever symptoms; or, in other words, that it is the essential part of

fever.

It must be borne in mind, however, that the term fever is here used in

an abstract sense, to express a general diseased process, a bodily

condition. _A_ fever is a very different thing from fever. We may have

_a_ fever, such as typhoid, without the existence of fever. In a fever,

the fever--_i.e._, the elevation of temperature--is only part of the

disease, and great judgment and experience are often required to decide

how much of the general symptoms is caused by the fever, and how much by

the disease which is the cause of the fever.

The importance of high temperature having been recognized, it becomes a

matter of the gravest scientific and practical interest to determine the

method in which it is produced.

There are only two systems which bind the body together--namely, the

circulation and the nervous system. As fever is usually a universal

phenomenon, occurring simultaneously in every part of the body, it must

be produced either through the nervous system or by a poison in the

blood acting simultaneously on every tissue. Every physician knows,

however, that there are cases of fever in which there has been no

introduction of a poison into the blood: hence it follows that at least

sometimes fever must be produced by the nervous system.

This being so, the study of the influence of the nervous system upon

animal heat is naturally the next step in our investigation. Before

making this step it may be well to call to mind the fact that chemical

processes are usually accompanied either by the giving out or the

withdrawal of heat. Thus, the chemical actions which result when ice and

salt are mixed cause a withdrawal of heat, and a "freezing mixture" is

formed. When a candle is burnt, the oxidation of its constituents, a

chemical process, evolves heat. Oxidation is the great source of

artificial heat, and animal heat is chiefly generated by the same

process; in other words, animal heat is always the product of the

chemical movements of the body, and these movements are almost

exclusively of the character of oxidation. In the animal tissues a

lessened oxidation is equivalent to a lessened heat-production, and

_vise versâ_.

If a large nerve be exposed in one of the lower animals, and a galvanic

current be sent through it for half a minute or more, the temperature of

the animal falls very decidedly; and if the irritation be repeated

several times at intervals, the diminution of the animal heat may amount

to several degrees. Galvanization of a nerve affects very powerfully the

circulation, and it has been believed that this derangement was the

cause of the lessened chemical movements. But the alteration of the

circulation is immediate, and ceases almost at once when the current is

broken, whereas the fall of temperature comes on only after several

minutes, then progressively increases, and persists for many minutes--it

may be hours. The two phenomena being thus differently developed, it is

impossible that they should have the relation of cause and effect, and

the fall of temperature must be traced to a direct influence of the

nervous system upon the chemical processes of the body.

This lowering of temperature under the influence of a powerful

irritation of a nerve-trunk or of its minute branches, which everywhere

pervade the tissues and spread out in the skin, is common to all species

of mammals. If a rabbit be merely tied down tightly upon a table, the

fall is perceptible, and if it be severely wounded, the temperature

diminishes very greatly. It has long been known that severe burns are

followed by a very great depression of the animal heat. Redard, a French

physician, made during the late siege of Paris a most interesting series

of observations upon the influence of severe gunshot wounds. He found

that, entirely independent of any hæmorrhage which might have occurred,

the temperature fell enormously, and in direct proportion to the gravity

of the wound; so that by the aid of the thermometer he was able to

predict whether a fatal issue would or would not occur in the course of

a few hours.

We have found that both in man and the lower animals the nervous system

is able to check the chemical movements of the body, but before we can

decide how it does so facts not yet noticed must be looked at.

If the spinal cord of an animal be cut just below the origin of the

nerves of respiration, an immediate fall of temperature occurs, and, if

the animal be left in a cool room, persists until death ensues. If,

however, the victim be put in a warm place, after a time the temperature

begins to rise, and finally a most intense fever is developed. Parallel

phenomena follow division of the spinal cord in man. Indeed, Sir

Benjamin Brodie was first led to experiment upon animals by observing in

1837 an excessive fever follow in a patient a wound of the spinal cord.

I have already explained, in a former number of this Magazine,[2] the

nature of the so-called vaso-motor nerves, which preside over the little

circular muscles that run round and round in the coats of the

blood-vessels. When they are excited, these muscles contract and the

size of the arteries is diminished: when they are paralyzed, the

arterial inner muscles relax and the vessels dilate. The vaso-motor

nerves have their governing centre in that upper portion of the spinal

cord which is within the skull, the so-called medulla oblongata. When

the spinal cord is divided, the vessels are cut off from the influence

of this vaso-motor centre, and at once dilate, profoundly affecting the

blood-current by doing so.

The first fall of temperature which follows division of the cord is

believed by most physiologists to be due to this dilatation of the

vessels. Very probably the blood-stream, flowing sluggishly, does not

give the normal amount of stimulus to the tissues, so that at first

their chemical actions are lessened, and consequently less caloric than

usual is generated in the body. Further, the blood moving slowly through

the dilated vessels of the lungs and of the surface of the body, is

cooled more completely than it should be; hence, unless the body is

protected by being surrounded with warm air, no excessive accumulation

of heat in it can occur, and therefore no fever can appear.

Assuming that this explanation of the primary lowering of the

temperature after division of the cord be correct--and no better one has

as yet been offered--what is the cause of the fever which afterward

develops itself? As it occurs only when the animal is exposed to a

somewhat elevated temperature, it has been thought by some to be due to

the absorption of this external heat. This, however, is certainly not

true, as is shown, to omit less decisive proofs, by the experiments of

Naunyn and Quincke, who exposed animals for two days to a temperature of

90°, and at the end of that time, their bodily temperature not having

risen, cut their spinal cords, after which intense fever was developed

in a few hours without any change of atmosphere.

Section of the cord must therefore give rise to an increased chemical

movement and heat-production in the body. As already stated, this

section affects very greatly the circulation, but the fever is

independent of such action. The upper end of the medulla oblongata is

continuous with a nervous mass which joins the two brain hemispheres

together, and hence is known as the _pons_ or bridge. If, instead of

cutting the spinal cord, we separate the medulla oblongata from the

pons, an _immediate_ rise of temperature occurs, and continues until

death, whether the operation be performed in a cold or heated room.[3]

Cutting the medulla at its junction with the pons causes, then, an

immediate and direct elevation of temperature, without disturbance of

the circulation. What can this mean? Evidently, only one thing--namely,

that by the division of the medulla there has been separated from the

general tissues of the body a repressive force--a something which

normally controls their chemical activity and the production in them of

animal heat.

The existence of nerves whose function is to repress action is no new

discovery in physiology. Readers of _Lippincott's Magazine_ may remember

my description of the pneumogastrics or brake-nerves of the heart, whose

duty it is to control the action of that viscus. Nerves which repress or

inhibit action are spoken of in modern physiology as inhibitory. The

experiments which have been adduced prove that there are nerves whose

function it is to control the general vital chemical actions, and that

the governing centre of these nerves is situated above the medulla

oblongata. To this centre, whose exact location is unknown, the name of

the _inhibitory heat-centre_ has been given.

The way in which galvanization of a nerve, violent injuries and

excessive pain depress the temperature, independently of any action upon

the circulation, is now evident. An impulse simply passes up the

irritated or wounded nerve, and excites this inhibitory heat-centre to

increased action, and the temperature falls because the chemical

movements of the body are repressed.

The method in which fever is produced also becomes very evident when

once the existence of an inhibitory heat-centre has been established.

Any poison having the power to depress, and finally paralyze, this

centre must, if it find entrance to the blood, produce fever. If the

poison, from its inherent properties, or from its being in very small

quantity, only diminishes the activity of the inhibitory heat-centre,

the controlling influence is not entirely removed from the chemical

movements of the body, and only slight fever results; but if the poison

actually paralyzes the inhibitory nerves, a very great rise of

temperature must rapidly follow the complete removal of the brake-power.

As an illustration we may consider the intense rheumatic fever, or the

so-called "cerebral rheumatism," such as affected the young Irishman

whose case has been narrated in the present article. Without any

apparent reason the poison of rheumatism habitually attacks one joint on

one day, and another joint on another day, and with as little apparent

reason it occasionally falls of a sudden upon the inhibitory

heat-centre, and actually paralyzes it. In a few minutes intense fever

is developed, and the bodily temperature rapidly approaches nearer and

nearer that line on the other side of which is death.

In many cases of fever, however, there is no poison in the blood; thus,

the local irritation of a boil or other inflammation may cause what is

well termed "irritative fever." The way in which this is produced is by

an indirect, and not a direct, action upon the inhibitory heat-centre.

The casualties of the late war proved but too abundantly that a man may

be wounded in one part of the body and suffer from paralysis of

voluntary motion in another part. Thus, a soldier struck in the neck

fell unconscious, and on awaking was astonished to find his right arm

powerless at his side. This is the so-called "reflex paralysis." Very

commonly the irritation of a nerve will give rise to an impulse which

will travel up the nerve to a motor-centre, and so excite it that it

shall send in turn an impulse down a second nerve to a distant muscle,

and a spasm result. Sometimes, however, the impulse which travels to the

nerve-centre is of such a character that, instead of exciting it to

action, it deprives it of the power of action. In the former instance

reflex motion, in the latter reflex paralysis, results.

We have seen that galvanization of a nerve may excite the inhibitory

centre to activity, and the peculiar persistent irritation of a local

inflammation may deprive the same centre of its power of action: in the

one instance a reflex inhibitory heat-centre spasm--_i.e._, lowering of

temperature--is produced, and in the other a reflex inhibitory

heat-centre paralysis--_i.e._, fever--results.

It would be going too far at present to assert that all fever is

produced in the way spoken of. There are certain drugs which lower the

temperature in the fever that follows division of the cord and

consequent paralysis of the heat-centre, and which must therefore act

either upon the blood, or universally upon the tissues so as to diminish

their-chemical movements. It is most probable, although not yet

absolutely proved, that there are other substances which act directly

upon the blood and tissues in such a way as to increase their chemical

activities, and thereby cause fever.

The practical considerations in regard to the treatment of disease which

naturally flow from the recent investigations of fever are very

important and very obvious. This is especially true since it has been

shown in Germany that under the influence of a continuous high bodily

temperature, not intense enough at any time to compromise life, all the

muscular tissues of the body undergo a peculiar granular degeneration.

Many a typhoid-fever patient has undoubtedly died from the heart-muscle

having undergone this change, when, if by artificial cooling the

temperature of the body had been kept down, the alteration of the

heart-structure would have been prevented, and death averted. It is

obvious, also, that the old plan of thwarting the intentions of Nature,

and depriving the fever-patient of the free use of cooling drinks, was

practically a baneful cruelty. As the body is burning up in fever, it is

also evident that to deprive it of sustenance is to aid in the

production of fatal exhaustion. The burning will go on, whether food is

given or not, so long as the tissues can serve as fuel. Of course no

more food should be taken than the patient can digest, but every grain

of digested food is so much added to the resources of the system, which

is engaged, it may be, in a close and doubtful conflict with disease.

If it were possible, of course the best treatment for fever would be

that which lessened the production of heat. Fortunately, we have some

drugs--notably, quinine and alcohol--which do exert a decided influence

upon the vital chemical movements, but, unfortunately, their power is

limited. As we are therefore often unable to control heat-production,

the best we can do is to abstract the caloric from the body whenever it

becomes so excessive as to threaten serious results. To do this, all

that is necessary is to put the patient in a cold bath, or wrap him in a

sheet wet with ice-cold water, or lay him upon an ice-mattress, or

surround him with coils of tubing through which cold water runs, or use

some similar efficacious device. I do not wish to be misunderstood.

External cold is not to be lightly employed: it is a powerful two-edged

weapon, capable of cutting both ways--a weapon as injurious and

destructive in the hands of the ignorant and inexperienced as it is

efficient in the hands of those to whom study and experience have taught

its skillful use.

To illustrate what cold water may effect when employed by intelligent

and skillful physicians, I may be permitted to cite a few hospital

statistics from Germany and Switzerland, the only countries where the

so-called antipyretic treatment of continued fever has been efficiently

carried out on a large scale. From 1850 to 1861 there were treated

without cold water, at the hospital at Kiel, 330 cases of typhoid fever,

with 51 deaths--a mortality of about 15-1/2 per cent.; from 1863 to

1866, 160 cases were treated with cold baths, with 5 deaths--a mortality

of only 3-1/10 per cent. In the hospital of Bâle, from 1843 to 1864,

there were 1718 cases without antipyretic treatment, with 469 deaths--a

mortality of about 27-1/2 per cent; from September, 1866, to 1873, 1121

cases were treated antipyretically, with 92 deaths--a mortality of a

little over 8 per cent. Assuredly, we may claim that this

water-treatment in typhoid fever is one of the greatest gains of modern

medicine since the discovery of anæsthesia.

Some of my readers may here say to themselves, "Why, this is

hydropathy!" Not so. It is the legitimate, not the illegitimate, use of

cold water. It is the use of it as a single weapon, not as the only

weapon of the armory. It is the employment of it in a single affection,

not as a cure for all diseases.

Perhaps, in concluding this essay, I may be pardoned one word of counsel

to my lay audience. Any physician who proclaims himself a follower of

any special doctrine, be he a hydropath, an electropath, an allopath, a

homoeopath, or any other _path_, should be viewed with suspicion. Water,

cold, heat, electricity, drugs, are all agents capable of being used

advantageously in the treatment of disease. Above all men, the physician

ought to have that teachable spirit which is the offspring of true

humility. Knowing the grave responsibilities which he assumes, living

almost beneath the shadow of that past whose life-imperiling mistakes

are so plainly visible in the light of the present, he, of all men,

should be ever seeking for new knowledge, gathering with equal zest the

seeds of healing in the waste as well as in the cultivated places,

amongst the lowest and most ignorant of the populace, as well as in

far-famed schools of medicine.

H.C. WOOD, JR., M.D.

SONNET.

Young bride, that findest not a single star

Shining to-night with longed for prophecy,

Though snowy drifts are swelling near and far,

They need not chill thy happy hope and thee.

If blue had overarched the earth all day,

And heaven were brilliant with its stars to-night,

"A happy omen!" many a guest would say,

And think that Fortune blessed the sacred rite.

Be superstition far from thee, sweet soul:

This snowy robe, in unison with thine,

Nature will doff to-morrow, and the whole

Of this white waste in spring-like freshness shine.

If love be strong, then all adversity

Will melt like snow, and life the greener be.

CHARLOTTE F. BATES.

SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF HIRAM POWERS.

There are--or were--many at Florence whose recollections of Hiram Powers

stretch over the best part of a quarter of a century; and there are few

men of whom it could with equal truth and accuracy be said that such

recollections are wholly pleasant in their character to the survivors

and honorable to the subject of them. He was in truth universally

respected by people of all classes, and by Americans and English, as

well as Italians, in the city of his adoption, and personally liked and

esteemed by all who had the good fortune to be among his friends.

Recollections such as these are, I say, the property of very many at

Florence. But there is no one in that city--there _was_ during his

life no one in that city, not even she who during a long life was a

companion, friend, partner and helpmeet in every sense admirable for

him--whose recollections went back to so early a period as mine did.

When I came to Florence with my mother in 1841, intending to make a home

there for a few years, we found, with some surprise and much pleasure,

Hiram Powers, with a wife and children, settled there as a sculptor. It

was long since, in the course of the changes and chances of life, we had

lost sight of him, but the meeting was none the less pleasurable to, I

think I may say, both parties. It was at Cincinnati in 1829 that my

mother and myself first knew him. My mother, who had long been an

acquaintance of General La Fayette, became thus the intimate friend of

his ward, Frances Wright. Fascinated by the talent, the brilliancy and

the singular eloquence of that remarkable and highly-gifted woman, and

at the same time anxious to find a career for one of her sons (not the

well-known author of the present day, but another brother, long since

dead), whose wishes and proclivities adapted him for a life of more

activity and adventure than that of one of our home-abiding professions,

my mother was persuaded by her to join her in a scheme which at that

time was engaging all her singularly large powers of energy and

enthusiasm, the object of which was to found at New Harmony--I think,

though I am not sure whether Frances Wright's colony was not another,

separate from that of New Harmony--an establishment which was in some

way or other to contribute to the emancipation of the slaves, mainly, I

imagine, by showing that under proper management they were not unfitted

for freedom. The fate of that philanthropic scheme is too well known to

make it necessary for me to rehearse the story of it here, imperfectly

known to me as it is. The upshot was, that my mother and brother were

induced to go to Cincinnati and attempt other plans, the final result of

which was also a failure. I had had no share in these Transatlantic

projects, being at the time a scholar at Winchester in the college of

William of Wykeham. But between quitting Winchester, at the age of

eighteen, and going to Oxford, I had a period of liberty of nearly a

twelvemonth, the greater part of which I devoted to accompanying my

father on a visit to Cincinnati. And there I became acquainted with

Powers, a very few years only my senior, whom I found already the valued

friend of my mother and brother.

He was at that time--I well remember the look of him--a tall, lanky, but

remarkably handsome lad, somewhat awkward in person, but with a calm but

at the same time intellectually expressive beauty of feature which

marked him as one of Nature's noblemen. His eyes were the most

noticeable point about him. They were magnificent--large, clear,

well-opened, and expressive of calm thought and the working of the

intellect rather than of shrewdness or passion. His manner, I remember,

was marked by an exceeding simpleness, and a sort of innocent and

dignified straightforwardness which much impressed me. Altogether, my

acquaintance with him was a contribution of a new sort to the education

of my mind. I had passed eight years in the acquisition of those things

which an English "gentleman's education" is supposed to offer. These

things (in the year 1829) consisted in a very fair knowledge of Latin

and Greek. Unquestionably, the eight years which I had spent in learning

those languages had brought with them other advantages and other

teachings of an altogether priceless sort. But what they professedly had

taught me, what I then considered as the net result of my eight years at

school, was a competent knowledge of Latin and Greek, and nothing else.

Now, here was a young man of my own age, or little more, about whose

idiosyncrasy there was something especially _simpatico_ to me, as

the Italians say--who knew nothing whatever of the only things which I

knew, but knew a whole world of things of which I was profoundly

ignorant. I was (of course) full of prejudices also--ecclesiastical

prejudices, class prejudices, political prejudices, caste

prejudices--all of which were as unintelligible to my new friend as they

would have been to a red Indian. He was singularly free from prejudice

of any kind--a sort of original, blank-paper mind, on which nothing had

been written save what he had consciously written there himself as the

result of his own observations of life. I knew other young Americans,

and perceived and could have pointed out characteristics which

distinguished them. But Powers was not like them. He seemed to me a sort

of Adam, a fresh, new and original _man_, unclassable and

unjudgable by any of the formulas or prejudices which served me as means

of appreciating men. Despite all this--perhaps because of all this--we

soon became great friends. I very shortly discovered that he was wholly

and entirely truthful. His "yes" was _yes,_ his "no" was _no_;

and not only that, but what is much rarer still, his "five" or "six" was

not five and a quarter or six and a half, but _five_ or _six_.

I remember in him then what I recognized after many, many years in later

life, and what is often so amusing a characteristic in simple, upright

and truthful minds--the notion that on occasion he could be deep enough

to outwit the cunning of the unscrupulous, whereas his loyal

unsuspiciousness of evil was such that he might have been cheated by the

first shallow rogue who chose to exercise his vulpine craft against him.

When I reached Cincinnati I found him intimate with my brother, and a

favorite with my mother, who had formed a high opinion both of his

character and of his talents. The latter had already very markedly

manifested themselves in that direction which finally decided his career

in life. Yet there was little of that dreamy and enthusiastic worship

for the abstract beautiful which is generally supposed to be the marking

characteristic of the artistic temperament. But he had a wonderful

faculty of executing with his hands whatever his mind had conceived, and

a mind singularly active in invention and in devising means for the

execution of a mechanical end. Had circumstances not made him a

sculptor, he might have been--probably would have been--a successful

inventor, mechanician or engineer. Throughout life he was an eminently

and specially _practical_ man--a man whose tendency was not to

dream, but to _do_. That artistic temperament, as it is generally

called, which so often manifests itself in exactly the opposite

direction--in a tendency to dream rather than to do, and to allow the

pleasures of the ideal to incapacitate those who indulge in them for

real work--was so little his that I have never known a more industrious

and conscientious worker with his hands. And there was nothing to which

he could not turn them, and that with a degree of skill that would often

put to shame the attempts of members of the craft which he might be

essaying for the first time.

At that time Hiram Powers was, as the saying is, living upon his wits;

and they, being such as I have described them, were not likely to fail

in producing the wherewithal to do so. There was at that period a little

Frenchman named Dorfeuille at Cincinnati--not a bad sort of little man,

I believe, and with some amount of literary and other talent. But he

also being engaged in the operation of living on his wits, or mainly so,

and not finding them so abundantly sufficient for the purpose as those

of my young friend, thought that he too might in part live on the wits

of the latter; and during the time of my stay at Cincinnati he did so to

the satisfaction of both parties. This Dorfeuille was the proprietor of

a museum, the main and most attractive portion of which was a number of

wax figures. But the Cincinnati public was not large enough in those

days to supply a constant stream of fresh spectators, and, though there

was little in the way of public amusement to compete with M.

Dorfeuille's museum, the Cincinnati people soon got tired of looking at

the same show; and but for the happy chance which brought him into

contact with Hiram Powers, M. Dorfeuille must have packed up his museum

and sought "fresh woods and pastures new." But with the advent of young

Powers, and the contents of the museum given over to his creating brain

and clever fingers, a period of halcyon days and new prosperity

commenced for the little Frenchman and his show. With the materials at

his disposition all things were possible to the young artist, to whom

such a chance gave the first clear consciousness of his own powers. New

combinations, new names, new costuming, alterations of figures, etc.

etc. were adopted to produce fine effects and amuse the public with

constant novelties. For the invention of these Powers often used to

consult my mother, whose suggestions he never failed to carry into

effect, to the great amusement of both parties. On one occasion an idea

struck her, which, when she communicated it to him, fired the

imagination of Powers and turned out a great success. This was nothing

less than to give a representation of some of the more striking scenes

of Dante's _Divina Commedia_. The idea was a sufficiently audacious

one. But "audaces Fortuna juvat." Powers scouted the notion of

difficulty. My mother was to draw up the programme, and he undertook,

with the materials furnished him by the museum, and with the help of

some of his own handiwork, to give scenic reality to her suggestions.

The result, as I have said, was a brilliant success. I have a copy of

the "bill" that was issued to the public inviting them to the exhibition

in question, which is a curiosity in its way, and which I must give the

reader. It is drawn up in high sensational style, with lines of

different lengths and boldness, and printed in all the different sorts

of capitals which the printer's case afforded. I cannot occupy space

with any imitation of these typographical magnificences, but will simply

copy the language of the bill. It must have been my mother's

composition, and Powers had to work up to it, which he did to the

letter:

"The World to come, as described by Dante, and comprising, Hell,

Purgatory, and Paradise, will be exhibited in a room adjoining the

Western Museum on the 4th of July, and days following. Admittance,

twenty-five cents. In the centre is seen a grand colossal figure of

Minos, the Judge of Hell. He is seated at the entrance of the

INFERNAL REGIONS [enormous capitals]. His right hand is raised as

in the act to pronounce sentence, his left holding a two-pronged

sceptre. Above his head is a scroll on which are written the

concluding words of Dante's celebrated inscription, 'Abandon hope,

all ye who enter here!' To the right of this figure the foreground

presents a frozen lake, on the surface of which are seen the heads

of those who have been doomed to this species of punishment. Among

these is the head of Ugolino, whom Dante describes as eternally

gnawing the head of his enemy, who, after placing him and his three

sons in the upper chamber of a strong tower near Florence, threw

the key of it into the moat and left them to perish with hunger.

Grinning in mockery of these ice-bound sufferers, A BLACK IMP

[biggest extra black capitals] is seated on a rock, dandling a

young monster. On the edge of the opposite side of the frozen lake

stands a spirit, who is just about to endure the frozen torment;

and his attitude and countenance express the agony of extreme cold.

Behind him opens the fiery gulf, the reflection of whose lurid

glare is seen on his half-frozen body. At his feet a female head,

fixed in the ice, looks up to the flames, as longing for their

warmth; while a little way within the lake of fire another head is

seen gazing with longing eyes upon the ice. A brilliant fountain of

flame is in the midst of the lake, and around it crowds of

condemned spirits in all varieties of suffering. In one corner a

fiend is proclaiming their infamy by the aid of a trumpet through

all the depths of Hell. Birds and animals of hideous form and evil

omen are fluttering over the heads and tormenting the sufferers.

Large icicles hang from the rocks that form the Gate of Hell, and

reflect on their bright surface the red glare of the fires within.

On the left of Minos is seen a Skeleton ascending a column of

Icicles and holding a standard bearing these lines:

"'To this grim form our cherished limbs have come,

And thus lie mouldering in their earthly home.

In turf-bound hillock or in sculptured shrine

The worms alike their cold caresses twine.

So far we all are equal; but once left

Our mortal weeds, of vital spark bereft,

Asunder farther than the poles we're driven--

Some sunk to deepest Hell, some raised to highest Heaven.'

"Still farther on the left of Minos, and melting into distance

behind him, is seen the shadowy region of Purgatory. Four bright

stars--the Cardinal Virtues--give a delicate and cheering light

amid the gloom. A group of figures loaded with the burthen of their

sins are about to plunge into the lake of purgatorial waters, in

the hope of depositing them there. A boat wafted by the wings of an

Angel is bearing departed, souls toward Heaven; and near it is a

column of pale light to direct its course. In the distance is the

mountain that divides Purgatory from Heaven; and Beatrice, the

departed mistress of Dante, is standing on its summit, encouraging

him to proceed with her to Heaven, where his former guide, Virgil,

cannot be admitted (being a Pagan). Groups of Pilgrims who have

passed through Purgatory are ascending the mountain. Still farther

to the left, and opening in unbroken splendor above the head of

Beatrice, is seen the Heaven of Heavens. The golden light pours

down on the heads of the Pilgrims, and angels are seen floating in

the air and encouraging their efforts. The foreground of this part

of the scene presents various objects to cheer the spirit of the

Pilgrims in their passage through Purgatory. The entrance indeed is

rocky, but shrubs and flowers adorn it, and the Dove, the bird of

Hope, is bearing the olive-branch before them."

If all that was packed into "a room adjoining the Western Museum," the

sight of it must, I think, be admitted to have been a cheap twenty-five

cents' worth. The Cincinnati world of hard upon half a century ago

judged it to be so, and flocked to the exhibition in crowds. But very

soon the versatile and indefatigable artist devised new means of still

further stimulating the curiosity and excitement of his public. A bar

ran across the exhibition-room, dividing the space allotted to the

spectators from that occupied by the scenery and objects provided for

their amusement. But since the available space was, as may easily be

imagined, somewhat limited, it came to pass that the foremost

spectators, being often of that class of persons who see with the ends

of their fingers, would stretch out their arms and audaciously touch

"the Black Imp," or "the Skeleton," or Minos himself, or any other of

the _dramatis personæ_ they could reach, to the damage of those

somewhat perishable properties. A notice was therefore placarded in the

room, written in flame-colored letters and couched in the choicest

bugaboo phraseology, warning all such indiscreet persons that the

denizens of the Infernal Regions could not be touched by mortal hands

with impunity, and that _immediate_ punishment would visit

transgressors. Of course it was foreseen that such threats would not

avail to restrain, but would rather stimulate the curiosity of the

disciples of Saint Thomas. But, sure enough, the threatened punishment,

by no means "_pede claudo_" followed in every case--very accurately

with the speed of lightning--on the transgression; for Powers had

cunningly contrived, preparing it all with his own hand, that a sharp

electric shock should be communicated to each audacious hand that braved

the prohibition. The astonishment, the terror, and subsequently the fun,

produced by this ingenious device may easily be imagined. The sufferers,

like the fox who had lost his tail, brought their friends, and enjoyed

the fun of leading them into the same scrape. The "room adjoining the

Western Museum" was more thronged than ever, and little Dorfeuille

reaped a golden harvest. How large a share of it found its way into the

pockets of the ingenious artist I know not--probably a much smaller one

than fair play would have assigned him.

In the long after years at Florence, Powers and I had many a laugh

together over his reminiscences of the scenes that occurred in that

exhibition-room, all of which he remembered as well as if the incidents

had happened but a year before, and would chuckle over with as much

enjoyment as he did at the time of their occurrence. My copy of the

hand-bill which I have given above--doubtless the only one now in

existence--was matter of much amusement to us, and served to recall

every portion and every figure of the early work of his hands.

From the time I left America to go to Oxford, in the spring of 1829,

till our meeting at Florence in 1841, I saw no more of Powers. But, as

may be easily imagined, we lost no time in renewing our old friendship.

He was then, and for many years afterward, living in the Via Romana, not

far from the city gate of that name. The house stood back from the

street, and was approached only by a passage through another tenement,

from which it was divided by a little garden; a situation which, though

not in all respects convenient, had at least the advantage of securing

quietude. The young sculptor, with his already numerous and rapidly

increasing family, occupied the first and second floors, while the

ground floor was exclusively devoted to workshops and show-rooms. The

premises were large and the accommodations ample. Already few Americans

came to Florence without paying a visit to the "Studio Powers," but they

were in those days but few in comparison to the number which, partly as

residents and partly as merely passing tourists, throng every winter the

fair "City of Flowers." Up to the revolution of 1848 the English at

Florence were very far more numerous than the citizens of the other

English-speaking nation. That unsuccessful movement drove many English,

very unnecessarily, from their moorings. The English colony was very

much reduced even after those who returned on the return of the grand

duke had resumed their old places. And from that time forward I think

that America has been more numerously represented on the banks of the

Arno than England. Powers had at that time produced various successful

busts, but had not as yet made himself known as an imaginative sculptor.

Nevertheless, the former works had sufficed to give him an amount of

reputation in the United States that ensured constant visits of his

countrymen to the studio in the Via Romana.

Some twelve years had elapsed when I first saw Powers in Florence since

the old days in Cincinnati. In such a space of time, especially at that

period of life which turns a lad into a man, most men change much. But

the change in Powers's face was but small: I should have known him if I

had met him in the street anywhere. But in person he was much changed:

he had become stout and what is called personable, not fat--he never was

that to the end of his life--but neither was he lanky, as he had been as

a youth. He had filled out, as the phrase is, and might be considered in

all respects a decidedly handsome man. There was something specially,

and more than commonly, upright in the carriage of his person and of his

head, which seemed the expression of the uprightness of the man's moral

and intellectual nature and character. He always looked straight at you

with those large, placid and generally grave eyes of his under their

large and bushy brows. They seemed to continue grave, or at least

thoughtful, those eyes, even when there was a pleasant genial smile on

the mouth. And there was this specialty about his smile--a specialty

which may be often observed in subjective natures habituated to original

thought and to live in the inner life: it seemed generally to be

produced more by the movement of his own inward feelings and thoughts

than by what was said by others. Like most dark-haired men, he began to

become gray early in life, and for some few years before his death his

appearance was venerable in no ordinary degree. He then wore his hair,

which had become perfectly white, very long, and a shallow, very

broad-brimmed white hat on the top of it. The latter, indeed, was, I

think, at all times his universal wear. I do not think that I ever saw

him in Florence in that detestable article of apparel called "a

chimney-pot hat." But this is anticipating.

Very shortly after our arrival in Florence and the renewal of our

friendship with Powers--I think not more than a year--there arrived in

Florence, bringing a letter of introduction to my mother, an English

gentleman of fortune, Mr. Grant. He was a noted lover and patron of art,

and my mother proposed to him a visit to the Studio Powers. The sculptor

had then just completed his first imaginative work, the "Greek Slave,"

which numerous _replicas_ have since made so well known on both

sides of the Atlantic. This work had greatly excited my mother's

admiration, and it was that he might have an opportunity of seeing the

"Greek Slave" that my mother was desirous of taking Mr. Grant to the

sculptor's studio. But it was not altogether easy to induce Mr. Grant to

accept the proposal. "If there is anything very good, that is the very

reason why I must not go there. Lead me not into temptation! I have been

spending all my money, and more than I meant to spend, on sculpture in

Rome. Don't show me any more statues, for I cannot buy any more." But

this confession of fearing temptation was calculated to produce a

stronger determination to expose him to it. Mr. Grant was persuaded to

visit the studio in the Via Romana: he was as much charmed with the

beauty of the conception of the statue as with the conscientious

perfection of its execution, and he became the purchaser of it. And it

speedily acquired a reputation which led to the execution of as many, I

think, as four or five replicas at the request of other lovers of art;

and the sculptor's reputation was made.

The practice of the greatest sculptors as regards the degree in which it

has seemed desirable to them to take part in that mechanical portion of

the business of producing a statue which consists in the manipulation of

the marble, has always been very different. Some have subjected the

marble to the touching of their own hands more, some less. The work of

reproducing a copy of the clay model in marble is a purely mechanical

one, and may or may not be in the artist's judgment best brought to

perfection by the labor of his own hands. It will readily be believed,

however, from what has been already said of the tendencies of Powers's

talent and idiosyncrasy, that he was among those who have contributed

most of their personal labor to the perfecting of their works. Powers

was one of those men whose hands have faculty in them. He was a master

in the use of them, and accordingly he loved to use them. It was his

practice to go over with his own hand the surface of the marble of every

work which left his studio. But he was not contented to do this in the

manner and with the tools which had been used by so many generations of

sculptors before him. That decided bent of his genius to mechanical

invention which has been mentioned at the beginning of this paper led

him to perceive that an improvement might be made in this respect. For

giving the last finish to the marble, for removing from the surface a

quantity so small that no chisel could be trusted to do the work, it is

obvious enough to suggest the use of a file. And no doubt files are used

for the purpose, but they are liable to a special and very troublesome

source of inefficiency. They become clogged with the excessively fine

dust of the marble in a very few minutes to such an extent as to be

rendered useless, especially as the file must be of an exceedingly fine

description. Powers therefore set his mind to the problem of inventing

some means or some instrument by which this source of trouble could be

avoided; and after considerable vexation, not so much in perfecting his

own conception of the thing needed as in getting careless and not very

competent workmen to execute his orders, he perfected a file of the

necessary fineness upon the principle of a nutmeg-grater. His studio was

at all times full of little ingenious contrivances of all

sorts--contrivances for readily and conveniently modifying the light in

the exact degree desirable; contrivances for the due collocation and

distribution of artificial light; contrivances for the more ready moving

of marbles, etc. etc.

It is the fashion in Florence and in Rome for artists to open their

studios to all visitors. It is a custom which adds much to the amusement

of visitors who are really lovers of art; but it must bring with it, one

would think, consequences which must sometimes be not a little trying to

the painter's or sculptor's temper and patience. Criticism from those

who have some little pretension to the right to criticise is not always

pleasant when volunteered, but criticism from such Philistines of the

Philistines as often haunt the studios must be hard indeed to bear with

common courtesy. Powers invariably received such with the most perfect

suavity and good-temper, but I have sometimes seen him, to my great

amusement, inflict a punishment on the talkers of nonsense which made

them wish they had held their tongues. This consisted simply of

defending his own practice by entering on a lecture upon the principles

which ought to regulate the matter in question. He was, I fancy, rather

fond of lecturing, and would rather have liked the work of a professor

of the fine arts. I have seen people writhe under his patient and

lengthy expositions, which they were as capable of understanding as so

many bullocks, and which they had brought down on themselves by some

absolutely absurd remark on the work before them. I have seen such

delinquents use every sort of effort to put a stop to or escape from the

punishment they had brought upon themselves. In vain: the lecture would

continue with a placid _uninterruptibility_ which it was amusing to

witness.

It was in 1854, I think, or thereabouts (for I have not at hand the

means of verifying the date with accuracy, and it is of no consequence),

that Mr. Hume, the since well-known medium, came to Florence. He came to

my house on the pressing invitation of my mother, my then wife and

myself. We had seen accounts of extraordinary things said to have taken

place some months previously at the house of a Mr. Rymer, a solicitor

living at Ealing near London, and our curiosity and interest had been so

much excited that the hope of being able to witness some of these

marvels was not the least among the motives of a journey that summer to

England. We obtained an introduction to Mr. Rymer, were present at

sundry _séances_ at his house at Ealing, made acquaintance with Mr.

Hume, and invited him to stay for a while in my house in Florence. He

came accompanied by his friend, a son of Mr. Rymer; and both the young

men were resident under my roof for about a month, leaving it to accept

an invitation from Mr. Powers to make his house their home for a while.

The manifestations of phenomena produced, or supposed to be produced, by

what has become known to the world as "Spiritualism," were then only

beginning to attract in Europe the very general attention which they

have since that time attracted. The thing was then new to most people.

During the month that Mr. Hume and his friend were in my house we had

séances almost every evening, with the "assistance," as the French say,

of a rather numerous and very varied circle. For, as may easily be

supposed, all our friends were anxious to witness the new marvels, and

we, desirous only of as many eyes and as many minds as might be for the

better watching and discussion of the phenomena, welcomed all comers to

the extent of the capacity of our room and table. I have no intention of

troubling my present readers with any detailed rehearsal of the

phenomena which presented themselves. The testimony which my

observations during this period enabled me to offer has already more

than once been given to the world in print, and the catalogue of similar

and yet more extraordinary experiences has become too long, and the

witnesses to them too numerous and too well known to the public, for

such details to have any further interest at the present day. I feel

bound, however, to state that no amount of suspicious watching which I

was able to exercise in my house, and which Powers was able to exercise

in his, enabled us to discover any smallest degree of imposture, or fair

grounds for suspecting imposture, as regards the physical or material

phenomena which were witnessed. Such is my testimony, and such was that

of Powers, who, by his aptitude for inventing and understanding

mechanical contrivances of all kinds, was a man specially well fitted

for the task of watching the performance of such wonders. I have spoken

here, it will be observed, altogether of the _material_ and

_physical_ phenomena witnessed. As to what are called the spiritual

manifestations, Powers was perhaps not an entirely unbiased estimator of

these. He was an eminently sincere, earnest and zealous Swedenborgian,

and several of the leading tenets and dogmas of the Swedenborgian faith

are calculated to make such communications with the world of spirits as

Spiritualists claim to experience much less startling, less strange to

the mind and more acceptable, than they usually appear to other people.

To a Swedenborgian who is perfectly convinced that the spirits of the

departed are ever around him and interested in his welfare, it does not

seem a very strange or extraordinary thing that these visitors should

under certain circumstances be able to express the interest which they

always feel. Powers regarded all the professed manifestations of

spiritual communications from that stand-point, and was enabled to

accept them therefore somewhat more easily than another person might

have done. Yet, despite such predisposing proclivities, and though he

was disposed to think a great variety of professed communications from

the world of spirits to have been genuinely what they purported to be,

the habitual uprightness and truthfulness of Powers's mind led him, as I

believe I am justified in saying, to the conclusion that in the case

which I am about to mention, at least, there was ground for very strong

suspicion of the honesty of the medium. The circumstances of the case

were as follows:

I had many years previously lost a brother--the same whom I have already

had occasion to mention in the earlier part of this letter. Now, at an

early stage of the series of sittings that took place at my house it was

intimated that the spirit of this brother was present and wishful or

willing to communicate with me. He did, as was proposed, communicate

very freely upon subjects of all sorts by means of raps under the table

and the letters of the alphabet spread upon it--on all subjects save

one. To the often-repeated question, where we had last met in life, I

could get no reply. It was constantly promised to me that I should be

answered this question at the next sitting. Now, it so happened that my

wife had conceived, reasonably or unreasonably, doubts as to the

medium's honesty in the matter, and she determined to try him in the

matter of this unanswered question. Talking one day with him in

tête-à-tête, she turned the subject of maladies of the chest, of which

they had been speaking, to the special case of her late brother-in-law,

discussing the powerful influence of climate, and remarking that she

feared Ostend had been a very bad place for him. And there she left the

matter without any further remark, and without eliciting any answer from

him. This occurred very shortly before the time when Mr. Hume left my

house to accept the hospitality of Mr. Powers. The sittings continued

with great frequency in the house of the latter, and my mother and

myself were very frequently present at them. As before, the

_soi-disant_ spirit of my brother Henry announced his presence,

and, as before, I repeated my often-asked question as to the place on

earth where he and I had last met. On this occasion the answer rapped

out consisted of the word "Ostend." I smilingly replied, "Spirit, you

know nothing about what you are talking of: you are wrong." Mr. Hume

became immediately very angry, and reproached me vehemently for

"interrupting the spirit"--for not waiting for what he was probably

going to say. It was likely enough, he added, that the spirit was about

to say that Ostend was _not_ the place. I said "Pshaw! In that way

he might go through the whole Gazetteer." Thereupon Mr. Hume declared

that I was evidently not in a fit frame of mind to be a sitter at such

meetings; that my presence would be likely to mar any results to be

expected from them; and, in short, if only for the sake of those who

wished to continue their experiences, it was necessary that I should

withdraw from them. That was the last occasion on which I took part in a

séance under Mr. Hume's mediumship. My mother continued her sittings at

the house of Mr. Powers, and it is fair to record that she there

witnessed material phenomena--some of them closely allied to phenomena

only explainable on Spiritualistic theories--of even a more

extraordinary nature than any which had occurred at my house; in which

neither she, nor Mr. Powers or any of his family, nor any of the others

of the party, were able to detect any imposture. And I believe I may add

that Mr. Powers fully believed in the genuineness of the phenomena

witnessed. It is also perhaps fair to state that had the answer to my

question been "On board the steamboat going from London to Ostend," the

reply would have been correct. How far it is possible to suppose that

the word "Ostend" may have been the _first_ word of an answer about

to be completed in that sense if it had not been interrupted, I leave to

the judgment of the reader.

For some time after this Powers used to recount to me the marvels which

were witnessed at his house. He was not pleased with the medium as an

inmate in other respects: he did not form a favorable opinion of his

moral character. I am speaking of matters now many years old, and I

might not have considered it necessary to record these impressions of a

very specially upright and honest man with regard to one who is still

before the public were it not that they go to increase the value of Mr.

Powers's testimony to the genuineness of the phenomena which he

witnessed, by showing that his judgment upon the subject was at least in

no degree warped by any prejudice in favor of the miracle-worker.

Meantime, the sculptor, still in the modest tenement which he occupied

for so many years in the Via Romana, was growing in fame and reputation

from day to day. A visit to the Studio Powers--or Pousse, as the

ciceroni and valets-de-place called it--was an obligatory part of the

tourist's regular work in "doing" Florence. A large family was, during

those prosperous and laborious years, growing up around him--sons and

daughters, most of whom he lived to see settled in life and to be justly

proud of. Death did not altogether pass his threshold by, but he knocked

there but once or twice in all that length of years. At last the time

came when the successful artist felt that his position enabled and

justified him in moving from his old quarters to more commodious and

luxurious ones. He had been but a tenant in the Via Romana: he was now

to inhabit a house of his own.

It was the time when Florence was for a few short years enjoying the

fallacious and fatal honor of being the capital of Italy. There were

some who from the first were fully convinced that that honor would be a

transitory one. The greater number thought that the will of France and

of her emperor, and the difficulties attending the simultaneous

residence of the king of Italy and the pope within the walls of the same

city, would avail to make Florence the capital of the new kingdom for at

least as many years as human prudence could look forward to. The

earthquake-like events which shook down the bases of all such

calculations, and enabled Italy to realize her longing desire to see

Rome the capital of the nation, are too well known to need even

referring to. Florence suddenly ceased to be the metropolis of Italy,

and the amount of financial ruin in the case of those who had invested

money in building to supply the wants of the capital was very widespread

indeed. And there can be no doubt that the houses built by Powers are at

the present day worth much less than they were at the time he built

them, and still less than they would have been worth had Florence

remained the capital. Nevertheless, I do not think that he would have

abstained from building from any considerations of this kind. He built

solely with a view to residence, and in that respect he could hardly

have done better than he did.

He did not move very far. His old lodging and studio were, as has been

said, a little way within the Porta Romana, and the villa residence

which he built is but two or three minutes' walk on the outside of it.

Immediately outside this Porta Romana, sloping off a little to the left

from the road to Rome, is a magnificent avenue of ilex and cypress

conducting to a grand-ducal villa called the "Poggio Imperiale." To the

left again of this avenue, which is perhaps a mile or somewhat more in

length, and between it and the city wall, which in that part of its

course encloses the Boboli Gardens attached to the Palazzo Pitti, is a

large extent of hillside, rapidly rising to the heights crowned by the

ancient and storied church of San Miniato, and by the suburban villages

of Arcetri and Pian Guillari. This space was, and had been for time out

of mind, occupied by fields and market-gardens. But when the new

fortunes of the City of Flowers fallaciously seemed to be in the

ascendant, it was at once seen that of all the spaces immediately around

Florence which were available for that increase of the city which was

expected to be urgently required, none was more desirable or more

favorably circumstanced than this hillside. A really magnificent

carriage-road, ornamented with gardens on either side of it, was led in

well-arranged curves up to San Miniato, and down on the other side of

the hill till it reaches the Arno at the village of Ricorboli. The

entire course of this road commands a series of varied views of the city

and the Vale of Arno than which nothing can be conceived more charming.

It is in truth the finest city promenade and drive that I know in

Europe. Rome has nothing comparable to it. The Bois de Boulogne and Hyde

Park are, as far as natural beauty goes, tame and flat in comparison to

it. The planning and the execution of it have been alike excellent. The

whole of the space up which the road serpentines has been turned into

ornamental gardens, and on either side of it, and among its lawns and

shrubberies, a large number of villa-sites were reserved to be disposed

of to purchasers. Of this singular opportunity Powers was one of the

first to avail himself. He selected with admirable judgment three sites

in the immediate neighborhood of each other--one for a residence for

himself, one for that of his eldest son, a married man, established and

doing well as a photographer, and one for that of his eldest daughter

and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Ibbetson. The friends of the sculptor thus

patriarchally establishing himself said laughingly that the region ought

to be called Powerstown. The three houses, each in its own grounds, were

built, and excellently good and comfortable residences they are. Powers

was almost as much in his own element in superintending them as in his

studio with mallet and chisel in hand, as might be surmised. The new

studio formed no part of the dwelling-house, but occupied a separate

erection in the grounds. Nor did the artist's love for his art fail to

show itself in the amplitude and excellent adaptation of the building to

all the needs of a studio, properly so called--of work-rooms and

exhibition-rooms for the reception of visitors. A more complete

sculptor's residence and establishment it would be difficult to imagine.

Alas for the shortness of the few years that were allowed to him for the

enjoyment of it! Long after the house and the studio were completed, and

the marbles all moved thither, Powers was still indulging in the delight

of improving his garden; and his plans for such improvement gave

striking evidence of that genius and passion for mechanical cleverness

and achievements of which I have frequently spoken. He had planned and

begun--I think only begun--to execute an artesian well by means of

certain newly-invented systems of boring, the details of which, in the

absence of all workmen who possessed any knowledge whatever on the

subject, had to be wholly superintended, arranged and adapted by

himself. He had satisfied himself by observations of his own that water

was to be found at a given depth, and had, I believe, prosecuted the

work sufficiently to be assured that his judgment in this respect was

well founded. In connection with this scheme of the artesian well was a

fountain in the garden, which was, I believe, also ultimately brought to

perfection.

In conformity with the convenient continental fashion of ladies naming

one day in the week for the reception of visitors--a plan which enables

them to escape from the interruption to their domestic pursuits on all

other days, and which is very generally adopted by those who have large

circles of acquaintance--Mrs. Powers used to open the drawing-rooms of

her new house on every Saturday, and a considerable crowd was sure to be

found there from two to six. But such recent arrivals on the banks of

the Arno as paid their respects to Mrs. Powers in the hope and

expectation of seeing the famous sculptor were almost, if not quite,

invariably disappointed. None of the Florentine colony expected to find

Powers in the drawing-room on such occasions. They knew better where to

look for him--in his workshop. There he might be found by those who had

brought letters of introduction to him, in his usual workman's garb.

Powers never made the slightest concession to the necessities of

receiving "company" on such occasions. There he was, with his working

cap on head, probably in a long light gray coat, not innocent of marble

dust, but often in blouse and apron.

In the latter days, when, though we little thought it, the end was

approaching, when the night of that long day of continuous activity and

labor was at hand, he might as frequently have been found sauntering

under the magnificent trees of the Poggio Imperiale avenue in the

immediate vicinity of his own house. Upright in figure and in carriage

as ever, and with his eye as bright as ever, it was difficult to suppose

that the venerable and stalwart figure of the old sculptor was not

destined still for years of life and activity. His malady was connected

with the respiratory organs; and a specially painful circumstance of it

for his friends was, that the loss of voice, which made the effort of

talking injurious to him, rendered it a selfish and inconsiderate thing

to visit him; for the activity of his mind was still such that in the

contact with another mind he could not abstain from the old familiar

intercourse which he had loved so well. Like the old camel of the

Arabian tale, that, having been all its life accustomed to lead the

caravan, died in the effort to keep his old place to the last, Powers,

who had been always wont to have rather the lion's share of

conversation, could not resign himself to hear another talk, in silence.

He _would_ talk, and suffered for it afterward. The result was that

his friends felt that they were showing the best consideration for him

by staying away.

To look at him, I say, as he would stand in the sunshine at his own

gate, it was difficult to imagine that aught of a very serious nature

ailed him. But in the case of a man so habitually active his sauntering

there was a bad sign. He was emphatically one of those men with whom

life and work are the same thing--one whose sun was at the setting when

he could work no more, and who would probably have cared little to

survive his capacity for working.

T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.

CORN.

To-day the woods are trembling through and through

With shimmering forms, that flash into my view,

Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.

The leaves that wave against my cheek caress

Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express

A subtlety of mighty tenderness;

The copse-depths into little noises start,

That sound anon like beatings of a heart,

Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.

The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song,

Through whose vague sweet float expirations strong

From lithe young hickories, breathing deep and long

With stress and urgence bold of inward spring,

And ecstasy of burgeoning.

Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry,

Come daintier smells, linked in soft company,

Like velvet-slippered ladies pacing by.

Long muscadines,

Like Jove's locks curled round foreheads of great pines,

Breathe out ambrosial passion from their vines.

I pray with mosses, ferns and flowers shy

That hide like gentle nuns from human eye,

To lift adoring odors to the sky.

I hear faint bridal-sighs of blissful green,

Dying to kindred silences serene,

As dim lights melt into a pleasant sheen.

I start at fragmentary whispers, blown

From undertalks of leafy loves unknown,

Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone.

Dreaming of gods, men, nuns and brides, between

Old companies of oaks that inward lean

To join their radiant amplitudes of green,

I slowly move, with ranging looks that pass

Up from the matted miracles of grass

Into yon veined complex of space,

Where sky and leafage interlace

So close the heaven of blue is seen

Inwoven with a heaven of green.

I wander to the zigzag-cornered fence

Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense,

Contests with stolid vehemence

The march of culture, setting limb and thorn,

Like pikes, against the army of the corn.

There, while I pause, before mine eyes,

Out of the silent corn-ranks, rise

Inward dignities

And large benignities and insights wise,

Graces and modest majesties.

Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield;

Thus, without theft, I reap another's field,

And store quintuple harvests in my heart concealed.

See, out of line a single corn-stem stands

Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands,

And waves his blades upon the very edge

And hottest thicket of the battling hedge.

Thou lustrous stalk, that canst nor walk nor talk,

Still dost thou type the poet-soul sublime

That leads the vanward of his timid time,

And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme--

Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow

By double increment, above, below;

Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee,

Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry,

That moves in gentle curves of courtesy;

Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,

By every godlike sense

Transmuted from the four wild elements.

Toward the empyrean

Thou reachest higher up than mortal man,

Yet ever piercest downward in the mould,

And keepest hold

Upon the reverend and steadfast earth

That gave thee birth.

Yea, standest smiling in thy very grave,

Serene and brave,

With unremitting breath

Inhaling life from death,

Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent,

Thy living self thy monument.

As poets should,

Thou hast built up thy hardihood

With wondrous-varying food,

Drawn in select proportion fair

From solid mould and vagrant air;

From terrors of the dreadful night,

And joyful light;

From antique ashes, whose departed flame

In thee has finer life and longer fame;

From wounds and balms,

From storms and calms,

From potsherds and dry bones,

And ruin-stones.

So to thy vigorous substance thou hast wrought

Whate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought;

Yea, into cool solacing green hast spun

White radiance hot from out the sun.

So thou dost mutually leaven

Strength of earth with grace of heaven;

So thou dost marry new and old

Into a one of higher mould;

So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold,

The dark and bright,

And many a heart-perplexing opposite:

And so,

Akin by blood to high and low,

Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part,

Richly expending thy much-bruised heart

In equal care to nourish lord in hall

Or beast in stall:

Thou took'st from all that thou might'st give to all.

O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot

Where thou wast born, that still repinest not--

Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot!--

Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land

Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand

Of trade, for ever rise and fall

With alternation whimsical,

Enduring scarce a day,

Then swept away

By swift engulfments of incalculable tides

Whereon capricious Commerce rides.