"The girls were first horrified, then they laughed: the farce of a

thing is very apparent to heedless youth. No doubt the other youthful

individual was laughing at the farcicality now. As for me, I could

scarcely see the joke. The matter was not so serious as it might have

been, however, for the bulk of my money was stitched in the bosom of

my dress; but I had kept out about four hundred dollars to pay for a

set of silverware which was not ready at the last moment, and that

money my friend had seen in my pocket-book when I paid him for the

tickets. I discovered the loss at the supper-table almost the instant

he left my chair, and my rising and going outside was the natural

impulse to stop a thief. I knew now only too well when the transfer

had taken place: it was at that blissful moment when this new pattern

of a Romeo had pressed up to the side of his silly and elderly Juliet

in a tender half embrace. The youthful philosopher was quite right in

saying I did not know what the future had in store for me: I had not

the remotest conception that in less than an hour it would disclose

to my dull mind that I had met a pickpocket in the guise and with the

apparent feelings of a gentleman--not to say a lover."

The termination of this recital naturally drew forth comment. Henry L.

Thompkins said he really thought better of his nephews now: at least,

they never picked pockets. McLaughlin startled the company by declaring

that he had met this very man some thirty-five years ago when he was

lying off the Bahama Islands--he was sure of it: and even an exact

computation, which showed conclusively that the individual in question

could not have been born then, was not sufficient to shake him in his

belief. Mr. Perkins observed that he hoped the young man might meet

Christian influences, and so reform: it was a pity he could not have

had Mrs. Marcellus's Christian friendship, for it might have been his

salvation. The brigadier's conclusion was that the whole plan was a

scheme of deep revenge which had a much broader basis than the mere

purloining of a pocket-book. It was the old story of national hatred on

the part of England. This man was of English derivation: that he was

an American born was no matter--was, in fact, most probably untrue.

But Englishmen could not bear, even after the lapse of a century, to

think that this grand empire was not under the control of the British

crown. The military facts connected with the war of the Revolution had

been so galling: Washington's masterly strategy in always advancing his

left flank had proved, as it ever must, the utter annihilation of the

redcoats, and had occasioned a series of defeats hard then and now for

the proud-spirited British nation to bear. Depend upon it, this pocket

had been picked in a spirit of international revenge. When Cornwallis--

Here the editor advanced _his_ left flank unexpectedly by asking Mrs.

Marcellus if he might put the story in print: the fellow should really

be hunted down, if possible, even at this late hour, and brought to

punishment. But our hostess would not consent to this, and motioned to

me with a smile to begin my confession. But just at that moment the

good-night lamp was brought in, and never since then have stories been

in order at Mrs. Marcellus's Saturdays.

OLIVE LOGAN.

AUTOMATISM.

TWO PAPERS.--I.

A new-born babe has been defined as a lump of possibilities: it is a

mass of rudiments, the unfolding of which constitutes its growth. But

_protoplasm_, which, unlike the babe, is a structureless substance,

of undefined form and apparently void, is the basis of _all_ life,

and contains within itself the germs of an infinite development. The

microscopist sees in it only a transparent mass, the chemist so many

atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. But while seemingly

the same in its chemical constitution, it differs immeasurably in its

properties--always distinguished, however, by the soul of unrest that

is within it, by its never-ceasing, self-sustained and self-generated

movements. Protoplasm makes the saliva which moistens the morsel of

bread; protoplasm bides its time in the new-laid egg; protoplasm weaves

the tissue of the most highly endowed brain: its agency, in short,

is visible in all the meanest and the supremest acts of life. No

difference can be detected between its highest and its lowest forms.

Yet difference must exist. The most primitive forms of life consist of

simple specks of protoplasm, mere masses of organic slime, in which the

particles enjoy all the life-functions share and share alike. As the

babe develops into the man, so in ascending the scale of life, from the

protoplasm of the infusorial am[oe]ba to that of a Newton's brain, it

is step by step along a constant development and separating of dormant

powers. There is nothing in the man that was not in rudiment in the

babe, and so also does the am[oe]ba in its microscopic speck represent

the life-power of a universe.

In the separation of the protoplasm for various specific duties very

early is a part of it set aside to constitute a so-called nervous

system. The simplest form of this system occurs in the sac-like

infusoria known as ascidians. This nervous apparatus is composed of a

grayish central mass and certain white fibres which radiate from this

mass to the outer surface of the sac that constitutes the body of the

ascidian. The central mass contains much of very active protoplasm: it

is for the ascidian the chief source of all nervous power and action,

and is the simplest form of a so-called "nerve-centre." In the higher

forms of life the nerve-centre is very complex, but is really formed

by superadding small centres, like to the single central nerve-mass

of the ascidian, one above the other, and binding them together with

innumerable threads of white matter. The white threads seen in the

ascidian are the earliest expressions of the white cords of the higher

animals which every one knows as nerves. It is the function or office

of the gray nerve-centre to originate waves of nervous influence,

whilst to the white threads is given the duty of conducting such waves

or impulses. The two parts may be well compared to the cells and the

conducting wires of a galvanic battery. There are always at least two

sets of the nerve-threads or conductors--one leading from the surface

of the body to the nerve-centre, and the other from the centre to the

exterior of the organism. Those fibres which start from the surface

carry impulses to the centre, and are known by the scientist as

afferent nerves: in the higher animals they conduct to the centres of

consciousness impulses which give rise to sensations; hence they are

often known as _sensory_ nerves. The nerve-threads which carry impulses

away from the centre to the outer regions of the body are known as

efferent nerves, because through them motion is produced as _motor_

nerves.

To the primitive organic slime, which is the lowest form of life,

consciousness can hardly come. The ascidian with its distinct though

simple nervous system is a different and much higher being. In its

microscopic world some floating particle touches it roughly: the

ever-sensitive end of the afferent nerve thrills; the vibrations pass

along the nerve-fibres to the central nerve-mass and provoke it into

action: forthwith it sends down the efferent nerve a strong impulse

which travels out until it reaches a mass of contractile tissue known

as a muscle and causes it to shorten. In the ascidian, however, the

limits of nerve-life are very narrow--no eye to see, no ear to hear,

no separation of one kind of sensation from another, if indeed there

be sensation at all, for we do not know whether the ascidian lives

like the plant, to itself unknown, or whether it enjoys a twilight

of semi-consciousness, feeling dimly its own existence and that of

surrounding objects. The movements which it makes do not seem to

emanate from consciousness, but always to originate in the contact

of some foreign body with the exterior of its organism. The central

mass of nervous protoplasm appears never to flash of its own volition

nervous energy to the muscle, but only when aroused by an impulse from

without. All movements seem to be _reflex_--that is, produced by an

impulse passing up from the surface along the afferent nerve to the

central mass, and thrown or reflected back, as it were, along the motor

nerve to the muscle.

Such simple reflex movements occur in all, even the highest, animals

as the most primitive expressions of nervous energy. The exigences

of lives fuller than that of the ascidian demand, however, other

movements, whose complexity is continually increasing as the scale of

life is traversed. Keeping pace with this elevation of function is

a progressive setting apart of certain parts of the nervous system

for certain purposes. In other words, as function or office becomes

more complicated and more separate and particular, so also does the

anatomy or structure of the nervous system. The whole nerve-life of

the ascidian dwells in one cell or central point and a few fibres: that

of the man is divided up between some millions of similar cells and

fibres, each set aside for the performance of only one act or class

of actions. Special powers everywhere require special structure. From

the nervous system of the ascidian to that of man is a transition like

that from the universal workman of a barbarous society to the complex

factory of modern civilization, in which one man does only one little

thing, but does this perfectly.

The general structure of the nervous system in all vertebrates from the

frog to the man may be thus described: The cerebral hemispheres, or

_upper brain_, a large double central nerve-mass which has no distinct

nerves; the _lower brain_, which is also situated within the cranium,

but below the cerebral hemispheres, and is provided with afferent and

efferent nerves; and a _spinal cord_, which springs out of the lower

brain and has an abundant supply of nerves connecting it with all parts

of the body.

Of these great central nerve-tracts the spinal marrow is the simplest

in construction. It is the "silver cord" of the old Hebrew poet, and

owes its whitish appearance to the innumerable nerve-like fibres which

run up and down or across to bind all parts of the cord together or

to pass out from it into the nerves. In the central portions of the

spinal marrow is a continuous tract of gray matter which is composed

of an infinitude of protoplasmic masses closely resembling the central

nerve-mass of the ascidian. This gray matter is indeed a series of

such nerve-centres, each capable of discharging energy precisely as

the central nerve-mass of the polyp does. The white fibres are the

conductors of impulses: during life they are continually occupied in

carrying messages to and fro between different portions of the spinal

gray matter, or up and down--that is, to and from the brain.

In order to study the functions of the spinal cord the physiologist

takes a frog from the ditch and with one sweep of a sharp knife

beheads it, or, what is the same thing, severs the spinal cord just as

it enters the skull. No pain is produced, or at most a momentary pang.

The spinal cord is thus isolated from the two brains, and all conscious

sensibility is lost. The heart continues to beat, and life may go

on for hours, but all the muscles are relaxed and the whole body is

without feeling. Hang the creature up, and the long legs dangle passive

and motionless. Bring, however, a cup of strong vinegar slowly upward

from beneath the leg, and the moment the irritating liquid touches

the toes the foot is drawn up. The parallel of this experiment may be

repeated in the hospital ward. Cross the dangling, insensitive legs

of that man whose back has been broken by some one of the murderous

engines of modern civilization, and strike it smartly just below the

knee with the edge of the hand, when out flies the leg; or as the

patient lies in bed tickle the soles of his feet and see how they are

drawn up, although all sensibility has vanished. Such movements as

these in the frog or in the man are evidently similar to the wrigglings

caused in the ascidian by the contact of an external bit of matter.

They are, in a word, reflex: to produce them an impulse has travelled

up the sensory or afferent nerves to the gray matter of the spinal

cord, and has been reflected back along the efferent or motor nerves to

the muscles.

It is possible that in the ascidian the impulse which causes a reflex

movement may be dimly perceived, and therefore awaken some sort of

consciousness, but the man whose spinal cord is broken by accident or

disease feels nothing below the injury, even if his feet be burnt to

a crisp. It is plain that any faculty of consciousness which existed

in the central nerve-mass of the polyp has been taken away from the

spinal cord of the vertebrate, to be concentrated and perfected within

the skull; or, in other words, that in the man, and also in the frog,

consciousness and ordinary reflex movements have been separated, the

one pertaining to the higher, the other to the lower, nerve-centres.

These unconscious reflex movements are in man of prime importance and

frequency. The machinery of conscious movement is far more complex than

that of reflex action, and every new cog-wheel, so to speak, involves

a loss of time as well as of motion. Most of us do not appreciate the

period of time between the willing and the making of a movement, yet

the astronomer has to take note of it, and, finding that it varies in

individuals, allows for the "personal equation" of the observer. We

all recognize that one man is slower than another--_i.e._ that his

physical machinery of thinking and doing moves more slowly than does

that of his fellow. Every sportsman must have paralleled a little

personal experience of my own. Last fall I shot at a flying quail

between which and myself at the time of firing a sturdy oak tree raised

its trunk. The bird was put up, aimed at, and the impulse sent by the

will to the trigger-finger: before the impulse reached the finger I

distinctly recognized that the bird had dodged behind the tree, but

the countermand sent by the conscious will to the finger could not

overtake the first order, and so, in defiance of my wishes, the gun was

discharged.

There are many processes necessary to comfortable human life for which

consciousness is far too slow in its operations. Had the eye to wait

for conscious perception the dust which whirls in the air would soon

blind it; but, as Nature has arranged the mechanism, when the speck

approaches the eye the lid shuts instantly through a reflex act, even

though the man be unconscious or sight has been lost. It will be

noticed that in this movement of the eyelid a purpose is served: it is

as though the man perceived the speck and willed to close the lid in

order to protect the eye. An action done to serve an apparent end is

spoken of by the physiologist as "purposive." It would seem at first

that such an action implies consciousness, but it has just been shown

that this--in regard to the eye, at least--is not the case, and before

this paper is ended it will be demonstrated that adaptation for a

useful end is no proof that an action is directed by consciousness.

If, instead of putting the feet of the prepared frog spoken of a few

paragraphs back in acidulated water, we drop the irritant upon the

thigh, the corresponding foot is raised at once and bent upward so

as to brush off the acid. If the foot has been cut off, the bleeding

stump will still be bent upward, and if it be too short to reach the

irritated spot, then the other foot will be raised and a determined

effort be made to remove the offending liquid. All these movements

certainly look as though the frog felt the acid and endeavored to get

rid of it. Not so, however. Drop this same frog into water which is

gradually heated. The batrachian does not try to get out, but sits

motionless until he is boiled. Surely, if he felt the drop of vinegar

on his foot, much more would he feel the boiling water bathing his

whole surface. Curiously enough, if the acid be put upon the leg of the

frog while in the water, the movements will be the same as if he were

on the table.

These experiments and the experiences of daily life clearly show the

truth of the assertion recently made, that the fact that an action

has a purpose does not prove its connection with consciousness. If

Evolution be correct, there is no difficulty in explaining the doings

of the beheaded frog. It is a law governing nervous function that

every time an action is repeated the tendency to repeat the action

is increased, until at last habit becomes a governing law, and under

certain circumstances actions, at first wilful, become unconscious.

The first earth-born batrachian, perhaps, felt during the first hour

of his existence some irritant on his leg and scratched it away. The

next hour the process was again gone through, and so on until the frog

was gathered to his fathers. His children found themselves a little

more disposed to scratch than was their progenitor; and at last, so

well accustomed did the spinal cord become to move the feet when the

irritant touched the leg that the motions were carried out without

waiting for the will to command, and the particular reflex movements

which astonish the late-born human philosopher became a fixed habit.

In such movements as have been described are to be found the simplest

form of _automatism_, the term being used to express the doing of

actions which are performed for an end, but in which consciousness

plays no part.

Having studied the spinal marrow, the physiologist, leaving this

untouched, cuts off the upper brain of the frog, leaving the lower

brain in union with the spinal cord, and unharmed. A frog so mutilated,

sitting upon a leaf or tuft of grass in a swamp, would be apt to be

passed unnoticed as anything extraordinary. He sits perfectly still

when approached, but touch him and he leaps off vigorously. If an

obstacle be in the way, he does not strike it, but springs above,

below or to one side as circumstances may favor. If dropped into

the water, he swims as well as ever, and if the water be gradually

heated, he soon endeavors to get out. If, as he sits upon a board, the

latter be quietly and not too suddenly moved, he does not jump away,

but continually shifts his position, so as to maintain the centre of

gravity in its proper place and to keep the normal erect posture.

Stroke the back of the frog gently and he croaks responsively, as if

the titillation called back pleasant memories of caresses received in

some lover's tussock-bower. The answer to the stroking is so certain

that, as suggested by Goltz, a chorus of brainless frogs might be

obtained whose batrachian voices would delight the nerves of old

Aristophanes with a triumphal burst of _Brekekekéx! koáx! koáx!_

Many other things will the brained frog do--almost enough to convince

a superficial observer that the cerebral hemispheres are a luxurious

superfluity to the physical and mental well-being of the average

inhabitant of the swamp. But no. A little watching shows that for

this seemingly intelligent creature past, present and future are

alike blotted out. Let the frog alone and it sits motionless, buried

not in the profundity of its thoughts, but in the abyss of its

thoughtlessness. In the midst of abundance it starves--not, like

Tantalus, because it cannot gratify its desires, but because it has no

desires to gratify. It feels no hunger, or if it feels hunger seeks

no food. A perfect automaton, it moves when touched, it croaks when

stroked, it answers to a multitude of external irritations, but when

untouched and left to itself it is as a lifeless clod until the sun

dries it up and the winds blow it away.

The fish whose cerebral hemispheres or upper brain has been taken away

has, like the frog, all conscious perception blotted out, but, unlike

the frog, it is in perpetual motion. Stopping not for food, it rushes

through the water, avoiding obstacles, but never ceasing its mad race

until muscle-power or nerve-force fails because of excessive use and

lack of nourishment.

The cerebral hemispheres can also readily be removed from birds. The

pigeon so mutilated presents phenomena similar to those offered by the

frog. He remains perfectly quiet, balancing himself readily on his

perch, but with drooping eyes and sunken head, motionless so long as

undisturbed. Move his perch, and he struggles to maintain equilibrium;

fire a pistol near him, and he starts, only to fall back at once into

his apathy; approach him in the dark with a bright light, and he gazes

at the candle with a fixed stare, and sometimes follows its movements

with his head; strike at him from the front, and he will draw back;

pinch his toes, and he moves. It is therefore plain that he in a

certain sense sees, hears and feels. Yet when perishing with hunger he

never pecks at the corn which he sees placed before him, and if left

alone dies. If, however, the food be placed in his mouth he swallows it

eagerly, and by care can be kept alive for an indefinite period.

Removal of the cerebrum has been repeatedly practised also upon the

rabbit and the guinea-pig. The mutilated rabbit sits motionless whilst

undisturbed, starves in the midst of plenty, cries out with its

peculiar pathetic scream when pinched, draws back when ammonia is put

to its nostrils; in a word sees, hears, feels in the same sense as

does the pigeon, and, like the pigeon, undisturbed remains passive

until death. Tread, however, upon the rabbit's foot, and perhaps with

a little scream it darts forward in a furious race. Once started, it,

like the brained fish, does not stop until exhausted or until it has

dashed its head against some obstruction, for, unlike the mutilated

fish, it does not have the power of avoiding obstacles.

Such are the phenomena which in the various species of animals follow

the removal of the true brain. Many of the acts are seemingly so

purposive, and certainly so complicated, as to suggest that they

must be conscious. It has, however, been shown that the fact that an

act is apparently purposive and complicated does not prove that it

originates in consciousness, and certainly in the brainless animal the

past, present and future have been blotted out. There is absolutely

no conscious memory, else the needed food would be taken when offered

and spontaneous movements would occur. It is hard to conceive of

consciousness without memory, and it is certain that no purposive

act can be directed by consciousness when memory does not exist in

any degree or form. If all memory be lost, though consciousness be

preserved, that consciousness would not have the knowledge which should

enable an animal to perform a complicated purposive act; nor could

it acquire knowledge by experience, because each movement would be

forgotten as fast as produced. The phenomena exhibited by the brainless

animals must therefore rest upon some other basis than consciousness.

The first point to be observed in looking for this basis is that

movements never occur so long as there is no external irritation. The

frog, the pigeon, the rabbit, all maintain the same absolute repose

unless the impulse comes from without. The fish is a seeming, but not

a real, exception to this rule. The frog, the pigeon, the rabbit,

all are quiet on the land, because their surface is not irritated:

the fish in the water rushes forward, because the play of the liquid

is all the time irritating the exterior of the body. Throw the frog

into the water, and it is seized with the madness of the fish; toss

the pigeon in the air, and it dashes forward; set the rabbit once in

motion, and its course also is a headlong fury. Placed under parallel

conditions, these various animals exhibit parallel phenomena, and

remain quiet unless disturbed by surface-irritations. The facts show

that for action in the animal whose upper brain has been removed some

external irritation must generate the impulse, which travels upward to

a nerve-centre, and then brings into activity certain masses of nervous

tissue (ganglia), which, thus aroused, send impulses out to the various

muscles without the intervention of consciousness. Movements generated

in this way are _reflex_ or _automatic_. In brainless[2] animals the

reflex actions are not different in their essence, but only in their

degree, from those performed in the frog with a cut spine; or, in other

words, the acts originating in the lower brain are reflex and similar

to those arising in the spinal cord, only more complicated and more

apparently purposive.

The complexity of the reflex movements which are produced through the

lower brain indicates a corresponding complexity in the apparatus

concerned. In accordance with this, we find that whilst only one

kind of nerves capable of carrying impulses from the surface to the

nerve-centres enters the spinal cord, to the lower brain pass not less

than five distinct varieties of afferent nerves, which carry impulses

of as many different characters to the centres. Contact is necessary

to arouse reflex movements through the spinal cord. The effect of a

pistol report upon a brainless animal demonstrates, however, that its

nerve of hearing is capable of carrying to the middle brain an impulse

which stirs that centre to action. The brainless pigeon follows with

its head the lighted candle: its nerve of sight is therefore capable of

taking part in the creation of a reflex movement. The same bird will

eat largely when appropriate food is placed in its mouth--an indication

that the nerve of taste is also active. In a word, to the middle brain

the nerves of sight, of hearing, of tasting, of smelling, as well as

those of common sensibility, bear impulses which find their appropriate

nerve-centres and give origin to complicated reflex movements. Partly

in the number and variety of the afferent nerves, and partly in the

number and variety of the nerve-centres crowded into the lower brain,

lie the causes of the great intricacy of the automatic movements which

originate in this region.

Of all the acts performed by the brainless frog, fish, bird or mammal,

the most difficult to understand are those connected with standing,

jumping, swimming, walking, flying, running, etc.; or, in other words,

with equilibration, or the function of maintaining the equilibrium.

Why does the brainless frog, the automaton, shift his position as the

board upon which he sits is slowly tilted? There are apparently no new

contacts of the skin: the motion is so quiet, so gentle, that it would

seem as if there was nothing to produce irritation of the surface of

the body so as to cause reflex acts. If it be true, as is asserted

by some observers, that taking off the skin of the legs of the frog

(a procedure which causes no pain, as the frog has no consciousness)

prevents his shifting himself to maintain his equilibrium when his

resting-place is moved, it is plain that the surface-irritations

which cause the reflex alterations of position in the brainless frog

originate in the skin of the legs and through the sense of touch. There

are, however, certain facts which indicate that the impulses under

discussion are not of so simple a character.

Before inquiring into these facts it should be observed that there

is no movement which the uninjured frog ever performs to restore

his equilibrium that the brained frog does not also make with equal

promptness. Lay it on its back, on its head, twist its legs into

unnatural positions, fix it as you may, so soon as released this

unconscious automaton restores itself to its sitting posture. This

being the case, it is plain that all the machinery of equilibration

must be present in the mutilated frog, and must therefore be situated

in the lower brain and its dependencies; and, further, that when the

uninjured frog consciously attempts to maintain the erect position or

to alter the gait, it simply calls into action the machinery provided

for it in the lower regions of the nervous system. What is true of the

frog is also true of the man; and the question naturally arises, What

is the character of this machinery which the conscious will employs?

This apparatus consists of two parts: first, certain exterior parts

which are affected by disturbances of the equilibrium, and which when

thus excited send up impulses to the lower brain; beyond, certain

nerve-centres which when aroused by impulses derived from the external

parts send back in a reflex manner impulses to the various muscles,

which by their contraction produce motion or rectify the mistakes

of position. Touch has much to do with equilibration: sight also

has much to do with it. There is a disease of the spinal cord known

as locomotor ataxia which destroys the sense of touch in the legs.

A person suffering from this disorder is said to be ataxic. When a

completely ataxic man puts his feet upon the pavement he feels nothing.

Under these circumstances the man is unable to walk with his eyes shut.

Even if the ataxia be not complete and some sense of feeling remain,

the gait becomes so uncertain that progression is impossible. The

pavement feels nearer or farther off than it is, and the result reminds

one of his experiences in going up stairs in the dark and stepping

out at the top in the belief that another step exists. Long before

sensation is completely paralyzed the power of walking in the dark is

entirely lost by the ataxic; for, indeed, the man, who has still as

much muscular power as ever in his legs, may be unable to walk under

any circumstances or even to stand unaided by a cane. The movements are

vigorous, but uncontrollable: the legs fly about in all directions,

refusing to obey at all the most strenuous efforts of the will.

The loss of the sense of touch in the skin is not, however, the sole

or even chief reason that the ataxic man cannot walk. I once saw a

patient who could march very well by night or by day, although the

skin of his legs was so dead that a live coal would scarcely awaken it.

The sense that is wanting in locomotor ataxia is that form of general

sensibility which is known as the _muscular sense_; that is, that sense

or feeling which tells the lower brain exactly how much a muscle is

contracted, and when to urge it more, when to let it relax. This is

evidently a guiding sense, of whose action we are barely conscious,

but of whose existence there is no doubt. We do not feel a muscle

contract ordinarily, but we do so when attention is directed to a

muscle at work. Thus we judge of the weight of a body by the amount of

force which our muscles must put forth to lift it. Any one can satisfy

himself by a very simple experiment that the judgment of weight is not

founded upon pressure on the skin. Lay the hand upon the table, place

the heavy body upon it and try to judge of the weight. Again, whenever

we endeavor to estimate accurately how heavy a body is, we raise it

again and again into the air, evidently that we may feel the muscles

contract again and again, and by repeated efforts judge how much of

force they put forth.

The phenomena of ataxia are of great importance as corroborating the

experimental proofs spoken of a few pages back, which show that walking

is automatic and not simply performed by a conscious power of the will.

Thus the ataxic may be able to walk with his eyes open, when he cannot

even balance himself erect with his eyes shut. If the conscious will

really did by a direct effort produce walking, it should be able to

control the movements by itself, and the ataxic man should be able to

walk although impulses from the exterior of the body no longer reached

his lower brain. The man who turns a cog-wheel himself is independent

of external power, but the man who directs a clockwork moved by a

spring can only push back the stop and release the spring: if the

spring be broken he is powerless. The impulses from the exterior are

the springs of locomotion, and all the will can do is to withdraw the

checks and call the machinery of walking into action. When the external

impulses are no longer transmitted to the lower brain walking becomes

impossible.

As already shown, general sensibility, including in the term the

sense of touch and the muscular sense, is of prime importance in

equilibration, but it is unquestionable that the nerves of the other

senses carry to the nerve-centre impulses from the external parts

of the body which are necessary to the highest development of the

function. The partially ataxic man can walk with his eyes open,

although he does not feel the floor, because sight replaces touch.

The blind man, certainly, cannot balance himself so well as he whose

eyes are perfect. We all know that the sight of a yawning abyss or the

gazing upon whirling objects is prone to produce giddiness.

Some experiments made by the English physiologist Crum Browne show that

there must be guiding impulses which are connected with equilibration

besides those already discussed. The observer mentioned found that

if a blindfolded man lies on a table with a movable top placed upon

a central pivot, he can judge in regard to the movements lateral or

vertical, even if they be made so carefully and slowly that the man

is perfectly quiescent. The subject under experiment is almost always

able to decide correctly not only the direction of the motion, but also

the angle through which the motion has extended. It is possible that

the guiding impulses under these circumstances originate in all parts

of the body. Thus, when we lie with the head downward we are at once

sensible of a feeling of fulness or pressure due to the gravitation

of the blood and other liquids of the body toward the head. Position

undoubtedly affects the gravitation of liquids in all parts of the

body: the man whose forces are reduced by a low fever gets a congestion

of the back of the lungs if he lies too long upon his back. It may be

that this flow of fluids toward any unusually dependent part of the

body makes an impression upon the nerves of touch, which pass through

all parts of the organism, and that in this way peripheral impulses are

generated which reach the lower brain.

On the other hand, the extreme delicacy of perception of movement

which some persons evince when laid upon the table-top would seem to

require a more delicate apparatus than that just spoken of; and there

are many facts which point to a peculiar structure in the inner ear

as having connection with equilibration. If in the frog the disk back

of the eye be wounded deep enough to affect the nerve of hearing,

the creature falls upon one side, entirely deprived of its power of

balancing itself. Perfectly similar phenomena are seen not only in

the mammals operated upon by the physiologist, but also in human

beings, in whom wounds of the nerve of hearing, as well as ruptures

of blood-vessels in the inner ear, produce a peculiar vertigo, with

staggering and loss of power which have been mistaken for apoplexy.

Some years since there was under my professional care a man who had

been shot in the face, the bullet passing backward toward the inner

ear. In this case there was complete loss of hearing on the injured

side, and a peculiar giddiness, with staggering gait similar to that

which follows hæmorrhage into the inner ear. The bullet had certainly

penetrated into the aural region, and the vertigo was evidently like

the deafness due to an injury of the inner ear. In the inner ear of all

animals are the so-called _semicircular canals_, which are provided

with membranous walls, and are filled with liquid. At the end of each

of these canals is an enlargement known as an _ampulla_, upon which

is a delicate expansion of nerve-tissue derived from the nerve of

hearing. These semicircular canals are so placed that every motion of

the head must produce disturbance of the liquid contents of at least

one of them, and consequently alterations of pressure on the nervous

tissue in the ampulla. The structure and peculiar arrangement of these

canals and their contents suggest very naturally that they have some

other function than that of aiding in hearing, and that they are in

some way connected with equilibration--that they are, as it were, the

spirit-levels of the body, and that by the shifting of their contents

impulses are constantly sent up to the lower brain to direct it in

the maintenance of position. This suggestion is confirmed by the

results of experiment: in the pigeon and in some mammals the canals

can be readily reached and divided. Such injuries to them are followed

by great disturbance of the motor function of the animal, the nature

of the disturbance being chiefly dependent on the seat and character

of the injury. Repeated somersaults backward or forward, bizarre

contortions, spinning around worthy of a whirling dervish, loss of the

power of balancing on a moving perch or board, staggering gait,--these

and other similar phenomena mark the disturbance of equilibration

produced by wounds of the semicircular canals.

The balancing of the body which occurs even in standing, much more that

of walking, running or flying, is the result of a very complicated

series of movements, numerous muscles antagonizing one another

by regulated contraction, so that just the right position may be

secured. To preserve the equilibrium innumerable unfelt impulses are

continually passing from the eyes, from the semicircular canals, from

the various muscles employed, up to the nerve-centres in the lower

brain, where they are, as it were, assorted and reflected back as

co-ordinated or arranged impulses to all parts of the muscular system,

and produce just such contractions as are required for the purposes of

equilibration and locomotion. When a child is learning to walk it is

simply educating this intricate machinery and developing its latent

powers. Very much as the will of man aids a setter in developing the

natural instinct to hunt, so does the child's will direct, check and

in every way assist the complicated and delicate machinery which

presides over locomotion. Perhaps a better comparison is to be found

in the drill-sergeant training and educating his squad of men, who at

first are utterly unable to obey his will, but who by his reiterated

efforts are finally so trained that they move as one piece in strict

obedience to his word or go through complicated man[oe]uvres without

command. No wonder the child requires so many days of effort to get

all its delicate machinery of walking, running, etc. so trained that

it works smoothly and without conscious effort of the will. But as the

training becomes more complete, the lower brain becomes more and more

independent of the conscious will which resides in the upper brain or

cerebrum, until at last the automatic action is so perfect that walking

without consciousness is possible. Very many of my readers have no

doubt in their younger days, when hard pressed with a lesson, walked

to school studying as they went, their attention riveted on the book,

their feet carrying them along the well-known pathway. Under such

circumstances consciousness does not direct progression. Walking in the

sleep is only one step beyond this. In the days of Antietam a friend

of the writer's, worn out with the forced marching, whilst on guard as

a sentinel, erect and soldier-like in posture, slept until the dark

lantern of the relief officer appalled him with its sudden flash. Once

after a long tramp I myself, laden with a heavy pack, nearing home,

trudged in the unconsciousness of sleep along the oft-trodden road. In

the cavalry raids around Richmond during our late war it was not very

unusual for men and beasts to become so exhausted that both would go to

sleep on the homeward night-march when they were straining all their

powers to escape. The whole regiment asleep, horses staggering along in

loose order, men swaying to and fro in their saddles, when there was a

sharp turn in the road it was necessary to post sentinels to waken the

passing ranks, which otherwise in the unconsciousness of sleep would

have continued right on into bush or brake. Indeed, in one instance

that came to my notice a horse with an officer on his back did in this

way walk over a precipice some twenty feet high.

With the knowledge which we have acquired the feats of somnambulists

are stripped of all mystery. The various accounts of these

sleep-walkers vary in regard to the eyes being open or shut, and no

doubt the fact also varies, the wanderer sometimes going about with

open, sometimes with shut, eyes. In either case the sleeper passes from

place to place because the automatic apparatus of locomotion is set

in action by a dream, and is perfectly able to perform its function

unaided by consciousness. I think it will be found that difficult

somnambulistic feats are performed with the eyes open, or, in other

words, with every unconscious sense in fullest activity. Most of us

have read of, if not witnessed, the perilous walkings of somnambulists

over housetops and in difficult places, and wondered that a man in

his sleep should be able to pass such narrow ledges with safety. The

fact is, that often in these cases the walker escapes _because_ he is

asleep. The delicate automatic mechanism presided over by the lower

brain when well trained performs its function with marvellous accuracy,

while often in times of danger it is baffled by consciousness: fear

seizes on its centres and paralyzes their efforts; giddiness whirls

it into a fatal slip; conscious will hesitates in its selections and

is lost. In the somnambulist all attempt at direction by the will is

laid aside, and the clockwork moves along undisturbed, carrying its

possessor through deadly peril that sickens him the next day as he

looks upon the place over which he has passed and hears the story of

his nocturnal wanderings.

Walking is only one of the numerous acts of life, and there are various

other automatic actions, commonly mistaken for conscious and wilful,

which originate in the lower brain. Enough has, however, been said to

illustrate the way in which the lower nervous system works, and some

of the more important of these automatic acts not now spoken of will

naturally be brought into the foreground in another article, in which

it is proposed to discuss automatism in the higher manifestations of

passion and thought.

H.C. WOOD, M.D.

[Footnote 2: The term _brainless_ is here applied to animals whose

upper brain has been removed.]

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

A SERMON TO LITERARY ASPIRANTS.

I know of no brighter, sprightlier, more sensible and energetic young

woman than my fair cousin Sue, who having recently graduated at an

eminent female college, is universally regarded by her fair companions

as a miracle of learning. Sue has several times filled the poet's

corner of the county newspaper of late, and the other day read a poem

before her maiden friends which they unanimously pronounced good enough

for the ----; whereupon Sue concluded the matter by furbishing up

her rhymes and sending them to the editor of that popular magazine.

Presently they came back to her enclosed in that ugly bit of printed

paper with which every reader who has had any literary aspirations

whatever is acquainted, in which the editor "regrets" that owing to the

pressure on his columns, etc., he cannot "make the enclosed article

available." Sue came to me with the printed paper in her hand, looking

more disturbed than I had ever seen her.

"Cousin," said she, "you are a favorite with the editors: can't you

teach me how to succeed with the flinty-hearted creatures? I've spent

more time at school than you; my teachers assured me that I had

literary talent, and ought to improve it; I take the greatest pains

with my poems, and yet they always come back to me with only these

printed regrets."

I took paper and poem and read both. "Sue," said I at length, "I want

one of those long after-dinner talks that we used to have before you

went to college; and if I probe a little deep, as I used to, you must

remember that it is the 'galled jade' that winces."

Not long before I had been in the den of the managing editor of one

of the great metropolitan dailies, and the conversation had turned

on the mass of unavailable communications that flooded his office on

the arrival of every mail. "What is the proportion of accepted to

rejected manuscripts?" I inquired.--"One in a hundred," he replied,

and continued: "It is strange what crude ideas people have as to the

needs and capacities of a daily journal. For instance, in this pile

of 'unavailables' are poems, sketches, love-stories, theological

disquisitions, scientific treatises, book-reviews, political squibs,

biographies and essays on civil and social reform--not one rising

above commonplace, and the majority the veriest trash imaginable;

and this is sent to us in the face of the fact, which ought to be

apparent to all, that we have a regular corps of trained writers and

correspondents."--"And who are the producers of all this matter?" was

my next query.--"Well," said he, "an editor who is harassed by them

three hundred days in the year soon gets to classify them correctly,

I think. There are three great classes. First, the dilettante

scribblers, young men and young women of elegant leisure, who think

literary distinction 'very nice,' and plunge into authorship for a

little pleasant excitement or in the hope of winning fame. There are

often glimpses of talent in the productions of this class, and with

hard work they might succeed; but they only skim the surface, and the

result is that their work doesn't reach even the respectable. The

second class are those who without special talent embark in literature,

expecting to make a living by it. The third class I pity: it consists

of those who have some literary talent and a desire to improve it,

but who lack the gift of expression or the constructive faculty, or

some other requisite, and are simply incapable of producing anything

worth putting in print. It is this class of incompetents that put the

greatest strain on an editor's sensibilities, for their articles are

almost, but never quite, available. If I could reach these literary

aspirants I would whisper in their ears that modern journalism is

an organized, elaborated profession, and that every conductor of a

better-class journal, whether newspaper or magazine, has a corps of

trained writers at command who to literary talent add the experience of

years, and whose contributions are generally satisfactory. Yet it by

no means follows that first-class articles from outside correspondents

are neglected: on the contrary, it is because an occasional nugget

is found that readers are employed to examine their miscellaneous

correspondence. There now!" he added, laughingly, "I have given you

some points for a sermon to the scribbling public, and as you have

plenty of leisure you ought really to improve the opportunity."

I told all this to Sue, adding, "I am no sermonizer--not, at least,

since my lamentable failure at the obsequies of poor old Tabby--but

I feel in the mood for a few plain, honest words on this topic this

evening, and only wish I had a larger circle of hearers. I shall not

take up any of the points mentioned by my friend the editor, for he

has exhausted the subject: he has told you why many fail. I wonder if

you have any idea what it costs the successful writers to win, because

if you have not I have a friend who is entitled to be placed in this

category, and I should like you to know what it cost him to attain

his present position. He was eighteen when he discovered an aptitude

for literary work by publishing a sketch in the village newspaper,

and he was twenty-nine before he succeeded in gaining the slightest

public recognition. These eleven years he spent in study, travel, close

observation and literary labor, writing home letters to provincial

newspapers whose editors published them readily enough, but forgot

to send the author either money or thanks; and when he knocked at

the door of the paying journals, as he did occasionally during these

years, he was dismissed with the same politeness and complacency that

you complain of. All this time, remember, he was living the life of a

recluse, shunning general society and almost an anchorite as regards

the sex: at the same time he was well aware that his friends, who

were all engaged in the general scramble for wealth, regarded him

pityingly as a man of a chimerical turn of mind, who, despite their

efforts, _would_ continue to the end in the profitless pursuit of a

phantom. Notwithstanding, he held to his purpose with a tenacity of

will worthy of the old Scotch Covenanter from whom he descended. His

final success, he has often declared, was owing to a lucky chance. When

twenty-nine years of age he wrote a book, and succeeded in finding

subscribers enough among those interested in his specialty to publish

the work. There was evidence of talent in it which somehow attracted

the attention of an editor in Massachusetts, conductor of a high-toned

literary journal there, who wrote it up, and was followed shortly after

by a New York editor of equal standing: this aided little in selling

the book, but it gave him literary standing--a coign of vantage but

little appreciated by young writers. Our friend next wrote a sketch

half romantic, half historical, and armed with it gained a hearing

from the editor who had favorably reviewed his book, and who in turn

introduced him to the managing editor of his journal. This gentleman

was induced by the author's representations to read the manuscript

himself, was pleased with it and inserted it in his columns, together

with many others of similar character; and as they were unique both

in subject and style they were widely copied and commented upon, and

placed the young author in the high-road to success.

"Now, Sue, it is possible that with equal exertion of will,

perseverance and endurance you may win equal success; but suppose you

do, will it pay? I grant there is no joy greater than that of the

literary neophyte when his work first obtains recognition in quarters

where recognition is worth something; but this is pretty nearly all

there is to be gained in authorship. Ease, position and wealth are to

be left behind when one embarks in it in earnest. I question if there

can be found a civilized people that takes less interest in literature

and literary workers than do Americans. Congress, that intensely

practical body, has persistently refused to protect or encourage them,

reasoning, evidently, that while the author may be a pleasing and

graceful ornament to the kingly power, he is a useless appendage to a

republic. Again, it is not for the interest of a publisher to encourage

American authors, whom he must pay for their work, for he has the cream

of English literature at his command without money and without price.

As to the American public, it doesn't read books. It prides itself on

being well read, I know, and it is in magazines and newspapers, but

the figures in our publishers' offices prove incontestably that of our

fifty millions of people between one and two thousand only are regular

buyers of books. Forty years ago the case was different: then wealthy

men bought books, as they now buy pictures, to encourage American art,

and the genial sun of their patronage called out such men as Bryant,

Cooper, Irving and Hawthorne. But under the changed conditions of

our times what writers have risen up to fill their places? Brilliant

magazinists, versatile journalists, skilled producers of the lightest

of light literature for summer-resort consumption, I grant, but few

distinctive names; for one might as well expect roses to bloom in

January as a true national literature to grow and bloom under the

blight of universal neglect and indifference.

"But I am carrying my generalizations too far: it is my purpose rather

to narrate for your benefit some cases of individual hardships on the

part of authors that have come under my own observation. My friend, the

accomplished magazinist of whom I spoke, wins the wage of a grocery

clerk; and as nothing could induce him to leave his profession--it

is his life--he will continue to eat the bread of poverty all his

days. I know authors who have fared far worse than this--who would

be glad to exchange all the fame their books have brought them for

money to meet the obligations incurred in their publication. I have

a friend who was not a tyro in authorship when he came up to New

York with a newly-completed book seeking a publisher. He first gave

his manuscript to a leading publishing-firm, which, after keeping it

three weeks for inspection, informed him in the politest manner that

their reader did not advise them to undertake the publication. He then

sought another publisher equally eminent, who in due time consented

to take the book on the following terms: He would publish it, give

it the benefit of the firm's imprint and push its sale through the

trade for a certain commission, the author to pay the entire cost of

the stereotype-plates when delivered, and also the cost of printing

and binding the first edition. The publisher admitted the hardship

to authors of this plan, but declared that since the decline of the

book-trade it had been almost universally pursued by publishers as a

means of ensuring themselves against loss. But, as it happened, my

friend succeeded in making better terms with another publisher. In the

course of their conversation the latter remarked that he could offset

the author's experience with a much severer one, and proceeded to

relate the following incident, which he declared to be strictly true:

Not long ago a well-known lady writer made arrangements with a large

New York publishing-house to publish a book for her. In return for the

firm's name on the title-page she agreed to pay the entire cost of

the plates and of the first edition of two thousand copies, and the

usual per cent. commission for introducing the book, and in addition

not to call for any settlement of accounts until the entire edition

was exhausted. She did this the more readily as she supposed that the

books would be sold in two or three months at the farthest. Time flew

on, the book-trade was dull, and the last half of the second year was

approaching ere fifteen hundred copies had been sold. She was in urgent

need of the money, and to obtain it sent a buyer into the market who

bought for her the remaining five hundred copies, paying the publisher

his commission on them: in this way she secured payment for the entire

edition.

"In these instances I have only hinted at the hardships endured

by authors. I mention them not to excite your sympathy for the

guild--although none are more deserving of it--but to show you

plainly some of the lions in the way of the literary aspirant; and

I regret that I have not in my audience the ten thousand brave,

capable young men and women in our country who are looking forward to

a literary career--some in the hope of winning distinction, and some

as a profession to be used in bread-winning. Certainly, nothing will

justify man or woman in embarking in it but the possession of the

true _afflatus_, the rich gift of imagination, constructive power and

expression which we call literary genius."

Happy is the preacher who sees the seed he sows fall into good ground!

Not many days after our talk, happening to glance into the parlor, I

saw Sue in suspicious proximity to Fred Alston, the young bank-cashier,

and only last night she blushingly announced her engagement to him,

assuring me that she was content to shine in a literary way only in the

home-circle. Fred is a good fellow, besides being desperately in love

with her, and, as he hasn't a particle of literary talent himself, will

set all the more store by Sue's.

C. B. T.

PEOPLE'S HOUSES: A DIALOGUE.

MRS. PHILIP MARKHAM. PHILIP MARKHAM. MRS. FRANK BEVERLY. FRANK BEVERLY.

_Frank Beverly._ Now that I have a house of my own to furnish, I find

that I have a strong reaction of taste in favor of the things I was

used to as a boy. It is all very well to go into other people's rooms

and see fantasies in sage and olive-greens and peacock-blues--to admire

stained floors and French Turkey rugs, tiles and dadoes, decorated

curtains and portières (which latter invention, by the way, I call a

mere nuisance, always in the way, letting in draughts and depriving you

of the comfort of closed doors). So I tell Ethel that for my part I

don't want any of these things.

_Mrs. Beverly._ What Frank really wants he does not know himself: he

is simply too bigoted and old-fashioned to move with the new currents,

but all the time has nothing better to propose. We have bought the

house, and have gone twice to look at it. I know exactly what would

suit me. I should like to have it done up with inlaid floors and

wainscotings--tiles in the fire-places, with brass fenders and

andirons. The dining-room should be in oak and brown and gold--Queen

Anne's style--the parlors in blue and olives, and the bedrooms in

chintzes.

_Mrs. Markham._ That would be perfectly lovely. One may always be

certain of your taste, Ethel.

_Philip Markham._ I confess I don't see any marvellous display of taste

in furnishing rooms like everybody else's.

_Mrs. B._ But the general styles now-a-days are so thoroughly artistic!

_Philip M._ I suppose they are. I shall be very glad, however, when

this ever-lasting refrain of artistic household furnishing is done

with, and people settle down into their surroundings and really get to

living. Then, after a little wear and tear, one may find comfort in

these new houses: everything is too fine at present. Now, the other

night at Gregory's dinner I sat with my back to the fine Eastlake

fireplace and was scorched by the blazing wood-fire. I suggested to

the servant that he should put a screen behind me: you know the house

is full of Japanese screens. On my word, had I proposed burning the

house down Mrs. Gregory could hardly have made more of it. She told

everybody, as the most delicious joke, that Mr. Markham wanted to put

one of her exquisite silk hand-embroidered Japanese screens before the

fire! Of course I grinned and made light of it, but I was roasted alive

and made almost ill.--Now, that would just suit you, Ethel, to have a

fine house and then begrudge the use of it to people.

_Mrs. B._ But the idea of spoiling one of those lovely screens in that

way!

_Philip._ What were they made for, any way?

_Mrs. B._ For decoration.

_Frank B._ I go into very few houses which suggest actual living. The

drawing-rooms are Fairyland to look at, but might as well be a show

suite in upholsterers' shops. I had a pride and pleasure in my mother's

house which had nothing to do with the furniture: its charm and

elegance linger in my memory like a perfume. There was no room which

did not contain a low chair belonging to my mother, with a work-table

and work-basket beside it. She always sat, a living presence, in either

parlor, dining-room or library. I heard her once tell a lady-friend,

"I always stay down stairs and arrange my occupations here, that I may

be within reach of my husband and sons." You need not doubt but what

the first impulse of any one of us on entering the house was to seek

her. We were often all grouped about her at once. When I go into the

lifeless, dreary houses of most women, I am amazed that they do not

cultivate this habit of my mother's.

_Mrs. M._ There is a good deal in what you say. A set of rooms has

quite a different air when the mistress habitually sits there. When I

am making visits I have a sort of reluctance to ring the bell at houses

where I feel certain of being forced to wait twenty minutes in a dim,

empty parlor.

_Mrs. B._ But then a lady should be ready to receive her guests

promptly.

_Mrs. M._ Of course she should, but, all the same, she never is ready

save on her regular reception-days. She sits up stairs in her own room,

and it seems absurd to wear a nice dress when she is not certain that

anybody will come. She slips, naturally, into her wrapper in order to

enjoy her fire and easy-chair, then when the bell rings has a hurried

toilette to make.

_Mrs. B._ I shall make a point of sitting in my parlor.

_Mrs. M._ Those delicately-furnished rooms grow shabby and faded very

soon when lighted and used freely.

_Frank B._ You see we come back to my notion that in order to live

elegantly one must have a house furnished in a certain solid,

old-fashioned way.

_Philip M._ Exactly. Nothing is more inelegant than being over-fine.

True elegance consists in the fitting of our surroundings to our needs.

There is no elegance in extravagant furniture, which must claim the

first place in one's thoughts and forbid real comfort and ease. I don't

spend many days at home in the course of the year, but when I am in the

house Jenny has a bad time of it, and actually suffers for her chairs

and sofa. I like to "glorify the room," as Sidney Smith used to say. I

_will_ have light everywhere; I _will_ have the good of my furniture:

if the fire is too hot to bear, I will put a screen in front of it; if

the screen is too fine, it is direct impertinence to me: I consider

myself more precious than the screen.

_Frank B._ Speaking of Sidney Smith, he had good views respecting

household comfort. Every guest in his house was formally introduced

to a particular easy-chair, table and reading-lamp in the parlor, and

informed that said chair, table and lamp were to be sacred to his or

her individual use so long as he or she remained.

_Philip M._ Now, that was a man's idea. Men are the only judges of what

is pleasant and convenient in a house: women know nothing whatever

about it.

_Mrs. M._ (sarcastically). Oh dear! no!--nothing at all!

_Philip M._ Women always want to save in essentials that they may

waste in non-essentials. If a woman orders a dinner--that is, unless

she has had a long and valuable experience under some sensible man's

directions--she will stint you in everything except entrées and dessert.

_Mrs. M._ For shame! Women are so lectured, so tutored, about

extravagance, that they feel the necessity of making their money go as

far as it can. Most of us experience a positive sense of guilt when

we assume a masculine prerogative and insist upon having the best of

things.

_Philip M._ Indeed! So far as my limited experience goes--

_Mrs. M._ It is all very well to be sarcastic about us poor women, when

you know all the time that you are dependent upon us for everything

that makes a house pretty and cheerful. You men know just one thing

about furniture--how to spoil it; and one thing about meals--how

to eat them. As to knowing how to live, that is wholly a feminine

accomplishment.

_Frank B._ I quite agree with you, dear Mrs. Markham, but then how few

people do live! _Mrs. M._ My instinct tells me what you mean--that

there is either vacuity or an air of bustle and haste about our lives;

that we waste our strength upon what is not worth having when it is

attained; that we are never satisfied with to-day, but are always

longing for the morrow; that we surround ourselves with beautiful

things, but fail to get the worth of them in improved ideas and culture.

_Frank B._ Precisely.

L.W.

"TIME TURNS THE TABLES."

Ten years ago, when she was ten,

I used to tease and scold her:

I liked her, and she loved me then,

A boy some five years older.

I liked her: she would fetch my book,

Bring lunch to stream or thicket--

Would oil my gun or bait my hook,

And field for hours at cricket.

She'd mend my cap or find my whip--

Ah! but boys' hearts are stony!

I liked her rather less than "Gyp,"

And far less than my pony.

She loved me then, though Heaven knows why;

Small wonder had she hated:

For scores of dolls she had to cry

Whom I decapitated.

I tore her frocks, I pulled her hair,

Called "red" the sheen upon it:

Out fishing I would even dare

Catch tadpoles in her bonnet.

Well, now I expiate my crime:

The Nemesis of fables

Came after years. To-day old Time

On me has turned the tables.

I'm twenty-five: she's twenty now,

Dark-eyed, pink-cheeked and bonny:

The curls are golden round her brow;

She smiles and calls me "Johnny."

Of yore I used her Christian name,

But now, through fate or malice,

When she is by my lips can't frame

Five letters to make "Alice."

I, who could joke with her and tease,

Stand silent now before her;

Dumb through the very wish to please--

A speechless, shy adorer.

Or if she turns to me to speak

I'm dazzled by her graces:

The hot blood rushes to my cheek;

I stammer commonplaces.

She's kind and cool: ah, Heaven knows how

I wish she blushed and faltered:

She likes me, and I love her now.

Dear! dear! how things have altered!

SEEING IS BELIEVING.

There is a prevalent impression that Spiritualism is on the decline,

but proof to the contrary exists in the fact that no class of books

commands such rapid and extensive sales as those which narrate

Spiritualistic experiences and discuss Spiritualistic phenomena. Mr.

Howell's last novel is one of the many instances of such popularity.

To any one who can remember back about thirty years _The Undiscovered

Country_ revives vanished impressions, renews old problems and brings

up portraits of fervid enthusiasts of every age, all bent on getting

an answer to the unanswerable. That was the time when all over the

country a favorite social amusement was for a company to sit about a

table of light weight in a dusky room, each with his or her fingers

lightly pressed upon the board and just sufficiently touching their

neighbor to form a connecting link. In this position the "spirits" were

patiently waited for: known as they were to be inconsistent, capricious

and elusive, their eccentricities were regarded as sacred. The least

sound which disturbed the stillness was interpreted as a message from

the other world: any inclination to rock on the part of the table gave

evidence that the company was surrounded by invisible but powerful

spiritual forces. Sometimes everybody waited in vain: the spirits might

be invoked from their vasty depths, but would not come. Again, the

faithful believers in the group were the victims of an outrageous hoax

on the part of some one of the circle who could creak joints or tip

tables. But there would come times when patient waiting and intense

belief were rewarded--when tables walked, when floor, ceiling and

furniture all resounded to startling raps. Then came the opportunity to

leap the gulf from time into eternity--to measure distance and compare

finite with infinite knowledge.

"Mr. A----," the medium would observe, "there is a spirit who wishes to

communicate with you."

Mr. A---- would be thrilled with a sort of ghastly gladness. The

angelic visitant was anxious to define his personality by the aid of

the Spiritual alphabet, and turned out to be Mr. A----'s father. In

life he had signed his name William C. A----, but after suffering the

great change the middle initial had been altered into H. But what

matter? Such trifling inaccuracies were not counted.

"Miss S----," the medium would say, "I see a spiritual form standing by

you."

"Is it my mother?" miss would cry, the tears gushing to her eyes.

"I think it is. She is dressed in gray silk, with lace about her

throat. Her hair is dark, and she wears some sort of ornament among the

braids."

"Are you sure the hair is dark?" cries Miss S----, almost in hysterics.

"My dear mother's hair was quite light, a beautiful golden."

"I see more clearly now," the medium would reply: "the hair is golden."

"A little gray on top?"

"Yes, a little."

"Oh, my mother!" Miss S---- would shriek, gazing beyond vision to find

her.

There was much to disappoint--much, in our experience at least, even to

disgust--the seeker after truth in these séances. Still, in spite of

a general easy method of pronouncing it all humbug, there were things

which could not be explained. A light table might be tipped by visible

hands if two people agreed, but how could a dining-table, so heavy that

a servant could not move it alone, contrive to rise a foot from the

floor, and then, when pressed downward with all the strength of which

three stout men were capable, remain there, poised in air?

But the strangest manifestations were cheapened by the gross

impositions of some of the professional mediums. I distinctly remember

the advent of a noted Spiritualist from Hartford who was to conduct a

séance in a house where I was staying. He looked about the parlor with

a critical air.

"I don't see the right kind of a table here," he said to his host.

"I supposed any table would do."

"Far from it," was the reply. "The spirits require to be absolutely

suited in all minor details before they will appear."

In order to suit these fastidious visitants from the other world all

the light tables in the house were produced.

"This will do," said the medium, choosing one; and, sitting down and

placing his hands upon it, he rocked it violently to and fro. "This

will do," he said. He did not find it necessary to explain why he

needed a table which his lightest touch could control. I distinctly

recall the séance which followed. There was a small, rather pretty,

lady present, with long curls on each side of her pale face. She

averred that she was always accompanied by at least three spirits:

they were in the habit of clustering like stars over her head. She

also confided to us the grisly fact that when she retired to rest at

night the headboard of her bed actually resounded with knockings.

Sometimes she was even prevented from going to sleep, and was forced to

expostulate with her visitors, who, when implored to be quiet, would

come to her pillow, press it gently, and then subside.

I also remember a noted medium of that day, a Mr. B----, who went

from place to place accompanied by his daughter Virginia, a girl of

nineteen, and, as I recall her, possessing remarkable beauty. Unlike

Mr. Howell's hero, Mr. B---- was something of a charlatan. He boasted

of his powers as a magnetizer, and would not admit defeat even in the

face of failure. His daughter was his favorite subject, but, unlike

Egeria, had no distinct powers of her own. I have frequently heard Mr.

B---- say that he could call his daughter from no matter what distance.

At such times he merely uttered her name and half closed his eyes. As

soon as she could traverse the distance between her and her father

Virginia was certain to enter, already in a magnetic sleep. Almost

every one having first or last witnessed the phenomenon of magnetism,

it is not worth while to dwell upon it.

I had a friend by the name of Abbey whose condition during the five

years before his death interested even while it repelled me. He had

even as a boy been excessively delicate in health, and in manhood he

broke down under the pressure of excessive mental labor. Could a medium

or magnetizer have got hold of him his hallucinations or clairvoyant

powers might have been made a source of considerable profit. He was

calling in my study one day when one of his trances came on. He had

been exceedingly anxious to get out of town by the three-o'clock train,

and this necessity pursued him even into his unconscious state. He lay

on my lounge facing a bookcase and a window whose shade was pulled

down. At his back, and quite at the other end of the room, was a small

clock on the mantel, with a face so indistinct that I was obliged to

get up and peer directly into it in order to find out what time it was.

While I was sitting by the poor fellow he began to moan and mutter. "I

must get away," said he, "or I cannot take the three-o'clock train. It

is already twenty minutes past twelve."

I took my watch from my pocket. It was twenty minutes past twelve. But

how did he know it? He had been lying before me with his eyes closed

and his ears apparently impervious to sound for about two hours.

Twenty-five minutes later he remarked, "It is a quarter to one." He

kept along with the time, and when three o'clock came was in a state of

wild delirium over his loss of the train. Had he looked at his watch

every other moment for the past three hours he could not have kept a

more accurate account of the time.

I saw him frequently in these trances, which sometimes lasted two

days. I have held before his closed eyes a succession of photographic

portraits, each of which he has recognized without seeing, uttering

the name of the person. Once I laid down the pile beside him, and

his hands, which always had a trick of feebly wandering, sought the

pictures. I waited to see what he would do. He was at the time deeply

infatuated with a young lady whose carte-de-visite I had shown him. By

some inscrutable instinct he contrived to select it from the others.

His face lighted up when he held it, and as long as I permitted his

hand to close upon it he wore an expression of rapture. When I took it

away he seemed to suffer a violent shock.

I could now and then, when he was in this state, arouse his mind and

persuade him to take an imaginary walk. At such times he frequently

startled me, used as I had become to his phenomenal powers of vision,

by seeing something which was actually taking place half a mile away.

Once he said, "There is the water: I see six sails. What is it they

are doing on the tower of Mr. B----'s house? _Oh! oh! oh!_"--here he

became violently agitated--"_the scaffolding is giving way! There is a

man falling!_" At that very moment the scaffolding on the tower of Mr.

B----'s house did give way and a man did fall--without injury, however.

Abbey was ardently attached to his mother, and during her final illness

was in terrible distress of mind. Toward the last, worn out with

anxiety and watching, he lay down on a couch in the sick room, and at

once went into one of his trances. This was at nine o'clock in the

evening. The rest of the family, whispering together, declared that the

sick woman, although unconscious, was better.

"She will die," muttered Abbey, who was apparently far out of hearing,

"at twenty-five minutes to four."

His mother did die at twenty-five minutes to four the next morning.

A thousand curious circumstances connected with poor Abbey are fresh in

my memory, but I refrain from giving more. Although he was under the

care of several of our best physicians, he was never long free from his

malady. Strange to say, it never affected his general health. He died

finally, not from any disease, but quite by accident.

A. T.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Byron. By John Nichol. (English-Men-of-Letters Series.) New York:

Harper & Brothers.

"The quiet, uneventful life of a man of letters" is a phrase not

infrequently used, generally by way of excuse for some dull biography.

It is doubtful, however, whether the life of the poet, the novelist,

or even the scholar, is not apt to be quite as varied and full of

incident as those of men whose callings are considered more active and

adventurous, while the interest that attaches to the relation of it

is almost certain to be more personal and concentrated. The career of

the statesman or the warrior is commonly merged in the events of his

time; that of the discoverer or the inventor furnishes matter for a

chapter in the history of scientific progress; the mere "man of the

world" is one of the least important figures in the shifting scenes

and disconnected pictures of which his recollections may supply the

only memorial. But the man of genius whose writings we have studied

with a constant sense of the influence of mind upon mind--his mind

upon ours, stirring our emotions, quickening our thoughts, enlarging

our conceptions--becomes in his biography a subject for close

investigation and analysis, in which every fact is significant, actions

and impressions have equal importance, efforts and achievements,

success and failure, are viewed as the direct outcome of character and

intellect, all events have a common centre, and the world's affairs are

noted only in reference to the individual, whether, like Rousseau, he

has given them a strong impulse, or, like Dante, has been the victim

of their turbulence, or, like Goethe, has stood apart in the attitude

of contemplation. The office of such men is to reveal the needs and

aspirations of humanity; their voices rise above the general din in

musical plaint or exultation; their utterances lead us to examine

and understand ourselves; and hence their lives, even when outwardly

tranquil, cannot fail, if fully and rightly portrayed, to enchain

our sympathies. But it is the exception, rather than the rule, when

genius is linked with an apparently serene or commonplace existence.

It is the fashion now-a-days to deride the notion that a man of genius

is almost necessarily deficient in prudence, and consequently little

fitted to steer his way securely amid the ordinary perils of life.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that in the great majority of cases the

most highly-gifted natures appeal as strongly to our pity or tolerance

as to our admiration, that under similar circumstances their errors and

misfortunes have been greater or more frequent than those of commoner

natures, that with them the "inward storm and outward strife" in which

the great lesson of life--"das schwer-verstandene Wort"--is learned--

Von der Gewalt die alle Wesen bindet

Befreit der Mensch sich der sich überwindet--

are not lighter, but more severe and destructive, than with others.

And in cases where there has been a conjunction of high intellect and

a fiery temperament with outward conditions equally remote from those

of ordinary life, the biographer is provided with materials which the

novelist would not dare to grapple with, and which the tragic writer

would scarcely need to mix with any stronger element of his art.

That Byron's was one of these rare cases no one will be inclined

to deny. His genius, if not of the highest order, was marvellously

brilliant and fertile, and almost unparalleled in the potency of its

charm. His nature was chaotic, his position full of incongruities, his

fame an eruption, his career meteoric. "No one ever lived," remarks

Mr. Nichol, "who in the same space more thoroughly ran the gauntlet

of existence." And all the experiences of his life, all the contrasts

in his character and his intellect--his nobleness and his baseness,

his sincerity and his affectations, his giant power and his puerile

weakness--are reflected and exhibited in his works with a directness

and completeness that do not belong to the self-mirrorings of any other

writer, not excepting Rousseau. Never has there been a great poet who

was less of an artist; never one who could so little transmute an

experience or embody a thought as to give it a universal significance;

never one whose productions, however diversified in form, have an

equal sameness in theme and tone, or present themselves so palpably

as fragments of an autobiography. We follow him in his travels, we

are witnesses of his thinly veiled adventures, we find his cravings

and caprices, his piercing mockeries and fantastic imaginings, in the

Selims and Conrads, the Manfreds and Cains, the Harolds and Juans,

whose forms he assumes as the disguises of a masquerade, we receive

the outpourings of his confidence in every mood and on every topic--we

gaze, in short, incessantly into the inmost recesses and watch all

the wild and wayward movements of a heart that is never at rest and

that never shrinks from exposure--and, if strongly impressionable,

we yield to the spell, accept the magic, echo the cry, undergo the

same sensations, and identify ourselves with the being that has taken

possession of us by this strange and violent egotism. One thing more

must be remembered in accounting for the intensity of Byron's influence

on his contemporaries, the wideness of its diffusion and the suddenness

of its decline: this personality, which seems at once so peculiar and

so self-engrossed, is nevertheless the child of an epoch, itself full

of agitations and contradictions, feverish and tumultuous yet wearied

and disgusted with its past excesses, ardent and aspiring yet scornful

of its ideals, lavish of its energies yet unable to concentrate them,

in revolt against conventional and outworn forms, but powerless to

create fit ones for the inrushing life that seems, for lack of them, to

spend its force in vain. Had Byron's been a loftier, clearer, calmer

spirit, it would not have so well represented the age or impressed

it so strongly: its sway would have been less transitory, but not so

absolute.

Happily, the period of fascination and that of the inevitable reaction

are now both past, and we can examine the phenomenon that was once

thought so transcendent and afterward so trivial and delusive with

an unbiased judgment. To the question whether the magic that riveted

the gaze and enthralled the minds of so many and diverse observers

was real or false, we find the reply easy, that it was both. It

seems to us difficult to dispute the dictum of Mr. Carlyle, that "no

genuine productive thought was ever revealed by Byron to mankind."

It is just as undeniable, as Mr. Nichol freely allows, that his gift

of expression, with its almost matchless sweep and facility, never

embraces that exquisite phraseology, that suggestive and untranslatable

diction, that perfect marriage of words to thought, which is of

the very essence of poetry. Furthermore, no writer not palpably

imitative ever betrayed in such a degree the influence of his great

contemporaries, or culled more unsparingly from books to enrich his own

compositions. His total lack of the dramatic faculty is admitted on

all hands. It would seem impossible, therefore, to assign him a place

in the creative order of minds, or to rank him, as some continental

critics still do, with the great masters of poetry. Judged by the

strictest tests and soundest canons, one is in doubt whether he should

be reckoned as a poet: with the Romans he would have been one, no

doubt, but scarcely with the Greeks. But if not a son of heaven, he is

a chief among the sons of earth. His intellect is of the keenest, his

wit of the sharpest, his passion of the strongest. Every scene, every

event, every thought, every feeling, strikes him with electric force

and is reproduced with the vividness and intensity of the original

impression. His imagery has the effect of physical sensations. His

descriptions do not merely represent or suggest, but steep us in

the emotions of "a living presence." The sea and the mountains, the

night and the storm, the "dewy morn," the "hush of eve," the "light

of setting suns," the battle-field and the shipwreck, the chamber

of death, the desert and the ruin, the rage of fierce passions, the

calmness of despair, stamp themselves upon the reader's brain, and

linger like the haunting effigies of personal experiences. Scrutiny

reveals innumerable flaws, reflection discloses a want that makes the

whole fabric seem little better than phantasmal; but we never lose the

sense of an abounding life, of a vigor that cannot be repressed and a

splendor that cannot be dimmed, of a genius always ripening, though

condemned by its very nature to perpetual immaturity.

We have left ourselves little space to speak of Mr. Nichol's execution

of a not too easy task. With matter so abundant his restrictions in

regard to treatment could not but press hardly upon him. Too often

he is compelled to summarize baldly or to rely upon the reader's

previous familiarity with details. But subject to the qualifications

arising from the conditions imposed upon him, his performance may be

pronounced satisfactory and successful. The arrangement is skilful,

the story is well told, and the criticism, if somewhat deficient in

definiteness and force, shows both sympathy and comprehension and

steers with tolerable directness between the extremes of praise and

censure. Opposing judgments are quoted or referred to with needless

iteration, and sometimes, as in the case of Carlyle and Goethe,

with an exaggerated emphasis and a misapprehension of the relative

points of view. It would be easy to take exception also to particular

judgments or the manner in which they are expressed. When we are

told, in allusion to _Cain_, that "Lord Byron has elsewhere exhibited

more versatility, fancy and richness of illustration, but nowhere

else has he so nearly 'struck the stars,'" we cannot but demur to the

substitution of a borrowed rhetorical phrase for the more literal

statement which the preceding limitations lead us to expect. When we

find it said of the _Vision of Judgment_ that "every line that does

not _convulse with laughter_ stings or lashes," and of the _Letter to

the Editor of the British Review_ that "no more laughter-compelling

composition exists," we can only infer that Mr. Nichol's risible

muscles are much more flexible than those of most people. But whatever

its faults or shortcomings, this volume, as well from the deep interest

of the subject as the ability with which it is handled, is one of the

most agreeable, and can hardly fail to be one of the most widely read,

of the series to which it belongs.

Four Centuries of English Letters. Edited and arranged by W. Baptiste

Scoones. New York: Harper & Brothers.

It is hard to decide what may not be done by a clever littérateur with

tolerable success in these days of hasty condensations and picturesque

generalizations. An age of materialism has its advantages. If it cannot

enjoy the inspiration of a distinct and vital idea to shape its own

consciousness and give life and originality to its own achievements, it

has a good chance to study with curious pains the methods and processes

of all preceding epochs. There is, to be sure, something pathetic in

our wealth of opportunity--something defeating, even impoverishing, in

the very facility with which we set to work to extract the juices and

essences from the dry bones of history.

Mr. Scoones must have enjoyed the labors which have their result in the

book now before us. It has always seemed to us a pleasant task--worth

the carrying out by a man of wealth and leisure--to select a library

which should contain all the published letters of the world. The

editor of this collection is no doubt familiar with such a library,

and his aim has been to help others to his own sources of pleasure.

He has given a fair selection of English letters, not attempting to

classify them except by historical periods, which do not, however,

always present them in regular sequence. This sort of book is supposed

to suit the modern mind, which is understood to aim at the mastery of

a little of everything. It is an attractive notion that since nobody

now-a-days has time to read all the letters of a single writer, it

is a capital thing to read a single letter of every writer. Yet the

true significance of a book like this can only be felt by one who has

studied the literature of letters familiarly and lovingly. To the

student of history the mere turning of its pages brings an influx of

thoughts and memories, half of pain, half of delight. In the confused

medley the keynote of many a strange, melancholy strain is struck. The

history of the world is a very sad one, and never seems more sad than

when the relics of all the ages are thus jumbled together. Even what

was in itself light-hearted and joyous becomes half tragical, because

it belongs to the strange old story. Such a book, to be understood and

cared about, must be read more through the imagination than through the

eyes. John Dudley's letter from the Tower on the eve of his execution

calls up all the passionate, painful, terrible history of one of the

world's cruelest times and mirrors it anew for us. Yet it is not the

duke of Northumberland's fate which makes our hearts shudder and our

eyes moisten, but something that comes more nearly home to us.

Regarding the discrimination shown in the selection of the letters,

there must be naturally as many opinions as there are lovers of

letters. The reader turns to find the epistles he likes best, and

missing them decides that much of what was most worthy has been

omitted. It would seem as if Horace Walpole's letters might have been

more carefully selected; Charles Lamb's have apparently been taken

haphazard, without any accurate idea of their true valuation; and as

for Keats's, those everybody ought to know and love him for have been

left out altogether.

But unsubstantial things like letters, of which the charm is so

delicate and elusive, stand less for what they are absolutely than

for what they have come to mean for us. Sharply contrasted as now when

bound up in a single volume, it becomes an interesting literary study

to compare the style of one writer with that of another. Some of the

"elegant letter-writers" seem barren pretenders enough when their

vague, imposing, but patchwork sets of phrases are set side by side

with the genuine outcome of real thought and feeling. Some very famous

names are appended to tolerably indifferent effusions. It is very easy

to decide whom we should have chosen for familiar correspondents. They

are, after all, few, and first of all our choice would have been Cowper.

Pencilled Fly-Leaves: A Book of Essays in Town and Country. By John

James Piatt. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.

Mr. Piatt has written a pleasant series of essays on a capital list

of subjects. He makes a sort of confession in the title of his book,

and in his preface besides, of their being inspired by his favorite

authors. They may originally have filled a particular column in some

journal, and in such a case were certain to have been turned to by its

readers with an expectation of pleasure which they never failed to

answer. It is the fashion with critics to make mention more or less

slightingly of detached pieces bound up in book-form. But, after all,

how else should we have had Lamb and Hazlitt? And such essays, from

their enforced brevity, are apt to contain a freshness and spirit often

lacking in more ambitious papers, where, with the same amount of actual

material, three times the space must be filled. Mr. Piatt is a poet,

and sees the poetic side of every-day things. He is, besides, a genial

optimist, and finds in the disagreeables of life--for instance, going

to bed in a cold room--a delightful experience: "But blessed and thrice

blessed is he for whom hardy choice or a most beneficent--even when

least smiling--Fortune has made his bed and smoothed his pillow in a

cold room! He sleeps in Abraham's bosom all the year, indeed. To him

are given, night by night, such new sensations as those for which kings

might throw away their foolish kingdoms. He conquers his Paradise at

one shuddering although faithful leap, and the gentle tropics over the

feathers and under the coverlets breathe their tenderest influences to

confirm its enjoyments."

The last paper, "How the Bishop Built his College in the Woods,"

is the most interesting in the book, giving the history of Kenyon

College. It is not probably generally known through what privations and

struggles Bishop Chase carried his hope and his resolution to found

a college in Ohio, nor how he gained his victory at last. Both the

seminary and its site were named after munificent English patrons who

came to the good bishop's aid when American friends turned from him.

The episode of his runaway slave, Jack, the effect his emancipation

had upon the fortunes of his master's beloved enterprise, is a curious

one. We may add that Bishop Bedell, who now presides over the diocese

of Ohio, has made Kenyon College one of the most interesting religious

institutions in the United States.

_Books Received_.

The Diary and Letters of Frances Burney (Madame D'Arblay). Revised and

edited by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. 2 vols. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

The Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years. By Henry Martyn

Dexter. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews. By Michael Heilprin. 2

vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Uncle Jack's Executors. By Annette Lucille Noble. ("Knickerbocker

Novels.") New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Shakespeare's Tragedy of King Richard the Third. By William J. Rolfe,

A.M. New York: Harper & Brothers.

A Stranded Ship. By L. Clarke Davis. ("Knickerbocker Novels.") New

York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The Sisters. By Georg Ebers. From the German by Clara Bell. New York:

William S. Gottsberger.

American Manual of Parliamentary Law. By George T. Fish. New York:

Harper & Brothers.

Critical Essays and Literary Notes. By Bayard Taylor. New York: G.P.

Putnam's Sons.

Judge and Jury. By Benjamin Vaughan Abbott. New York: Harper &

Brothers.

Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The Octagon Club. By E.M.H. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Half a Century. By Jane Grey Swisshelm. Chicago: J.G. Swisshelm.

Salvage. (No-Name Series.) Boston: Roberts Brothers.