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McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
VOL. VI, NO. 5, APRIL, 1896
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE NEW MARVEL IN PHOTOGRAPHY. By H.J.W. Dam.
THE RÖNTGEN RAYS IN AMERICA. By Cleveland Moffett.
THE HOUSEHOLDERS. By "Q."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Ida M. Tarbell.
Lincoln in the Campaign of 1840.
Lincoln's Engagement to Miss Todd.
The Lincoln and Shields Duel.
Marriage of Lincoln and Miss Todd.
"PHROSO." By Anthony Hope.
Chapter I. A Long Thing Ending in Poulos.
Chapter II. A Conservative Country.
Chapter III. The Fever of Neopalia.
A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low.
"SOLDIER AN' SAILOR TOO." By Rudyard Kipling.
RACHEL. By Mrs. E.V. Wilson.
CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
EDITORIAL NOTES.
Twenty Thousand Dollars for Short Stories.
The McClure's "Early Life of Lincoln."
The McClure's New "Life of Grant."
New Pictures of Lincoln.
The Abraham Lincoln School of Science and Practical Arts.
The House in which Lincoln's Parents Were Married--a Correction.
ILLUSTRATIONS
PICTURES SHOWING THE DIFFERENCES IN PENETRABILITY TO THE RÖNTGEN RAYS.
DR. WILLIAM KONRAD RÖNTGEN, DISCOVERER OF THE X RAYS.
PICTURE OF AN ALUMINIUM CIGAR-CASE, SHOWING CIGARS WITHIN.
PHOTOGRAPH OF A LADY'S HAND SHOWING THE BONES, AND A RING ON THE
THIRD FINGER.
THE PHYSICAL INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF WÜRZBURG.
SKELETON OF A FROG, PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE FLESH.
RAZOR-BLADE PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH A LEATHER CASE AND THE RAZOR-HANDLE.
SKELETON OF A FISH PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE FLESH.
A HUMAN FOOT PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE SOLE OF A SHOE.
PHOTOGRAPHING A FOOT IN ITS SHOE BY THE RÖNTGEN PROCESS.
BONES OF A HUMAN FOOT PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE FLESH.
CORK-SCREW, KEY, PENCIL WITH METALLIC PROTECTOR, AND PIECE OF COIN.
COINS PHOTOGRAPHED INSIDE A PURSE.
DR. WILLIAM J. MORTON PHOTOGRAPHING HIS OWN HAND UNDER RÖNTGEN
A GROUP OF FAMILIAR ARTICLES UNDER THE RÖNTGEN RAYS.
THOMAS A. EDISON EXPERIMENTING WITH THE RÖNTGEN RAYS.
"I ... TRIED A STEP TOWARD THE STAIRS, WITH EYES ALERT ..."
"HE STOOD SIDEWAYS, ... AND LOOKED AT ME OVER HIS LEFT SHOULDER."
"FACE TO FACE WITH THE REAL HOUSEHOLDER."
OLD STATE-HOUSE AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.
A HARRISON BADGE OF 1840.
A HARRISON BUTTON OF 1840.
LINCOLN IN 1860.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861.
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, NINTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
JOSHUA F. SPEED AND WIFE.
MARY TODD LINCOLN.
LINCOLN IN 1858.
ROBERT S. TODD.
MISS JULIA JAYNE, ONE OF MISS TODD'S BRIDESMAIDS.
GENERAL JAMES SHIELDS.
MRS. NINIAN W. EDWARDS.
COURT-HOUSE AT TREMONT WHERE LINCOLN RECEIVED WARNING OF SHIELDS'S
CHALLENGE.
RESIDENCE OF NINIAN W. EDWARDS, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.
LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE LICENSE AND MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE.
REV. CHARLES DRESSER.
THE GLOBE HOTEL, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.
A BROOK IN THE DEPARTMENT OF VAR, FRANCE.
JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT.
A BY-PATH.
EARLY MORNING.
DIANA'S BATH.
A SHALLOW RIVER.
THE EDGE OF THE FOREST (FONTAINEBLEAU).
ON THE RIVER OISE.
THE STORMY SEA.
A SUNLIT GLADE.
A SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK.
"THE MAN WITH THE LEATHERN BELT."
THE STONE-BREAKERS.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
SERVANT AT THE FOUNTAIN.
AN UNHAPPY FAMILY.
[Illustration: PICTURES TAKEN BY PROFESSOR ARTHUR W. WRIGHT OF YALE
COLLEGE, SHOWING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SUBSTANCES IN PENETRABILITY
TO THE RÖNTGEN RAYS.
1 and 3. Flint glass prism (very opaque).
2. Quartz prism, showing transmission of the rays through the thin
edges.
4. Prism of heavy glass, more opaque than flint glass.
5. One-cent coin, copper.
6. Five-cent coin, nickel.
7. White-crown glass, 1½ millimetres thick.
8. Blue crown glass, 2 millimetres thick.
9. Yellow crown glass, 1½ millimetres thick.
10. Crown glass, 1 millimetre thick, covered with a very thin layer of
gold.
11. Red crown glass, 2 millimetres thick.
12. Block of Iceland spar (very transparent to ordinary light, but
very opaque to Röntgen rays).
13. A bit of tinfoil.
14. Aluminium medal, showing faint traces of the design and lettering
on both sides, as if it were translucent.
15. Metallic mirror, shows no effect of regular reflection.
16. Bit of sheet-lead, 1 millimetre thick.
17. Quarter-of-a-dollar coin, silver.
18. Piece of thin ebonite, such as is used for photographic
plate-holder.]
[Illustration: DR. WILLIAM KONRAD RÖNTGEN, DISCOVERER OF THE X RAYS.
From a photograph by Hanfstaenge, Frankfort-on-the-Main.]
THE NEW MARVEL IN PHOTOGRAPHY.
A VISIT TO PROFESSOR RÖNTGEN AT HIS LABORATORY IN WÜRZBURG.--HIS OWN
ACCOUNT OF HIS GREAT DISCOVERY.--INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS WITH THE
CATHODE RAYS.--PRACTICAL USES OF THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHY.
BY H.J.W. DAM.
In all the history of scientific discovery there has never been,
perhaps, so general, rapid, and dramatic an effect wrought on the
scientific centres of Europe as has followed, in the past four weeks,
upon an announcement made to the Würzburg Physico-Medical Society, at
their December meeting, by Professor William Konrad Röntgen, professor
of physics at the Royal University of Würzburg. The first news which
reached London was by telegraph from Vienna to the effect that a
Professor Röntgen, until then the possessor of only a local fame
in the town mentioned, had discovered a new kind of light, which
penetrated and photographed through everything. This news was received
with a mild interest, some amusement, and much incredulity; and a week
passed. Then, by mail and telegraph, came daily clear indications
of the stir which the discovery was making in all the great line of
universities between Vienna and Berlin. Then Röntgen's own report
arrived, so cool, so business-like, and so truly scientific in
character, that it left no doubt either of the truth or of the great
importance of the preceding reports. To-day, four weeks after the
announcement, Röntgen's name is apparently in every scientific
publication issued this week in Europe; and accounts of his
experiments, of the experiments of others following his method, and
of theories as to the strange new force which he has been the first
to observe, fill pages of every scientific journal that comes to
hand. And before the necessary time elapses for this article to
attain publication in America, it is in all ways probable that the
laboratories and lecture-rooms of the United States will also be
giving full evidence of this contagious arousal of interest over a
discovery so strange that its importance cannot yet be measured,
its utility be even prophesied, or its ultimate effect upon
long-established scientific beliefs be even vaguely foretold.
[Illustration: PICTURE OF AN ALUMINIUM CIGAR-CASE, SHOWING CIGARS
WITHIN.
From a photograph by A.A.C. Swinton, Victoria Street, London.
Exposure, ten minutes.]
[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH OF A LADY'S HAND SHOWING THE BONES, AND A
RING ON THE THIRD FINGER, WITH FAINT OUTLINES OF THE FLESH.
From a photograph taken by Mr. P. Spies, director of the "Urania,"
Berlin.]
[Illustration: THE PHYSICAL INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF
WÜRZBURG, WHERE PROFESSOR RÖNTGEN HAS HIS RESIDENCE, DELIVERS HIS
LECTURES, AND CONDUCTS HIS EXPERIMENTS.
From a photograph by G. Glock, Würzburg.]
The Röntgen rays are certain invisible rays resembling, in many
respects, rays of light, which are set free when a high pressure
electric current is discharged through a vacuum tube. A vacuum tube
is a glass tube from which all the air, down to one-millionth of an
atmosphere, has been exhausted after the insertion of a platinum
wire in either end of the tube for connection with the two poles of
a battery or induction coil. When the discharge is sent through
the tube, there proceeds from the anode--that is, the wire which is
connected with the positive pole of the battery--certain bands of
light, varying in color with the color of the glass. But these are
insignificant in comparison with the brilliant glow which shoots
from the cathode, or negative wire. This glow excites brilliant
phosphorescence in glass and many substances, and these "cathode
rays," as they are called, were observed and studied by Hertz; and
more deeply by his assistant, Professor Lenard, Lenard having, in
1894, reported that the cathode rays would penetrate thin films of
aluminium, wood, and other substances and produce photographic results
beyond. It was left, however, for Professor Röntgen to discover that
during the discharge another kind of rays are set free, which differ
greatly from those described by Lenard as cathode rays The most marked
difference between the two is the fact that Röntgen rays are not
deflected by a magnet, indicating a very essential difference, while
their range and penetrative power are incomparably greater. In fact,
all those qualities which have lent a sensational character to the
discovery of Röntgen's rays were mainly absent from these of Lenard,
to the end that, although Röntgen has not been working in an entirely
new field, he has by common accord been freely granted all the honors
of a great discovery.
[Illustration: SKELETON OF A FROG, PHOTOGRAPHED
THROUGH THE FLESH. THE SHADINGS INDICATE, IN ADDITION TO THE BONES,
ALSO THE LUNGS AND THE CEREBRAL LOBES.
From a photograph by Professors Imbert and Bertin-Sans; reproduced
by the courtesy of the "Presse Medicale," Paris. In taking this
photograph the experiment was tried of using a diaphragm interposed
between the Crookes tube and the plate; and the superior clearness
obtained is thought to result from this.]
[Illustration: RAZOR-BLADE PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH A LEATHER CASE AND THE
RAZOR-HANDLE.
From a photograph taken by Dr. W.L. Robb of Trinity College. The
shading in the picture indicates, what was the actual fact, that the
blade, which was hollow ground, was thinner in the middle than near
the edge.]
[Illustration: SKELETON OF A FISH PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE FLESH.
From a photograph by A.A.C. Swinton, Victoria Street, London.
Exposure, four minutes.]
Exactly what kind of a force Professor Röntgen has discovered he does
not know. As will be seen below, he declines to call it a new kind of
light, or a new form of electricity. He has given it the name of the
X rays. Others speak of it as the Röntgen rays. Thus far its results
only, and not its essence, are known. In the terminology of science it
is generally called "a new mode of motion," or, in other words, a new
force. As to whether it is or not actually a force new to science, or
one of the known forces masquerading under strange conditions, weighty
authorities are already arguing. More than one eminent scientist has
already affected to see in it a key to the great mystery of the law
of gravity. All who have expressed themselves in print have admitted,
with more or less frankness, that, in view of Röntgen's discovery,
science must forth-with revise, possibly to a revolutionary degree,
the long accepted theories concerning the phenomena of light and
sound. That the X rays, in their mode of action, combine a strange
resemblance to both sound and light vibrations, and are destined to
materially affect, if they do not greatly alter, our views of both
phenomena, is already certain; and beyond this is the opening into
a new and unknown field of physical knowledge, concerning which
speculation is already eager, and experimental investigation already
in hand, in London, Paris, Berlin, and, perhaps, to a greater or less
extent, in every well-equipped physical laboratory in Europe.
This is the present scientific aspect of the discovery. But, unlike
most epoch-making results from laboratories, this discovery is one
which, to a very unusual degree, is within the grasp of the popular
and non-technical imagination. Among the other kinds of matter
which these rays penetrate with ease is the human flesh. That a new
photography has suddenly arisen which can photograph the bones, and,
before long, the organs of the human body; that a light has been found
which can penetrate, so as to make a photographic record, through
everything from a purse or a pocket to the walls of a room or a house,
is news which cannot fail to startle everybody. That the eye of the
physician or surgeon, long baffled by the skin, and vainly seeking
to penetrate the unfortunate darkness of the human body, is now to be
supplemented by a camera, making all the parts of the human body as
visible, in a way, as the exterior, appears certainly to be a greater
blessing to humanity than even the Listerian antiseptic system of
surgery; and its benefits must inevitably be greater than those
conferred by Lister, great as the latter have been. Already, in
the few weeks since Röntgen's announcement, the results of surgical
operations under the new system are growing voluminous. In Berlin, not
only new bone fractures are being immediately photographed, but joined
fractures, as well, in order to examine the results of recent surgical
work. In Vienna, imbedded bullets are being photographed, instead of
being probed for, and extracted with comparative ease. In London, a
wounded sailor, completely paralyzed, whose injury was a mystery, has
been saved by the photographing of an object imbedded in the spine,
which, upon extraction, proved to be a small knife-blade. Operations
for malformations, hitherto obscure, but now clearly revealed by the
new photography, are already becoming common, and are being reported
from all directions. Professor Czermark of Graz has photographed the
living skull, denuded of flesh and hair, and has begun the adaptation
of the new photography to brain study. The relation of the new rays
to thought rays is being eagerly discussed in what may be called
the non-exact circles and journals; and all that numerous group
of inquirers into the occult, the believers in clairvoyance,
spiritualism, telepathy, and kindred orders of alleged phenomena, are
confident of finding in the new force long-sought facts in proof of
their claims. Professor Neusser in Vienna has photographed gall-stones
in the liver of one patient (the stone showing snow-white in the
negative), and a stone in the bladder of another patient. His results
so far induce him to announce that all the organs of the human body
can, and will, shortly, be photographed. Lannelougue of Paris has
exhibited to the Academy of Science photographs of bones showing
inherited tuberculosis which had not otherwise revealed itself. Berlin
has already formed a society of forty for the immediate prosecution
of researches into both the character of the new force and its
physiological possibilities. In the next few weeks these strange
announcements will be trebled or quadrupled, giving the best evidence
from all quarters of the great future that awaits the Röntgen rays,
and the startling impetus to the universal search for knowledge that
has come at the close of the nineteenth century from the modest little
laboratory in the Pleicher Ring at Würzburg.
[Illustration: A HUMAN FOOT PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE SOLE OF A SHOE.
THE SHADING SHOWS THE PEGS OF THE SHOE, AS WELL AS TRACES OF THE FOOT.
From a photograph by Dr. W.L. Robb of Trinity College.]
[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPHING A FOOT IN ITS SHOE BY THE RÖNTGEN
PROCESS.--A PICTURE OF THE ACTUAL OPERATION WHICH PRODUCED THE
PHOTOGRAPH SHOWN ON PAGE 408.
From a photograph by Dr. W.L. Robb of Trinity College. The subject's
foot rests on the photographic plate.]
On instruction by cable from the editor of this magazine, on the
first announcement of the discovery, I set out for Würzburg to see the
discoverer and his laboratory. I found a neat and thriving Bavarian
city of forty-five thousand inhabitants, which, for some ten
centuries, has made no salient claim upon the admiration of the world,
except for the elaborateness of its mediæval castle and the excellence
of its local beer. Its streets were adorned with large numbers of
students, all wearing either scarlet, green, or blue caps, and an
extremely serious expression, suggesting much intensity either in the
contemplation of Röntgen rays or of the beer aforesaid. All knew the
residence of Professor Röntgen (pronunciation: "Renken"), and directed
me to the "Pleicher Ring." The various buildings of the university are
scattered in different parts of Würzburg, the majority being in the
Pleicher Ring, which is a fine avenue, with a park along one side
of it, in the centre of the town. The Physical Institute, Professor
Röntgen's particular domain, is a modest building of two stories and
basement, the upper story constituting his private residence, and
the remainder of the building being given over to lecture rooms,
laboratories, and their attendant offices. At the door I was met by an
old serving-man of the idolatrous order, whose pain was apparent when
I asked for "Professor" Röntgen, and he gently corrected me with "Herr
Doctor Röntgen." As it was evident, however, that we referred to the
same person, he conducted me along a wide, bare hall, running the
length of the building, with blackboards and charts on the walls. At
the end he showed me into a small room on the right. This contained
a large table desk, and a small table by the window, covered
with photographs, while the walls held rows of shelves laden with
laboratory and other records. An open door led into a somewhat larger
room, perhaps twenty feet by fifteen, and I found myself gazing into
a laboratory which was the scene of the discovery--a laboratory which,
though in all ways modest, is destined to be enduringly historical.
There was a wide table shelf running along the farther side, in front
of the two windows, which were high, and gave plenty of light. In the
centre was a stove; on the left, a small cabinet, whose shelves held
the small objects which the professor had been using. There was a
table in the left-hand corner; and another small table--the one on
which living bones were first photographed--was near the stove, and
a Rhumkorff coil was on the right. The lesson of the laboratory was
eloquent. Compared, for instance, with the elaborate, expensive, and
complete apparatus of, say, the University of London, or of any of the
great American universities, it was bare and unassuming to a degree.
It mutely said that in the great march of science it is the genius of
man, and not the perfection of appliances, that breaks new ground in
the great territory of the unknown. It also caused one to wonder at
and endeavor to imagine the great things which are to be done through
elaborate appliances with the Röntgen rays--a field in which the
United States, with its foremost genius in invention, will very
possibly, if not probably, take the lead--when the discoverer himself
had done so much with so little. Already, in a few weeks, a skilled
London operator, Mr. A.A.C. Swinton, has reduced the necessary time
of exposure for Röntgen photographs from fifteen minutes to four.
He used, however, a Tesla oil coil, discharged by twelve half-gallon
Leyden jars, with an alternating current of twenty thousand volts'
pressure. Here were no oil coils, Leyden jars, or specially elaborate
and expensive machines. There were only a Rhumkorff coil and Crookes
(vacuum) tube and the man himself.
Professor Röntgen entered hurriedly, something like an amiable gust
of wind. He is a tall, slender, and loose-limbed man, whose whole
appearance bespeaks enthusiasm and energy. He wore a dark blue sack
suit, and his long, dark hair stood straight up from his forehead, as
if he were permanently electrified by his own enthusiasm. His voice is
full and deep, he speaks rapidly, and, altogether, he seems clearly a
man who, once upon the track of a mystery which appealed to him,
would pursue it with unremitting vigor. His eyes are kind, quick, and
penetrating; and there is no doubt that he much prefers gazing at a
Crookes tube to beholding a visitor, visitors at present robbing him
of much valued time. The meeting was by appointment, however, and his
greeting was cordial and hearty. In addition to his own language he
speaks French well and English scientifically, which is different from
speaking it popularly. These three tongues being more or less within
the equipment of his visitor, the conversation proceeded on an
international or polyglot basis, so to speak, varying at necessity's
demand.
It transpired, in the course of inquiry, that the professor is
a married man and fifty years of age, though his eyes have the
enthusiasm of twenty-five. He was born near Zurich, and educated
there, and completed his studies and took his degree at Utrecht. He
has been at Würzburg about seven years, and had made no discoveries
which he considered of great importance prior to the one under
consideration. These details were given under good-natured protest, he
failing to understand why his personality should interest the public.
He declined to admire himself or his results in any degree, and
laughed at the idea of being famous. The professor is too deeply
interested in science to waste any time in thinking about himself. His
emperor had _fêted_, flattered, and decorated him, and he was loyally
grateful. It was evident, however, that fame and applause had small
attractions for him, compared to the mysteries still hidden in the
vacuum tubes of the other room.
[Illustration: BONES OF A HUMAN FOOT PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE FLESH.
From a photograph by A.A.C. Swinton, Victoria Street, London.
Exposure, fifty-five seconds.]
"Now, then," said he, smiling, and with some impatience, when the
preliminary questions at which he chafed were over, "you have come to
see the invisible rays."
"Is the invisible visible?"
"Not to the eye; but its results are. Come in here."
He led the way to the other square room mentioned, and indicated
the induction coil with which his researches were made, an ordinary
Rhumkorff coil, with a spark of from four to six inches, charged by
a current of twenty amperes. Two wires led from the coil, through an
open door, into a smaller room on the right. In this room was a
small table carrying a Crookes tube connected with the coil. The most
striking object in the room, however, was a huge and mysterious tin
box about seven feet high and four feet square. It stood on end,
like a huge packing-case, its side being perhaps five inches from the
Crookes tube.
The professor explained the mystery of the tin box, to the effect that
it was a device of his own for obtaining a portable dark-room. When he
began his investigations he used the whole room, as was shown by the
heavy blinds and curtains so arranged as to exclude the entrance of
all interfering light from the windows. In the side of the tin box,
at the point immediately against the tube, was a circular sheet of
aluminium one millimetre in thickness, and perhaps eighteen inches
in diameter, soldered to the surrounding tin. To study his rays the
professor had only to turn on the current, enter the box, close the
door, and in perfect darkness inspect only such light or light effects
as he had a right to consider his own, hiding his light, in fact, not
under the Biblical bushel, but in a more commodious box.
"Step inside," said he, opening the door, which was on the side of
the box farthest from the tube. I immediately did so, not altogether
certain whether my skeleton was to be photographed for general
inspection, or my secret thoughts held up to light on a glass plate.
"You will find a sheet of barium paper on the shelf," he added, and
then went away to the coil. The door was closed, and the interior of
the box became black darkness. The first thing I found was a wooden
stool, on which I resolved to sit. Then I found the shelf on the
side next the tube, and then the sheet of paper prepared with barium
platino-cyanide. I was thus being shown the first phenomenon which
attracted the discoverer's attention and led to the discovery, namely,
the passage of rays, themselves wholly invisible, whose presence was
only indicated by the effect they produced on a piece of sensitized
photographic paper.
A moment later, the black darkness was penetrated by the rapid
snapping sound of the high-pressure current in action, and I knew
that the tube outside was glowing. I held the sheet vertically on
the shelf, perhaps four inches from the plate. There was no change,
however, and nothing was visible.
"Do you see anything?" he called.
"No."
"The tension is not high enough;" and he proceeded to increase the
pressure by operating an apparatus of mercury in long vertical tubes
acted upon automatically by a weight lever which stood near the coil.
In a few moments the sound of the discharge again began, and then I
made my first acquaintance with the Röntgen rays.
The moment the current passed, the paper began to glow. A
yellowish-green light spread all over its surface in clouds, waves,
and flashes. The yellow-green luminescence, all the stranger and
stronger in the darkness, trembled, wavered, and floated over the
paper, in rhythm with the snapping of the discharge. Through the metal
plate, the paper, myself, and the tin box, the invisible rays were
flying, with an effect strange, interesting, and uncanny. The metal
plate seemed to offer no appreciable resistance to the flying force,
and the light was as rich and full as if nothing lay between the paper
and the tube.
"Put the book up," said the professor.
I felt upon the shelf, in the darkness, a heavy book, two inches in
thickness, and placed this against the plate. It made no difference.
The rays flew through the metal and the book as if neither had been
there, and the waves of light, rolling cloud-like over the paper,
showed no change in brightness. It was a clear, material illustration
of the ease with which paper and wood are penetrated. And then I
laid book and paper down, and put my eyes against the rays. All was
blackness, and I neither saw nor felt anything. The discharge was in
full force, and the rays were flying through my head, and, for all I
knew, through the side of the box behind me. But they were invisible
and impalpable. They gave no sensation whatever. Whatever the
mysterious rays may be, they are not to be seen, and are to be judged
only by their works.
I was loath to leave this historical tin box, but time pressed. I
thanked the professor, who was happy in the reality of his discovery
and the music of his sparks. Then I said: "Where did you first
photograph living bones?"
"Here," he said, leading the way into the room where the coil stood.
He pointed to a table on which was another--the latter a small
short-legged wooden one with more the shape and size of a wooden
seat. It was two feet square and painted coal black. I viewed it with
interest. I would have bought it, for the little table on which
light was first sent through the human body will some day be a great
historical curiosity; but it was "nicht zu verkaufen." A photograph of
it would have been a consolation, but for several reasons one was not
to be had at present. However, the historical table was there, and was
duly inspected.
[Illustration: CORK-SCREW, KEY, PENCIL WITH METALLIC PROTECTOR, AND
PIECE OF COIN, AS PHOTOGRAPHED WHILE INSIDE A CALICO POCKET.
From a photograph by A.A.C. Swinton, Victoria Street, London. Four
minutes' exposure through a sheet of aluminium.]
"How did you take the first hand photograph?" I asked.
The professor went over to a shelf by the window, where lay a number
of prepared glass plates, closely wrapped in black paper. He put a
Crookes tube underneath the table, a few inches from the under side
of its top. Then he laid his hand flat on the top of the table, and
placed the glass plate loosely on his hand.
"You ought to have your portrait painted in that attitude," I
suggested.
"No, that is nonsense," said he, smiling.
"Or be photographed." This suggestion was made with a deeply hidden
purpose.
The rays from the Röntgen eyes instantly penetrated the deeply hidden
purpose. "Oh, no," said he; "I can't let you make pictures of me. I
am too busy." Clearly the professor was entirely too modest to gratify
the wishes of the curious world.
"Now, Professor," said I, "will you tell me the history of the
discovery?"
[Illustration: COINS PHOTOGRAPHED INSIDE A PURSE.
From a photograph by A.A.C. Swinton, Victoria Street, London.]
"There is no history," he said. "I have been for a long time
interested in the problem of the cathode rays from a vacuum tube
as studied by Hertz and Lenard. I had followed theirs and other
researches with great interest, and determined, as soon as I had the
time, to make some researches of my own. This time I found at the
close of last October. I had been at work for some days when I
discovered something new."
"What was the date?"
"The eighth of November."
"And what was the discovery?"
"I was working with a Crookes tube covered by a shield of black
cardboard. A piece of barium platino-cyanide paper lay on the bench
there. I had been passing a current through the tube, and I noticed a
peculiar black line across the paper."
"What of that?"
"The effect was one which could only be produced, in ordinary
parlance, by the passage of light. No light could come from the tube,
because the shield which covered it was impervious to any light known,
even that of the electric arc."
"And what did you think?"
"I did not think; I investigated. I assumed that the effect must have
come from the tube, since its character indicated that it could come
from nowhere else. I tested it. In a few minutes there was no doubt
about it. Rays were coming from the tube which had a luminescent
effect upon the paper. I tried it successfully at greater and greater
distances, even at two metres. It seemed at first a new kind of
invisible light. It was clearly something new, something unrecorded."
"Is it light?"
"No."
"Is it electricity?"
"Not in any known form."
"What is it?"
"I don't know."
And the discoverer of the X rays thus stated as calmly his ignorance
of their essence as has everybody else who has written on the
phenomena thus far.
"Having discovered the existence of a new kind of rays, I of course
began to investigate what they would do." He took up a series of
cabinet-sized photographs. "It soon appeared from tests that the rays
had penetrative power to a degree hitherto unknown. They penetrated
paper, wood, and cloth with ease; and the thickness of the substance
made no perceptible difference, within reasonable limits." He showed
photographs of a box of laboratory weights of platinum, aluminium, and
brass, they and the brass hinges all having been photographed from a
closed box, without any indication of the box. Also a photograph of
a coil of fine wire, wound on a wooden spool, the wire having been
photographed, and the wood omitted. "The rays," he continued, "passed
through all the metals tested, with a facility varying, roughly
speaking, with the density of the metal. These phenomena I have
discussed carefully in my report to the Würzburg society, and you will
find all the technical results therein stated." He showed a photograph
of a small sheet of zinc. This was composed of smaller plates
soldered laterally with solders of different metallic proportions. The
differing lines of shadow, caused by the difference in the solders,
were visible evidence that a new means of detecting flaws and chemical
variations in metals had been found. A photograph of a compass showed
the needle and dial taken through the closed brass cover. The markings
of the dial were in red metallic paint, and thus interfered with the
rays, and were reproduced. "Since the rays had this great penetrative
power, it seemed natural that they should penetrate flesh, and so it
proved in photographing the hand, as I showed you."
A detailed discussion of the characteristics of his rays the professor
considered unprofitable and unnecessary. He believes, though, that
these mysterious radiations are not light, because their behavior is
essentially different from that of light rays, even those light rays
which are themselves invisible. The Röntgen rays cannot be reflected
by reflecting surfaces, concentrated by lenses, or refracted or
diffracted. They produce photographic action on a sensitive film, but
their action is weak as yet, and herein lies the first important field
of their development. The professor's exposures were comparatively
long--an average of fifteen minutes in easily penetrable media,
and half an hour or more in photographing the bones of the hand.
Concerning vacuum tubes, he said that he preferred the Hittorf,
because it had the most perfect vacuum, the highest degree of air
exhaustion being the consummation most desirable. In answer to a
question, "What of the future?" he said:
"I am not a prophet, and I am opposed to prophesying. I am pursuing
my investigations, and as fast as my results are verified I shall make
them public."
"Do you think the rays can be so modified as to photograph the organs
of the human body?"
In answer he took up the photograph of the box of weights. "Here are
already modifications," he said, indicating the various degrees of
shadow produced by the aluminium, platinum, and brass weights, the
brass hinges, and even the metallic stamped lettering on the cover of
the box, which was faintly perceptible.
"But Professor Neusser has already announced that the photographing of
the various organs is possible."
"We shall see what we shall see," he said. We have the start now; the
developments will follow in time."
"You know the apparatus for introducing the electric light into the
stomach?"
"Yes."
"Do you think that this electric light will become a vacuum tube for
photographing, from the stomach, any part of the abdomen or thorax?"
The idea of swallowing a Crookes tube, and sending a high frequency
current down into one's stomach, seemed to him exceedingly funny.
"When I have done it, I will tell you," he said, smiling, resolute in
abiding by results.
"There is much to do, and I am busy, very busy," he said in
conclusion. He extended his hand in farewell, his eyes already
wandering toward his work in the inside room. And his visitor promptly
left him; the words, "I am busy," said in all sincerity, seeming
to describe in a single phrase the essence of his character and the
watchword of a very unusual man.
Returning by way of Berlin, I called upon Herr Spies of the Urania,
whose photographs after the Röntgen method were the first made
public, and have been the best seen thus far. The Urania is a peculiar
institution, and one which it seems might be profitably duplicated in
other countries. It is a scientific theatre. By means of the
lantern and an admirable equipment of scientific appliances, all
new discoveries, as well as ordinary interesting and picturesque
phenomena, when new discoveries are lacking, are described and
illustrated daily to the public, who pay for seats as in an ordinary
theatre, and keep the Urania profitably filled all the year round.
Professor Spies is a young man of great mental alertness and
mechanical resource. It is the photograph of a hand, his wife's hand,
which illustrates, perhaps better than any other illustration in this
article, the clear delineation of the bones which can be obtained by
the Röntgen rays. In speaking of the discovery he said:
"I applied it, as soon as the penetration of flesh was apparent, to
the photograph of a man's hand. Something in it had pained him for
years, and the photograph at once exhibited a small foreign object, as
you can see;" and he exhibited a copy of the photograph in question.
"The speck there is a small piece of glass, which was immediately
extracted, and which, in all probability, would have otherwise
remained in the man's hand to the end of his days." All of which
indicates that the needle which has pursued its travels in so many
persons, through so many years, will be suppressed by the camera.
"My next object is to photograph the bones of the entire leg,"
continued Herr Spies. "I anticipate no difficulty, though it requires
some thought in manipulation."
It will be seen that the Röntgen rays and their marvellous practical
possibilities are still in their infancy. The first successful
modification of the action of the rays so that the varying densities
of bodily organs will enable them to be photographed, will bring all
such morbid growths as tumors and cancers into the photographic field,
to say nothing of vital organs which may be abnormally developed or
degenerate. How much this means to medical and surgical practice it
requires little imagination to conceive. Diagnosis, long a painfully
uncertain science, has received an unexpected and wonderful assistant;
and how greatly the world will benefit thereby, how much pain will
be saved, and how many lives saved, the future can only determine. In
science a new door has been opened where none was known to exist, and
a side-light on phenomena has appeared, of which the results may prove
as penetrating and astonishing as the Röntgen rays themselves. The
most agreeable feature of the discovery is the opportunity it gives
for other hands to help; and the work of these hands will add many
new words to the dictionaries, many new facts to science, and, in
the years long ahead of us, fill many more volumes than there are
paragraphs in this brief and imperfect account.
THE RÖNTGEN RAYS IN AMERICA.
BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT.
At the top of the great Sloane laboratory of Yale University, in an
experimenting room lined with curious apparatus, I found Professor
Arthur W. Wright experimenting with the wonderful Röntgen rays.
Professor Wright, a small, low-voiced man, of modest manner,
has achieved, in his experiments in photographing through solid
substances, some of the most interesting and remarkable results thus
far attained in this country. His success is, no doubt, largely due
to the fact that for years he had been experimenting constantly
with vacuum tubes similar to the Crookes tubes used in producing the
cathode rays.
When I arrived, Professor Wright was at work with a Crookes tube,
nearly spherical in shape, and about five inches in diameter--the one
with which he has taken all his shadow pictures. His best results have
been obtained with long exposures--an hour or an hour and a half--and
he regards it as of the first importance that the objects through
which the Röntgen rays are to be projected be placed as near as
possible to the sensitized plate.
It is from a failure to observe this precaution that so many of the
shadow pictures show blurred outlines. It is with these pictures as
with a shadow of the hand thrown on the wall--the nearer the hand
is to the wall, the more distinct becomes the shadow; and this
consideration makes Professor Wright doubt whether it will be
possible, with the present facilities, to get clearly cut shadow
images of very thick objects, or in cases where the pictures are
taken through a thick board or other obstacle. The Röntgen rays will
doubtless traverse the board, and shadows will be formed upon the
plate, but there will be an uncertainty or dimness of outline that
will render the results unsatisfactory. It is for this reason that
Professor Wright has taken most of his shadow pictures through only
the thickness of ebonite in his plate-holder. A most successful shadow
picture taken by Professor Wright in this way, shows five objects laid
side by side on a large plate--a saw, a case of pocket tools in their
cover, a pocket lense opened out as for use, a pair of eye-glasses
inside their leather case, and an awl. As will be seen from the
accompanying reproduction of this picture, all the objects are
photographed with remarkable distinctness, the leather case of the
eye-glasses being almost transparent, the wood of the handles of the
awl and saw being a little less so, while the glass in the eye-glasses
is less transparent than either. In the case of the awl and the saw,
the iron stem of the tool shows plainly inside the wooden handle. This
photograph is similar to a dozen that have been taken by Professor
Wright with equal success. The exposure here was fifty-five minutes.
A more remarkable picture is one taken in the same way, but with a
somewhat longer exposure--of a rabbit laid upon the ebonite plate, and
so successfully pierced with the Röntgen rays that not only the bones
of the body show plainly, but also the six grains of shot with which
the animal was killed. The bones of the fore legs show with beautiful
distinctness inside the shadowy flesh, while a closer inspection makes
visible the ribs, the cartilages of the ear, and a lighter region in
the centre of the body, which marks the location of the heart.
Like most experimenters, Professor Wright has taken numerous shadow
pictures of the human hand, showing the bones within, and he has made
a great number of experiments in photographing various metals and
different varieties of quartz and glass, with a view to studying
characteristic differences in the shadows produced. A photograph
of the latter sort is reproduced on page 401. Aluminium shows a
remarkable degree of transparency to the Röntgen rays; so much so that
Professor Wright was able to photograph a medal of this metal, showing
in the same picture the designs and lettering on both sides of the
medal, presented simultaneously in superimposed images. The denser
metals, however, give in the main black shadows, which offer little
opportunity of distinguishing between them.
As to the nature of the Röntgen rays, Professor Wright is inclined
to regard them as a mode of motion through the ether, in longitudinal
stresses; and he thinks that, while they are in many ways similar to
the rays discovered by Lenard a year or so ago, they still present
important characteristics of their own. It may be, he thinks, that the
Röntgen rays are the ordinary cathode rays produced in a Crookes tube,
filtered, if one may so express it, of the metallic particles carried
in their electrical stream from the metal terminal, on passing through
the glass. It is well known that the metal terminals of a Crookes tube
are steadily worn away while the current is passing; so much so that
sometimes portions of the interior of the tube become coated with a
metallic deposit almost mirror-like.
As to the future, Professor Wright feels convinced that important
results will be achieved in surgery and medicine by the use of these
new rays, while in physical science they point to an entirely new
field of investigation. The most necessary thing now is to find some
means of producing streams of Röntgen rays of greater volume and
intensity, so as to make possible greater penetration and distinctness
in the images. Thus far only small Crookes tubes have been used, and
much is to be expected when larger ones become available; but there
is great difficulty in the manufacture of them. It might be possible,
Professor Wright thinks, to get good results by using, instead of the
Crookes tube, a large sphere of aluminium, which is more transparent
to the new rays than glass and possesses considerable strength. It is
a delicate question, however, whether the increased thickness of metal
necessary to resist the air pressure upon a vacuum would not offset
the advantage gained from the greater size. Moreover, it is a matter
for experiment still to determine, what kind of an electric current
would be necessary to excite such a larger tube with the best results.
Among the most important experiments in shadow photography made thus
far in America are those of Dr. William J. Morton of New York, who was
the first in this country to use the disruptive discharges of
static electricity in connection with the Röntgen discovery, and to
demonstrate that shadow pictures may be successfully taken without the
use of Crookes tubes. It was the well-known photographic properties of
ordinary lightning that made Dr. Morton suspect that cathode rays are
produced freely in the air when there is an electric discharge from
the heavens. Reasoning thus, he resolved to search for cathode rays in
the ten-inch lightning flash he was able to produce between the poles
of his immense Holtz machine, probably the largest in this country.
On January 30th he suspended a glass plate, with a circular window in
the middle, between the two poles. Cemented to this plate of glass was
one of hard rubber, about equal in size, which of course covered
the window in the glass. Back of the rubber plate was suspended a
photographic plate in the plate-holder, and outside of this, between
it and the rubber surface, were ten letters cut from thin copper. Dr.
Morton proposed to see if he could not prove the existence of cathode
rays between the poles by causing them to picture in shadow, upon the
sensitized plate, the letters thus exposed.
In order to do this it was necessary to separate the ordinary electric
sparks from the invisible cathode rays which, as Dr. Morton believed,
accompanied them. It was to accomplish this that he used the double
plates of glass and hard rubber placed, as already described, between
the two poles; for while the ordinary electric spark would not
traverse the rubber, any cathode rays that might be present would do
so with great ease, the circular window in the glass plate allowing
them passage there.
[Illustration: DR. WILLIAM J. MORTON PHOTOGRAPHING HIS OWN HAND UNDER
RÖNTGEN RAYS.
In this case the vacuum bulb is charged from Leyden jars which, in
their turn, are excited by an induction coil.]
The current being turned on, it was found that the powerful electric
sparks visible to the eye, unable to follow a straight course on
account of the intervening rubber plate, jumped around the two plates
in jagged, lightning-like lines, and thus reached the other pole of
the machine. But it was noticed that at the same time a faint spray of
purplish light was streaming straight through the rubber between the
two holes, as if its passage was not interfered with by the rubber
plate. It was in company with this stream of violet rays, known as the
brush discharge, that the doctor conceived the invisible Röntgen
rays to be projected at each spark discharge around the plate; and
presently, when the photographic plate was developed, it was found
that his conception was based on fact. For there, dim in outline, but
unmistakable, were shadow pictures of the ten letters which stand as
historic, since they were probably the first shadow pictures in the
world taken without any bulb or vacuum tube whatever. These shadow
pictures Dr. Morton carefully distinguished from the ordinary
blackening effects on the film produced by electrified objects.
Pursuing his experiments with static electricity, Dr. Morton soon
found that better results could be obtained by the use of Leyden jars
influenced by the Holtz machine, and discharging into a vacuum bulb,
as shown in the illustration on this page. This arrangement of the
apparatus has the advantage of making it much easier to regulate the
electric supply and to modify its intensity, and Dr. Morton finds that
in this way large vacuum tubes, perhaps twenty inches in diameter,
may be excited to the point of doing practical work without danger of
breaking the glass walls. But certain precautions are necessary. When
he uses tin-foil electrodes on the outside of the bulb, he protects
the tin-foil edges, and, what is more essential, uses extremely small
Leyden jars and a short spark gap between the poles of the discharging
rods. The philosophy of this is, that the smaller the jars, the
greater their number of oscillations per second (easily fifteen
million, according to Dr. Lodge's computations), the shorter the wave
length, and, therefore, the greater the intensity of effects.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF FAMILIAR ARTICLES UNDER THE RÖNTGEN RAYS.
From a photograph by Professor Arthur W. Wright of Yale College, taken
through an ebonite plate-holder with fifty-five minutes exposure. It
shows a pair of spectacles in their leather case; an awl and a saw,
with the iron stem, plainly visible through the wooden handles; a
magnifying-glass; and a combination wooden tool-handle with metallic
tools stored in the head, and the metallic clamp visible through the
lower half.]
The next step was to bring more energy into play, still using Leyden
jars; and for this purpose Dr. Morton placed within the circuit
between the jars a Tesla oscillating coil. He was thus able to use in
his shadow pictures the most powerful sparks the machine was capable
of producing (twelve inches), sending the Leyden-jar discharge through
the primary of the coil, and employing for the excitation of the
vacuum tube the "step up" current of the secondary coil with a
potential incalculably increased.
While Dr. Morton has in some of his experiments excited his Leyden
jars from an induction coil, he thinks the best promise lies in the
use of powerful Holtz machines; and he now uses no Leyden jars or
converters, thus greatly adding to the simplicity of operations.
In regard to the bulb, Dr. Morton has tested various kinds of vacuum
tubes, the ordinary Crookes tubes, the Geissler tubes, and has
obtained excellent results from the use of a special vacuum lamp
adapted by himself to the purpose. One of his ingenious expedients
was to turn to use an ordinary radiometer of large bulb, and, having
fitted this with tin-foil electrodes, he found that he was able to
get strongly marked shadow pictures. This application of the Röntgen
principle will commend itself to many students who, being unable to
provide themselves with the rare and expensive Crookes tubes, may
buy a radiometer which will serve their purpose excellently in any
laboratory supply store, the cost being only a few dollars, while the
application of the tin foil electrodes is perfectly simple.
In the-well equipped Jackson laboratory at Trinity College, Hartford,
I found Dr. W.L. Robb, the professor of physics, surrounded by
enthusiastic students, who were assisting him in some experiments with
the new rays. Dr. Robb is the better qualified for this work from
the fact that he pursued his electrical studies at the Würzburg
University, in the very laboratory where Professor Röntgen made his
great discovery. The picture reproduced herewith, showing a human foot
inside the shoe, was taken by Dr. Robb. The Crookes tubes used in this
and in most of Dr. Robb's experiments are considerably larger than any
I have seen elsewhere, being pear-shaped, about eight inches long, and
four inches wide at the widest part. It is, perhaps, to the excellence
of this tube that Dr. Robb owes part of his success. At any rate, in
the foot picture the bones are outlined through shoe and stocking,
while every nail in the sole of the shoe shows plainly, although the
rays came from above, striking the top of the foot first, the sole
resting upon the plate-holder. In other of Dr. Robb's pictures equally
fine results were obtained; notably in one of a fish, reproduced
herewith, and showing the bony structure of the body; one of a razor,
where the lighter shadow proves that the hollow ground portion is
almost as thin as the edge; and one of a man's hand, taken for use
in a lawsuit, to prove that the bones of the thumb, which had been
crushed and broken in an accident, had been improperly set by the
attending physician.
[Illustration: THOMAS A. EDISON EXPERIMENTING WITH THE RÖNTGEN RAYS.]
Dr. Robb has made a series of novel and important experiments with
tubes from which the air has been exhausted in varying degrees, and
has concluded from these that it is impossible to produce the Röntgen
phenomena unless there is present in the tube an almost perfect
vacuum. Through a tube half exhausted, on connecting it with an
induction coil, he obtained merely the ordinary series of sparks; in a
tube three-quarters exhausted, he obtained a reddish glow from end to
end, a torpedo-shaped stream of fire; through a tube exhausted to
a fairly high degree--what the electric companies would call "not
bad"--he obtained a beautiful steaked effect of bluish striæ in
transverse layers. Finally, in a tube exhausted as highly as possible,
he obtained a faint fluorescent glow, like that produced in a
Crookes tube. This fluorescence of the glass, according to Dr. Robb,
invariably accompanies the discharge of Röntgen rays, and it is likely
that these rays are produced more abundantly as the fluorescence
increases. Just how perfect a vacuum is needed to give the best
results remains a matter of conjecture. It is possible, of course,
as Tesla believes, that with an absolutely perfect vacuum no results
whatever would be obtained.
Dr. Robb has discovered that in order to get the best results with
shadow pictures it is necessary to use special developers for the
plates, and a different process in the dark-room from the one known
to ordinary photographers. In a general way, it is necessary to
use solutions designed to affect the ultra-violet rays, and not the
visible rays of the spectrum. Having succeeded, after much experiment,
in thus modifying his developing process to meet the needs of the
case, Dr. Robb finds that he makes a great gain in time of exposure,
fifteen minutes being sufficient for the average shadow picture taken
through a layer of wood or leather, and half an hour representing an
extreme case. In some shadow pictures, as, for instance, in taking a
lead-pencil, it is a great mistake to give an exposure exceeding two
or three minutes; for the wood is so transparent that with a long
exposure it does not show at all, and the effect of the picture is
spoiled. Indeed, Dr. Robb finds that there is a constant tendency to
shorten the time of exposure, and with good results. For instance, one
of the best shadow pictures he had taken was of a box of instruments
covered by two thicknesses of leather, two thicknesses of velvet, and
two thicknesses of wood; and yet the time of exposure, owing to an
accident to the coil, was only five minutes.
Dr. Robb made one very interesting experiment a few days ago in the
interest of a large bicycle company which sent to him specimens of
carbon steel and nickel steel for the purpose of having him test them
with the Röntgen rays, and see if they showed any radical differences
in the crystalline structure. Photographs were taken as desired, but
at the time of my visit only negative results had been obtained.
Dr. Robb realizes the great desirability of finding a stronger source
of Röntgen rays, and has himself begun experimenting with exhaustive
bulbs made of aluminium. One of these he has already finished, and
has obtained some results with it, but not such as are entirely
satisfactory, owing to the great difficulty in obtaining a high vacuum
without special facilities.
I also visited Professor U.I. Pupin of Columbia College, who has been
making numerous experiments with the Röntgen rays, and has produced
at least one very remarkable shadow picture. This is of the hand of
a gentleman resident in New York, who, while on a hunting trip in
England a few months ago, was so unfortunate as to discharge his gun
into his right hand, no less than forty shot lodging in the palm and
fingers. The hand has since healed completely; but the shot remain
in it, the doctors being unable to remove them, because unable to
determine their exact location. The result is that the hand is almost
useless, and often painful.
Hearing of this case, Professor Pupin induced the gentleman to allow
him to attempt a photograph of the hand. He used a Crookes tube. The
distance from the tube to the plate was only five inches, and the hand
lay between. After waiting fifty minutes the plate was examined. Not
only did every bone of the hand show with beautiful distinctness, but
each one of the forty shot was to be seen almost as plainly as if it
lay there on the table; and, most remarkable of all, a number of shot
were seen through the bones of the fingers, showing that the bones
were transparent to the lead.
In making this picture, Professor Pupin excited his tube by means of a
powerful Holtz machine, thus following Dr. Morton in the substitution
of statical electricity for the more common induction coil.
Professor Pupin sees no reason why the whole skeleton of the human
body should not be shown completely in a photograph as soon as
sufficiently powerful bulbs can be obtained. He thinks that it would
be possible to make Crookes tubes two feet in diameter instead of a
few inches, as at present.
Thomas A. Edison has also been devoting himself, with his usual
energy, to experiments with the Röntgen rays, and announces
confidently that in the near future he will be able to photograph the
human brain, through the heavy bones of the skull, and perhaps even to
get a shadow picture showing the human skeleton through the tissues of
the body.
THE HOUSEHOLDERS.
BY "Q,"
AUTHOR OF "DEAD MAN'S ROCK," "THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF," ETC.
I will say this--speaking as accurately as a man may, so long
afterwards--that when first I spied the house it put no desire in me
but just to give thanks.
For conceive my case. It was near midnight by this; and ever since
dusk I had been tracking the naked moors a-foot, in the teeth of as
vicious a nor'wester as ever drenched a man to the skin, and then blew
the cold home to his marrow. My clothes were sodden; my coat-tails
flapped with a noise like pistol shots; my boots squeaked as I went.
Overhead the October moon was in her last quarter, and might have been
a slice of finger-nail for all the light she afforded. Two-thirds of
the time the wrack blotted her out altogether; and I, with my stick
clipped tight under my arm-pit, eyes puckered up, and head bent like
a butting ram's, but a little aslant, had to keep my wits agog to
distinguish the glimmer of the road from the black heath to right and
left. For three hours I had met neither man nor man's dwelling, and
(for all I knew) was desperately lost. Indeed, at the cross roads, two
miles back, there had been nothing for me but to choose the way that
kept the wind on my face, and it gnawed me like a dog.
Mainly to allay the stinging of my eyes, I pulled up at last, turned
right-about face, leant back against the blast with a hand on my hat,
and surveyed the blackness I had traversed. It was at this instant
that, far away to the left, a point of light caught my notice, faint
but steady; and at once I felt sure it burnt in the window of a house.
"The house," thought I, "is a good mile off, beside the other road,
and the light must have been an inch over my hat-brim for the
last half hour," for my head had been sloped that way. This
reflection--that on so wide a moor I had come near missing the
information I wanted (and perhaps a supper) by one inch--sent a strong
thrill down my back.
[Illustration: "I ... TRIED A STEP TOWARD THE STAIRS, WITH EYES ALERT
FOR ANY MOVEMENT OF THE MASTIFF."]
I cut straight across the heather towards the light, risking quags
and pitfalls. Nay, so heartening was the chance to hear a
fellow-creature's voice that I broke into a run, skipping over the
stunted gorse that cropped up here and there, and dreading every
moment to see the light quenched. "Suppose it burns in an upper
window, and the family is going to bed, as would be likely at this
hour"--the apprehension kept my eyes fixed on the bright spot, to the
frequent scandal of my legs, that within five minutes were stuck full
of gorse-prickles.
But the light did not go out, and soon a flicker of moonlight gave me
a glimpse of the house's outline. It proved to be a deal more imposing
than I looked for--the outline, in fact, of a tall-square barrack
with a cluster of chimneys at either end, like ears, and a high
wall, topped by the roofs of some outbuildings, concealing the lower
windows. There was no gate in this wall, and presently I guessed the
reason. I was approaching the place from behind, and the light came
from a back window on the first floor.
The faintness of the light also was explained by this time. It shone
behind a drab-colored blind, and in shape resembled the stem of a
wine-glass, broadening out at the foot--an effect produced by the
half-drawn curtains within. I came to a halt, waiting for the next
ray of moonlight. At the same moment a rush of wind swept over the
chimney-stacks, and on the wind there seemed to ride a human sigh.
On this last point I may err. The gust had passed some seconds before
I caught myself detecting this peculiar note, and trying to disengage
it from the natural chords of the storm. From the next gust it was
absent. And then, to my dismay, the light faded from the window.
I was half-minded to call out when it appeared again, this time in two
windows--those next on the right to that where it had shone before.
Almost at once it increased in brilliance, as if the person who
carried it from the smaller room to the larger were lighting more
candles; and now the illumination was strong enough to make fine
gold threads of the rain that fell within its radiance, and fling two
shafts of warm yellow over the coping of the back wall into the night.
During the minute or more that I stood watching, no shadow fell on
either blind.
Between me and the wall ran a ditch, into the black obscurity of which
the ground at my feet broke sharply away. Setting my back to the storm
again, I followed the lip of this ditch around the wall's angle. Here
was shelter, and here the ditch seemed to grow shallower. Not wishing,
however, to mistake a bed of nettles or any such pitfall for solid
earth, I kept pretty wide as I went on. The house was dark on this
side, and the wall, as before, had no opening. Close beside the next
angle grew a mass of thick gorse bushes, and pushing through these I
found myself suddenly on a sound high road, with the wind tearing at
me as furiously as ever.
But here was the front; and I now perceived that the surrounding wall
advanced some way before the house, so as to form a narrow curtilage.
So much of it, too, as faced the road had been whitewashed; which made
it an easy matter to find the gate. But as I laid hand on its latch, I
had a surprise.
A line of paving-stones led from the gate to the heavy porch; and
along the wet surface of these fell a streak of light from the front
door, which stood ajar.
That a door should remain six inches open on such a night was
astonishing enough, until I entered the court and found it was as
still as a room, owing to the high wall, and doubtless the porch gave
additional protection. But looking up and assuring myself that all the
rest of _façade_ was black as ink, I wondered at the inmates who could
be thus careless of their property.
It was here that my professional instincts received the first jog.
Abating the sound of my feet on the paving-stones, I went up to the
door and pushed it softly. It opened without noise.
I stepped into a fair-sized hall of modern build, paved with red
tiles and lit with a small hanging lamp. To right and left were doors
leading to the ground-floor rooms. Along the wall by my shoulder ran
a line of pegs, on which hung half a dozen hats and great coats, every
one of clerical shape; and full in front of me a broad staircase ran
up, with a staring Brussels carpet, the colors and pattern of which I
can recall as well as to-day's breakfast. Under this staircase was
set a stand full of walking-sticks, and a table littered with gloves,
brushes, a hand-bell, a riding-crop, one or two dog-whistles, and a
bed-room candle, with tinder-box beside it. This, with one notable
exception, was all the furniture.
The exception--which turned me cold--was the form of a yellow mastiff
dog, curled on a mat beneath the table. The arch of his back was
towards me, and one forepaw lay over his nose in a natural posture of
sleep. I leant back on the wainscoting, with my eyes tightly fixed
on him, and my thoughts flying back, with something of regret, to the
storm I had come through.
But a man's habits are not easily denied. At the end of three minutes
the dog had not moved, and I was down on the doormat unlacing my
soaked boots. Slipping them off, and taking them in my left hand, I
stood up, and tried a step towards the stairs, with eyes alert for
any movement of the mastiff; but he never stirred. I was glad enough,
however, on reaching the stairs, to find them newly built and the
carpet thick. Up I went with a glance at every step for the table
which now hid the brute's form from me, and never a creak did I wake
out of that staircase till I was almost at the first landing, when my
toe caught a loose stair-rod, and rattled it in a way that stopped my
heart for a moment, and then set it going in double-quick time.
[Illustration: "HE STOOD SIDEWAYS, ... AND LOOKED AT ME OVER HIS LEFT
SHOULDER."]
I stood still, with a hand on the rail. My eyes were now on a level
with the floor of the landing, out of which branched two passages--one
by my right hand, the other to the left, at the foot of the next
flight, so placed that I was gazing down the length of it. And almost
at the end there fell a parallelogram of light across it from an open
door.
A man who has once felt it knows there is only one kind of silence
that can fitly be called "dead." This is only to be found in a great
house at midnight. I declare that for a few seconds after I rattled
the stair-rod you might have cut the silence with a knife. If the
house held a clock it ticked inaudibly.
Upon this silence, at the end of a minute, broke a light sound--the
_clink, clink_ of a decanter on the rim of a wine-glass. It came from
the room where the light was.
Now, perhaps it was that the very thought of liquor put warmth into my
cold bones. It is certain that all of a sudden I straightened my back,
took the remaining stairs at two strides, and walked down the passage,
as bold as brass, with out caring a jot for the noise I made.
In the doorway I halted. The room was long, lined for the most part
with books bound in what they call "divinity calf," and littered with
papers like a barrister's table on assize day. Before the fireplace,
where a few coals burned sulkily, was drawn a leathern elbow chair,
and beside it, on the corner of a writing-table, were set an unlit
candle and a pile of manuscripts. At the opposite end of the room a
curtained door led (I guessed) to the chamber that I had first seen
illuminated. All this I took in with the tail of my eye, while staring
straight in front, where, in the middle of a great square of carpet
between me and the windows, was a table with a red cloth upon it.
On this cloth were a couple of wax candles, lit, in silver stands, a
tray, and a decanter three parts full of brandy. And between me and
the table stood a man.
He stood sideways, leaning a little back, as if to keep his shadow off
the threshold, and looked at me over his left shoulder--a bald, grave
man, slightly under the common height, with a long clerical coat of
preposterous fit hanging loosely from his shoulders, a white cravat,
black breeches, and black stockings. His feet were loosely thrust into
carpet-slippers. I judged his age at fifty, or thereabouts; but his
face rested in the shadow, and I could only note a pair of eyes, very
small and alert, twinkling above a large expanse of cheek.
He was lifting a wine-glass from the table at the moment when I
appeared, and it trembled now in his right hand. I heard a spilt drop
or two fall on the carpet, and this was all the evidence he showed of
discomposure.
Setting the glass back, he felt in his breast-pocket for a
handkerchief, failed to find one, and rubbed his hands together to get
the liquor off his fingers.
"You startled me," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, turning his eyes
upon me, as he lifted his glass again, and emptied it. "How did you
find your way in?"
"By the front door," said I, wondering at his unconcern.
He nodded his head slowly.
"Ah! yes; I forgot to lock it. You came to steal, I suppose?"
"I came because I lost my way. I've been travelling this God-forsaken
moor since dusk--"
"With your boots in your hand," he put in quietly.
"I took them off out of respect to the yellow dog you keep."
"He lies in a very natural attitude--eh?"
"You don't tell me he was _stuffed_!"
The old man's eyes beamed a contemptuous pity.
"You are indifferently sharp, my dear sir, for a housebreaker. Come
in. Set down those convicting boots, and don't drip pools of water
in the very doorway, of all places. If I must entertain a burglar, I
prefer him tidy."
He walked to the fire, picked up a poker, and knocked the coals into
a blaze. This done, he turned round on me with the poker still in his
hand. The serenest gravity sat on his large, pale features.
"Why have I done this?" he asked.
"I suppose to get possession of the poker."
"Quite right. May I inquire your next move?"
"Why," said I, feeling in my tail pocket, "I carry a pistol."
"Which I suppose to be damp?"
"By no means. I carry it, as you see, in an oil-cloth case."
He stopped, and laid the poker carefully in the fender.
"That is a stronger card than I possess. I might urge that by pulling
the trigger you would certainly alarm the house and the neighborhood,
and put a halter round your neck. I say, I _might_ urge this, and
assume you to be an intelligent auditor. But it strikes me as safer to
assume you capable of using a pistol with effect at three paces. With
what might happen subsequently I will not pretend to be concerned. It
is sufficient that I dislike the notion of being perforated. The fate
of your neck--" He waved a hand. "Well, I have known you for just
five minutes, and feel but moderate interest in your neck. As for
the inmates of this house, it will refresh you to hear that there are
none. I have lived here two years with a butler and a female cook,
both of whom I dismissed yesterday at a moment's notice for conduct
which I will not shock your ears by explicitly naming. Suffice it to
say, I carried them off yesterday to my parish church, two miles away,
married them, and dismissed them in the vestry without characters. I
wish you had known that butler--but excuse me; with the information I
have supplied, you ought to find no difficulty in fixing the price you
will take to clear out of my house instanter."
"Sir," I answered, "I have held a pistol at one or two heads in my
time; but never at one stuffed with nobler discretion. Your chivalry
does not, indeed, disarm me, but prompts me to desire more of your
acquaintance. I have found a gentleman, and must sup with him before I
make terms."
The address seemed to please him. He shuffled across the room to a
sideboard, and produced a plate of biscuits, another of almonds and
dried raisins, a glass and two decanters.
"Sherry and Madeira," he said. "There is also a cold pie in the
larder, if you care for it."
"A biscuit will serve," I replied. "To tell the truth, I'm more for
the bucket than the manger, as the grooms say; and, by your leave, the
brandy you were testing just now is more to my mind than wine."
"There is no water handy."
"There was plenty out of doors to last me with this bottle."
I pulled over a chair, and laid my pistol on the table, and held out
the glass for him to fill. Having done so, he helped himself to a
glass and a chair, and sat down facing me.
"I was talking, just now, of my late butler," he began, with a sip
at his brandy. "Has it struck you that, when confronted with moral
delinquency, I am apt to let my indignation get the better of me?"
"Not at all," I answered heartily, refilling my glass.
It appeared that another reply would have pleased him better.
"H'm. I was hoping that, perhaps, I had visited his offence too
strongly. As a clergyman, you see, I was bound to be severe; but upon
my word, sir, since he went I have felt like a man who has lost a
limb."
He drummed with his fingers on the cloth for a few moments, and went
on:
"One has a natural disposition to forgive butlers--Pharaoh, for
instance, felt it. There hovers around butlers that peculiar
atmosphere which Shakespeare noticed as encircling kings, an
atmosphere in which common ethics lose their pertinence. But mine was
a rare bird--a black swan among butlers. He was more than a butler: he
was a quick and brightly-gifted man. Of the accuracy of his taste,
and the unusual scope of his endeavor, you will be able to form some
opinion when I assure you he modelled himself upon _me_."
I bowed over my brandy.
"I am a scholar; yet I employed him to read aloud to me, and derived
pleasure from his intonation. I talk as a scholar; yet he learned
to answer me in language as precise as my own. My cast-off garments
fitted him not more irreproachably than did my amenities of manner.
Divest him of his tray, and you would find his mode of entering a
room hardly distinguishable from my own--the same urbanity, the same
alertness of carriage, the same superfine deference towards the weaker
sex. All--all my idiosyncrasies I saw reflected in this my mirror; and
can you doubt that I was gratified? He was my _alter ego_--which,
by the way, makes it the more extraordinary that it should have been
necessary to marry him to the cook."
"Look here," I broke in; "you want a butler."
"Oh, you really grasp that fact, do you?" he retorted.
"And you wish to get rid of me as soon as may be."
"I hope there is no impoliteness in complimenting you on your
discernment."
"Your two wishes," said I, "may be reconciled. Let me cease to be your
burglar, and let me continue here as your butler."
He leant back, spreading out the fingers of each hand as if the
table's edge was a harpsichord, and he stretching octaves upon it.
"Believe me," I went on, "you might do worse. I have been a demy of
Magdalen College, Oxford, in my time, and retain some Greek and Latin.
I'll undertake to read the Fathers with an accent that shall not
offend you. My knowledge of wine is none the worse for having been
cultivated in other men's cellars. Moreover, you shall engage the
ugliest cook in Christendom, so long as I'm your butler. I've taken a
liking to you--that's flat--and I apply for the post."
"I give forty pounds a year," said he.
"And I'm cheap at that price."
He filled up his glass, looking up at me while he did so with the air
of one digesting a problem. From first to last his face was grave as a
judge's.
"We are too impulsive, I think," was his answer, after a minute's
silence. "And your speech smacks of the amateur. You say, 'Let
me cease to be your burglar, and let me be your butler.' The mere
aspiration is respectable; but a man might as well say, 'Let me cease
to write poems; let me paint pictures.' And truly, sir, you impressed
me as no expert in your present trade, but a journeyman-housebreaker,
if I may say so."
"On the other hand," I argued, "consider the moderation of my demands;
that alone should convince you of my desire to turn over a new leaf.
I ask for a month's trial; if, at the end of that time, I don't suit,
you shall say so, and I'll march from your door with nothing in my
pocket but my month's wages. Be hanged, sir! but when I reflect on the
amount you'll have to pay to get me to face to-night's storm again,
you seem to be getting off dirt-cheap!" cried I, slapping my palm on
the table.
"Ah, if you had only known Adolphus!" he exclaimed.
Now, the third glass of clean spirits has always a deplorable effect
on me. It turns me from bright to black, from lightness of spirits to
extreme sulkiness. I have done more wickedness over this third tumbler
than in all the other states of comparative inebriety within my
experience. So now I glowered at my companion and rapped out a curse.
"Look here, I don't want to hear any more of Adolphus, and I've a
pretty clear notion of the game you're playing. You want to make me
drunk, and you're ready to sit prattling there till I drop under the
table."
"Do me the favor to remember that you came, and are staying, at your
own invitation. As for the brandy, I would remind you that I suggested
a milder drink. Try some Madeira."
He handed me the decanter, as he spoke, and I poured out a glass.
"Madeira!" said I, taking a gulp. "Ugh! it's the commonest Marsala!"
I had no sooner said the words than he rose up, and stretched a hand
gravely across to me.
"I hope you'll shake it," he said; "though, as a man who after three
glasses of neat spirit can distinguish between Madeira and Marsala,
you have every right to refuse me. Two minutes ago you offered to
become my butler, and I demurred. I now beg you to repeat that offer.
Say the word, and I employ you gladly; you shall even have the second
decanter (which contains genuine Madeira) to take to bed with you."
We shook hands on our bargain, and catching up a candlestick, he led
the way from the room.
Picking up my boots, I followed him along the passage and down the
silent staircase. In the hall he paused to stand on tiptoe, and turn
up the lamp, which was burning low. As he did so, I found time to
fling a glance at my old enemy, the mastiff. He lay as I had first
seen him--a stuffed dog, if ever there was one. "Decidedly," thought
I, "my wits are to seek, to-night;" and with the same, a sudden
suspicion made me turn to my conductor, who had advanced to the
left-hand door, and was waiting for me, with hand on the knob.
"One moment," I said; "this is all very pretty, but how am I to know
you're not sending me to bed while you fetch in all the countryside to
lay me by the heels?"
"I'm afraid," was his answer, "you must be content with my word, as
a gentleman, that never, to-night or hereafter, will I breathe a
syllable about the circumstances of your visit. However, if you
choose, we will return upstairs."
"No; I'll trust you," said I; and he opened the door.
It led into a broad passage, paved with slate, upon which three or
four rooms opened. He paused by the second, and ushered me into a
sleeping-chamber which, though narrow, was comfortable enough--a vast
improvement, at any rate, on the mumper's lodgings I had been used to
for many months past.
"You can undress here," he said. "The sheets are aired, and if you'll
wait a moment I'll fetch a nightshirt--one of my own."
"Sir, you heap coals of fire on me."
"Believe me that for ninety-nine of your qualities I do not care a
tinker's curse: but as a man who, after three tumblers of neat brandy,
can tell Marsala from Madeira you are to be taken care of."
He shuffled away, but came back in a couple of minutes with the
nightshirt.
"Good-night," he called to me, flinging it in at the door; and without
giving me time to return the wish, went his way upstairs.
Now it might be supposed that I was only too glad to toss off my
clothes and climb into the bed I had so unexpectedly acquired a right
to. But, as a matter of fact, I did nothing of the kind. Instead, I
drew on my boots and sat on the bed's edge, blinking at my candle till
it died down in its socket, and afterwards at the purple square of
window as it slowly changed to gray with the coming of dawn. I was
cold to the heart, and my teeth chattered with an ague. Certainly I
never suspected my host's word; but was even occupied in framing good
resolutions and shaping out an excellent future, when I heard the
front door gently pulled to, and a man's footsteps moving quietly to
the gate.
The treachery knocked me in a heap for the moment. Then leaping up and
flinging my door wide, I stumbled through the uncertain light of the
passage into the front hall.
There was a fan-shaped light over the door, and the place was very
still and gray. A quick thought, or rather a sudden prophetic guess at
the truth, made me turn to the figure of the mastiff curled under the
hall table.
I laid my hand on the scruff of his neck. He was quite limp, and my
fingers sank into the flesh on either side of the vertebrae. Digging
them deeper, I dragged him out into the middle of the hall, and pulled
the front door open to see the better.
His throat was gashed from ear to ear.
How many seconds passed after I dropped the senseless lump on the
floor, and before I made another movement, it would puzzle me to say.
Twice I stirred a foot as if to run out at the door. Then, changing my
mind, I stepped over the mastiff, and ran up the staircase. The light
no longer shone out into the left-hand passage; but groping down it,
I found the study door open, as before, and passed in. A sick light
stole through the blinds--enough for me to distinguish the glasses
and decanters on the table, and find my way to the curtain that hung
before the room where the light had first attracted me.
I pushed the curtain aside, paused for a moment, and listened to the
violent beat of my heart; then felt for the door handle and turned it.
All I could see at first; was that the chamber was small; next, that
the light patch in a line with the window was the white coverlet of a
bed; and next, that somebody, or something, lay on the bed.
I listened again. There was no sound in the room; no heart beating but
my own. I reached out a hand to pull up the blind, and drew it back
again. I dared not.
The daylight grew, minute by minute, on the dull parallelogram of
the blind, and minute by minute that horrible thing on the bed took
something of distinctness. The strain beat me at last. I fetched a
veritable yell to give myself courage, and, reaching for the cord,
pulled up the blind as fast as it would go.
The face on the pillow was that of an old man--a face waxen and
peaceful, with quiet lines about the month and eyes, and long lines of
gray hair falling back from the temples. The body was turned a little
on one side, and one hand lay outside the bedclothes in a very natural
manner. But there were two dark spots on the coverlet.
Then I knew I was face to face with the real householder; and it
flashed on me that I had been indiscreet in taking service as his
butler, and that I knew the face his ex-butler wore.
[Illustration: "FACE TO FACE WITH THE REAL HOUSEHOLDER."]
And, being by this time awake to the responsibilities of the post, I
quitted it three steps at a time, not once looking behind me. Outside
the house the storm had died, and white sunlight broke over the sodden
moors. But my bones were cold, and I ran faster and faster.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
BY IDA M. TARBELL.
LINCOLN'S PROMINENCE AS A WHIG POLITICIAN AT THIRTY-TWO.--STEPHEN A.
DOUGLAS'S REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD.--BEGINNING OF THE RIVALRY BETWEEN
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS.--LINCOLN'S PART IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1840.--MARY
TODD AND HER ENGAGEMENT TO LINCOLN.--FALSE STORIES REGARDING LINCOLN'S
COURTSHIP.--THE LINCOLN AND SHIELDS DUEL.--LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE.
By the time Abraham Lincoln was thirty-two years old--that is, in
1841--he was one of the leading Whig politicians of Illinois. Four
times in succession he had been elected to the General Assembly of the
State--in 1834, 1836, 1838, and 1840. Twice he had been a candidate
for Speaker of the House--in 1838 and in 1840--both times against
William L.D. Ewing; and though both times defeated, the vote had in
each instance been close. In 1841 he had been talked of as a candidate
for governor, a suggestion to which he would not listen.
He had not taken this prominent position because the Whig party lacked
material. Edward Dickinson Baker, Colonel John J. Hardin, John T.
Stuart, Ninian W. Edwards, Jesse K. Dubois, O.H. Browning, were but
a few of the brilliant men who were throwing all their ability and
ambition into the contest for political honors in the State. Nor
were the Whigs a whit superior to the Democrats. William L.D. Ewing,
Ebenezer Peck, William Thomas, James Shields, John Calhoun, were in
every respect as able as the best men of the Whig party. Indeed, one
of the prominent Democrats with whom Lincoln came often in contact,
was popularly regarded as the most brilliant and promising politician
of the State--Stephen A. Douglas. His record had been phenomenal.
He had amazed both parties, in 1834, by securing appointment by the
legislature to the office of State Attorney for the first judicial
circuit, over John J. Hardin. In 1836 he had been elected to the
legislature, and although he was at that time but twenty-three years
of age, he had shown himself one of the most vigorous, capable, and
intelligent members. Indeed, Douglas's work in the Tenth Assembly gave
him about the same position in the Democratic party of the State at
large that Lincoln's work in the same body gave him in the Whig
party of his own district. In 1837 he had had no difficulty in being
appointed register of the land office, a position which compelled
him to make his home in Springfield. It was only a few months after
Lincoln rode into town, all his earthly possessions in a pair of
saddle-bags, that Douglas appeared. Handsome, polished, and always
with an air of prosperity, the advent of the young Democratic
official was in striking contrast to that of the sad-eyed, ill-clad,
poverty-stricken young lawyer from New Salem.
From the first, Lincoln and Douglas were thrown constantly together
in the social life of the town, and often pitted against each other in
what were the real forums of the State at that day--the space around
the huge "Franklin" stove of some obliging store-keeper, the steps of
somebody's law office, a pile of lumber, or a long timber, lying in
the public square, where the new State-house was going up.
In the fall of 1837 Douglas was nominated for Congress on the
Democratic ticket. His Whig opponent was Lincoln's law partner, John
T. Stuart. The campaign which the two conducted was one of the most
remarkable in the history of the State. For five months of the spring
and summer of 1838 they rode together from town to town all over the
northern part of Illinois (Illinois at that time was divided into but
three congressional districts; the third, in which Sangamon County
was included, being made up of the twenty-two northernmost counties),
speaking six days out of seven. When the election came off in August,
1838, out of thirty-six thousand votes cast, Stuart received a
majority of only fourteen; but even that majority the Democrats always
contended was won unfairly. The campaign was watched with intense
interest by the young politicians of Springfield; no one of them felt
a deeper interest in it than Lincoln, who was himself at the same time
a candidate for member of the State legislature.
[Illustration: OLD STATE-HOUSE AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.
From a recent photograph made for MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. The corner-stone
was laid July 4, 1837, about four months after the passage of the
act removing the capital to Springfield. The event was attended with
elaborate ceremonies. The orator of the day was Colonel E.D. Baker. It
was nearly four years before the building was finally completed, at a
cost of two hundred and forty thousand dollars. It was first occupied
by the legislature during the regular session of 1840-1841, that body,
at two previous special sessions, being obliged to use the Methodist
church for the Senate, and the Second Presbyterian church for the
House. The Supreme Court found a meeting place in the Episcopal
church. The legislative committees met in rooms in private houses
about town. This building was the State capitol for more than thirty
years, becoming, upon the completion of the present State-house, the
court-house of Sangamon County.]
Lincoln must have learned by the end of 1840, if not before, something
of the power of the "Little Giant," as Douglas was called. Certainly
no man in public life between 1837 and 1860 had a greater hold on his
followers. The reasons for this grasp are not hard to find. Douglas
was by nature buoyant, enthusiastic, impetuous. He had that sunny
boyishness which is so irresistible to young and old. With it he had
great natural eloquence. When his deep, rich voice rolled out fervid
periods in support of the sub-treasury and the convention system, or
in opposition to internal improvements by the federal government, the
people applauded out of sheer joy at the pleasure of hearing him. He
was one of the few men in Illinois whom the epithet of "Yankee" never
hurt. He might be a Yankee, but when he sat down on the knee of
some surly lawyer, and confidentially told him his plans; or, at a
political meeting, took off his coat, and rolled up his sleeves, and
"pitched into" his opponent, the sons of Illinois forgot his origin in
love for the man.
Lincoln undoubtedly understood the charm of Douglas, and realized
his power. But he already had an insight into one of his political
characteristics that few people recognized at that day. In writing to
Stuart in 1839, while the latter was attending Congress, Lincoln said:
"Douglas has not been here since you left. A report is in circulation
here now that he has abandoned the idea of going to Washington, though
the report does not come in a very authentic form, so far as I can
learn. Though, by the way, speaking of authenticity, you know that if
we had heard Douglas say that he had abandoned the contest, it would
not be very authentic."
In the campaign of 1840 Lincoln and Douglas came more frequently than
ever into conflict. At that time the local issues, which had formerly
engaged Illinois candidates almost entirely, were lost sight of in
national questions. In Springfield, where the leaders of the parties
were living, many hot debates were held in private. Out of these grew,
in December, 1839, a series of public discussions, extending over
eight evenings, and in which several of the first orators of the
State took part. Lincoln was the last man on the list. The people were
nearly worn out before his turn came, and his audience was small. He
began his speech with some melancholy, self-deprecatory reflections,
complaining that the small audience cast a damp upon his spirits which
he was sure he would be unable to overcome during the evening. He
did better than he expected, overcoming the damp on his spirits so
effectually that he made what was regarded as the best speech of the
series; and by a general request, it was printed for distribution. The
speech is peculiarly interesting from the fact that while there is
a little of the perfervid eloquence of 1840 in it, as well as a good
deal of the rather boisterous humor of the time, a part of it is
devoted to a careful examination of the statements of his opponents,
and a refutation of them by means of public documents.
[Illustration: A HARRISON BADGE OF 1840.
From the collection of Mr. O.H. Oldroyd of Washington, D.C.]
[Illustration: A HARRISON BUTTON OF 1840.
From the collection of Mr. John C. Browne of Philadelphia.]
As a good Democrat was expected to do, Douglas had explained with
plausibility why the Van Buren administration had in 1838 spent
$40,000,000. Lincoln takes up his statements one by one, and proves,
as he says, that "the majority of them are wholly untrue." Douglas had
attributed a part of the expenditures to the purchase of public lands
from the Indians.
"Now it happens," says Lincoln, "that no such purchase was
made during that year. It is true that some money was paid
that year in pursuance of Indian treaties; but no more, or
rather not as much, as had been paid on the same account in
each of several preceding years.... Again, Mr. Douglas says
that the removal of the Indians to the country west of the
Mississippi created much of the expenditure of 1838. I have
examined the public documents in relation to this matter, and
find that less was paid for the removal of the Indians in
that than in some former years. The whole sum expended on that
account in that year did not exceed one quarter of a
million. For this small sum, although we do not think the
administration entitled to credit, because large sums have
been expended in the same way in former years, we consent it
may take one and make the most of it.
"Next, Mr. Douglas says that five millions of the expenditures
of 1838 consisted of the payment of the French indemnity money
to its individual claimants. I have carefully examined the
public documents, and thereby find this statement to be wholly
untrue. Of the forty millions of dollars expended in 1838, I
am enabled to say positively that not one dollar consisted of
payments on the French indemnities. So much for that excuse.
"Next comes the post-office. He says that five millions were
expended during that year to sustain that department. By a
like examination of public documents, I find this also wholly
untrue. Of the so often mentioned forty millions, not one
dollar went to the post-office....
"I return to another of Mr. Douglas's excuses for the
expenditures of 1838, at the same time announcing the pleasing
intelligence that this is the last one. He says that
ten millions of that year's expenditure was a contingent
appropriation, to prosecute an anticipated war with Great
Britain on the Maine boundary question. Few words will settle
this. First, that the ten millions appropriated was not made
till 1839, and consequently could not have been expended in
1838; second, although it was appropriated, it has never been
expended at all. Those who heard Mr. Douglas, recollect that
he indulged himself in a contemptuous expression of pity for
me. 'Now he's got me,' thought I. But when he went on to say
that five millions of the expenditure of 1838 were payments of
the French indemnities, which I knew to be untrue; that five
millions had been for the post-office, which I knew to be
untrue; that ten millions had been for the Maine boundary war,
which I not only knew to be untrue, but supremely ridiculous
also; and when I saw that he was stupid enough to hope that
I would permit such groundless and audacious assertions to
go unexposed,--I readily consented that, on the score both of
veracity and sagacity, the audience should judge whether he or
I were the more deserving of the world's contempt."
[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1860.--NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
From a first-state proof of an engraving of the Cooper Institute
picture of Lincoln (see McCLURE'S MAGAZINE for February, 1896, first
frontispiece). Made by John C. Buttre, and now in the collection
of W.C. Crane of New York City, through whose courtesy it is here
reproduced.]
These citations show that Lincoln had already learned to handle public
documents, and to depend for at least a part of his success with an
audience upon a careful statement of facts. The methods used in
at least a portion of this speech are exactly those which made the
irresistible strength of his speeches in 1858 and 1859.
LINCOLN IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1840.
But there was little of as good work done in the campaign of 1840, by
Lincoln or anybody else, as is found in this speech. It was a campaign
of noise and fun, and nowhere more so than in Illinois. Lincoln was
one of the five Whig Presidential electors, and he flung himself into
the campaign with confidence. "The nomination of Harrison takes first
rate," he wrote to his partner Stuart, then in Washington. "You know
I am never sanguine, but I believe we will carry the State. The chance
of doing so appears to me twenty-five per cent, better than it did
for you to beat Douglas." The Whigs, in spite of their dislike of the
convention system, organized as they never had before, and even sent
out a "confidential" circular of which Lincoln was the author.
Every weapon he thought of possible use in the contest he secured. "Be
sure to send me as many copies of the 'Life of Harrison' as you can
spare from other uses," he wrote Stuart. "Be very sure to procure and
send me the 'Senate Journal' of New York, of September, 1814. I have a
newspaper article which says that that document proves that Van Buren
voted against raising troops in the last war. And, in general, send me
everything you think will be a good 'war-club.'"
Every sign of success he quoted to Stuart; the number of subscribers
to the "Old Soldier," a campaign newspaper which the Whig committee
had informed the Whigs of the State that they "_must take_;" the names
of Van Buren men who were weakening, and to whom he wanted Stuart to
send documents; the name of every theretofore doubtful person who had
declared himself for Harrison. "Japh Bell has come out for Harrison,"
he put in a postscript to one letter; "ain't that a caution?"
The monster political meetings held throughout the State did much
to widen Lincoln's reputation, particularly one held in June in
Springfield. Twenty thousand people attended this meeting, delegations
coming from every direction. It took fourteen teams to haul the
delegation from Chicago, and they were three weeks on their journey.
Each party carried some huge symbolic piece--the log cabin being the
favorite. One of the cabins taken to Springfield was drawn by thirty
yokes of oxen. In a hickory tree which was planted beside this cabin,
coons were seen playing, and a barrel of hard cider stood by the door,
continually on tap. Instead of a log cabin, the Chicago delegation
dragged across country a government yawl rigged up as a two-masted
ship, with a band of music and a six-pounder cannon on board.
There are many reminiscences of this great celebration, and Lincoln's
part in it, still afloat in Illinois. General T.J. Henderson writes,
in the entertaining reminiscences of Lincoln prepared for this
biography:
"The first time I remember to have seen Abraham Lincoln was during the
memorable campaign of 1840, when I was a boy fifteen years of age. It
was at an immense Whig mass-meeting held at Springfield, Illinois, in
the month of June of that year. The Whigs attended this meeting from
all parts of the State in large numbers, and it was estimated that
from forty to fifty thousand people were present. They came in
carriages and wagons, on horseback and on foot. They came with log
cabins drawn on wheels by oxen, and with coons, coon-skins, and hard
cider. They came with music and banners; and thousands of them came
from long distances. It was the first political meeting I had ever
attended, and it made a very strong impression upon my youthful mind.
"My father, William H. Henderson, then a resident of Stark County,
Illinois, was an ardent Whig; and having served under General William
Henry Harrison, the then Whig candidate for President, in the war of
1812-1815, he felt a deep interest in his election. And although
he lived about a hundred miles from Springfield, he went with a
delegation from Stark County to this political meeting, and took
me along with him. I remember that at this great meeting of the
supporters of Harrison and Tyler there were a number of able and
distinguished speakers of the Whig party of the State of Illinois
present. Among them were Colonel E.D. Baker, who was killed at Ball's
Bluff, on the Potomac, in the late war, and who was one of the most
eloquent speakers in the State; Colonel John J. Hardin, who was killed
at the battle of Buena Vista, in the Mexican War; Fletcher Webster,
a son of Daniel Webster, who was killed in the late war; S. Leslie
Smith, a brilliant orator of Chicago; Rev. John Hogan, Ben Bond, and
Abraham Lincoln. I heard all of these men speak on that occasion. And
while I was too young to be a judge of their speeches, yet I thought
them all to be great men, and none of them greater than Abraham
Lincoln."
One of the most prominent members of the Illinois bar has written out
especially for this work his impressions of Lincoln's speech at that
gathering.
[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861.
From a photograph by Klauber of Louisville, Kentucky. From a
photograph owned by Mr. James B. Speed of Louisville, Kentucky, to
whose courtesy we owe the right to reproduce it here. When Lincoln
was visiting Joshua F. Speed in 1841, Mrs. Speed, the mother of his
friend, became much interested in him. His melancholy was profound,
and she tried by kindness and gentleness to arouse him to new interest
in life. One day before his departure she asked one of her daughters
for the latter's Oxford Bible, telling her she wanted it for Mr.
Lincoln, and promising to get another in its place. The gift touched
Lincoln deeply, and after he became President he remembered the giver
with the above portrait--one he had had taken especially for her, he
wrote.]
[Transcriber's Note: The following is handwritten beneath the
photograph: "For Mrs. Lucy G. Speed, from whose pious hands I accepted
the present of an Oxford Bible twenty years ago. Washington, D.C.
October 5, 1861 A. Lincoln"]
[Illustration: WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, NINTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES.
From a painting. William Henry Harrison was born at Berkeley,
Virginia, February 9, 1773. He was educated at Hampden Sidney College,
and began to study medicine, but, excited by Indian outrages, gave it
up to enter the army. He was sent against the Indians of the West, and
at once distinguished himself. After peace was made in 1798, he was
appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory. In 1799 he was a
territorial delegate to Congress, and from 1801 to 1813, territorial
governor of Indiana. In the war of 1812 he gained the battles of
Tippecanoe and the Thames. From 1816 to 1819 he was a delegate to
Congress from Ohio; from 1825 to 1828, a United State Senator; and in
1828 and 1829, United States Minister to Colombia. In 1836 he was the
Whig candidate for the Presidency, but was defeated. Four years
later (1840) he was elected, but lived for only one month after his
inauguration.]
"Mr. Lincoln stood in a wagon, from which he addressed the mass of
people that surrounded it. The meeting was one of unusual interest
because of him who was to make the principal address. It was at the
time of his greatest physical strength. He was tall, and perhaps a
little more slender than in later life, and more homely than after he
became stouter in person. He was then only thirty-one years of age,
and yet he was regarded as one of the ablest of the Whig speakers in
that campaign. There was that in him that attracted and held public
attention. Even then he was the subject of popular regard because of
his candid and simple mode of discussing and illustrating political
questions. At times he was intensely logical, and was always most
convincing in his arguments. The questions involved in that canvass
had relation to the tariff, internal public improvements by the
federal government, the distribution of the proceeds of the sales
of public lands among the several States, and other questions
that divided the political parties of that day. They were not such
questions as enlisted and engaged his best thoughts; they did not take
hold of his great nature, and had no tendency to develop it. At times
he discussed the questions of the time in a logical way, but much
time was devoted to telling stories to illustrate some phase of his
argument, though more often the telling of these stories was resorted
to for the purpose of rendering his opponents ridiculous. That was a
style of speaking much appreciated at that early day. In that kind
of oratory he excelled most of his contemporaries--indeed, he had no
equals in the State. One story he told on that occasion was full of
salient points, and well illustrated the argument he was making. It
was not an impure story, yet it was not one it would be seemly to
publish; but rendered, as it was, in his inimitable way, it contained
nothing that was offensive to a refined taste. The same story might
have been told by another in such a way that it would probably have
been regarded as transcending the proprieties of popular address. One
characterizing feature of all the stories told by Mr. Lincoln, on the
stump and elsewhere, was that although the subject matter of some of
them might not have been entirely unobjectionable, yet the manner of
telling them was so peculiarly his own that they gave no offence
even to refined and cultured people. On the contrary, they were much
enjoyed. The story he told on this occasion was much liked by the vast
assembly that surrounded the temporary platform from which he spoke,
and was received with loud bursts of laughter and applause. It served
to place the opposing party and its speakers in a most ludicrous
position in respect to the question being considered, and gave him a
most favorable hearing for the arguments he later made in support of
the measures he was sustaining."
[Illustration: JOSHUA F. SPEED AND WIFE.
From a painting by Healy, owned by Mrs, Joshua F. Speed of Louisville,
Kentucky, and reproduced here by permission. Joshua F. Speed was a
Kentuckian. At the time Lincoln went to Springfield he was one of the
leading merchants of the town, and it was he who befriended the young
lawyer on his arrival (see MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for March). Towards
the end of 1840 Mr. Speed sold his store, and soon after returned to
Louisville. At his urgent invitation Lincoln visited him in the
summer of 1841. He seems not to have gone back with Speed, as many
biographers have stated, for in a letter of June 19, 1841, to Speed,
Lincoln says: "I stick to my promise to come to Louisville." He seems,
too, to have stayed a much shorter time than has frequently been
stated, for he wrote back to Speed's sister, on September 27th, of his
safe arrival in Springfield. The letters quoted from in this article
were given by Speed himself to Mr. Herndon to publish in his "Life of
Lincoln." Mr. Herndon turned them over to Lamon, who used them in his
volume published in 1872. Joshua Speed and Lincoln remained intimate
friends through life. Although they differed radically in 1855 on the
policy to be pursued in regard to slavery, Lincoln, in writing Speed
a long letter explaining his views, closes: "And yet let me say I am
your friend forever."]
LINCOLN'S ENGAGEMENT TO MISS TODD.
Lincoln had been busy with politics and law in the years since he left
New Salem, but he had by no means neglected the social side of life.
Indeed, he had gone so far as to become engaged to be married to
one of the favorite young women of Springfield, Miss Mary Todd, the
sister-in-law of one of his political friends, a member of the "Long
Nine" and a prominent citizen, Ninian W. Edwards.
[Illustration: MARY TODD LINCOLN.
From a carbon enlargement, by Sherman and McHugh of New York, of
a photograph by Brady. Mary Todd was born in Lexington, Kentucky,
December 13, 1818. Her mother died when she was young, and she
was educated at one of the best-known schools of the State--Madame
Mantelli's. She remained there some four years, and as the school was
conducted entirely in French, she spoke the language fluently. She was
afterwards some time in the Ward Academy of Lexington. Miss Todd first
visited Springfield in 1837, but remained only a few months. In 1839
she returned to make her home with her sister, Mrs. Edwards. She had
two other sisters in the town, Mrs. William Wallace and Mrs. C.M.
Smith. The story of her life will, of course, be told in connection
with that of Mr. Lincoln in the forthcoming articles. The photograph
used for this reproduction was kindly loaned by Mrs. S.J. Withington,
Warner, New Hampshire.]
Miss Todd came from a well-known family of Lexington, Kentucky; her
father, Robert S. Todd, being one of the leading citizens of his
State. She had come to Springfield in 1839 to live with her sister,
Mrs. Edwards. She was a brilliant, witty, highly-educated girl,
ambitious and spirited, with a touch of audacity which only made
her more attractive, and she at once took a leading position in
Springfield society. There were many young unmarried men in the town,
drawn there by politics, and Mr. Edwards's handsome home was opened to
them in the hospitable Southern way. After Mary Todd became an inmate
of the Edwards house, the place was gayer than ever. She received much
attention from Douglas, Shields, Lincoln, and several others. It
was soon apparent, however, that Miss Todd preferred Lincoln. As
the intimacy between them increased, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards protested.
However honorable and able a man Lincoln might be, he was still a
"plebeian." His family were humble and poor; he was self-educated,
without address or polish, careless of forms, indifferent to society.
How could Mary Todd, brought up in a cultured home, accustomed to
the refinements of life, and with ambition for social position,
accommodate herself to so grave a nature, so dull an exterior? Miss
Todd knew her own mind, however. She loved Lincoln, and seems to have
believed from the first in his future. Some time in 1840 they became
engaged.
[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1858.--HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
From a photograph, by Harrison, Galesburg, Illinois, of an ambrotype
owned by Mrs. W.J. Thomson of Monmouth, Illinois. This picture was
taken at Monmouth on October 11, 1858, by W.J. Thomson, after a speech
made in the town by Lincoln that day, and four days after the debate
between Lincoln and Douglas at Galesburg, Illinois, on October 7,
1858.]
But it was not long before there came the clashing inevitable between
two persons whose tastes and ambitions were so different. Miss Todd
was jealous and exacting. Lincoln frequently failed to accompany her
to the merry-makings which she wanted to attend. She resented this
indifference, which seemed to her a purposed slight, instead of simply
a lack of thought on his part, and sometimes she went with Mr.
Douglas or any other escort who offered. Reproaches and tears and
misunderstanding followed. If the lovers made up, it was only to
fall out again. At last Lincoln became convinced that they were
incompatible, and resolved that he must break the engagement. But the
knowledge that the girl loved him took away his courage. He felt that
he must not draw back, and he became profoundly miserable.
"Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it
is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented;
and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy
than to fail in the effort," Lincoln had written Miss Owens three
years before. How could he make this brilliant, passionate creature to
whom he was betrothed happy?
A mortal dread of the result of the marriage, a harrowing doubt of
his own feelings, possessed him. The experience is not so rare in the
lives of lovers that it should be regarded, as it often has been, as
something exceptional and abnormal in Lincoln's case. A reflective
nature founded in melancholy, like Lincoln's, rarely undertakes
even the simpler affairs of life without misgivings. He certainly
experienced dread and doubt before entering on any new relation.
When it came to forming the most delicate and intimate of all human
relations, he staggered under a storm of uncertainty and suffering,
and finally broke the engagement.
So horrible a breach of honor did this seem to him that he called the
day when it occurred the "fatal first of January, 1841," and months
afterward he wrote to his intimate friend Speed: "I must regain my
confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made.
In that ability I once prided myself as the only or chief gem of my
character; that gem I lost--how and where you know too well. I have
not yet regained it, and, until I do, I cannot trust myself in any
matter of much importance."
[Illustration: ROBERT S. TODD.
Robert S. Todd, father of Mrs. Lincoln, came of distinguished
ancestors. He was the seventh son of Major-General Levi Todd, and was
born at Lexington, Kentucky, February 25, 1791. He was prominent in
the politics of Kentucky for nearly thirty years. For many years he
was clerk of the Kentucky House of Representatives; he was three times
elected Representative from Fayette County, and was a State Senator
at the time of his death, which occurred July 15, 1849. He was twice
married--the first time to his near relative, Eliza Ann Parker, the
mother of Mary Todd.]
[Illustration: MISS JULIA JAYNE, ONE OF MISS TODD'S BRIDESMAIDS.
From a photograph loaned by Mr. Jesse W. Weik. Miss Jayne afterward
became Mrs. Lyman Trumbull.]
The breaking of the engagement between Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln was
naturally known at the time to all their friends. Lincoln's melancholy
was evident to them all, nor did he, indeed, attempt to disguise
it. He wrote and spoke freely to his intimates of the despair which
possessed him, and of his sense of dishonor. The episode caused a
great amount of gossip, as was to be expected. After Mr. Lincoln's
assassination and Mrs. Lincoln's sad death, various accounts of the
courtship and marriage were circulated. It remained, however, for one
of Lincoln's law partners, Mr. W.H. Herndon, to develop and circulate
the most sensational of all the versions of the rupture. His story
would not be referred to here were it not that it has been generally
accepted as truthful by even his most conservative biographers,
including Mr. John T. Morse and Mr. Carl Schurz. According to Mr.
Herndon, the engagement between the two was broken in the most violent
and public way possible, by Mr. Lincoln's failing to appear at the
wedding. Mr. Herndon even describes the scene in detail:
"The time fixed for the marriage was the first day of
January, 1841. Careful preparations for the happy occasion
were made at the Edwards mansion. The house underwent the
customary renovation; the furniture was properly arranged,
the rooms neatly decorated, the supper prepared, and the
guests invited. The latter assembled on the evening in
question, and awaited in expectant pleasure the interesting
ceremony of marriage. The bride, bedecked in veil and
silken gown, and nervously toying with the flowers in her
hair, sat in the adjoining room. Nothing was lacking but
the groom. For some strange reason he had been delayed. An
hour passed, and the guests, as well as the bride, were
becoming restless. But they were all doomed to
disappointment. Another hour passed; messengers were sent
out over town, and each returning with the same report, it
became apparent that Lincoln, the principal in this little
drama, had purposely failed to appear. The bride, in grief,
disappeared to her room; the wedding supper was left
untouched; the guests quietly and wonderingly withdrew; the
lights in the Edwards mansion were blown out, and darkness
settled over all for the night. What the feelings of a lady
as sensitive, passionate, and proud as Miss Todd were, we
can only imagine; no one can ever describe them. By
daybreak, after persistent search, Lincoln's friends found
him. Restless, gloomy, miserable, desperate, he seemed an
object of pity. His friends, Speed among the number,
fearing a tragic termination, watched him closely in their
rooms day and night. 'Knives and razors, and every
instrument that could be used for self-destruction, were
removed from his reach.' Mrs. Edwards did not hesitate to
regard him as insane, and of course her sister Mary shared
in that view."
[Illustration: GENERAL JAMES SHIELDS.
From a photograph kindly loaned by C.B. Hall, New York. General
Shields was born at Dungannon, County of Tyrone, Ireland, in 1810;
came to the United States in 1826; located in Randolph County,
Illinois, and taught school there; was admitted to the bar in 1832,
and practised at Kaskaskia. He was elected to the legislature in 1836,
and there became acquainted with Lincoln. In 1841 he was made auditor
of public accounts of Illinois, and it was while holding this office
that he challenged Lincoln to mortal combat. In 1843 Governor Ford
appointed him an associate justice of the Supreme Court--an office
which he resigned two years later to become commissioner of the
general land-office. His gallantry in the Mexican War was such that he
was brevetted a major-general. The prestige which his military record
gave him made him a United States Senator in 1849. Defeated for
reelection by Lyman Trumbull in 1855, he removed to Minnesota. There,
May 12, 1858, he was elected to the United States Senate to fill a
vacancy, serving about ten months. Then he went to California for
a year. August 19, 1861, President Lincoln, his old-time enemy,
presented him with a brigadier-general's commission; but two years
later he gave this up, and settled on a farm in Missouri. He remained
in retirement for a while, but eventually emerged to become a
member of the legislature, a defeated candidate for Congress,
adjutant-general of the State, and finally, in 1879, once more a
United States Senator, serving about six weeks of an unexpired term.
He thus had the rare distinction to be a United States Senator from
three States. In his later years he delivered lectures--"Reminiscences
of the Mexican War" and "Recollections of Eminent Statesmen and
Soldiers." He died suddenly at Ottumwa, Iowa, June 1, 1879. General
Shields has been variously rated by his contemporaries. That he was a
man of considerable ability is conceded, and he possessed the warmth
and generosity common to his race.--_J. McCan Davis_.]
[Illustration: MRS. NINIAN W. EDWARDS.
From a painting by Healy, owned by her son, Mr. A.S. Edwards,
Springfield, Illinois. Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards was a sister of Mrs.
Lincoln. Her maiden name was Elizabeth P. Todd. She was born at
Lexington, Kentucky, in 1813, and died at Springfield, Illinois, her
home since 1835, February 22, 1888.]
[Illustration: COURT-HOUSE AT TREMONT WHERE LINCOLN RECEIVED WARNING
OF SHIELDS'S CHALLENGE.
Tremont was about fifty miles north of Springfield, in Tazewell
County. Although the internal improvements scheme of 1837 ran a
railroad through the town, it was only reached in 1842, at the time
of the Shields-Lincoln duel, by driving. The court-house is a fair
example of those in which Lincoln first practised law.]
No one can read this description in connection with the rest of Mr.
Herndon's text, and escape the impression that, if it is true, there
must have been a vein of cowardice in Lincoln. The context shows that
he was not insane enough to excuse such a public insult to a woman.
To break his engagement was, all things considered, not in any way
an unusual or abnormal thing; to brood over the rupture, to blame
himself, to feel that he had been dishonorable, was to be expected,
after such an act, from one of his temperament. Nothing, however,
but temporary insanity or constitutional cowardice could explain such
conduct as here described. Mr. Herndon does not pretend to found his
story on any personal knowledge of the affair. He was in Springfield
at the time, a clerk in Speed's store, but did not have then, nor,
indeed, did he ever have, any social relations with the families in
which Mr. Lincoln was always a welcome guest. His only authority for
the story is a remark which he says Mrs. Ninian Edwards made to him in
an interview: "Lincoln and Mary were engaged; everything was ready and
prepared for the marriage, even to the supper. Mr. Lincoln failed
to meet his engagement; cause, insanity." This remark, it should be
noted, is not from a manuscript written by Mrs. Edwards, but in a
report of an interview with her, written by Mr. Herndon. Supposing,
however, that the statement was made exactly as Mr. Herndon reports
it, it certainly does not justify any such sensational description as
Mr. Herndon gives.
If such a thing had ever occurred, it could not have failed to be
known, of course, even to its smallest details, by all the relatives
and friends of both Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln. Nobody, however, ever
heard of this wedding party until Mr. Herndon gave his material to the
public.
One of the closest friends of the Lincolns throughout their lives was
a cousin of Mrs. Lincoln's, Mrs. Grimsley, afterwards Mrs. Dr. Brown.
Mrs. Grimsley lived in Springfield, on the most intimate and friendly
relations with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, and the first six months of
their life in the White House she spent with them. She was a woman
of unusual culture, and of the rarest sweetness and graciousness of
character. No one could look on her face without feeling her perfect
sincerity and goodness. Some months before Mrs. Brown's death, in
August, 1895, a copy of Mr. Herndon's story was sent her, with a
request that she write for publication her knowledge of the affair. In
her reply she said:
"Did Mr. Lincoln fail to appear when the invitations were out, the
guests invited, and the supper ready for the wedding? I will say
emphatically, 'No.'
"There may have been a little shadow of foundation for Mr. Herndon's
lively imagination to play upon, in that, the year previous to the
marriage, and when Mr. Lincoln and my cousin Mary expected soon to be
married, Mr. Lincoln was taken with one of those fearful, overwhelming
periods of depression, which induced his friends to persuade him to
leave Springfield. This he did for a time; but I am satisfied he
was loyal and true to Mary, even though at times he may have doubted
whether he was responding as fully as a manly, generous nature should
to such affection as he knew my cousin was ready to bestow on him. And
this because it had not the overmastering depth of an early love. This
everybody here knows; therefore I do not feel as if I were betraying
dear friends."
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF NINIAN W. EDWARDS, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.
From a photograph made for MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE in February, 1896. At
this house Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd were married November 4,
1842, and here Mrs. Lincoln died July 16, 1882. The house was built
about 1835. It was a brick structure, and there were few handsomer
ones in the town. The south half (appearing in the left of this
picture) was at first only one story in height; the second story was
but recently added. In this part was the dining-room. The parlor, in
which the marriage ceremony was performed, was the front room on the
first floor of the north half of the house. The house is now occupied
by St. Agatha's School (Episcopal).]
Mrs. John Stuart, the wife of Lincoln's law partner at that time, is
still living in Springfield, a refined, cultivated, intelligent woman,
who remembers perfectly the life and events of that day. When Mr.
Herndon's story first came to her attention, her indignation was
intense. She protested that she never before had heard of such a
thing. Mrs. Stuart was not, however, in Springfield at that particular
date, but in Washington, her husband being a member of Congress. She
wrote the following statement for this biography:
"I cannot deny this, as I was not in Springfield for some months
before and after this occurrence was said to have taken place; but I
was in close correspondence with relatives and friends during all this
time, and never heard a word of it. The late Judge Broadwell told me
that he had asked Mr. Ninian Edwards about it, and Mr. Edwards told
him that no such thing had ever taken place.
"All I can say is that I unhesitatingly do not believe such an event
ever occurred. I thought I had never heard of this till I saw it in
Herndon's book. I have since been told that Lamon mentions the same
thing. I read Lamon at the time he published, and felt very much
disgusted, but did not remember this particular assertion. The first
chapters of Lamon's book were purchased from Herndon; so Herndon is
responsible for the whole.
"Mrs. Lincoln told me herself all the circumstances of her engagement
to Mr. Lincoln, of his illness, and the breaking off of her
engagement, of the renewal, and her marriage. So I say I do not
believe one word of this dishonorable story about Mr. Lincoln."
[Illustration: LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE LICENSE AND MARRIAGE
CERTIFICATE.--NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
Photographed for MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE from the original, now on file in
the county clerk's office, Springfield, Illinois. It has hitherto been
commonly supposed that the original marriage license issued to
Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd in 1842, with the officiating-minister's
certificate of marriage attached to it, was one of the interesting
documents in what was formerly the Keys Lincoln Memorial Collection.
Nicolay and Hay reproduced it in their biography of Lincoln, and other
publications have made it appear authentic. Messrs. Keys and
Munson, who formed the collection in which the certificate was first
exhibited, called it a duplicate, and Mr. William H. Lambert of
Philadelphia, who owns it now, supposed, in buying it, that it was a
duplicate. Mr. Lambert, however, in showing us the certificate, called
attention to a suspicious circumstance connected with the license.
The seal of the county court stamped upon it was dated "1849." It was
difficult to reconcile this with the fact that the marriage occurred
in 1842. The inconsistency was covered up in certain facsimiles which
have been published, by a stroke of the pen; the date of the seal was
changed to fit the date of the marriage. Mr. Lambert's suggestion led
to an investigation for this Magazine. A search in the county clerk's
office at Springfield brought to light the real and only "original"
license, stowed away in a dusty pigeon-hole, untouched in thirty
years. This is the license which is reproduced above. Beneath the
license is the Rev. Charles Dresser's certificate of the marriage.
The bogus document was made out on the blank form in use in the county
clerk's office in 1865--a form quite different from that used in 1842.
This form was not used prior to 1865, and never after February 3,
1866. So it seems most probable that the spurious license was procured
soon after Mr. Lincoln's assassination. The handwriting is that of
N.W. Matheny, then, as in 1842, the county clerk, a gentleman of high
character, who no doubt furnished the copy for a perfectly proper
purpose. It will be observed that the genuine license bears no seal.
This is due to the fact that prior to 1849 the county court did not
have a seal; indeed, before that year, such a tribunal as the
"county court" was unknown to the judiciary system of the State. The
certificate attached to the counterfeit license, of course, was not
written by the Rev. Charles Dresser (for he was then dead), but,
like the license itself, was made out by the county clerk.--_J. McCan
Davis._]
Another prominent member in the same circle with Mr. Lincoln and Miss
Todd is Mrs. B.T. Edwards, the widow of Judge Benjamin T. Edwards,
and sister-in-law of Mr. Ninian Edwards, who had married Miss Todd's
sister. She came to Springfield in 1839, and was intimately acquainted
with Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd, and knew, as well as another could
know, their affairs. Mrs. Edwards is still living in Springfield, a
woman of the most perfect refinement and trustworthiness. In answer to
the question, "Is Mr. Herndon's description true?" she writes:
"I am impatient to tell you that all that he says about this
wedding--the time for which was 'fixed for the first day of
January'--is a fabrication. He has drawn largely upon his imagination
in describing something which never took place.
"I know the engagement between Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd was
interrupted for a time, and it was rumored among her young friends
that Mr. Edwards had rather opposed it. But I am sure there had been
no 'time fixed' for any wedding; that is, no preparations had ever
been made until the day that Mr. Lincoln met Mr. Edwards on the street
and told him that he and Mary were going to be married that evening.
Upon inquiry, Mr. Lincoln said they would be married in the Episcopal
church, to which Mr. Edwards replied: 'No; Mary is my ward, and she
must be married at my house.'
"If I remember rightly, the wedding guests were few, not more than
thirty; and it seems to me all are gone now but Mrs. Wallace,
Mrs. Levering, and myself, for it was not much more than a family
gathering; only two or three of Mary Todd's young friends were
present. The 'entertainment' was simple, but in beautiful taste; but
the bride had neither veil nor flowers in her hair, with which to 'toy
nervously.' There had been no elaborate _trousseau_ for the bride of
the future President of the United States, nor even a handsome wedding
gown; nor was it a gay wedding."
Two sisters of Mrs. Lincoln's who are still living, Mrs. Wallace
of Springfield, and Mrs. Helm of Elizabethstown, Kentucky, deny
emphatically that any wedding was ever arranged between Mr. Lincoln
and Miss Todd but the one which did take place. That the engagement
was broken after a wedding had been talked of, they think possible;
but Mr. Herndon's story, they deny emphatically.
"There is not a word of truth in it!" Mrs. Wallace broke out,
impulsively, before the question about the non-appearance of Mr.
Lincoln had been finished. "I never was so amazed in my life as when I
read that story. Mr. Lincoln never did such a thing. Why, Mary Lincoln
never had a silk dress in her life until she went to Washington."
[Illustration: REV. CHARLES DRESSER.
From a daguerreotype owned by his son, Dr. T.W. Dresser, Springfield,
Illinois. The Rev. Charles Dresser, who was the officiating clergyman
at the wedding of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd, was born at Pomfret,
Connecticut, February 24, 1800. He was graduated from Brown University
in 1823, and went to Virginia, where he studied theology. In 1829 he
became an ordained minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was
married in 1832 in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, to Louisa W. Withers.
Upon his removal to Springfield, Illinois, in 1838, he became the
rector of the Protestant Episcopal church there, and remained so until
1858, when failing health caused his retirement. In 1855, Jubilee
College elected him Professor of Divinity and Belles-Lettres, but he
held this position only a short time. He died March 25, 1865.--_J.
McCan Davis._]
As Mr. Joshua Speed was, all through this period, Mr. Lincoln's
closest friend, no thought or feeling of the one ever being concealed
from the other, Mrs. Joshua Speed, who is still living in Louisville,
Kentucky, was asked if she knew of the story. Mrs. Speed listened
in surprise to Mr. Herndon's tale. "I never heard of it before," she
declared. "I never heard of it. If it is true, I never heard of it."
In all of these cases the opinion of only those persons intimately
connected with Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd has been asked. Care has been
taken, too, to apply only to persons whose character put them beyond
the suspicion of distorting facts.
Quite unexpectedly, some months ago, a volunteer witness to the
falsity of the story appeared. The Hon. H.W. Thornton of Millersburg,
Illinois, was a member of the Twelfth General Assembly, which met in
Springfield in 1840. During that winter he was boarding near Lincoln,
saw him almost every day, was a constant visitor at Mr. Edwards's
house, and he knew Miss Todd well. He wrote to this magazine declaring
that Mr. Herndon's statement about the wedding must be false, as he
was closely associated with Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln all winter, and
never knew anything of it. Mr. Thornton went on to say that he knew
beyond a doubt that the sensational account of Lincoln's insanity
was untrue, and he quoted from the House journal to show how it was
impossible that, as Lamon says, using Herndon's notes, "Lincoln went
crazy as a loon, and did not attend the legislature in 1841-1842,
for this reason;" or, as Herndon says, that he had to be watched
constantly. According to the record taken from the journals of the
House sent us by Mr. Thornton, and which we have had verified in
Springfield, Mr. Lincoln was in his seat in the House on that "fatal
first of January" when he is asserted to have been groping in the
shadow of madness, and he was also there on the following day. The
third of January was Sunday. On Monday, the fourth, he appears not to
have been present--at least he did not vote; but even this is by no
means conclusive evidence that he was not there. On the fifth, and on
every succeeding day until the thirteenth, he was in his seat. From
the thirteenth to the eighteenth, inclusive, he is not recorded on
any of the roll-calls, and probably was not present. But on the
nineteenth, when "John J. Hardin announced his illness to the House,"
as Mr. Herndon says (which announcement seems not to have gotten
into the journal), Lincoln was again in his place, and voted. On the
twentieth he is not recorded; but on every subsequent day, until the
close of the session on the first of March, Lincoln was in the House.
Thus, during the whole of the two months of January and February,
he was absent not more than seven days--as good a record as to
attendance, perhaps, as that made by the average member.
Mr. Thornton says further: "Mr. Lincoln boarded at William Butler's,
near to Dr. Henry's, where I boarded. The missing days, from January
13th to 19th, Mr. Lincoln spent several hours each day at Dr. Henry's;
a part of these days I remained with Mr. Lincoln. His most intimate
friends had no fears of his injuring himself. He was very sad and
melancholy, but being subject to these spells, nothing serious was
apprehended. His being watched, as stated in Herndon's book, was news
to me until I saw it there."
But while Lincoln went about his daily duties, even on the "fatal
first of January," his whole being was shrouded in gloom. He did not
pretend to conceal this from his friends. Writing to Mr. Stuart on
January 23d, he said: "I am now the most miserable man living. If what
I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would
not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better
I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is
impossible. I must die or be better, it appears to me. The matter you
speak of on my account you may attend to as you say, unless you shall
hear of my condition forbidding it. I say this because I fear I shall
be unable to attend to any business here, and a change of scene might
help me."
In the summer he visited his friend Speed, who had sold his store in
Springfield, and returned to Louisville, Kentucky. The visit did much
to brighten his spirits, for, writing back in September, after his
return, to his friend's sister, he was even gay.
A curious situation arose the next year (1842), which did much to
restore Lincoln to a more normal view of his relation to Miss Todd.
In the summer of 1841, his friend Speed had become engaged. As his
marriage approached, he in turn was attacked by a melancholy not
unlike that which Lincoln had suffered. He feared he did not love well
enough to marry, and he confided his fear to Lincoln. Full of sympathy
for the trouble of his friend, Lincoln tried in every way to persuade
him that his "twinges of the soul" were all explained by nervous
debility. When Speed returned to Kentucky, Lincoln wrote him several
letters, in which he consoled, counselled, or laughed at him. These
letters abound in suggestive passages. From what did Speed suffer?
From three special causes and a general one, which Lincoln proceeds to
enumerate:
"The general cause is, that you are naturally of a nervous
temperament; and this I say from what I have seen of you
personally, and what you have told me concerning your mother
at various times, and concerning your brother William at the
time his wife died. The first special cause is your exposure
to bad weather on your journey, which my experience clearly
proves to be very severe on defective nerves. The second is
the absence of all business and conversation of friends,
which might divert your mind, give it occasional rest from the
intensity of thought which will sometimes wear the sweetest
idea thread-bare and turn it to the bitterness of death. The
third is the rapid and near approach of that crisis on which
all your thoughts and feelings concentrate."
Speed writes that his _fiancée_ is ill, and his letter is full of
gloomy forebodings of an early death. Lincoln hails these fears as an
omen of happiness.
[Illustration: THE GLOBE HOTEL, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.
In a letter to Joshua R. Speed, dated May 18, 1843, Lincoln wrote: "We
are not keeping house, but boarding at the Globe Tavern, which is very
well kept now by a widow lady of the name of Beck. Our room (the
same that Dr. Wallace occupied there) and boarding only costs us four
dollars a week.... I most heartily wish you and your Fanny would
not fail to come. Just let us know the time, and we will have a room
provided for you at our house, and all be merry together for a while."
The Globe Hotel stood in Springfield until about three years ago.]
"I hope and believe that your present anxiety and distress
about her health and her life must and will forever banish
those horrid doubts which I know you sometimes felt as to the
truth of your affection for her. If they can once and forever
be removed (and I almost feel a presentiment that the Almighty
has sent your present affliction expressly for that object),
surely nothing can come in their stead to fill their
immeasurable measure of misery.... I am now fully convinced
that you love her as ardently as you are capable of loving.
Your ever being happy in her presence, and your intense
anxiety about her health, if there were nothing else, would
place this beyond all dispute in my mind. I incline to think
it probable that your nerves will fail you occasionally for a
while; but once you get them firmly guarded now, that trouble
is over forever. I think, if I were you, in case my mind
were not exactly right, I would avoid being idle. I
would immediately engage in some business or go to making
preparations for it, which would be the same thing."
Mr. Speed's marriage occurred in February, and to the letter
announcing it Lincoln replied:
"I tell you, Speed, our forebodings (for which you and I are
peculiar) are all the worst sort of nonsense. I fancied, from
the time I received your letter of Saturday, that the one of
Wednesday was never to come, and yet it did come, and what
is more, it is perfectly clear, both from its tone and
handwriting, that you were much happier, or, if you think the
term preferable, less miserable, when you wrote it than when
you wrote the last one before. You had so obviously improved
at the very time I so much fancied you would have grown worse.
You say that something indescribably horrible and alarming
still haunts you. You will not say that three months from
now, I will venture. When your nerves once get steady now,
the whole trouble will be over forever. Nor should you become
impatient at their being even very slow in becoming steady.
Again, you say, you much fear that that Elysium of which you
have dreamed so much is never to be realized. Well, if it
shall not, I dare swear it will not be the fault of her who
is now your wife. I now have no doubt that it is the peculiar
misfortune of both you and me to dream dreams of Elysium far
exceeding all that anything earthly can realize."
His prophecy was true. In March Speed wrote him that he was "far
happier than he had ever expected to be." Lincoln caught at the letter
with an eagerness which is deeply pathetic:
"It cannot be told how it now thrills me with joy to hear you
say you are far happier than you ever expected to be. I know
you too well to suppose your expectations were not, at least,
sometimes extravagant, and if the reality exceeds them all, I
say, Enough, dear Lord! I am not going beyond the truth when
I tell you that the short space it took me to read your last
letter gave me more pleasure than the total sum of all I have
enjoyed since the fatal 1st of January, 1841. Since then, it
seems to me, I should have been entirely happy, but for the
never absent idea that there is one still unhappy whom I have
contributed to make so. That still kills me. I cannot but
reproach myself for even wishing to be happy while she is
otherwise. She accompanied a large party on the railroad cars
to Jacksonville last Monday, and on her return spoke, so that
I heard of it, of having enjoyed the trip exceedingly. God be
praised for that."
Evidently Lincoln was still unreconciled to his separation from Miss
Todd. In the summer of 1842, only three or four months after the above
letter was written, a clever ruse on the part of certain of their
friends threw the two unexpectedly together; and an understanding
of some kind evidently was come to, for during the season they met
secretly at the house of one of Lincoln's friends, Mr. Simeon Francis.
It was while these meetings were going on that a burlesque encounter
occurred between Lincoln and James Shields, for which Miss Todd was
partly responsible, and which no doubt gave just the touch of comedy
necessary to relieve their tragedy and restore them to a healthier
view of their relations.
THE LINCOLN AND SHIELDS DUEL.
Among the Democratic officials then living in Springfield was one
James Shields, auditor of the State. He was a hot-headed, blustering
Irishman, not without ability, and certainly courageous; a good
politician, and, on the whole, a very well-liked man. However, the
swagger and noise with which he accompanied the execution of his
duties, and his habit of being continually on the defensive, made
him the butt of Whig ridicule. Nothing could have given greater
satisfaction to Lincoln and his friends than having an opponent who,
whenever they joked him, flew into a rage and challenged them to
fight.
At the time when Lincoln was visiting Miss Todd at Mr. Francis's
house, the Whigs were much excited over the fact that the Democrats
had issued an order forbidding the payment of State taxes in State
bank-notes. The bank-notes were in fact practically worthless, for the
State finances were suffering a violent reaction from the extravagant
legislation of 1836 and 1837. One of the popular ways of attacking an
obnoxious political doctrine in that day was writing letters from some
imaginary backwoods settlement, setting forth in homely vernacular
the writer's views of the question, and showing how its application
affected his part of the world. These letters were really a rude form
of the "Bigelow Papers" or "Nasby Letters." Soon after the order
was issued by the Illinois officials demanding silver instead
of bank-notes in payment of taxes, Lincoln wrote a letter to a
Springfield paper from the "Lost Townships," signing it "Aunt
Rebecca." In it he described the plight to which the new order had
brought the neighborhood, and he intimated that the only reason for
issuing such an order was that the State officers might have their
salaries paid in silver. Shields was ridiculed unmercifully in the
letter for his vanity and his gallantry.
It happened that there were several young women in Springfield who
had received rather too pronounced attention from Mr. Shields, and
who were glad to see him tormented. Among them were Miss Todd and her
friend Miss Julia Jayne. Lincoln's letter from the "Lost Townships"
was such a success that they followed it up with one in which "Aunt
Rebecca" proposed to the gallant auditor, and a few days later they
published some very bad verses, signed "Cathleen," celebrating the
wedding.[1]
Springfield was highly entertained, less by the verses than by the
fury of Shields. He would have satisfaction, he said, and he sent a
friend, one General Whitesides, to the paper, to ask for the name of
the writer of the communications. The editor, in a quandary, went to
Lincoln, who, unwilling that Miss Todd and Miss Jayne should figure
in the affair, ordered that his own name be given as the author of
letters and poem. This was only about ten days after the first letter
had appeared, on September 2d, and Lincoln left Springfield in a day
or two for a long trip on the circuit. He was at Tremont when, on
the morning of the seventeenth, two of his friends, E.H. Merryman and
William Butler, drove up hastily. Shields and his friend Whitesides
were behind, they said, the irate Irishman vowing that he would
challenge Lincoln. They, knowing that Lincoln was "unpractised both
as to diplomacy and weapons," had started as soon as they had learned
that Shields had left Springfield, had passed him in the night, and
were there to see Lincoln through.
It was not long before Shields and Whitesides arrived, and soon
Lincoln received a note in which the indignant auditor said: "I
will take the liberty of requiring a full, positive, and absolute
retraction of all offensive allusions used by you in these
communications in relation to my private character and standing as a
man, as an apology for the insults conveyed in them. This may prevent
consequences which no one will regret more than myself."
Lincoln immediately replied that, since Shields had not stopped to
inquire whether he really was the author of the articles, had not
pointed out what was offensive in them, had assumed facts and hinted
at consequences, he could not submit to answer the note. Shields wrote
again, but Lincoln simply replied that he could receive nothing but a
withdrawal of the first note or a challenge. To this he steadily
held, even refusing to answer the question as to the authorship of the
letters, which Shields finally put. It was inconsistent with his honor
to negotiate for peace with Mr. Shields, he said, unless Mr. Shields
withdrew his former offensive letter. Seconds were immediately named:
Whitesides by Shields, Merryman by Lincoln; and though they talked of
peace, Whitesides declared he could not mention it to his principal.
"He would challenge me next, and as soon cut my throat as not."
This was on the nineteenth, and that night the party returned to
Springfield. But in someway the affair had leaked out, and fearing
arrest, Lincoln and Merryman left town the next morning. The
instructions were left with Butler. If Shields would withdraw his
first note, and write another asking if Lincoln was the author of the
offensive articles, and, if so, asking for gentlemanly satisfaction,
then Lincoln had prepared a letter explaining the whole affair. If
Shields would not do this, there was nothing to do but fight. Lincoln
left the following preliminaries for the duel:
"_First._ Weapons: Cavalry broadswords of the largest size,
precisely equal in all respects, and such as now used by the
cavalry company at Jacksonville.
"_Second_. Position: A plank ten feet long, and from nine to
twelve inches broad, to be firmly fixed on edge on the ground,
as the line between us, which neither is to pass his foot over
on forfeit of his life. Next, a line drawn on the ground on
either side of said plank and parallel with it, each at the
distance of the whole length of the sword and three feet
additional from the plank; and the passing of his own such
line by either party during the fight shall be deemed a
surrender of the contest.
"_Third_. Time: On Thursday evening at five o'clock, if you
can get it so; but in no case to be at a greater distance of
time than Friday evening at five o'clock.
"_Fourth_. Place: Within three miles of Alton, on the opposite
side of the river, the particular spot to be agreed upon by
you."
As Mr. Shields refused to withdraw his first note, the entire party
started for the rendezvous across the Mississippi. Lincoln and
Merryman drove together in a dilapidated old buggy, in the bottom of
which rattled a number of broadswords. It was the morning of the 22d
of September when the duellists arrived in the town. There are people
still living in Alton who remember their coming. "The party arrived
about the middle of the morning," says Mr. Edward Levis,[2] "and soon
crossed the river to a sand-bar which at the time was, by reason
of the low water, a part of the Missouri mainland. The means of
conveyance was an old horse-ferry that was operated by a man named
Chapman. The weapons were in the keeping of the friends of the
principals, and no care was taken to conceal them; in fact, they were
openly displayed. Naturally, there was a great desire among the male
population to attend the duel, but the managers of the affair would
not permit any but their own party to board the ferry-boat. Skiffs
were very scarce, and but a few could avail themselves of the
opportunity in this way. I had to content myself with standing on the
levee and watching proceedings at long range."
The party had scarcely reached the sand-bar before they were joined by
some unexpected friends. Lincoln and Merryman, on their way to Alton,
had stopped at White Hall for dinner. Across the street from the hotel
lived Mr. Elijah Lott, an acquaintance of Merryman's. Mr. Lott was not
long in finding out what was on foot, and as soon as the duellists had
departed, he drove to Carrollton, where he knew that Colonel John J.
Hardin and several other friends of Lincoln were attending court, and
warned them of the trouble. Hardin and one or two others immediately
started for Alton. They arrived in time to calm Shields, and to aid
the seconds in adjusting matters "with honor to all concerned."
That the duellists returned in good spirits is evident from Mr.
Levis's reminiscences: "It was not very long," says he, "until the
boat was seen returning to Alton. As it drew near I saw what was
presumably a mortally wounded man lying on the bow of the boat. His
shirt appeared to be bathed in blood. I distinguished Jacob Smith, a
constable, fanning the supposed victim vigorously. The people on the
bank held their breath in suspense, and guesses were freely made as
to which of the two men had been so terribly wounded. But suspense was
soon turned to chagrin and relief when it transpired that the supposed
candidate for another world was nothing more nor less than a log
covered with a red shirt. This ruse had been resorted to in order to
fool the people on the levee; and it worked to perfection. Lincoln
and Shields came off the boat together, chatting in a nonchalant and
pleasant manner."
MARRIAGE OF LINCOLN AND MISS TODD.
The Lincoln-Shields duel had so many farcical features, and Miss Todd
had unwittingly been so much to blame for it, that one can easily see
that it might have had considerable influence on the relations of the
two young people. However that may be, something had made Mr. Lincoln
feel that he could renew his engagement. Early in October, not a
fortnight after the duel, he wrote Speed: "You have now been the
husband of a lovely woman nearly eight months. That you are happier
now than the day you married her I well know, for without you would
not be living. But I have your word for it, too, and the returning
elasticity of spirits which is manifested in your letters. But I want
to ask a close question: Are you now in feelings as well as judgment
glad that you are married as you are?"
We do not know Speed's answer, nor the final struggle of the man's
heart. We only know that on November 4, 1842, Lincoln was married, the
wedding being almost impromptu. Mrs. Dr. Brown, Miss Todd's cousin, in
the same letter quoted from above, describes the wedding:
"One morning, bright and early, my cousin came down in her excited,
impetuous way, and said to my father: 'Uncle, you must go up and tell
my sister that Mr. Lincoln and I are to be married this evening,' and
to me: 'Get on your bonnet and go with me to get my gloves, shoes,
etc., and then to Mr. Edwards's.' When we reached there we found some
excitement over a wedding being sprung upon them so suddenly. However,
my father, in his lovely, pacific way, 'poured oil upon the waters,'
and we thought everything was 'ship-shape,' when Mrs. Edwards
laughingly said: 'How fortunately you selected this evening, for
the Episcopal Sewing Society is to meet here, and my supper is all
ordered.'
"But that comfortable little arrangement would not hold, as Mary
declared she would not make a spectacle for gossiping ladies to gaze
upon and talk about; there had already been too much talk about her.
Then my father was despatched to tell Mr. Lincoln that the wedding
would be deferred until the next evening. Clergyman, attendants and
intimate friends were notified, and on Friday evening, in the midst of
a small circle of friends, with the elements doing their worst in the
way of rain, this singular courtship culminated in marriage. This I
know to be literally true, as I was one of her bridesmaids, Miss Jayne
(afterwards Mrs. Lyman Trumbull) and Miss Rodney being the others."
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: Mr. Charles Lamb, now passing his declining years
quietly on his farm, a dozen miles from Springfield, Illinois, was a
compositor on the "Sangamo Journal" from 1836 to 1843, and it was
he who put into type the poem by "Cathleen," which, with the "Lost
Townships" letters, led General Shields to challenge Lincoln. "This
poem," says Mr. Lamb, "was written by Mary Todd and Julia Jayne,
afterward the wife of Senator Lyman Trumbull. After I had set up the
poem, I took the copy from the hook and put it into my pocket. When
Lincoln was informed by Simeon Francis, the editor of the 'Journal,'
that Shields had demanded the name of the author of the verses, he
came around to the office and asked for the copy. I produced it, and
he picked up a pen and wrote his name across the top of the page.
This, of course, meant that he assumed the responsibility for
the production. I retained this copy until a few years ago, when,
unhappily, it was destroyed. My recollection is that the 'Lost
Townships' letters were set up by Mr. Francis himself. Mr. Lincoln was
a frequent contributor to the 'Journal,' and it usually fell to my lot
to set up his contributions."--_J. McCan Davis._]
[Footnote 2: Interview with Mr. Edward Levis made for this Magazine.]
"PHROSO."
A TALE OF BRAVE DEEDS AND PERILOUS VENTURES.
BY ANTHONY HOPE, AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA," ETC.
CHAPTER I.
A LONG THING ENDING IN POULOS.
_Quot homines, tot sententiæ_; so many men, so many fancies. My fancy
was for an island. Perhaps boyhood's glamour hung still round sea-girt
rocks, and "faery lands forlorn" still beckoned me; perhaps I felt
that London was too full, the Highlands rather fuller, the Swiss
mountains most insufferably crowded of them all. "Money can buy
company," and it can buy retirement. The latter service I asked now of
the moderate wealth with which my poor cousin Tom's death had endowed
me. Everybody was good enough to suppose that I rejoiced at Tom's
death, whereas I was particularly sorry for it, and was not consoled
even by the prospects of the island. My friends understood this wish
for an island as little as they appreciated my feelings about poor
Tom. Beatrice was most emphatic in declaring that "a horrid little
island" had no charms for her, and that she would never set foot
in it. This declaration was rather annoying, because I had imagined
myself spending my honeymoon with Beatrice on the island; but life is
not all honeymoon, and I decided to have the island none the less.
In the first place, I was not to be married for a year. Mrs. Kennett
Hipgrave had insisted on this delay in order that we might be sure
that we knew our own hearts. And as I may say without unfairness
that Mrs. Hipgrave was to a considerable degree responsible for the
engagement--she asserted the fact herself with much pride--I thought
that she had a right to some voice in the date of the marriage.
Moreover, the postponement gave me exactly time to go over and settle
affairs in the island.
For I had bought it. It cost me seven thousand five hundred and fifty
pounds--rather a fancy price, but I could not haggle with the old
lord--half to be paid to the lord's bankers in London, and the second
half to him in Neopalia, when he delivered possession to me. The
Turkish government had sanctioned the sale, and I had agreed to pay
a hundred pounds yearly as tribute. This sum, I was entitled, in my
turn, to levy on the inhabitants.
"In fact, my dear lord," said old Mason to me when I called on him in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the whole affair is settled. I congratulate you
on having got just what was your whim. You are over a hundred miles
from the nearest land--Rhodes, you see." (He laid a map before me.)
"You are off the steamship tracks; the Austrian Lloyds to Alexandria
leave you far to the northeast. You are equally remote from any
submarine cable; here on the southwest, from Alexandria to Candia, is
the nearest. You will have to fetch your letters--"
"I shouldn't think of doing such a thing," said I, indignantly.
"Then you'll only get them once in three months. Neopalia is extremely
rugged and picturesque. It is nine miles long and five broad; it
grows cotton, wine, oil, and a little corn. The people are quite
unsophisticated, but very good-hearted--"
"And," said I, "there are only three hundred and seventy of them, all
told. I really think I shall do very well there."
"I have no doubt you will. By the way, treat the old gentleman kindly.
He is terribly cut up at having to sell. 'My dear island,' he writes,
'is second to my dead son's honor, and to nothing else.' His son, you
know, Lord Wheatley, was a bad lot, a very bad lot indeed."
"He left a lot of unpaid debts, didn't he?"
"Yes, gambling debts. He spent his time knocking about Paris
and London with his cousin Constantine, by no means an improving
companion, if report speaks truly. And your money is to pay the debts,
you know."
"Poor old chap," said I. I sympathized with him in the loss of his
island.
"Here's the house, you see," said Mason, turning to the map, and
dismissing the sorrows of the old lord of Neopalia. "About the middle
of the island, nearly a thousand feet above the sea. I'm afraid it's a
tumble-down old place, and will swallow a lot of money without looking
much better for the dose. To put it into repair for the reception of
the future Lady Wheatley would cost--"
"The future Lady Wheatley says she won't go there on any account," I
interrupted.
"But, my very dear lord," cried he, aghast, "if she won't--"
"She won't, and there's an end of it, Mr. Mason. Well, good day. I'm
to have possession in a month?"
"In a month to the very day--on the seventh of May."
"All right, I shall be there to take it;" and escaping from the legal
quarter, I made my way to my sister's house in Cavendish Square. She
had a party, and I was bound to go by brotherly duty. As luck would
have it, however, I was rewarded for my virtue (and if that's not
luck in this huddle-muddle world, I don't know what is): the Turkish
ambassador dropped in, and presently James came and took me up to him.
My brother-in-law, James Cardew, is always anxious that I should know
the right people. The pasha received me with great kindness.
"You are the purchaser of Neopalia, aren't you?" he asked, after a
little conversation. "The matter came before me officially."
"I'm much obliged," said I, "for your ready consent to the transfer."
"Oh, it's nothing to us. In fact, our tribute, such as it is, will be
safer. Well, I'm sure I hope you'll settle in comfortably."
"Oh, I shall be all right. I know the Greeks very well, you know; been
there a lot, and, of course, I talk the tongue, because I spent two
years hunting antiquities in the Morea and some of the islands."
The pasha stroked his beard as he observed in a calm tone:
"The last time a Stefanopoulos tried to sell Neopalia the people
killed him, and turned the purchaser--he was a Frenchman, a Baron
d'Ezonville--adrift in an open boat, with nothing on but his shirt."
"Good heavens! Was that recently?"
"No; two hundred years ago. But it's a conservative part of the world,
you know." And his excellency smiled.
"They were described to me as good-hearted folk," said I;
"unsophisticated, of course, but good-hearted."
"They think that the island is theirs, you see," he explained, "and
that the lord has no business to sell it. They may be good-hearted,
Lord Wheatley, but they are tenacious of their rights."
"But they can't have any rights," I expostulated.
"None at all," he assented. "But a man is never so tenacious of his
rights as when he hasn't any. However, _autres temps, autres moeurs_.
I don't suppose you'll have any trouble of that kind. Certainly, I
hope not, my dear lord."
"Surely your government will see to that?" I suggested.
His excellency looked at me; then, although by nature a grave man, he
gave a low, humorous chuckle, and regarded me with visible amusement.
"Oh, of course, you can rely on that, Lord Wheatley," said he.
"That is a diplomatic assurance, your excellency?" I ventured to
suggest, with a smile.
"It is unofficial," said he, "but as binding as if it were official.
Our governor in that part of the world is a very active man--yes, a
decidedly active man."
The only result of this conversation was that, when I was buying my
sporting guns in St. James's Street the next day, I purchased a couple
of pairs of revolvers at the same time. It is well to be on the safe
side; and although I attached little importance to the bygone outrage
of which the ambassador spoke, I did not suppose that the police
service would be very efficient. In fact, I thought it prudent to be
ready for any trouble that the Old World notions of the Neopalians
might occasion. But in my heart I meant to be very popular with them;
for I cherished the generous design of paying the whole tribute out of
my own pocket, and of disestablishing in Neopalia what seems to be
the only institution in no danger of such treatment here--the
tax-gatherer. If they understood that intention of mine, they would
hardly be so shortsighted as to set me adrift in my shirt like
a second Baron d'Ezonville, or so unjust as to kill poor old
Stefanopoulos as they had killed his ancestor. Besides, as I comforted
myself by repeating, they were a good-hearted race; unsophisticated,
of course, but thoroughly good-hearted.
My cousin, young Denny Swinton, was to dine with me that evening at
the Optimum. Denny (which is short for Dennis) was the only member of
the family who thoroughly sympathized with me about Neopalia. He was
wild with interest in the island, and I looked forward to telling him
all I had heard about it. I knew he would listen, for he was to go
with me and help me to take possession. The boy had almost wept on my
neck when I asked him to come; he had just left Woolwich, and was not
to join his regiment for six months. He was thus, as he put it, "at a
loose end," and succeeded in persuading his parents that he ought to
learn modern Greek. General Swinton was rather cold about the project;
he said that Denny had spent ten years on ancient Greek, and knew
nothing about it, and would not probably learn much of the newer sort
in three months; but his wife thought it would be a nice trip for
Denny. Well, it turned out to be a very nice trip for Denny; but if
Mrs. Swinton had known--however, if it comes to that, I might just as
well exclaim, "If I had known, myself!"
Denny had taken a table next but one to the west end of the room, and
was drumming his fingers impatiently on the cloth when I entered. He
wanted both his dinner and the latest news about Neopalia; so I sat
down and made haste to satisfy him in both respects. Travelling with
equal steps through the two matters, we had reached the first _entrée_
and the fate of the murdered Stefanopoulos (which Denny, for some
reason, declared was "a lark") when two people came in and sat down at
the table beyond ours and next to the wall, where two chairs had been
tilted up in token of preëngagement. The man--for the pair were man
and woman--was tall and powerfully built; his complexion was dark, and
he had good, regular features; he looked, also, as if he had a bit of
temper somewhere about him. I was conscious of having seen him before,
and suddenly recollected that by a curious chance I had run up against
him twice in St. James's Street that very day. The lady was handsome;
she had an Italian cast of face, and moved with much grace. Her manner
was rather elaborate, and when she spoke to the waiter, I detected a
pronounced foreign accent. Taken altogether, they were a remarkable
couple, and presented a distinguished appearance. I believe I am not
a conceited man, but I could not help wondering whether their thoughts
paid me a similar compliment, for I certainly detected both of them
casting more than one curious glance toward our table; and when the
man whispered once to a waiter, I was sure that I formed the subject
of his question. Perhaps he, also, remembered our two encounters.
"I wonder if there's any chance of a row?" said Denny, in a tone that
sounded wistful. "Going to take anybody with you, Charlie?"
"Only Watkins. I must have him; he always knows where everything is;
and I've told Hogvardt, my old dragoman, to meet us in Rhodes. He'll
talk their own language to the beggars, you know."
"But he's a German, isn't he?"
"He thinks so," I answered. "He's not certain, you know. Anyhow, he
chatters Greek like a parrot. He's a pretty good man in a row, too.
But there won't be a row, you know."
"I suppose there won't," admitted Denny, ruefully.
"For my own part," said I meekly, "as I'm going there to be quiet, I
hope there won't."
In the interest of conversation I had forgotten our neighbors; but
now, a lull occurring in Denny's questions and surmises, I heard the
lady's voice. She began a sentence--and began it in Greek! That was a
little unexpected; but it was more strange that her companion cut her
short, saying very peremptorily, "Don't talk Greek; talk Italian."
This he said in Italian, and I, though no great hand at that language,
understood so much. Now why shouldn't the lady talk Greek, if Greek
were the language that came naturally to her tongue? It would be
as good a shield against idle listeners as most languages--unless,
indeed, I, who was known to be an amateur of Greece and Greek things,
were looked upon as a possible listener. Recollecting the glances
which I had detected, recollecting again those chance meetings, I
ventured on a covert gaze at the lady. Her handsome face expressed a
mixture of anger, alarm, and entreaty. The man was speaking to her now
in low, urgent tones; he raised his hand once and brought it down
on the table as though to emphasize some declaration--perhaps some
promise--which he was making. She regarded him with half angry,
distrustful eyes. He seemed to repeat his words; and she flung at
him, in a tone that suddenly grew louder, and in words that I could
translate: "Enough! I'll see to that. I shall come too!"
Her heat stirred no answering fire in him. He dropped his emphatic
manner, shrugged a tolerant "As you will," with eloquent shoulders,
smiled at her, and, reaching across the table, patted her hand. She
held it up before his eyes, and with the other hand pointed at a ring
on her finger.
"Yes, yes, my dearest," said he; and he was about to say more, when,
glancing round, he caught my gaze retreating in hasty confusion to
my plate. I dared not look up again, but I felt his scowl on me. I
suppose that I deserved punishment for my eavesdropping.
"And when can we get off, Charlie?" asked Denny, in his clear young
voice. My thoughts had wandered from him, and I paused for a moment,
as a man does when a question takes him unawares. There was silence
at the next table also. The fancy seemed absurd; but it occurred to me
that there also my answer was being waited for. Well, they could know
if they liked; it was no secret.
"In a fortnight," said I. "We'll travel easily, and get thereon the
seventh of next month; that's the day on which I'm entitled to take
over my kingdom. We shall go to Rhodes. Hogvardt will have bought me a
little yacht, and then--good-by to all this!" And a great longing
for solitude and a natural life came over me as I looked round on the
gilded cornices, the gilded mirrors, the gilded flower-vases, and the
highly gilded company of the Optimum.
I was roused from my pleasant dream by a high, vivacious voice, which
I knew very well. Looking up, I saw Miss Hipgrave, her mother, and
young Bennett Hamlyn standing before me. I disliked young Hamlyn, but
he was always very civil to me.
"Why, how early you two have dined!" cried Beatrice. "You're at the
savory, aren't you? We've only just come."
"Are you going to dine?" I asked, rising. "Take this table; we're just
off."
"Well, we may as well, mayn't we?" said my _fiancée_. "Sorry you're
going though. Oh, yes, we're going to dine with Mr. Bennett
Hamlyn. That's what you're for, isn't it, Mr. Hamlyn? Why, he's not
listening!"
He was not, strange to say, listening, although, as a rule, he
listened to Beatrice with infinite attention and the most deferential
of smiles. But just now he was engaged in returning a bow which our
neighbor at the next table had bestowed on him. The lady there had
risen already, and was making for the door. The man lingered and
looked at Hamlyn, seeming inclined to back up his bow with a few
words of greeting. Hamlyn's air was not, however, encouraging, and the
stranger contented himself with a nod and a careless "How are you?"
and with that followed his companion. Hamlyn turned round, conscious
that he had neglected Beatrice's remark, and full of penitence for his
momentary neglect.
"I beg your pardon," said he, with an apologetic smile.
"Oh," answered she, "I was only saying that men like you were invented
to give dinners; you're a sort of automatic feeding-machine. You ought
to stand open all day. Really, I often miss you at lunch time."
"My dear Beatrice!" said Mrs. Kennett Hipgrave, with that peculiar
lift of her brows that meant, "How naughty the dear child is! Oh, but
how clever!"
"It's all right," said Hamlyn, meekly. "I'm awfully happy to give you
a dinner, anyhow, Miss Beatrice."
Now, I had nothing to say on this subject, but I thought I would just
make this remark:
"Miss Hipgrave," said I, "is very fond of a dinner."
Beatrice laughed. She understood my little correction.
"He doesn't know any better, do you?" said she, pleasantly, to Hamlyn.
"We shall civilize him in time, though. Then I believe he'll be nicer
than you, Charlie. I really do. You're--"
"I shall be uncivilized by then," said I.
"Oh, that wretched island!" cried Beatrice. "You're really going?"
"Most undoubtedly. By the way, Hamlyn, who's your friend?"
Surely this was an innocent enough question; but little Hamlyn went
red from the edge of his clipped whisker on the right to the edge of
his mathematically equal whisker on the left.
"Friend!" said he, in an angry tone. "He's not a friend of mine. I
only met him on the Riviera."
"That," I admitted, "does not, happily, constitute in itself a
friendship."
"And he won a hundred louis of me in the train between Cannes and
Monte Carlo."
"Not bad going, that," observed Denny, in an approving tone.
"Is he, then, _un grec_?" asked Mrs. Hipgrave, who loves a scrap of
French.
"In both senses, I believe," answered Hamlyn, viciously.
"And what's his name?" said I.
"Really, I don't recollect," said Hamlyn, rather petulantly.
"It doesn't matter," observed Beatrice, attacking her oysters, which
had now made their appearance.
"My dear Beatrice," I remonstrated, "you are the most charming
creature in the world, but not the only one. You mean that it doesn't
matter to you."
"Oh, don't be tiresome. It doesn't matter to you, either, you know. Do
go away, and leave me to dine in peace."
"Half a minute," said Hamlyn. "I thought I'd got it just now, but it's
gone again. Look here, though; I believe it's one of those long things
that end in 'poulos.'"
"Oh, it ends in 'poulos,' does it?" said I, in a meditative tone.
"My dear Charlie," said Beatrice, "I shall end in Bedlam, if you're so
very tedious. What in the world I shall do when I'm married, I don't
know."
"My dearest!" said Mrs. Hipgrave; and a stage direction might add:
"Business with brows, as before."
"'Poulos'?" I repeated.
"Could it be Constantinopoulos?" asked Hamlyn, with a nervous
deference to my Hellenic learning.
"It might, conceivably," I hazarded, "be Constantine Stefanopoulos."
"Then," said Hamlyn, "I shouldn't wonder if it was. Anyhow, the less
you see of him, Wheatley, the better. Take my word for that."
"But," I objected--and I must admit that I have a habit of thinking
that everybody follows my train of thought--"it's such a small place
that, if he goes, I should be almost bound to meet him."
"What's such a small place?" cried Beatrice, with emphasized despair.
"Why, Neopalia, of course," said I.
"Why should anybody except you be so insane as to go there?" she
asked.
"If he's the man I think, he comes from there," I explained, as I rose
for the last time; for I had been getting up to go, and sitting down
again, several times.
"Then he'll think twice before he goes back," pronounced Beatrice,
decisively; she was irreconcilable about my poor island.
Denny and I walked off together. As we went he observed:
"I suppose that chap's got no end of money?"
"Stefan--?" I began.
"No, no. Hang it, you're as bad as Miss Hipgrave says. I mean Bennett
Hamlyn."
"Oh, yes, absolutely no end to it, I believe."
Denny looked sagacious.
"He's very free with his dinners," he observed.
"Don't let's worry about it," I suggested, taking his arm. I was not
worried about it myself. Indeed, for the moment, my island monopolized
my mind, and my attachment to Beatrice was not of such a romantic
character as to make me ready to be jealous on slight grounds. Mrs.
Hipgrave said the engagement was based on "general suitability." Now
it is difficult to be very passionate over that.
"If you don't mind, I don't," said Denny, reasonably.
"That's right. It's only a little way Beatrice--" I stopped abruptly.
We were now on the steps outside the restaurant, and I had just
perceived a scrap of paper lying on the mosaic pavement. I stooped
down and picked it up. It proved to be a fragment torn from the menu
card. I turned it over.
"Hullo, what's this?" said I, searching for my eyeglass, which was, as
usual, somewhere in the small of my back.
Denny gave me the glass, and I read what was written on the back. It
was written in Greek, and it ran thus:
"By way of Rhodes--small yacht there--arrive seventh."
I turned the piece of paper over in my hand. I drew a conclusion or
two. One was that my tall neighbor was named Stefanopoulos; another,
that he had made good use of his ears--better than I had made of mine;
for a third, I guessed that he would go to Neopalia; for a fourth, I
fancied that Neopalia was the place to which the lady had declared
she would accompany him. Then I fell to wondering why all these things
should be so--why he wished to remember the route of my journey,
the date of my arrival, and the fact that I meant to hire a yacht.
Finally, those two chance encounters, taken with the rest, assumed a
more interesting complexion.
"When you've done with that bit of paper," observed Denny, in a tone
expressive of exaggerated patience, "we might as well go on, old
fellow."
"All right. I've done with it--for the present," said I. And I took
the liberty of slipping Mr. Constantine Stefanopoulos's memorandum
into my pocket.
The general result of the evening was to increase most distinctly my
interest in Neopalia. I went to bed, still thinking of my purchase,
and I recollect that the last thing which came into my head before I
went to sleep was, "What did she mean by pointing to the ring?"
Well, I found an answer to that later on.