With a nobleness of magnanimity, a passionate self-sacrifice, which

none but a woman could be capable of, Madame C---- had divested

herself of all peculiarities of clothing by which she could be

identified. It was only by recognizing the features, and a singular

scar upon the forehead, that I knew it was herself. She was buried by

stranger hands, however; we dared not come forward to claim her.

The excitement attendant on this miserable death, and the

circumstances which preceded it, laid me, for the first time in my

life, upon a sick-bed. I was unconscious for many weeks of anything

save intolerable pain and intolerable heat. A fiery agony of fever

leaped in my veins, and scorched up my life-blood. I believe Monsieur

cared for me, and nursed me attentively during this illness.

The fever left me; exhausted, spent, my life shrunken up within me, my

energy burned out, a puny, spiritless remnant of the strong woman who

lay down upon that couch, I lay despondent, vacant of all interest in

the world hitherto so exciting to me. I had not seen Monsieur since

this apparent commencement of recovery. A great, good-natured nurse

kept watch over me, and fed me with spiritless dainties, tasteless,

unsatisfying.

One day, when my senses began to settle a little, and things began

to take shape again, I asked for Monsieur. He came and stood at my

bedside.

"Christine," said he, "you have no faith in my power of making angels.

I have not made one of you. Being divided in our theories, we will

divide our earthly goods. We will part. Should you as a woman deem it

your duty to inform against me, I shall not think it wrong. I shall

bear it as a philosopher. You have no proof, you can substantiate

nothing; but it may be a satisfaction. I do not understand women;

therefore I cannot tell."

"Monsieur," I answered, "leave it to God to fill His heaven as He

thinks best. He has not invited your assistance; neither has He

invited me to avenge Him. Since He does not punish, dare I invade His

prerogative?"

And we did not part.

We will live together in peace, we said, and the past shall be utterly

forgotten; shall not a whole lifetime of unwavering rectitude atone

for this one crime?

I accepted my fate,--weakly, in the dread of poverty, in the horror

of disgrace, shrinking within myself with the secret thrust upon me.

I said we are all the makers of our own destiny, and there is

nothing supernatural in life. If this course is best and wisest in my

judgment, nothing evil will come of it. I said this, ignorant of the

mystery of existence, and inexperienced in that subtile power which

penetrates all the windings and turnings of humanity, searching out

hidden things,--the Purifier, and the Avenger, allotting to each one

his portion of bitterness, his inexorable punishment. "We will live

together in peace": it was the thought of a sudden moment of fervor,

which overleaped the dreary length of life, and assumed to compass the

repentance of a whole existence in a single day.

But destiny holds always in store its retribution. God suffers no

dropped stitches in the web of His universe, and the smallest truth

evaded, the least wretch neglected, will surely be picked up again

in the unending circle that is winding its certain thread around all

beings, connecting by invisible links the most insignificant chances

with the most significant events.

When I said we will be one, we will endure together, I thought that

so, in my enduring strength, I could bear up whatever burden came. I

know not how, by what invisible process, the load which I had lifted

to my shoulders grew into leaden heaviness,--heavy, heavy, like the

weight of some dead soul resting its lifeless shape upon my living

spirit, till I staggered under the unbearable presence. I had doomed

myself to stand side by side, to work hand in hand with guilt, to feel

hourly the dread lest in some moment of frenzy engendered by the dumb

anguish within me I might betray the secret whose rust was eating into

my soul, and shriek out my misery in the ears of all men.

Monsieur, seeing me grow thin and pale, declared that I must have a

change, I must go somewhere, to the sea-shore. To the sea-shore! No,

I would not go to the sea-shore, or to any other shore; a stranded

vessel, I could not struggle from the place of shipwreck.

Monsieur grew vexed and anxious, when I stubbornly shook my head. And

when week after week I still refused, he grew strangely uneasy. I had

better go; if I would not go alone, he would go with me, shut up the

shop, and take a holiday.

I considered the matter that day. The project was a wild one; at this

busiest season of the year, it would be an injury to our business.

And what might the neighbors say? It might lead them to unpleasant

suspicions. We were not popular among them. No, it would not do.

I explained this to Monsieur very calmly at the supper-table. His

face was pale and quiet as usual. He did not interrupt me. When I

concluded, he rose as if he would go out, but turning back suddenly

and striking the table with his clenched fist,--

"God!" he exclaimed. "Woman would you see me die like a dog? The

neighbors! for all I know, they have got me at their finger-ends

now,--the vile rabble! That old hag, Madame Justine, at the

ribbon-shop below,--some demon possessed her to look out that night

when SHE came crawling home. She noted her well with her greedy eyes;

some one _so_ like my dear first wife, she told me. There is mischief

and death in her eyes. She knows or guesses too much."

"What can she guess?" I asked; "she has only lately come into the

neighborhood."

In answer to this, Monsieur informed me that she professed to

have been an old friend of his wife's, who, in times gone by, half

bewildered with her troubles, had probably dropped many unguarded

words in this woman's presence. Madame C---- had died (to her old

home) while this woman was away on a visit. "Ah!" she said, "she had

her misgivings many a time. Did the same doctor attend Madame C----

who prescribed for little Jacques? _He_ ought to be hung, then. Ah,

well, if all men had their deserts, she knew many things that would

hang some folks who looted all fair and square, and held their guilty

heads higher than their neighbors."

"Well?" I said.

"Well!--you women are so virtuous, you have no mercy, Madame. Go,

hang--go, drown the wretch who comes under the malediction of the

ladies! Oh, there is nothing too hard for him! And this one owed me a

grudge lately about a mistake,--a little mistake I made in an account

with her, and would not alter because I thought it all right."

The preparations were going on silently and steadily that night. I

would go anywhere now, anything would I do, to escape the fate whose

stealthy footsteps were tracking us out. Well I knew, that, once in

the power of the law, its firm grasp would wrest every secret from

the deepest depths where it was hidden. Once out of the city, we could

readily take flight, if immediate danger threatened.

The doors were all closed; the trunks stood corded in the hall. I was

down-stairs, getting the silver together. Monsieur was in his room,

packing up his medicine-chest. There was no weakness in my nerves

now, no trembling in my limbs. I was determined. While thus engaged,

pausing a moment amid the light tinkle of the silver spoons, I thought

I heard footsteps in the saloon above. Softly ascending the stairs, I

met Monsieur at the door. He had come down under the same impression,

that some one was walking in the saloon, still holding in his hand the

tiny cup in which he measured his medicines. It was full, and Monsieur

carried it very carefully, as, opening the door, he looked cautiously

about. Nothing stirred; all was silent as death; and walking forward

toward the fountain, he straightened himself up, and his white face

flushed as he said in a whisper,--

"Christine, everything is ready. We are safe yet; we shall escape.

Once away, we will never return to this doomed place, let what will

come of it. Yes, I am certain that we shall escape!"

Monsieur took a step forward as he said this, and stood transfixed.

The light shook which he held in his hand, as if a strong wind

had passed over it; his eye quailed; his cheek blanched to ghastly

whiteness. I thought that undue excitement had brought on a

fainting-fit of some kind, and was stooping to dip my hands in the

water and bathe his forehead, when I saw, distinctly, like a white

mist in the darkness, a visible shape sitting solemn upon the

basin-edge; the room was very dim, and the falling spray fell over the

shape like a weeping-willow, yet my eyes discerned it clearly. Oh, it

was no dream that I had dreamed in my young days long ago! That little

figure was no stranger to my vision, no stranger to the changeless

waterfall. Did Monsieur see it also? He stood close beside the

fountain now, with his face towards the spectre. The tiny cup in his

hand fell from the loosened fingers down into the water; a lonely

gold-fish, swimming there, turned over on its golden side and floated

motionless upon the surface.

I scarcely noticed this, for, at the time, I heard the knob of the

shop-door turn quickly, and the door was shaken violently. It was

probably the night-watchman going his rounds; but, in my alarm and

excitement, I thought we were betrayed. I stepped swiftly to the door,

and pushed an extra bolt inside.

"Monsieur!" I cried, under my breath, "hide! hide yourself! Quick! in

the name of Heaven!"

But he did not answer, and, hastening to his side, I saw the faint

outlines of that shadowy visitant growing indistinct and disappearing.

As it vanished, Monsieur turned deliberately toward me; his eyes were

clear, the faintness was over; his voice was grave and steady, as he

said,--

"Christine! I have seen it. It is the warning of death. There is

no future and no escape for me. The retribution is at hand,"--and

stooping swiftly down, he lifted the tiny cup brimming to his lips.

"Go you," he said, huskily, "to the sea-shore. I have an errand

elsewhere."

In the morning came the officers of justice; my dim eyes saw them, my

ears heard unshrinking their stern voices demanding Monsieur C----. I

did not answer; I pointed vaguely forward; and forward they marched,

with a heavy tramp, to where the one whom they were seeking lay prone

upon the marble floor, his head hanging nervelessly down over the

water. He had been arrested by a Higher Power. Monsieur C---- was

dead.

BOSTON HYMN.

The word of the Lord by night

To the watching Pilgrims came,

As they sat by the sea-side,

And filled their hearts with flame.

God said,--I am tired of kings,

I suffer them no more;

Up to my ear the morning brings

The outrage of the poor.

Think ye I made this ball

A field of havoc and war,

Where tyrants great and tyrants small

Might harry the weak and poor?

My angel,--his name is Freedom,

Choose him to be your king;

He shall cut pathways east and west,

And fend you with his wing.

Lo! I uncover the land

Which I hid of old time in the West,

As the sculptor uncovers his statue,

When he has wrought his best.

I show Columbia, of the rocks

Which dip their foot in the seas

And soar to the air-borne flocks

Of clouds, and the boreal fleece.

I will divide my goods,

Call in the wretch and slave:

None shall rule but the humble,

And none but Toil shall have.

I will have never a noble,

No lineage counted great:

Fishers and choppers and ploughmen

Shall constitute a State.

Go, cut down trees in the forest,

And trim the straightest boughs;

Cut down trees in the forest,

And build me a wooden house.

Call the people together,

The young men and the sires,

The digger in the harvest-field,

Hireling, and him that hires.

And here in a pine state-house

They shall choose men to rule

In every needful faculty,

In church, and state, and school.

Lo, now! if these poor men

Can govern the land and sea,

And make just laws below the sun,

As planets faithful be.

And ye shall succor men;

'T is nobleness to serve;

Help them who cannot help again;

Beware from right to swerve.

I break your bonds and masterships,

And I unchain the slave:

Free be his heart and hand henceforth,

As wind and wandering wave.

I cause from every creature

His proper good to flow:

So much as he is and doeth,

So much he shall bestow.

But, laying his hands on another

To coin his labor and sweat,

He goes in pawn to his victim

For eternal years in debt.

Pay ransom to the owner,

And fill the bag to the brim.

Who is the owner? The slave is owner,

And ever was. Pay him.

O North! give him beauty for rags,

And honor, O South! for his shame;

Nevada! coin thy golden crags

With Freedom's image and name.

Up! and the dusky race

That sat in darkness long,--

Be swift their feet as antelopes,

And as behemoth strong.

Come, East, and West, and North,

By races, as snow-flakes,

And carry my purpose forth,

Which neither halts nor shakes.

My will fulfilled shall be,

For, in daylight or in dark,

My thunderbolt has eyes to see

His way home to the mark.

THE SIEGE OF CINCINNATI.

The live man of the old Revolution, the daring Hotspur of those

troublous days, was Anthony Wayne. The live man to-day of the great

Northwest is Lewis Wallace. With all the chivalric clash of the

stormer of Stony Point, he has a cooler head, with a capacity for

larger plans, and the steady nerve to execute whatever he conceives.

When a difficulty rises in his path, the difficulty, no matter what

its proportions, moves aside; he does not. When a river like the Ohio

at Cincinnati intervenes between him and his field of operations,

there is a sudden sound of saws and hammers at sunset, and the

next morning beholds the magic spectacle of a great pontoon-bridge

stretching between the shores of Freedom and Slavery, its planks

resounding to the heavy tread of almost endless regiments and

army-wagons. Is a city like Cincinnati menaced by a hungry foe,

striding on by forced marches, that foe sees his path suddenly blocked

by ten miles of fortifications thoroughly manned and armed, and he

finds it prudent, even with his twenty thousand veterans, to retreat

faster than he came, strewing the road with whatever articles impede

his haste. Some few incidents in the career of such a man, since he

has taken the field, ought not to be uninteresting to those for whom

he has fought so bravely; and we believe his services, when known,

will be appreciated, otherwise we will come under the old ban against

Republics, that they are ungrateful.

While returning from New York at the expiration of a short leave of

absence, the first asked for since the beginning of the war, General

Wallace was persuaded by Governor Morton to stump the State of Indiana

in favor of voluntary enlistments, which at that time were progressing

slowly. Wallace went to work in all earnestness. His idea was to

obtain command of the new levies, drill them, and take them to the

field; and this idea was circulated throughout the State. The result

was, enlisting increased rapidly; the ardor for it rose shortly into

a fever, and has not yet abated. Regiments are still forming, shedding

additional lustre upon the name of patriotic Indiana.

General Wallace was thus engaged when the news was received from

Morgan of the invasion of Kentucky by Kirby Smith. All eyes turned

at once to Governor Morton, many of whose regiments were now ready to

take the field, if they only had officers to lead them. Wallace came

promptly to the Governor's assistance, and offered to take command of

a regiment for the crisis. His offer was accepted, and he was sent to

New Albany, where the Sixty-Sixth Indiana was in camp. In twelve

hours he mustered it, paid its bounty money, clothed and armed it, and

marched it to Louisville. Brigadier-General Boyle was in command of

Kentucky. Wallace, who is a Major-General, reported to him at the

above-named city, and a peculiar scene occurred.

"General Boyle," said Wallace, "I report to you the Sixty-Sixth

Indiana Regiment."

"Who commands it?" asked the General.

"I have that honor, Sir," was the reply.

"You want orders, I suppose?"

"Certainly."

"It is a difficult matter for me," said Boyle. "I have no right to

order you."

"That difficulty is easily solved," Wallace replied, with

characteristic promptness. "I come to report to you as a Colonel. I

come to take orders as such."

General Boyle consulted with his Adjutant-General, and the result was

_a request_ that General Wallace would proceed to Lexington with his

command. Here was exhibited the ready, self-sacrificing spirit of

a true patriot: he did not stand and wait until he could find the

position to which his high rank entitled him, but stepped into the

place where he could best and quickest serve his country in her hour

of peril.

While Wallace was still at the railway-station, he received an order

from General Boyle, putting him in command of all the forces in

Lexington. Here was a golden opportunity for our young commander. What

higher honor could be coveted than to relieve the brave Morgan,

pent up as he was with his little army in the mountain-gorges of the

Cumberland? The idea fired the soul of Wallace, and he pushed on to

Lexington. But here he was sadly disappointed. He found the forces

waiting there inadequate to the task: instead of an army, there were

only three regiments. He telegraphed for more troops. Indiana and Ohio

responded promptly and nobly. In three days he received and brigaded

nine regiments and started them toward the Gap.

No one but an experienced soldier, one who has indeed tried it, can

conceive of the labor involved in such an undertaking. The material in

his hands was, to say the best of it, magnificently _raw_. Officers,

from colonels to corporals, brave though they might be as lions, knew

literally nothing of military affairs. The men had not learned even to

load their guns. Companies had to be led, like little children, by

the hand as it were, into their places in line of battle. There was

no cavalry, no artillery. It happened, however, that guns, horses, and

supplies intended for Morgan at the Gap were in depot at Lexington.

Then Wallace began to catch a glimpse of dawn through the dark tangle

of the wilderness. Some kind of order, prompt and immediate, must be

forced out of this chaos; and it came, for the master-spirit was there

to arrange and compel. He mounted several hundred men, giving them

rifles instead of sabres. He manned new guns, procuring harness and

ammunition for them from Louisville. Where there were no caissons, he

supplied wagons. But his regiments were not his sole reliance; he is

a believer in riflemen, a fighting class of which Kentucky was full.

These he summoned to his assistance, and was met by a ready and hearty

response: they came trooping to him by hundreds. Among others,

Garrett Davis, United States Senator, led a company of Home-Guards to

Lexington. In this way General Wallace composed, or rather improvised

a little army, and all without help, his regular staff being absent,

mostly in Memphis.

"Kentucky has not been herself in this war," exclaimed General

Wallace; "she must be aroused; and I propose to do it thoroughly."

"How will you do it?" asked a skeptic.

"Easily enough, Sir. Kentucky has a host of great names. Kentuckians

believe in great names. It is to this tune that the traitors have

carried them to the field against us. I will take with me to the field

all the men living, old and young, who have made those names great.

Buckner took the young Crittendens and Clays; by Heaven, I'll take

their fathers!"

"But they can't march."

"I'll haul them, then."

"They can be of no service in that way."

"But the magic of their names!" exclaimed Wallace. "What will the

young Kentuckians say, when they hear John J. Crittenden, Leslie

Combs, Robert Breckenridge, Tom Clay, Garrett Davis, Judge Goodloe,

and fathers of that kind, are going down to battle with me?"

The skeptics held their peace.

General Wallace now constituted a volunteer staff. Wadsworth, M.C.

from Maysville district, was his adjutant-general. Brand, Gratz,

Goodloe, and young Tom Clay were his aids. Old Tom Clay, John J.

Crittenden, Leslie Combs, Judge Goodloe, Garrett Davis, were all

prepared and going, when General Wallace was suddenly relieved of his

command by General Nelson.

Without instituting any comparison between these two generals, it

is enough to say that the supersession of Wallace by Nelson at that

moment was most unfortunate and untimely, as the sequel proved,

fraught as it was with disastrous consequences. The circumstances were

these.

Scott's Rebel cavalry had whipped Metcalf's regiment of Loyalists at

Big Hill, some twelve or fifteen miles beyond Richmond, Kentucky,

and followed them to within four miles of that town, where they were

stopped by Lenck's brigade of infantry. The affair was reported to

Wallace, with the number and situation of the enemy. He at once took

prompt measures to meet the exigence of the situation. He could throw

Lenck's and Clay's brigades upon the Rebel front; the brigade at

Nicholasville could take them in flank by crossing the Kentucky River

at Tatt's Ford; while, by uniting Clay Smith's command with that of

Jacob, then _en route_ for Nicholasville, he could plant seventeen

hundred cavalry in their rear between Big Hill and Mount Vernon.

The enemy at this time were at least twenty miles in advance of their

supports, and a night's march would have readily placed the several

forces mentioned in position to attack them by daylight. This was

Wallace's plan,--simple, feasible, and soldier-like. All his orders

were given. A supply-train with extra ammunition and abundant rations

was in line on the road to Richmond. Clay's brigade was drawn up ready

to move, and General Wallace's horse was saddled. He was writing a

last order in reference to the city of Lexington in his absence, and

directing the officer left in charge to forward regiments to him at

Richmond as fast as they should arrive, when General Nelson came and

instantly took the command. Fifteen minutes more and General Wallace

would have been on the road to Richmond to superintend the execution

of his plan of attack. The supersession was, of course, a bitter

disappointment; yet he never grumbled or demurred in the least, but,

like a true soldier who knows his duty, offered that evening to serve

his successor in any capacity, a generosity which General Nelson

declined. The well-conceived plan which Wallace had matured failed for

the simple reason, that, instead of marching to execute it that night,

as common sense would seem to have dictated, Nelson did not leave

Lexington until the next day at one o'clock; and at daylight, when the

attack was to have been made, the Rebel leader, Scott, discovered his

danger, and wisely retreated, finding nobody in his rear. The result

was, Nelson went to Richmond and was defeated. It is possible that

the same result might have followed Wallace; but by those competent to

judge it is thought otherwise.

He had a plan adapted to the troops he was leading, who, although very

raw, would have been invincible behind breastworks, as American troops

have always shown themselves to be. Wallace never intended arraying

these inexperienced men in the open field against the veteran troops

of the Rebels. Neither did he intend they should dig. He had collected

large quantities of intrenching tools, and was rapidly assembling

a corps of negroes, nearly five hundred of whom he had already in

waiting in Morgan's factory, all prepared to follow his column, armed

with spades and picks. In Madison County he intended getting at least

five hundred more. "I will march," he said, "like Cæsar in Gaul, and

intrench my camp every night. If I am attacked at any time in too

great numbers, I can drop back to my nearest works, and wait for

reinforcements." Such was his plan, and those who know him believe

firmly that he could have been at the Cumberland Gap in time not only

to succor our little army there, but to have prevented the destruction

and evacuation of that very important post.

Wallace, finding himself thus suddenly superseded, his plans ignored,

and his voluntary service bluffly refused, left Lexington for

Cincinnati. While there the Battle of Richmond was fought, the

disastrous results of which are still too fresh in the public mind to

require repeating. Nelson, who did not arrive upon the field until the

day was about lost, and only in time to use his sword against his own

men in a fruitless endeavor to rally them, received a flesh-wound,

and hastened back the same night to Cincinnati, leaving many dead and

wounded on the field, and thousands of our brave boys prisoners to be

paroled by the Rebels. These are simple matters of record, and are not

here set down in any spirit of prejudice, or to throw a shadow upon

the memory of the misguided, unfortunate, but courageous Nelson.

At this juncture General Wallace was again ordered to Lexington, this

time by General Wright, a general whose gentlemanly bearing in all

capacities makes him an ornament to the American army. Wallace was

ordered thither to resume command of the forces; but on arriving

at Paris, the order was countermanded, and he was sent back to take

charge of the city of Cincinnati. Shrewdly suspecting that our forces

would evacuate Lexington, he hastened to his new post. General Wright

was at that time in Louisville. On his way back, Wallace was asked by

one of his aids,--

"Do you believe the enemy will come to Cincinnati?"

"Yes," was the reply. "Kirby Smith will first go to Frankfort. He must

have that place, if possible, for the political effect it will have.

If he gets it, he will surely come to Cincinnati. He is an idiot, if

he does not. Here is the material of war,--goods, groceries, salt,

supplies, machinery, etc.,--enough to restock the whole bogus

Confederacy."

"What are you going to do? You have nothing to defend the city with."

"I will show you," was the reply.

Within the first half-hour after his arrival in Cincinnati, General

Wallace wrote and sent to the daily papers the following proclamation,

which fully and clearly develops his whole plan.

"PROCLAMATION.

"The undersigned, by order of Major-General Wright, assumes command of

Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport.

"It is but fair to inform the citizens, that an active, daring, and

powerful enemy threatens them with every consequence of war; yet the

cities must be defended, and their inhabitants must assist in the

preparation.

"Patriotism, duty, honor, self-preservation, call them to the labor,

and it must be performed equally by all classes.

"First. All business must be suspended at nine o'clock to-day. Every

business-house must be closed.

"Second. Under the direction of the Mayor, the citizens must, within

an hour after the suspension of business, (ten o'clock, A.M.,)

assemble in convenient public places ready for orders. As soon as

possible they will then be assigned to their work.

"This labor ought to be that of love, and the undersigned trusts and

believes it will be so. Anyhow, it must be done.

"The willing shall be properly credited; the unwilling promptly

visited. The principle adopted is, Citizens for the labor, soldiers

for the battle.

"Third. The ferry-boats will cease plying the river after four

o'clock, A.M., until further orders.

"Martial law is hereby proclaimed in the three cities; but until they

can be relieved by the military, the injunctions of this proclamation

will be executed by the police.

"LEWIS WALLACE,

"Maj.-Gen'r'l Commanding."

Could anything be bolder and more to the purpose? It placed Cincinnati

under martial law. It totally suspended business, and sent every

citizen, without distinction, to the ranks or into the trenches.

"Citizens for labor, soldiers for battle," was the principle

underlying the whole plan,--a motto by which he reached every

able-bodied man in the metropolis, and united the energies of forty

thousand people,--a motto original with himself, and for which he

should have the credit.

Imagine the astonishment that seized the city, when, in the morning,

this bold proclamation was read,--a city unused to the din of war and

its impediments. As yet there was no word of an advance of the enemy

in the direction of Cincinnati. It was a question whether they would

come or not. Thousands did not believe in the impending danger; yet

the proclamation was obeyed to the letter, and this, too, when there

was not a regiment to enforce it. The secret is easy of comprehension:

it was the universal confidence reposed in the man who issued the

order; and he was equally confident, not only in his own judgment, but

in the people with whom he had to deal.

"If the enemy should not come after all this fuss," said one of the

General's friends, "you will be ruined."

"Very well," he replied; "but they will come. And if they do not, it

will be because this same fuss has caused them to think better of it."

The ten days ensuing will be forever memorable in the annals of the

city of Cincinnati. The cheerful alacrity with which the people rose

_en masse_ to swell the ranks and crowd into the trenches was a sight

worth seeing, and being seen could not readily be forgotten.

Here were the representatives of all nations and classes. The sturdy

German, the lithe and gay-hearted Irishman, went shoulder to shoulder

in defence of their adopted country. The man of money, the man of law,

the merchant, the artist, and the artisan swelled the lines hastening

to the scene of action, armed either with musket, pick, or spade.

Added to these was seen Dickson's long and dusky brigade of colored

men, cheerfully wending their way to labor on the fortifications,

evidently holding it their especial right to put whatever impediments

they could in the northward path of those whom they considered their

own peculiar foe. But the pleasantest and most picturesque sight of

those remarkable days was the almost endless stream of sturdy men who

rushed to the rescue from the rural districts of the State. These

were known as the "Squirrel-Hunters." They came in files numbering

thousands upon thousands, in all kinds of costumes, and armed with all

kinds of fire-arms, but chiefly the deadly rifle, which they knew so

well bow to use. Old men, middle-aged men, young men, and often mere

boys, like the "minute-men" of the old Revolution, they left the

plough in the furrow, the flail on the half-threshed sheaves, the

unfinished iron upon the anvil,--in short, dropped all their peculiar

avocations, and with their leathern pouches full of bullets and their

ox-horns full of powder, poured into the city by every highway and

by-way in such numbers that it seemed as if the whole State of Ohio

were peopled only with hunters, and that the spirit of Daniel Boone

stood upon the hills opposite the town beckoning them into Kentucky.

The pontoon-bridge, which had been begun and completed between sundown

and sundown, groaned day and night with the perpetual stream of

life all setting southward. In three days there were ten miles of

intrenchments lining the hills, making a semicircle from the river

above the city to the banks of the river below; and these were thickly

manned from end to end, and made terrible to the astonished enemy by

black and frowning cannon. General Heath, with his twenty thousand

Rebel veterans, flushed with their late success at Richmond, drew up

before these formidable preparations, and deemed it prudent to take

the matter into serious consideration before making the attack.

Our men were eagerly awaiting their approach, thousands in rifle-pits

and tens of thousands along the whole line of the fortifications,

while our scouts and pickets were skirmishing with their outposts in

the plains in front. Should the foe make a sudden dash and carry any

point of our lines, it was thought by some that nothing would prevent

them from entering Cincinnati.

But for this also provision was made. The river about the city, above

and below, was well protected by a flotilla of gun-boats improvised

from the swarm of steamers which lay at the wharves. A storm of shot

and shell, such as they had not dreamed of, would have played upon

their advancing columns, while our regiments, pouring down from the

fortifications, would have fallen upon their rear. The shrewd leaders

of the Rebel army were probably kept well posted by traitors within

our own lines in regard to the reception prepared for them, and,

taking advantage of the darkness of night and the violence of a

thunder-storm, made a hasty and ruinous retreat. Wallace was anxious

to follow them, and was confident of success, but was overruled by

those higher in authority.

The address which he now published to the citizens of Cincinnati,

Covington, and Newport was manly and well-deserved. He said,--

"For the present, at least, the enemy has fallen back, and your cities

are safe. It is the time for acknowledgments. I beg leave to make you

mine. When I assumed command, there was nothing to defend you with,

except a few half-finished works and some dismounted guns; yet I was

confident. The energies of a great city are boundless; they have only

to be aroused, united, and directed. You were appealed to. The answer

will never be forgotten. Paris may have seen something like it in her

revolutionary days, but the cities of America never did. Be proud that

you have given them an example so splendid. The most commercial of

people, you submitted to a total suspension of business, and without

a murmur adopted my principle, 'Citizens for labor, soldiers for

battle.' In coming times, strangers viewing the works on the hills of

Newport and Covington will ask, 'Who built these intrenchments? You

can answer, 'We built them.' If they ask, 'Who guarded them?' you

can reply, 'We helped in thousands.' If they inquire the result, your

answer will be, 'The enemy came and looked at them, and stole away in

the night.' You have won much honor. Keep your organizations ready to

win more. Hereafter be always prepared to defend yourselves.

"LEWIS WALLACE,

"Maj.-Gen'r'l."

It can safely be claimed for our young General, that he was the moving

spirit which inspired and directed the people, and thereby saved

Cincinnati and the surrounding cities, and, in the very face of Heath

and his victorious horde from Richmond, organized a new and formidable

army. That the citizens fully indorsed this was well exemplified on

the occasion of his leading back into the metropolis a number of her

volunteer regiments when the danger was over. They lined the streets,

crowded the doors and windows, and filled the air with shouts of

applause, in honor of the great work he had done.

In writing this notice of Wallace and the siege, we have had no

intention to overlook the services of his co-laborers, especially

those rendered to the West by the gallant Wright, who holds command

of the department. The writer has attempted to give what came directly

under his own observation, and what he believes to be the core of the

matter, and consequently most interesting to the public.

JANE AUSTEN.

In the old Cathedral of Winchester stand the tombs of kings, with

dates stretching back to William Rufus and Canute; here, too, are the

marble effigies of queens and noble ladies, of crusaders and warriors,

of priests and bishops. But our pilgrimage led us to a slab of black

marble set into the pavement of the north aisle, and there, under the

grand old arches, we read the name of Jane Austen. Many-colored as the

light which streams through painted windows, came the memories which

floated in our soul as we read the simple inscription: happy hours,

gladdened by her genius, weary hours, soothed by her touch; the

honored and the wise who first placed her volumes in our hand; the

beloved ones who had lingered over her pages, the voices of our

distant home, associated with every familiar story.

The personal history of Jane Austen belongs to the close of the last

and the beginning of the present century. Her father through forty

years was rector of a parish in the South of England. Mr. Austen was

a man of great taste in all literary matters; from him his daughter

inherited many of her gifts. He probably guided her early education

and influenced the direction of her genius. Her life was passed

chiefly in the country. Bath, then a fashionable watering-place, with

occasional glimpses of London, must have afforded all the intercourse

which she held with what is called "the world." Her travels were

limited to excursions in the vicinity of her father's residence.

Those were days of post-chaises and sedan-chairs, when the rush of

the locomotive was unknown. Steam, that genie of the vapor, was yet a

little household elf, singing pleasant times by the evening fire, at

quiet hearthstones; it has since expanded into a mighty giant, whose

influences are no longer domestic. The circles of fashion are changed

also. Those were the days of country-dances and India muslins; the

beaux and belles of "the upper rooms" at Bath knew not the whirl of

the waltz, nor the ceaseless involvements of "the German." Yet the

measures of love and jealousy, of hope and fear, to which their hearts

beat time, would be recognized to-night in every ballroom. Infinite

sameness, infinite variety, are not more apparent in the outward than

in the inward world, and the work of that writer will alone be lasting

who recognizes and embodies this eternal law of the great Author.

Jane Austen possessed in a remarkable degree this rare intuition. The

following passage is found in Sir Walter Scott's journal, under date

of the fourteenth of March, 1826:--"Read again, and for the third time

at least, Miss Austen's finely written novel of 'Pride and Prejudice.'

That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and

feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most

wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself

like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary

commonplace things and characters interesting from truth of the

description and the sentiment is denied to me." This is high praise,

but it is something more when we recur to the time at which Sir Walter

writes this paragraph. It is amid the dreary entries in his journal

of 1826, many of which make our hearts ache and our eyes overflow. He

read the pages of Jane Austen on the fourteenth of March, and on the

fifteenth he writes, "This morning I leave 39 Castle Street for the

last time." It was something to have written a book sought for by him

at such a moment. Even at Malta, in December, 1831, when the pressure

of disease, as well as of misfortune, was upon him, Sir Walter was

often found with a volume of Miss Austen in his hand, and said to a

friend, "There is a finishing-off in some of her scenes that is really

quite above everybody else."

Jane Austen's life-world presented such a limited experience that it

is marvellous where she could have found the models from which she

studied such a variety of forms. It is only another proof that the

secret lies in the genius which seizes, not in the material which is

seized. We have been told by one who knew her well, that Miss Austen

never intentionally drew portraits from individuals, and avoided,

if possible, all sketches that could be recognized. But she was so

faithful to Nature, that many of her acquaintance, whose characters

had never entered her mind, were much offended, and could not be

persuaded that they or their friends had not been depicted in some

of her less attractive personages: a feeling which we have frequently

shared; for, as the touches of her pencil brought out the light

and shades very quietly, we have been startled to recognize our own

portrait come gradually out on the canvas, especially since we are not

equal to the courage of Cromwell, who said, "Paint me as I am."

In the "Autobiography of Sir Egerton Brydges" we find the following

passage: it is characteristic of the man:--

"I remember Jane Austen, the novelist, a little child. Her mother was

a Miss Leigh, whose paternal grandmother was a sister of the first

Duke of Chandos. Mr. Austen was of a Kentish family, of which several

branches have been settled in the Weald, and some are still remaining

there. When I knew Jane Austen, I never suspected she was an

authoress; but my eyes told me that she was fair and handsome, slight

and elegant, with cheeks a little too full. The last time, I think,

I saw her was at Ramsgate, in 1803; perhaps she was then about

twenty-seven years old. Even then I did not know that she was addicted

to literary composition."

We can readily suppose that the spheres of Jane Austen and Sir Egerton

could not be very congenial; and it does not appear that he was ever

tempted from the contemplation of his own performances, to read her

"literary compositions." A letter from Robert Southey to Sir Egerton

shows that the latter had not quite forgotten her. Southey writes,

under the dale of Keswick, April, 1830:--

"You mention Miss Austen; her novels are more true to Nature, and have

(for my sympathies) passages of finer feeling than any others of

this age. She was a person of whom I have heard so much, and think so

highly, that I regret not having seen her, or ever had an opportunity

of testifying to her the respect which I felt for her."

A pleasant anecdote, told to us on good authority in England, is

illustrative of Miss Austen's power over various minds. A party of

distinguished literary men met at a country-seat; among them was

Macaulay, and, we believe, Hallam; at all events, they were men of

high reputation. While discussing the merits of various authors, it

was proposed that each should write down the name of that work of

fiction which had given him the greatest pleasure. Much surprise and

amusement followed; for, on opening the slips of paper, _seven_ bore

the name of "Mansfield Park,"--a coincidence of opinion most rare, and

a tribute to an author unsurpassed.

Had we been of that party at the English country-house, we should have

written, "The _last_ novel by Miss Austen which we have read"; yet,

forced to a selection, we should have named "Persuasion." But we

withdraw our private preference, and, yielding to the decision of

seven wise men, place "Mansfield Park" at the head of the list, and

leave it there without further comment.

"Persuasion" was her latest work, and bears the impress of a matured

mind and perfected style. The language of Miss Austen is, in all her

pages, drawn from the "wells of English undefiled." Concise and clear,

simple and vigorous, no word can be omitted that she puts down,

and none can be added to heighten the effect of her sentences. In

"Persuasion" there are passages whose depth and tenderness, welling

up from deep fountains of feeling, impress us with the conviction that

the angel of sorrow or suffering had troubled the waters, yet had left

in them a healing influence, which is felt rather than revealed. Of

all the heroines we have known through a long and somewhat varied

experience, there is not one whose life-companionship we should so

desire to secure as that of Anne Elliot. Ah! could she also forgive

our faults and bear with our weaknesses, while we were animated by

her sweet and noble example, existence would be, under any aspect, a

blessing. This felicity was reserved for Captain Wentworth. Happy man!

In "Persuasion" we also find the subtle Mr. Elliot. Here, as with Mr.

Crawford in "Mansfield Park," Miss Austen deals dexterously with the

character of a man of the world, and uses a nicer discernment than is

often found in the writings of women, even those who assume masculine

names.

"Emma" we know to have been a favorite with the author. "I have drawn

a character full of faults," said she, "nevertheless I like her."

In Emma's company we meet Mr. Knightley, Harriet Smith, and Frank

Churchill. We sit beside good old Mr. Woodhouse, and please him by

tasting his gruel. We walk through Highbury, we are patronized by Mrs.

Elton, listen forbearingly to the indefatigable Miss Bates, and take

an early walk to the post-office with Jane Fairfax. Once we found

ourselves actually on "Box Hill," but it did not seem half so real as

when we "explored" there with the party from Highbury.

"Pride and Prejudice" is piquant In style and masterly in portraiture.

We make perhaps too many disagreeable acquaintances to enjoy ourselves

entirely; yet who would forego Mr. Collins, or forget Lady Catherine

de Bourgh, though each in their way is more stupid and odious than any

one but Miss Austen could induce us to endure. Mr. Darcy's character

is ably given; a very difficult one to sustain under all the

circumstances in which he is placed. It is no small tribute to the

power of the author to concede that she has so managed the workings

of his real nature as to make it possible, and even probable, that a

high-born, high-bred Englishman of Mr. Darcy's stamp could become the

son-in-law of Mrs. Bennet. The scene of Darcy's declaration of love

to Elizabeth, at the Hunsford Parsonage, is one of the most remarkable

passages in Miss Austen's writings, and, indeed, we remember nothing

equal to it among the many writers of fiction who have endeavored to

describe that culminating point of human destiny.

"Northanger Abbey" is written in a fine vein of irony, called forth,

in some degree, by the romantic school of Mrs. Radcliffe and her

imitators. We doubt whether Miss Austen was not over-wise with regard

to these romances. Though born after the Radcliffe era, we well

remember shivering through the "Mysteries of Udolpho" with as quaking

a heart as beat in the bosom of Catherine Morland. If Miss Austen was

not equally impressed by the power of these romances, we rejoice

that they were written, as with them we should have lost "Northanger

Abbey." For ourselves, we spent one very rainy day in the streets of

Bath, looking up every nook and corner familiar in the adventures

of Catherine, and time, not faith, failed, for a visit to Northanger

itself. Bath was also sanctified by the presence of Anne Elliot. Our

inn, the "White Hart," (made classic by the adventures of various

well-remembered characters,) was hallowed by exquisite memories

which connected one of the rooms (we faithfully believed it was our

apartment) with the conversation of Anne Elliot and Captain Harville,

as they stood by the window, while Captain Wentworth listened and

wrote. In vain did we gaze at the windows of Camden Place. No Anne

Elliot appeared.

"Sense and Sensibility" was the first novel published by Miss Austen.

It is marked by her peculiar genius, though it may be wanting in the

nicer finish which experience gave to her later writings.

The Earl of Carlisle, when Lord Morpheth, wrote a poem for some now

forgotten annual, entitled "The Lady and the Novel." The following

lines occur among the verses:--

"Or is it thou, all-perfect Austen? here

Let one poor wreath adorn thy early bier,

That scarce allowed thy modest worth to claim

The living portion of thy honest fame:

Oh, Mrs. Bennet, Mrs. Morris, too,

While Memory survives, she'll dream of you;

And Mr. Woodhouse, with abstemious lip,

Must thin, but not too thin, the gruel sip;

Miss Bates, _our_ idol, though the village bore,

And Mrs. Elton, ardent to explore;

While the clear style flows on without pretence,

With unstained purity, and unmatched sense."

If the Earl of Carlisle, in whose veins flows "the blood of all the

Howards," is willing to acknowledge so many of our friends, who are

anything but aristocratic, our republican soul shrinks not from the

confession that we should like to accompany good-natured Mrs. Jennings

in her hospitable carriage, (so useful to our young ladies of sense

and sensibility,) witness the happiness of Elinor at the parsonage,

and the reward of Colonel Brandon at the manor-house of Delaford, and

share with Mrs. Jennings all the charms of the mulberry-tree and the

yew arbor.

An article on "Recent Novels," in "Fraser's Magazine" for

December, 1847, written by Mr. G.H. Lewes, contains the following

paragraphs:--"What we most heartily enjoy and applaud is truth in the

delineations of life and character.... To make our meaning precise, we

would say that Fielding and Miss Austen are the greatest novelists in

our language.... We would rather have written 'Pride and Prejudice,'

or 'Tom Jones,' than any of the 'Waverley Novels'.... Miss Austen has

been called a prose Shakspeare,--and among others, by Macaulay. In

spite of the sense of incongruity which besets us in the words _prose_

Shakspeare, we confess the greatness of Miss Austen, her marvellous

dramatic power, seems, more than anything in Scott, akin to

Shakspeare."

The conclusion of this article is devoted to a review of 'Jane Eyre,'

and led to the correspondence between Miss Brontè and Mr. Lewes

which will be found in the memoir of her life. In these letters it is

apparent that Mr. Lewes wishes Miss Brontè to read and to enjoy Miss

Austen's works, as he does himself. Mr. Lewes is disappointed, and

felt, doubtless, what all true lovers of Jane Austen have experienced,

a surprise to find how obtuse otherwise clever people sometimes

are. In this instance, however, we think Mr. Lewes expected what was

impossible. Charlotte Brontè could not harmonize with Jane Austen. The

luminous and familiar star which comes forth into the quiet evening

sky when the sun sets amid the amber light of an autumn evening, and

the comet which started into sight, unheralded and unnamed, and flamed

across the midnight sky, have no affinity, except in the Divine Mind,

whence both originate.

The notice of Miss Austen, by Macaulay, to which Mr. Lewes alludes,

must be, we presume, the passage which occurs in Macaulay's article on

Madame D'Arblay, in the "Edinburgh Review," for January, 1843. We do

not find the phrase, "prose Shakspeare," but the meaning is the same;

we give the passage as it stands before us:--

"Shakspeare has neither equal nor second; but among writers who, in

the point we have noticed, have approached nearest the manner of the

great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, as a

woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of

characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet

every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other

as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There are, for

example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to

find in any parsonage in the kingdom,--Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry

Tilney, Mr. Edward Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens

of the upper part of the middle class. They have been all liberally

educated. They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred

profession. They are all young. They are all in love. Not any one of

them has any hobby-horse, to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has any

ruling passion, such as we read in Pope. Who would not have expected

them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon

is not more unlike Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike Sir

Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to

all his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches

so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of

description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect

to which they have contributed."

Dr. Whately, the Archbishop of Dublin, in the "Quarterly Review,"

1821, sums up his estimate of Miss Austen with these words: "The

Eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a

new pleasure would have deserved well of mankind, had he stipulated

it should be blameless. Those again who delight in the study of human

nature may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable

application of that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions. Miss

Austen introduces very little of what is technically called religion

into her books, yet that must be a blinded soul which does not

recognize the vital essence, everywhere present in her pages, of a

deep and enlightened piety.

There are but few descriptions of scenery in her novels. The figures

of the piece are her care; and if she draws in a tree, a hill, or a

manor-house, it is always in the background. This fact did not arise

from any want of appreciation for the glories or the beauties of the

outward creation, for we know that the pencil was as often in her hand

as the pen. It was that unity of purpose, ever present to her mind,

which never allowed her to swerve from the actual into the ideal, nor

even to yield to tempting descriptions of Nature which might be near,

and yet aside from the main object of her narrative. Her creations

are living people, not masks behind which the author soliloquizes

or lectures. These novels are impersonal; Miss Austen never herself

appears; and if she ever had a lover, we cannot decide whom he

resembled among the many masculine portraits she has drawn.

Very much has been said in her praise, and we, in this brief article,

have summoned together witnesses to the extent of her powers, which

are fit and not few. Yet we are aware that to a class of readers Miss

Austen's novels must ever remain sealed books. So be it. While the

English language is read, the world will always be provided with souls

who can enjoy the rare excellence of that rich legacy left to them by

her genius.

Once in our lifetime we spent three delicious days in the Isle of

Wight, and then crossed the water to Portsmouth. After taking a turn

on the ramparts in memory of Fanny Price, and looking upon the harbor

whence the Thrush went out, we drove over Portsdown Hill to visit the

surviving member of that household which called Jane Austen their own.

We had been preceded by a letter, introducing us to Admiral Austen as

fervent admirers of his sister's genius, and were received by him with

a gentle courtesy most winning to our heart.

In the finely-cut features of the brother, who retained at eighty

years of age much of the early beauty of his youth, we fancied we must

see a resemblance to his sister, of whom there exists no portrait.

It was delightful to us to hear him speak of "Jane," and to be brought

so near the actual in her daily life. Of his sister's fame as a writer

the Admiral spoke understandingly, but reservedly.

We found the old Admiral safely moored in that most delightful of

havens, a quiet English country-home, with the beauty of Nature around

the mansion, and the beauty of domestic love and happiness beneath its

hospitable roof.

There we spent a summer day, and the passing hours seemed like the

pages over which we had often lingered, written by her hand whose

influence had guided us to those she loved. That day, with all its

associations, has become a sacred memory, and links us to the sphere

where dwells that soul whose gift of genius has rendered immortal the

name of Jane Austen.

* * * * *

THE PROCLAMATION.

"I order and declare that all persons held as slaves in the

said designated States and parts of States are and hereafter

shall be free,... and I hereby enjoin upon the people so

declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in

necessary self-defence."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Saint Patrick, slave to Milcho of the herds

Of Ballymena, sleeping, heard these words:

"Arise, and flee

Out from the land of bondage, and be free!"

Glad as a soul in pain, who hears from heaven

The angels singing of his sins forgiven,

And, wondering, sees

His prison opening to their golden keys,

He rose a man who laid him down a slave,

Shook from his locks the ashes of the grave,

And outward trod

Into the glorious liberty of God.

He cast the symbols of his shame away;

And passing where the sleeping Milcho lay,

Though back and limb

Smarted with wrong, he prayed, "God pardon him!"

So went he forth: but in God's time he came

To light on Uilline's hills a holy flame;

And, dying, gave

The land a saint that lost him as a slave.

O dark, sad millions, patiently and dumb

Waiting for God, your hour, at last, has come,

And freedom's song

Breaks the long silence of your night of wrong!

Arise and flee! shake off the vile restraint

Of ages! but, like Ballymena's saint,

The oppressor spare,

Heap only on his head the coals of prayer!

Go forth, like him! like him, return again,

To bless the land whereon in bitter pain

Ye toiled at first,

And heal with freedom what your slavery cursed!

* * * * *

THE LAW OF COSTS.

Our nation is now paying the price, not only of its vice, but also

of its virtue,--not alone of its evil doing, but of its noble and

admirable doing as well. It has of late been a customary cry with

a certain class, that those who cherish freedom and advocate social

justice are the proper authors of the present war. No doubt there

is in this allegation an ungracious kind of truth; that is, had the

nation been destitute of a political faith and of moral feeling, there

would have been no contest. But were one lying ill of yellow-fever

or small-pox, there would be the same sort of lying truth in the

statement, that the _life_ in him, which alone resists the disease, is

really its cause; since to yellow-fever, or to any malady, dead bodies

are not subject. There is no preventive of disease so effectual as

death itself,--no place so impregnable to pestilence as the grave. So,

had the vitality gone out of the nation's heart, had that lamp of love

for freedom and justice and of homage to the being of man, which once

burned in its bosom so brightly, already sunk into death-flicker and

extinction, then in the sordid and icy dark that would remain there

could be no war of like nature with this that to-day gives the land

its woful baptism of blood and tears. Oh, no! there would have been

peace--_and_ putrefaction: peace, but without its sweetness, and

death, but without its hopes.

In one important sense, however, this war--hateful and horrible though

it be--is the price which the nation must pay for its ideas and its

magnanimity. If you take a clear initial step toward any great end,

you thereby assume as a debt to destiny the pursuit and completion of

your action; and should you fail to meet this debt, it will not fail

to meet you, though now in the shape of retribution and with a biting

edge. The seaman who has signed shipping-papers owes a voyage, and

must either sail or suffer. The nation which has recognized absolute

rights of man, and in their name assumed to shed blood, has taken

upon itself the burden of a high destination, and must bear it, if

not willingly, reluctantly, if not in joy and honor, then in shame and

weeping.

Our nation, by the early nobility of its faith and action, assumed

such a debt to destiny, and now must pay it. It needed not to come in

this shape: there need have been no horror of carnage,--no feast of

vultures, and carnival of fiends,--no weeping of Rachel, mourning

for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not.

There was required only a magnanimity in proceeding to sustain that of

our beginning,--only a sympathy broad enough to take our little planet

and all her human tribes in its arms, deep enough to go beneath

the skin in which men differ, to the heart's blood in which they

agree,--only pains and patience, faith and forbearance,--only a

national obedience to that profound precept of Christianity which

prescribes service to him that would be greatest, making the knowledge

of the wise due to the ignorant, and the strength of the strong due

to the weak. The costs of freedom would have been paid in the patient

lifting up of a degraded race from the slough of servitude; and the

nation would at the same time have avoided that slough of lava and

fire wherein it is now ingulfed.

It was not to be so. History is coarse; it gets on by gross feeding

and fevers, not by delicacy of temperance and wisdom of regimen. Our

debt was to be paid, not in a pure form, but mixed with the costs of

unbelief, cowardice, avarice. Yet primarily it is the cost, not of

meanness, but of magnanimity, that we are now paying,--not of a base

skepticism, but of a noble faith. For, in truth, normal qualities and

actions involve costs no less than vicious and abnormal. Such is the

law of the world; and it is this law of the costs of worthiness, of

knowledge and nobility, of all memorable being and doing, that I now

desire to set forth. Having obtained the scope and power of the law,

having considered it also as applying to individuals, we may proceed

to exhibit its bearing upon the present struggle of our Republic.

The general statement is this,--that whatever has a worth has also

a cost. "The law of the universe," says a wise thinker, "is, Pay and

take." If you desire silks of the mercer or supplies at the grocery,

you, of course, pay money. Is it a harvest from the field that

you seek? Tillage must be paid. Would you have the river toil in

production of cloths for your raiment? Only pay the due modicum of

knowledge, labor, and skill, and you shall bind its hand to your

water-wheels, and turn all its prone strength into pliant service. Or

perhaps you wish the comforts of a household. By payment of the

due bearing of its burdens, you may hope to obtain it,--surely not

otherwise. Do you ask that this house may be a true home, a treasury

for wealth of the heart, a little heaven? Once more the word

is _pay_,--pay your own heart's unselfish love, pay a generous

trustfulness, a pure sympathy, a tender consideration, and a sweet

firm-heartedness withal. And so, wherever there is a gaining, there

is a warning,--wherever a well-being, a well-doing,--wherever a

preciousness, a price of possession; and he who scants the payment

stints the purchase; and he that will proffer nothing shall profit

nothing; but he that freely and wisely gives shall receive as freely.

But these _desiderata_ which I have named are all prices either of

ordinary use, of comfort, or felicity; and it is generally understood

that happiness is costly: but virtue? Virtue, so far from costing

anything, is often supposed to be itself a price that you pay for

happiness. It is told us that we shall be rewarded for our virtue;

what moralistic commonplace is more common than this? But rewarded

for your virtue you are not to be; you are to pay for it; at least,

payment made, rather than received, is the principal fact. He who

is honest for reward is a knave without reward. He who asks pay for

telling truth has truth only on his tongue and a double lie in his

heart. Do you think that the true artist strives to paint well that he

may get money for his work? Or rather, is not his desire to pay money,

to pay anything in reason, for the sake of excellence in his art? And,

indeed, what is worthier than Worth? What fitter, therefore, to be

paid for? And that payment is made, even under penal forms, every one

may see. For what did Raleigh give his lofty head? For the privilege

of being Raleigh, of being a man of great heart and a statesman of

great mind, with a King James, a burlesque of all sovereignty, on the

throne. For what did Socrates quaff the poison? For the privilege of

that divine sincerity and penetration which characterized his life.

For what did Kepler endure the last straits of poverty, his children

crying for bread, while his own heart was pierced with their wailing?

For the privilege--in his own noble words--"of reading God's thoughts

after Him,"--God's thoughts written in stellar signs on the scroll of

the skies. And Cicero and Thomas Cromwell, John Huss and John Knox,

John Rogers and John Brown, and many another, high and low, famed and

forgotten, must they not all make, as it were, penal payment for the

privilege of being true men, truest among true? And again I say, that,

if one knows something worthier than Worth, something more excellent

than Excellence, then only does he know something fitter than they to

be paid for.

Payment _may_ assume a penal form: do not think this its only form.

And to take the law at once out of the limitations which these

examples suggest, let me show you that it is a law of healthy and

unlamenting Nature. Look at the scale of existence, and you will see

that for every step of advance in that scale payment is required.

The animal is higher than the vegetable; the animal, accordingly, is

subject to the sense of pain, the vegetable not; and among animals the

pain may be keener as the organization is nobler. The susceptibility

not only to pain, but to vital injury, observes the same gradation.

A little girdling kills an oak; but some low fungus may be cut and

troubled and trampled _ad libitum_, and it will not perish; and along

the shores, farmers year after year pluck sea-weed from the rocks,

and year after year it springs again lively as ever. Among the lowest

orders of animals you shall find a creature that, if you cut it in

two, straightway duplicates its existence and floats away twice as

happy as before; but of the prick of a bodkin or the sting of a bee

the noblest of men may die.

In the animal body the organs make a draft from the general vigors

of the system just in proportion to their dignity. The eye,--what

an expensive boarder at the gastric tables is that! Considerable

provinces of the brain have to be made over to its exclusive use;

and it will be remembered that a single ounce of delicate, sensitive

brain, full of mysterious and marvellous powers, requires more vital

support than many pounds of common muscle. The powers of the eye are

great; it has a right to cost much, and it does cost. Also we observe

that in this organ there is the exceeding susceptibility to injury,

which, as we have observed, invariably accompanies powers of a lofty

grade.

Noble senses cost much; noble susceptibilities cost vastly more.

Compare oxen with men in respect to the amount of feeling and nervous

wear and tear which they severally experience. The ox enjoys grass and

sleep; he feels hunger and weariness, and he is wounded by that which

goes through his hide. But upon the nerve of the man what an incessant

thousandfold play! Out of the eyes of the passers-by pleasures and

pains are rained upon him; a word, a look, a tone thrills his every

fibre; the touch of a hand warms or chills the very marrow in his

bones. Anticipation and memory, hope and regret, love and hate,

ideal joy and sorrow and shame, ah, what troops of visitants are

ever present with his soul, each and all, whether welcome guests or

unwelcome, to be nourished from the resources of his bosom! And out of

this high sensibility of man must come what innumerable stabs of quick

agony, what slow, gasping hours of grief and pain, that to the cattle

upon the hills are utterly unknown! But do you envy the ox his bovine

peace? It is precisely that which makes him an ox, It is due to

nothing but his insensibility,--by no means, as I take occasion to

assure those poets who laud outward Nature and inferior creatures

to the disparagement of man,--by no means due to composure and

philosophy. The ox is no great hero, after all, for he will bellow at

a thousandth part the sense of pain which from a Spartan child wrings

no tear nor cry.

Yes, it is precisely this sensibility which makes man human. Were he

incapable of ideal joy and sorrow, he, too, were brute. It is through

this delicacy of conscious relationship, it is through this openness

to the finest impressions, that he can become an organ of supernal

intelligence, that he is capable of social and celestial inspirations.

High spiritual sensibility is the central condition of a noble and

admirable life; it is the hinge on which turn and open to man the

gates of his highest glory and purest peace. Yet for this he must pay

away all that induration of brutes and boors which sheds off so many

a wasting excitement and stinging chagrin, as the feathers of the

water-fowl shed rain.

In entering, therefore, upon any noble course of life, any generous

and brave pursuit of excellence, understand, that, so far as ordinary

coin is concerned, you are rather to pay, than to be paid, for your

superiorities. Understand that the pursuit of excellence must indeed

be brave to be prosperous,--that is, it is always in some way opposed

and imperilled. Understand, that, with every step of spiritual

elevation which you attain, some part of your audience and

companionship will be left behind. Understand, that, if you carry

lofty principles and philosophic intelligence into camps, these

possessions will in general not be passed to your credit, but will be

charged against you; and you must surpass your inferiors in their

own kinds of virtue to regain what of popular regard these cost you.

Understand, that, if you have a reverence for theoretical and absolute

truth, less of common fortune will come to you in answer to equal

business and professional ability than to those who do care for money,

and do not care for truth. Are you a physician? Let me tell you that

there is a possible excellence in your profession which will rather

limit than increase your practice; yet that very excellence you must

strive to attain, for your soul's life is concerned in your doing so.

Are you a lawyer? Know that there is a depth and delicacy in the sense

of justice, which will sometimes send clients from your office, and

sometimes tie your tongue at the bar; yet, as you would preserve the

majesty of your manhood, strive just for that unprofitable sense of

justice,--unprofitable only because infinitely, rather than finitely,

profitable. In a stormy and critical time, when much is ending

and much beginning, and a great land is heaving and quivering with

commingled agonies of dissolution and throes of new birth, are you a

statesman of earnestness and insight, with your eye on the cardinal

question of your epoch, its answer clearly in your heart, and your

will irrevocably set to give it due enunciation and emphasis? Expect

calumny and affected contempt from the base; expect alienation

and misconstruction and undervaluing on the part of some who are

honorable. Are you a woman rich in high aims, in noble sympathies and

thrilling sensibilities, and, as must ever be the case with such, not

too rich in a meet companionship? Expect loneliness, and wear it as

a grace upon your brow; it is your laurel. Are you a true artist or

thinker? Expect to go beyond popular appreciation; _go_ beyond it,

or the highest appreciation you will not deserve. In fine, for all

excellence expect and _seek_ to pay.

No one ever held this law more steadily in view than Jesus; and when

ardent young people came to him proposing pupilage, he was wont at

once to bring it before their eyes. It was on such an occasion that he

uttered the words, so simple and intense that they thrill to the touch

like the string of a harp, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the

air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head."

Of like suggestion his question of the king going to war, who first

sitteth down and consulteth whether he be able, and of the man about

to build a house, who begins by counting the cost.

The cost,--question of this must arise; question of this must on all

sides either be honestly met or dishonestly eluded. For observe, that

attempt to escape payment for the purest values, no less than for

the grossest, _is_ dishonest. If one seek to compass possession of

ordinary goods without compensation, we at once apply the opprobrious

term of _theft_ or _fraud_. Why does the same sort of attempt cease to

be fraudulent when it is carried up to a higher degree and applied to

possessions more precious? If he that evades the revenue law of the

State be guilty of fraud, what of him who would import Nature's

goods and pay no duties? For Nature has her own system of impost, and

permits no smuggling. There was a tax on truth ere there was one on

tea or on silver plate. Character, genius, high parts in history are

all assessed upon. Nature lets out her houses and lands on liberal

terms; but resorts to distraint, if her dues be not forthcoming. Be

sure, therefore, that little success and little honor will wait upon

any would-be thieving from God. He who attempts to purloin on this

high scale has set all the wit of the universe at work to thwart him,

and will certainly be worsted sorely in the end.

The moment, therefore, that any man is found engaged in this business,

how to estimate him is clear. Daniel O'Connell tried the experiment of

being an heroic patriot and making money by it. It is conceded by

his friends that he applied to his private uses, to sustaining the

magnificence of his household, the rent-moneys sweated from the

foreheads of Irish peasants. But, they say, he had sacrificed many

ambitions in taking up the _rôle_ of a patriot; and he felt entitled

to revenues as liberal as any indulgence of them could have procured

him! The apology puts his case beyond all apology. He who--to employ

the old phraseology--seeks to exact the same bribe of God that he

might have obtained from the Devil is always the Devil's servant, no

matter whose livery he wears. Had one often to apply the good word

_patriot_ to such men, it would soon blister his mouth. I find, in

fact, no vice so bad as this spurious virtue, no sinners so unsavory

as these mock saints.

To nations, also, this comprehensive law applies. Would you have

a noble and orderly freedom? Buy it, and it is yours. "Liberty or

death," cried eloquent Henry; and the speech is recited as bold and

peculiar; but, by an enduring ordinance of Nature, the people that

does not in its heart of hearts say, "Liberty or death," cannot have

liberty. Many of us had learned to fancy that the stern tenure by

which ancient communities held their civilization was now become an

obsolete fact, and that without peril or sacrifice we might forever

appropriate all that blesses nations; but by the iron throat of this

war Providence is thundering down upon us the unalterable law, that

man shall hold no ideal possession longer than he places all his lower

treasures at its command.

But there was a special form of cost, invited by the virtue of our

national existence; and it is this in particular that we are now

paying,--paying it, I am sorry to say, in the form of retribution

because the nation declined to meet it otherwise. But the peculiarity

of the case is, as has been affirmed, that it was chiefly the virtue

and nobility of the nation which created this debt at the outset.

And now what is the peculiar virtue and glory of this nation? Why,

that its national existence is based upon a recognition of the

absolute rights and duties of humanity. Theoretically this is our

basis; practically there is a commixture; much of this cosmopolitan

faith is mingled with much of confined self-regard. But the

theoretical fact is the one here in point: since the question now

is not of the national _un_faith or infidelity, but of the national

faith. And beyond a question, the real faith of the nation, so far as

it has one, is represented by its formal declaration, made sacred by

the shedding of blood. Our belief really is not in the special

right or privilege of Americans, but in the prerogative of man.

This prerogative we may have succeeded well or ill in stating and

interpreting; the fact, that our appeal is to this, alone concerns us

here.

Now this national attitude, so far as history informs me, is

unprecedented. The true-born son of Albion, save as an exceptional

culture enlarges his soul, believes religiously that God is an

Englishman, and that the interests of England precede those of the

universe. When, therefore, he sees anything done which depletes the

pocket of England, it affects him with a sense of infidelity in those

to whom this loss is due. England professes to have a _national_

religion; she has, and in a deeper sense than is commonly meant.

We will not disparage England overmuch; she has done good service in

history. We will not boast of ourselves; the actual politics of this

country have been, in no small part, base and infidel to a degree

that is simply sickening. Nevertheless, it remains true that the

fundamental idea of the State here represents a new phase of human

history. Every European nationality had taken shape and character

while yet our globe was not known to be a globe, while before the eyes

of all lookers land and sea faded away into darkness and mystery; and

it was not possible that common human sympathy should take into its

arms a world of which it could not conceive. But a national spirit

was here generated when the ocean had been crossed, when the earth had

been rounded, when, too, Newton had, as it were, circumnavigated the

solar system,--when, therefore, there could be, and must be, a new

recognition of humanity. Our country, again, was peopled from the

minorities of Europe, from those whom the spirit of the new time

had touched, and taken away their content with old institutions,--a

population restless, uncertain, yeasty, chaotic, it might be, full of

the rawness of new conditions, mean and magnanimous by turns, as such

people are wont, but all leavened more or less with a sentiment new in

history,--all leavened with a kind of whole-world feeling, a sense

of the oneness of humanity, and, as derived from this, a sense of

absolute rights of man, of prerogatives belonging to human nature as

such.

The truth of all this has been brought under suspicion by the

flatulent oratory of our Fourth-of-Julys; but truth it remains. Our

nation did enunciate a grand idea never equally felt by any other. Our

nation has said, and said with the sword in its right hand, "Every man

born into this world has the right from God to make the most and best

of his existence, and society is established only to further and guard

this sacred right." We thus established a new scale of justice; we

raised a demand for the individual which had not been so made before.

Freedom and order were made one; both were identified with justice,

simple, broad, equal, universal justice. The American idea, then, what

is it? _The identification of politics with justice_, this it is. With

justice, and this, too, not on a scale of conventional usage, but

on the scale of natural right. That, as I read, is the American

idea,--making politics moral by their unity with natural justice,

justice world-old and world-wide.

This conception--obscurely seen and felt, and mixed with the

inevitable amount of folly and self-seeking, yet, after, all,

this conception--our nation dared to stand up and announce, and to

consecrate it by the shedding of blood, calling God and all good men

to witness. The deed was grand; the hearts of men everywhere were more

or less its accomplices; all the tides of history ran in its favor;

kings, forgetting themselves into virtue and generosity, lent it

good wishes or even good arms; it was successful; and on its primary

success waited such prosperities as the world has seldom seen.

But, because the deed was noble, great costs must needs attend it,

attend it long. And first of all the cost of _applying our principle

within our own borders_. For, when a place had been obtained for us

among nations, we looked down, and, lo! at our feet the African--in

chains. A benighted and submissive race, down-trodden and despised

from of old, a race of outcasts, of Pariahs, covered with the shame of

servitude, and held by the claim of that terrible talisman, the

word _property_,--here it crouched at our feet, lifting its hands,

imploring. Yes, America, here is your task now; never flinch nor

hesitate, never begin to question now; thrust your right hand deep

into your heart's treasury, bring forth its costliest, purest justice,

and lay its immeasurable bounty into this sable palm, bind its

blessing on this degraded brow. Ah, but America did falter and

question. "How can I?" it said. "This is a Negro, a _Negro_! Besides,

he is PROPERTY!" And so America looked up, determined to ignore

the kneeling form. With pious blasphemy it said, "He is here

providentially; God in His own good time will dispose of him"; as

if God's hour for a good effect were not the earliest hour at

which courage and labor can bring it about, not the latest to which

indolence and infidelity can postpone it. Then it looked away across

oceans to other continents, and began again the chant, "Man is man;

natural right is sacred forever; and of politics the sole basis is

universal justice." Joyfully it sang for a while, but soon there began

to come up the clank of chains mingling with its chant, and the groans

of oppressed men and violated women, and prayers to Heaven for another

justice than this; and then the words of its chant grew bitter in the

mouth of our nation, and a sickness came in its heart, and an evil

blush mounted and stood on its brow; and at length a devil spoke in

its bosom and said, "The negro has no rights that a white man is bound

to respect"; and ere the words were fairly uttered, their meaning, as

was indeed inevitable, changed to this,--"A Northern 'mudsill' has no

rights that a Southern gentleman is bound to respect"; and soon guns

were heard booming about Sumter, and a new chapter in our history and

in the world's history began.

Our nation refused allegiance to its own principles, refused to pay

the lawful costs of its virtue and nobility; therefore it is sued in

the courts of destiny, and the case is this day on trial.

The case is plain, the logic clear. Natural right is sacred, or it is

not. If it is, the negro is lawfully free; if it is not, you may be

lawfully a slave. Just how all this stands in the Constitution of the

United States I do not presume to say. Other heads, whose business it

is, must attend to that. Every man to his vocation. I speak from the

stand-point of philosophy, not of politics; I attend to the logic of

history, the logic of destiny, according to which, of course, final

judgment will be rendered. It is not exactly to be supposed that

the statute of any nation makes grass green, or establishes the

relationship between cause and effect. The laws of the world are

considerably older than our calendar, and therefore date yet more

considerably beyond the year 1789. And by the laws of the world, by

the eternal relationship between cause and effect, it stands enacted

beyond repeal, and graven upon somewhat more durable than marble or

brass, that the destiny of this nation for more than one century to

come hinges upon its justice to that outcast race,--outcast, but not

henceforth to be cast out by us, save to the utter casting down of

ourselves. Once it might have been otherwise; now we have made it

so. Justice to the African is salvation to the white man upon this

continent. Oh, my America, you must not, cannot, shall not be blind

to this fact! America, deeper in my love and higher in my esteem than

ever before, newly illustrated in worth, newly proven to be capable

still, in some directions, of exceeding magnanimity, open your eyes

that your feet may have guidance, now when there is such need! Open

your eyes to see, that, if you deliberately deny justice and human

recognition to one innocent soul in all your borders, you stab at your

own existence; for, in violating the unity of humanity, you break the

principle that makes you a nation and alive. Give justice to black

and white, recognize man as man; or the constituting idea, the vital

faith, the crystallizing principle of the nation perishes, and the

whole disintegrates, falls into dust.

I invite the attention of conservative men to the fact that in this

due paying of costs lies the true conservation. I invite them to

observe, that, as every living body has a principle which makes it

alive, makes it a unit, harmonizing the action of its members,--as

every crystal has a unitary law, which commands the arrangement of its

particles, the number and arrangement of its faces and angles,--so

it is with every orderly or living state. To this also there is a

central, clarifying, unifying faith. Without this you may collect

hordes into the brief, brutal empire of a Chingis Khan or Tamerlane;

but you can have no firm, free, orderly, inspiring national life.

Whenever and wherever in history this central condition of national

existence has been destroyed, there a nation has fallen into chaos,

into imbecility, losing all power to produce genius, to generate able

souls, to sustain the trust of men in each other, or to support any of

the conditions of social health and order. Even advances in the right

line of progress have to be made slowly, gradually, lest the shock of

newness be too great, and break off a people from the traditions in

which its faith is embodied; but a mere recoil, a mere denial and

destruction of its centralizing principle, is the last and utmost

calamity which can befall any nation.

This is no fine-spun doctrine, fit for parlors and lecture-rooms, but

not for counting-rooms and congressional halls. It is solid, durable

fact. History is full of it; and he is a mere mole, and blinder than

midnight, who cannot perceive it. The spectacle of nations falling

into sudden, chronic, careless imbecility is frequent and glaring

enough for even wilfulness to see; and the central secret of this

sad phenomenon, so I am _sure_, has been suggested here. When the

socializing faith of a nation has perished, the alternative for

it becomes this, that it can be stable only as it is stagnant, and

vigorous only as it is lawless.