We were in the _three_-months.
There! I feel as proud of that as one of the Old Guard would have been
in saying: 'I was of the Army of Italy.'
There is but one _three_-months (pronounced with the accent strongly
resting on the numeral adverb, after the Hibernian). All others are
spurious imitations. I refer to the early days of the war: the dark days
that followed the first fall of Sumter, when our Southern friends had
just finished the last volume of the lexicon of slavery, that for so
long a time had defined away our manhood, our national honor, and our
birthright of freedom, with such terrible words as 'coercion,'
'secession,' 'fratricidal war,' 'sovereign States,' and what not; before
we had begun to look without fear even at the title page of the new
Gospel of Liberty: the days when we were mudsills and greasy mechanics,
whose pockets were to be touched: the days, in short, when we were still
inclined to crawl upon our bellies, from the preference arising out of
long and strong habit. Then, you remember, the rebellion was to be
crushed in sixty days. So the President issued his proclamation, of date
the 15th of April, A. D. 1861 (and of the independence of the United
States the _first_), calling out SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND men for ninety
days to do it.
On the same day we were mustered into the service as a part of this
gigantic force of seventy-five thousand, at the bare suggestion of whose
numbers the refractory South was confidently expected to abandon its
rash enterprise, and kindly resume its sway over us. Before the awful
ceremony known as 'mustering in,' we were sixty odd excited young
gentlemen, hailing from and residing in all parts of the country. After
it we were Company N, commanded by Captain John H. Pipes, of the First
Regiment of District of Columbia Volunteers, commanded by Colonel
Charles Diamond, as the muster rolls called us, or the 'American
Sharpshooters,' as we called ourselves.
Major McDuff mustered us in. He did it after this fashion: First he
walked out into the yard of the War Department, where the company stood
at 'parade rest,' or the nearest militia approach thereto, waiting to be
absorbed. Then he had us marched across the yard and halted; then up it;
then down it; then back to the first position; then forward in a line a
few paces; then, by the right flank, into the back yard, where he left,
us, at a 'rest,' for two hours and fifty-three minutes, while he retired
into the War Department building, probably to ascertain if the thing was
regular. Then, at the fifty-fourth minute, or thereabout, after the
second hour, he caused us to be marched into our original position.
After gazing at us uneasily for a few minutes, he proceeded to inspect
our arms with the utmost care: the importance of which manoeuvre will
more fully appear from the fact that they intended to take us, and did
take many of us, _sans_ lock, stock, or barrel. Then he told us that we
were--called into the--service--of the--United States--for--three
months--to serve in the District--not to go beyond the District--under
any circumstances. Then he called the roll, so accurately (never having
seen it before) that nearly all of us recognized our names, and in
hardly more than two and three quarters the time it would have taken the
orderly sergeant to do it. Then we were told to hold up our right hands,
and a stout party, well known to all early volunteers, stepped forward
from wherever he had been before, and, introducing himself by
exclaiming, in solemn and cavernous tones, 'THE FOLLOWING IS THE OATH!'
swore us in. Then, after another short adjournment of half an hour, we
were marched to our barracks.
That was a queer organization, the 1st D.C. Vols., composed as it was of
a cloud of independent companies--thirty-five, or thereabout, in all, I
think--all made up of men from everywhere, largely in the tadpole stage
of Unionism, and all sworn in for service in the District, not to go
beyond the District. Early in May they were organized into eight
battalions of four or five companies each, commanded by
lieutenant-colonels, majors, or the senior captains. Nearly every
company occupied its own separate 'armory' or barracks, and all the
officers and men lived at home when not actually on guard or other duty!
It was an awful feeling that sandwiched the gaps of new-born exultation
at finding ourselves real soldiers--that feeling of a merged identity;
the individual Smith sold for glory at $11 per mensem, and lost, lost in
an aggregate: become only a cog in a little machine connected with a
larger machine that forms part of the great machine called an army. One
thing saved us the full horror of this discovery: we were not bothered
with corps, divisions, brigades, or even greatly with regiments, in
those days, and if individually we were ciphers or merely recurring
decimals, collectively 'our company' was of the first importance; and
this reflection stiffened the breasts of our gray frock coats, and
caused our scales (we wore scales!) to shine again.
_First night_. Everybody wants to be on guard! Think of that, old
soldiers, and grin. The captain details twice as many as are necessary,
to prevent clamor. Some of the more enthusiastic of the disappointed
ones offer to stay at the armory all night, to be on hand in case of
anything happening. We can never be certain about the enemy's crossing
the Long Bridge, you know. The company, guard and all, is drilled
vigorously, in squads, for two hours. Then the unhappy fellows who are
to go home loiter themselves, with many wistful glances, out of the
building. Then the guard plays euchre, reads, reads aloud, sings,
fences, and drills. A few sleepy heads lie down in corners about one
A.M., and are not going to sleep, but nevertheless shortly complain of
being kept awake by the noise. 'Never mind,' growls the melancholy man
of the company; 'won't hear any of this to-morrow night. D----d glad to
go to sleep then.' The melancholy man, now as hereafter, is voted a
bore, but, as I presently discover, turns out to be pretty nearly right,
and achieves the sad triumph of being able to say, 'Told you so;
wouldn't believe me; now see.'--Daylight. No one has been asleep, yet,
strange to say, everyone has waked up and found everyone else snoring.
No one waits for _reveille_, this first morning. You stretch yourself,
and endeavor to rise. Which is you, and which the board floor? You
rather think this must be you that has just got up, because it aches so
down the grain, and its knots or eyes--yes, they are eyes--are so full
of sand. This must be how Rip Van Winkle felt after his nap in the
Catskills, you think. You wonder how those fellows Boyce and Tripp can
skylark so on an empty stomach. Three hours to breakfast. You police the
quarters with vigor. 'Heavens, what a dust! Open the windows, somebody;
and look here, Sergeant! the floor hasn't been sprinkled.' The sharp,
quick tones of the sergeant of the guard (more like the sound of a
tenpenny nail scratching mahogany than aught else in nature) soon set
matters right. You think you have surely swallowed your peck of dirt
that morning, and feel even more gastric than you usually do on an empty
stomach. You can go home to breakfast now: but you hear Johnny Todd's
cheery voice sing out; 'Fall in, cocktail squad!' and march off with a
score of your comrades to the nearest restaurant, which, finding just
open, the squad incontinently takes possession of. You take a cocktail,
a whiskey cocktail, with the edge of the green glass previously lemoned
and dipped in powdered sugar. 'Ah,' says Todd to everybody, and
everybody, to everybody else, including Todd, 'that goes to the right
place' (slapping it affectionately). Oh, reader, if wearer of p[)a]hnts,
did you ever meet with a decoction, infusion, or other mixture
whatsoever, vinous, alcoholic, or maltic, with or without sugar, that
did _not_ go to the right place? And if there was a fault, wasn't it in
the addition of a trifle too much lemon peel? The crowd takes another of
the same sort. You take another. Then you wish you hadn't.
You go to the office that day, for, in common with two-thirds of the
company, you are a clerk in one of the Departments as well as a soldier;
and you can think and talk of nothing but the war. The oldsters quiz
your enthusiasm unmercifully, and cause your complexion to assume a red
and gobbling appearance, and your conversation to limp into
half-incoherent feebleness. Nevertheless everyone is very kind to you,
for you are a great pet with the old fogies--their prize 'Jack;' and
even old Mr. Gruff rasps down his tones, so that those harsh accents
seem to pat you on the back. Your handwriting, usually so firm and easy,
quavers a little, and exhibits more of the influence of the biceps
muscle than of your accustomed light play of the wrist and fingers. But,
you think, it's the rifle that does it, and are rather proud of this.
_Second night._ You rush down after an early dinner, in rash anxiety to
be drilled. Arriving very red and hot at the armory, you find bales of
straw and boxes on the sidewalk in front, and hear dreadful rumors that
our armory is to be taken away; that we are to have regular barracks,
and live there all the time; that we are to draw rations, and cook them.
Dismay is on every face. The melancholy man alone seems not to be
jostled from his habitual sad composure: he explains to the inquiring,
doubting crowd that the ration consists of 'one and a quarter pounds of
fresh beef or three quarters of a pound of salt beef, pork, or bacon,
fourteen ounces of flour or twelve ounces of hard bread, with eight
pounds of coffee, ten of sugar, ten of rice or eight quarts of beans,
four quarts of vinegar, four pounds of soap, one and a quarter pounds
candles, and two quarts of salt, to the hundred rations. But you won't
get fresh meat often, nor yet flour, and I reckon you'll have to take
beans instead of rice pretty much all the time, now't South Car'lina's
out.' _We_ eat salt pork! or beans either, except very occasionally.
There began to be serious symptoms of mutiny. Fippany and one or two
others declaimed so violently against the outrage, that the more
enthusiastic of us felt bound to use our influence to prevent the spread
of a disaffection that seemed to us highly calculated to embarrass the
action of the Government in this crisis. The end of it was that we
marched up to our new quarters, and, in the excitement of moving in and
receiving our clothing and camp and garrison equipage, had forgotten our
troubles, when (just as the melancholy man discovered that the overcoats
were seven short of the right number, that the mess pans all leaked, and
that the quarters were full of fleas) our orders to move were
countermanded, and we marched back again in joy. There were fewer
volunteers for guard duty that night, and the natural rest of the
sergeant of the guard was undisturbed save by the occasional nightmare
of having overslept the hour for relieving the meek sentinels (not yet
instructed in the art of awakening drowsy non-commissioned officers by
stentorian alarms, and indeed not yet knowing accurately the measure of
their 'two hours on'), or by some louder howl than usual from poor Todd
second, who, having continued his course of eye-opening to the hours
when sober citizens and prudent soldiers incline to close theirs, spent
the major portion of the night in dramatic recitations of the beauties
of Shakspeare, utterly neglecting and refusing to 'dry up,' although
frequently admonished thereto by the growls and eke by the curses of his
comrades.
The next afternoon and evening, including in the latter elastic term
many hours more properly claimed by the night, were spent in confused
and bungling attempts to issue the clothing and camp and garrison
equipage considerately provided for us by the Government. First
everybody opened all the boxes at once, and grabbed for everything. Then
everybody put his things back and petitioned for somebody else's. 'My
overcoat is too big.' 'Mine is too short.' 'Golly! what sleeves!' 'What
are these bags for?' 'Those things knapsacks! how you goin' to fassen
'em? no straps!' 'My canteen has no cork.' ... '_Silence_!' roars the
captain, and '=Silence!=' rasps the orderly sergeant, three times as
loudly and six as disagreeably. And then everybody being ordered to
replace everything, that a proper system of distribution may be adopted,
half of us hide our plunder away, and the other half dump their prizes
promiscuously and in sullenness. 'Here, here!' barks Sergeant Files;
'this kind of thing's played out. There were sixty-five canteens;
where's the other sixty?' Presently the confusion unravels a little,
but, after a breathing spell, begins again worse than ever, when our
melancholy friend, Smallweed, having signed the clothing receipt
doubtfully, presently announces, with the air of an injured martyr, that
he supposes it's all right, but he can't find all the things he signed
for. Then everybody frantically examines into this new difficulty, and
discovers that they signed for everything, and got nothing. Poor Captain
Pipes scratches his head perplexedly, and smokes in anxious puffs.
Sergeant Files hustles everybody about, exposes several shamefaced
impostors, who have more than everything, and by the timely announcement
that Smallweed's deficiency consists of two overcoat straps, which are
no longer used in the service, restores comparative quiet. Smallweed,
however, retires up and shakes his head dubiously, remarking in an
undertone, to a weak-eyed young man, who stands in mortal awe of him,
that it may be all right, but he don't see it.
Drills, drills, drills! For the next week we have nothing but
drills--except guard duty. Squad drills, company drills, drills in the
facings, drills under arms, drills in the morning, noonday drills,
drills at night. Besides these, the office all day, and guard duty every
third night. Talk about the patriotic days of '76! you think--was there
ever anything like this? In less than a week everybody is played out;
everybody, that is, except a lymphatic, dull-visaged backwoodsman, named
Tetter, who drags through everything so slowly and heavily, that he
can't get tired, and an old Polish cavalryman, named Hrsthzschnoffski,
or something of the kind, but naturally called Snuffsky, who knows
neither enthusiasm nor fatigue, who never volunteers for a duty nor ever
begs off from it. Growls arise. Men pale about the cheeks, beady in the
forehead, and dark under the eyes, begin to collect in knotlets, and
talk over the situation. 'We enlisted to fight,' the bolder spirits
hint; 'we came to fight, not to drill and guard armories. Why don't they
take us out and let us whip the enemy, and go back to our business?' But
presently comes
_The 19th of April._ No drill to-night. What is that? A fight in
Baltimore? Nonsense! True though, for all that, as history will vouch.
Six regiments of Massachusetts troops have been attacked in Baltimore by
the 'Plugs,' and cut to pieces. Where was the 'Seventh!' we wonder,
educated in the creed of its invincibility and omnipresence. The Seventh
was there too, and has been massacred. Colonel Lefferts is killed. There
is a stir around the armory door, the knot of idlers gives way
respectfully, and admits a little man, the pride of the regiment, always
cool, collected, handsome, and soldierly--Colonel Diamond. He says half
a dozen words in a whisper to the captain, writes three lines with a
pencil on the fly leaf of an old letter, gives a comprehensive glance
around, in which we feel he sees everything, salutes the captain, and
marches briskly, almost noiselessly, into the street. Smallweed, the
melancholy man, rolls up his blanket, packs his knapsack, combs his hair
sadly, and moans out: 'Detail for the guard: Private Smallweed. I'm
d----d if I stand this any longer! I'll write to----'
'Fall in men; fall in under arms; fall in lively now!' barks the orderly
sergeant. 'Get up here, Snuffsky. Tetter, don't you mean to fall in at
all?' and so on. Volunteers are wanted for special and perhaps dangerous
service. Perhaps dangerous! (Quick movement of admiration.) 'Every man
willing to go will step two paces to the front.' The company moves
forward in line, much to the disgust of Sergeant Files, who finds he
must make a detail after all. Lieutenant Frank, Sergeant Mullins,
Corporal Bledsoe, and twenty privates are presently detailed, and, after
tremendous preparation and excitement, during which Smallweed discovers
that some one has stolen his percussion caps, and is incontinently
cursed by Sergeant Files for his pains, march off amid the cheers of the
disappointed remainder. We mourn our sad lot at being left out of the
detail, when presently comes a second detail: Second Lieutenant
Treadwell, Sergeant Ogle, Corporal Funk, and twenty privates, of whom
you, Jenkins, are one. As you get ready, you adopt stern resolves,
stiffen that upper lip, and confide a short message for some one to one
of the survivors, in case, as you proudly hint, you should not return.
The survivor rewards you with a pressure of the hand, and a look of
wonder at your coolness.
'_Support_--ARMS! _Quick_--MARCH!' the lieutenant says, almost in a
whisper, as we leave the building, and are fairly in the street. Where
are we going? Why do we go down Pennsylvania Avenue? This is not the
way to Long Bridge. Are the enemy attacking the navy yard? all wonder;
no one speaks. 'Halt!' Why, this is the telegraph office! and we take
possession of it in the name of the United States. Despatches between
Baltimore and Richmond have passed over the wires that very evening, and
we even interrupt one with our sword bayonets. Then we hear the truth
about that Baltimore business. The Southern operators and clerks crow
over and denounce us. We feel gulpy about the throat, and those of us
who yet tremble at the thought of 'fratricide,' wish they were out of
this, until Smallweed effects a diversion by dexterously, though quite
accidentally, upsetting the longest-haired, loudest-mouthed operator
into the biggest and dirtiest spittoon. But worse than this is in store
for the unlucky sympathizers, for, after thinking sadly over his feat,
the same melancholy Smallweed suddenly asks them what tune the Southern
Confederacy will adopt as its national air. One incautious Georgian
suggests 'Dixie,' he reckons. ''Spittoon,' I should think,' says
Smallweed mournfully. For which he is pronounced by the same gentleman
from Georgia to be a divinely condemned fool. How hungry we grew, and
how pale and seedy, before the relief came at 8 A.M., with the great
news that the other detail had seized the Alexandria boat!
This is the age of seizures. We seize all the steamers. We seize the
railroad, A train comes in, and we seize the cars. Then there is a let
up: the Confederate lexicon still at work, flashing out the last feeble
jerks of its poison. We release the telegraph; we release the railway;
we release the steamers. One of the latter, the George Page, goes down
to Alexandria, straightway to become a _ram_, terrible to the
weak-minded, though harmless enough in reality. Then we seize them all
again, and, this time, with the railway--praised be Allah!--a train of
cars! Presently a detachment, envied by the disappointed, goes out from
our company on this train to reconnoitre. Communication with the great
North is cut off. Every stalk of corn in all Maryland rises up, in the
nightmare that seems to possess the capital, a man, nay, a 'Southron,'
terrible, invincible, Yankee-hating. Will relief never come? Where are
those seventy-five thousand? Where is the Seventh? Officers in mufti are
known to have been sent out to Annapolis and Baltimore with orders and
for news. Others arrive in Washington filled with strange and vague
tidings of impending disaster. But as yet these doves have no news save
of the deluge. Presently an early _reveille_ startles us from our beds
of soft plank, and, as we fall in sleepily, fagged and exhausted in mind
and body by this work, so new and so trying, we are electrified by the
hoarse croak of Sergeant Files--he too is used up. 'Volunteers to go
beyond the District,' step two paces t'the front--H'rch!' Four men
remain in the ranks. All eyes turn to this shabby remnant, but they
remain immovable, with the leaden expression belonging to the victims of
the Confederate lexicon, that seems to say, unaccused, '_I am not
ashamed._' These men are instantly detailed for guard duty at the armory
for the next twenty-four hours.
The rest of us reach the railway station shortly after daylight, are
told off into platoons, and embarked on the train which the hissing
engine announces to be waiting for us. Our comrades in this adventure
are Captain Hoblitzel's company, the 'Swartz-Jaegers,' brawny mechanics,
sturdy Teutons, and all of a size. These are Germans, remember, not what
we call Hessians; not the kind that are destined to make Pennsylvania a
byword; not the kind that advance in clogs but retreat in seven-league
boots. We part from our German friends with a rousing cheer, as heartily
returned, at a bridge which they are to guard. Then we have the cars to
ourselves. Surely this is the _ne plus ultra_ of railway travelling;
free tickets and a whole seat to yourself. We are to keep our rifles out
of sight, unless an emergency arises. The funny men play conductor,
announcing familiar stations in unintelligible roars, and singing out
'Tickets!' importunately. This is our first real danger. There is real
excitement in this. We all hope there will be a fight; all except
Smallweed, who remains melancholy, according to his wont, save when a
sad pun breaks the surface into a temporary ripple of quiet smiles. And
so, with wild jokes, mad capers, and loudly shouted songs, we whirl
along, twenty miles an hour, over bridges, through cuts, above
embankments, always through danger and into danger. Hoot, toot! shrieks
the engine; the breaks are rasped down; the train slowly consumes its
momentum in vainly trying to stop suddenly. Silence reigns. Every man
nervously, as by instinct, grasps his rifle, half cocks it, looks to the
cap, and thrusts his head out of the window. A shout: 'There they are!'
'Where?' Several of the more nervous rifle barrels protrude uncertainly
from the windows. 'Steady men, _steady!_' from the clear voice of
Captain Pipes. 'I see them.' 'There they are.' 'Three of them.' 'One of
them has on gray clothes, and--'
'THE SEVENTH, by----!' rings in every ear. No matter who said it. '_The
Seventh_,' every throat shouts. Then such a cheer, and such another, and
such another after that, and such a tiger after that, and such other
cheers and such other tigers!--until the train stops, and, regardless of
orders, unheeding the vain protests of the captain or the curses of the
lieutenants, or the objurgations of Sergeant Files, we rush madly,
pellmell, from the cars. Everybody shakes hands with the Seventh man,
and with everybody else. He is thirsty: sixty odd flasks are uncorked
and jammed at him. Hungry, too? The men hustle him into the cars, and
almost into the barrels of pork and bread, with which we came provided
in quantities sufficient, as we thought in our simplicity, for a siege,
though really, as I have since found reason to believe, amounting to
less than a thousand rations.
'Where is the Seventh?' 'At the Junction.' We are only a mile from the
Junction. All aboard again, and we steam up to the Junction, just in
time to see the leading companies file into the station, from their
historical march--famous from being the first of the war, twice famous
because Winthrop told its story; in time to see the Eighth Massachusetts
follow our favorite heroes; in time to bring the Seventh to Washington;
in time thus to terminate the dark hours of anxious suspense and doubt
that followed the 19th of April and the drawing of the first blood in
the streets of Baltimore.
Dulness succeeds this spurt of glory, and there is nothing more
interesting than guarding the Long Bridge or a steamboat, alternating
with drills, drills, drills! We are initiated into the mystery of the
double quick, under knapsacks and overcoats. Men begin to be detailed on
extra duty. More men are detailed on extra duty. Doctor Peacack makes
his appearance. The sick list becomes an institution. It is curious to
notice how the same men, detailed for guard, police, or fatigue, appear
on the sick list, and, being excused by the mild Peacack, straightway
reappear in the 'cocktail squad.' But a wink, as good as a nod, from the
captain, and the fragrant oil of the castor bean, prescribed to be taken
on the spot, soon corrects these little discrepancies. The guardhouse
becomes an institution. Todd second is a frequent inmate; he will drink.
Swilliams is another, who takes a drink, and becomes insane; takes
another, and becomes sick; takes another, and then a quiet snooze, with
his head resting on the nearest curb. We call these unfortunates
'Company Q;' a splendid joke. The captain drills us as far as 'On the
right, by file, into line,' and apparently can get no farther. So we
think, and that the first lieutenant kn=ows twice much as the captain.
And, oh! how we come to hate Sergeant Files, and his hard, carking
voice, always rasping somebody about something! We have been in service
a month. The city is full of troops; the heights back are covered with
camps; the 'Fire Zouaves' have introduced the Five Points to our
acquaintance; General Blankhed is still giving passes to go to Richmond;
the enemy's pickets stare at ours from other end of Long Bridge; nobody
is hurt as yet. Presently comes an order constituting the 'American
Sharpshooters,' the 'Fisler Guards,' the Union Carbineers,' the 'Seward
Cadets,' and the 'Bulger Guards,' a battalion, to be known as the Ninth
Battalion (did I say there were only eight? no matter) of the First
Regiment of District of Columbia Volunteers, and to be commanded by
Major Johnson Heavysterne, the _beau ideal_ of a militia major--fat,
pompous, not much acquainted with military, but, to use his own
vocabulary, knowing right smart in the fish and cheese line. But let me
deal kindly with the honest old soul; he meant well, but he had bad
luck; and he made me, Private William Jenkins, the writer of these
disjointed phrases, sergeant-major of the battalion. Whereof, kind
reader, more anon: for here I left off my _scales_ and sewed on my
_chevrons_. (That is, she did. Please see PART II.)
THE SACRIFICE
The blood that flows for freedom is God's blood!
Who dies for man's redemption, dies with Christ!
The plan of expiation is unchanged:
And, as One died, supremely good, for all,
So one dies still, that many more may live.
So fall our saviours on the bloody field,
In deadly swamps, along the foul lagoons,
On the long march, in crowded hospitals,
Of wounds, of weariness, of pain and thirst,
Of wasting fevers and of sudden plagues,
Of pestilence, that lurks within the camp,
Of long home-sickness, and of hope deferred,
Of languishing, in hostile prisons chained--
And, with their blood, they wash the nation clean,
And furnish expiation for the sin
That those who slay them have been guilty of.
So God selects the noblest of the land:
He culls the qualities that are His own--
Our courage, patience, love of human kind,
Our strong devotion to the cause of Right,
Our noblest aspirations for the time
When every man shall stand erect and free,
Self-elevated, God-appointed king!
Knowing no equals, save his brother men;
Ruling no lieges, save his own desires;
The undisputed sovereign of himself,
Owning no higher sovereignty but God.
God culls these qualities, that are Himself--
These sparks of Deity that live in man--
And, in man's person, offers up Himself,
A long, perpetual sacrifice for sin.
This is the plan--the changeless plan of Heav'n:
The good die, that the evil may be purged;
The noble perish, that the base may live;
The free are bound, that slaves may break their bonds;
Those who have happy homes are self-exiled,
That other exiles may have happy homes;
The bravest sons of Freedom's land are slain,
That the oppressed of tyrant realms may live;
The guilty land is washed in innocent blood;
And slavery is atoned for by the free.
* * * * *
Oh! desolate mother, wailing for thy son,
Be comforted. He was a chosen one.
The Lord selected him from other men,
Because the Eternal Eye discerned in him
Some noble attribute, some spark divine,
Some unseen quality, that was from God,
And is a part of God, howe'er obscured
By human weakness, or by human sin--
Something deemed worthy for the sacrifice
That shall redeem a nation. Weep no more;
For thou art blessed among womankind!
STRECK-VERSE.
The heart freezes upon the snowcapped summit of a mountain of learning.
Lead heads will not answer as plummets to fathom the depths of the
Infinite.
Charitable views are enlarged by tear mists.
Thorns form footholds by which to reach the rose.
Looking up to the sun, the sad behold rainbows through their tears.
THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.--A POLISH DRAMA.
Dedicated to Mary.
'To be, or not to be, that is the question.'
'To the accumulated errors of their ancestors, they added others
unknown to their predecessors Doubt and Fear;--therefore it came to
pass that they vanished from the face of the earth, and a deep
silence shrouded them forever.'--_Koran_ il. 18.
In offering to the public a translation of the great drama of Count
Sigismund Krasinski, a statesman and poet of Poland, it is not the
intention of the translator to enter upon any detailed analysis of this
widely and justly celebrated work. Such a dissection would diminish the
interest of the reader in the development of the plot, and moreover
pertains properly to the critics, to whom 'The Undivine Comedy' is
especially commended. It is so full of original and subtile thoughts, of
profound truths, of metaphysical deductions and psychological
divinations, that it cannot fail to repay any consideration they may
bestow upon it. A few general remarks, however, seem necessary to
introduce it, in its proper light, to the reader.
It was published in 1834, and, although it appeared anonymously, it at
once succeeded in attracting the attention of the readers and thinkers
of Poland, Russia, France, and Germany. Its author is now known to have
been Count Sigismund Krasinski, a member of one of the most ancient and
distinguished families of Poland. He was equally eminent as poet,
patriot, and statesman. He took an active and important part in the
social and political questions of his day, many of which are ably
discussed in this drama; questions which have so long disturbed the
peace of Europe, and whose solution is perhaps to be finally given in
our land of equality and freedom.
'The Undivine Comedy' was not intended for the stage, and, as if to
sever it as widely as possible from all scenic associations, Count
Krasinski makes no use of the terms 'scenes' or 'acts.' This omission
gives a somewhat singular appearance to what is, in fact, a drama; the
translator has, however, remained faithful throughout to the original
form. As the hero, the count, is styled 'The Man' throughout the
original, the name has been preserved, in spite of its awkward
appearance in English: the spirit of a poetic work, full of mystic
symbolism, evaporates so readily in the process of translation, that no
sacrifice of the literal meaning has been made to grace or elegance.
'The Undivine Comedy,' so called in contradistinction to 'The Divine
Comedy' of Dante, is the first purely _prophetic_ play occurring in the
world of art. Its scenes are indeed all laid in the _time to come_; its
persons, actions, and events are _yet to be_. The struggle of the dying
Past with the vigorous but immature Future, forms the groundwork of the
drama. The coloring is not local, nor characteristic of any country in
particular, because the truths to be illustrated are of universal
application, and are evolving their own solutions in all parts of the
civilized world.
The soul of the hero, 'The Man,' is great and vigorous; he is by nature
a poet. Belonging to the Future by the very essence of his being, he yet
becomes disgusted by the debasing materialism into which its living
exponents, the '_New Men_, have fallen, he loses all hope in the
possible progress of humanity, and is presented to us as the champion of
the dying but poetic Past. But in this he finds no rest, and is involved
in perpetual struggles and contradictions. Baffled in a consuming
desire to solve the perplexing religious and social problems of the day
by the force of his own intellect; longing for, yet despairing of, human
progress; discerning the impracticability and chicanery of most of the
modern plans for social amelioration--he determines to throw himself
into common life, to bind himself to his race by stringent laws and
duties. The drama opens when he is about to contract marriage.
His Guardian Angel, anxious to save him, tries to lead him, through the
accomplishment of human duties, safely into that mystic Future, which he
had already vainly tried to find through the power of his own intellect.
The Angel chants to him:
'Peace be to men of good will. Blessed is the man who has still a heart;
he may yet be saved!
'Pure and true wife, reveal thyself to him; and a child be born to their
house!'
Thus the words once heard by the shepherds, and which then announced a
new epoch to humanity, open the drama. It is indeed only 'men of good
will,' men who sincerely seek the truth, who, in great or new epochs,
are able to comprehend it, or willing to receive it. And the number of
those who have preserved a _heart_ during the excitement and passions of
such eras, is always very small, and without it they cannot be saved,
for love and self-abnegation are the essence of Christianity.
To instil new life and hope into the wearied 'Man,' the Angel ordains
that a pure and good woman shall join her fate with his; that innocent
young souls shall descend and dwell with them. Domestic love and quiet
bliss are the counsel of the heavenly visitant.
Immediately after the simple chant of the Guardian Angel, the voice of
the Evil Spirit is heard seducing 'The Man' from the quiet path of
humble human duties. The glories of the ideal realm are spread before
him; Nature is invoked with all her entrancing charms; ambitious desires
of terrestrial greatness are awakened in his soul; he is filled with
vague hopes of paradisiacal happiness, which the Demon whispers him it
is quite possible to establish on earth. In the temptations so cunningly
set before him by the Father of Lies, three widely-spread metaphysical
systems are shadowed forth: the ideal or poetic; the pantheistic; and
the anthropotheistic (Comte's), which deifies man. The vast symbolism of
this original drama is especially recommended to the attention of the
critic.
Abiding by the counsel of the Angel, our hero marries, thus involving
another in his fate. He makes a solemn vow to be faithful, in the
keeping of which vow he takes upon himself the responsibility of the
happiness of one of God's creatures, a pure and trusting woman, who
loves him well. A husband and a father, he breaks his oath. Tempted by
the phantom of a long-lost love, the Ideal under the form of a 'Maiden,'
he deserts the real duties he has assumed to pursue this Ideal,
personated indeed by Lucifer himself, and which becomes--true and
fearful lesson for those who seek the infinite in the human!--a
loathsome skeleton as soon as grasped. From the false and disappointing
search into which he had been enticed by the demon, he returns to find
the innocent wife, whom he had deserted, in a madhouse. False to human
duties, his punishment came fast upon the heels of crime.
In the scene which occurs in Bedlam we find the key which admits us to
much of the symbolism of this drama. We are conducted into the madhouse
to visit the broken-hearted wife, and are there introduced into our
still-existing society, formal, monotonous, cold, and about to be
dissolved. Our hero had himself married the Past, a good and devout
woman, but not the realization of his poetic dreams, which nothing
could have satisfied save the infinite. In the midst of this scene of
strange suffering, we hear the cries of the Future, and all is terror
and tumult. This Future, with its turbulence, blood, and demonism, is
represented as existing in its germs among the maniacs. Like the springs
of a volcanic mountain, which are always disturbed before an eruption of
fire, their cries break upon us; the broken words and shrill shrieks of
the madmen are the clouds of murky smoke which burst from the explosive
craters before the lava pours its burning flood. Voices from the right,
from the left, from above, from below, represent the conflicting
religious opinions and warring political parties of this dawning Future,
already hurtling against those of the dissolving Present.
Into this pandemonium, by his desertion of her for a vain ideal, our
hero has plunged his wife, the woman of the Past, whom he had sworn to
make happy. And it is to be observed that she was not necessarily his
inferior, but, in the world of _heart_, superior to himself. A true and
pure character, feeling its inferiority and anxious to advance, cannot
long remain in the background; it has sufficient stamina to attain the
height of self-abnegating greatness. God sometimes deprives men of the
strength necessary for action, but He never robs them of the faculty of
progress, of spiritual elevation. Head and heart throb with the same
pulsation; the brain thinks not aright without the healthful heart.
Meanness and grovelling are always voluntary, and their essence is to
resist superiority, to struggle against it, to try to degrade it: thus,
all the bitter reactions of the Past against the changes truly needed
for the development of the Future, spring from a primeval root of
baseness.
An admirable picture of an exhausted and dying society is given us in
the person of the precocious but decrepit child, the sole fruit of a sad
marriage. Destined from its birth, to an early grave, its excitable
imagination soon consumes its frail body. Nothing could be more
exquisitely tender, more true to nature, than the portraiture of this
unfortunate but lovely boy.
After the betrayal of our hero by his Ideal, the Guardian Angel again
appears to give him simple but sage counsel:
'Return to thy house, and sin no more!
'Return to thy house, and love thy child!'
But vain this sage advice! As if driven to the desert to be tempted, we
again meet our hero in the midst of storm and tempest, wildly communing
with Nature, trying to read in her changeful phenomena lessons he should
have sought in the depths of his own soul; seeking from her dumb lips
oracles only to be found in his fulfilment of sacred duties; for only
thus is to be solved the perplexing riddle of human destiny. 'Peace to
men of good will!' Roaming through the wilderness, sad and hopeless, and
in his despair about to fall into the gloomy and blighting sin of caring
for no one but himself, the Angel again appears, and again chants to him
the divine lesson that only in self-sacrificing love and lowly duties,
can the true path to the Future be found:
'Love the sick, the hungry, the despairing!
'Love thy neighbor, thy poor neighbor, as thyself, and thou wilt be
redeemed!'
The reiterated warning is again given in vain. The demon of ambition
then appears to him under the form of a gigantic eagle, whose wings stir
him like the cannon's roar, the trumpet's call; he yields to the
temptation, and the Guardian Angel pleads no more! He determines to
become great, renowned, to rule over men: political power is to console
him for the domestic ruin he has spread around him, in having preferred
the dreams of his own excited imagination, to the love and faith of the
simple but tender heart which God had confided to him in the holy bonds
of marriage. The love and deification of self in the delusive show of
military or political glory, is the lowest and last temptation into
which a noble soul can fall, for individual fame is preferred to God's
eternal justice, and men are willing to die, if only laurel crowned,
with joy and pride even in a bad cause.
In the beginning of the third part of the comedy we are introduced into
the 'new world.' The old world, with its customs, prejudices,
oppressions, charities, laws, has been almost destroyed. The details of
the struggle, which must have been long and dreadful, are not given to
us; they are to be divined. Several years are supposed to have passed
between the end of the second and the beginning of the third part, and
we are called to witness the triumphs of the victors, the tortures of
the vanquished. The character of the idol of the people is an admirable
conception. All that is negative and destructive in the revolutionary
tendencies of European society, is skilfully seized upon, and incarnated
in a single individual. _His mission is to destroy._ He possesses a
great intellect, but no heart. He says: "_Of the blood we shed to-day,
no trace will be left to-morrow._" In corroboration of this conception
of the character of a modern reformer, it is well known that most of the
projected reforms of the last century have proceeded from the brains of
logicians and philosophers.
This man of intellect succeeds in grasping power. His appearance speaks
his character. His forehead is high and angular, his head entirely bald,
his expression cold and impassible, his lips never smile--he is of the
same type as many of the revolutionary leaders during the French reign
of terror. His name is Pancratius, which name, from the Greek, signifies
the union of all material or brutal forces. It is not by chance that he
has received this name. The profound truth in which this character is
conceived is also manifested in his distrust of himself, in his
hesitation. As he is acting from false principles, he cannot deceive
himself into that enthusiastic faith with which he would fain inspire
his disciples. He confides in Leonard, because he is in possession of
this precious quality.
His monologue is very fine; perhaps it stands next in rank to that of
Hamlet. It opens to us the strange secrets of the irresolution and
vacillation which have always characterized the men who have been called
upon by fate alone to undertake vast achievements. In proof of this, it
is well known that Cromwell was anxious to conceal the doubts and fears
which constantly harassed him. It was these very doubts and fears which
led him to see and resee so frequently the dethroned Charles, and which
at last drove the conscience-stricken Puritan into the sepulchre of the
decapitated king, that he might gaze into the still face of the royal
victim, whose death he had himself effected. Did the sad face of the
dead calm the fears of the living?
It is well known, that Danton addressed to himself the most dreadful
reproaches. Even, at the epoch of his greatest power, Robespierre was
greatly annoyed because he could not convince his cook of the justice
and permanence of his authority. Men who are sent by Providence only to
destroy, feel within them the worm which gnaws forever: it constantly
predicts to them, in vague but gloomy presentiments, their own
approaching destruction.
A feeling of this nature urges Pancratius to seek an interview with his
most powerful enemy, 'The Man;' he is anxious to gain the confidence of
his adversary, because he cannot feel certain of his own course while a
single man of intellectual power exists capable of resisting his ideas.
In the interview which occurs between the two antagonistic leaders of
the Past and Future, the various questions which divide society,
literature, religion, philosophy, politics, are discussed. Is it not a
profound truth that in the real world also, _mental_ encounters always
precede _material_ combats; that men always measure their strength,
_spirit to spirit_, before they meet in external fact, _body to body_?
The idea of bringing two vast systems face to face through living and
highly dramatic personifications, is truly great, suggestive, and
original.
But as the Truth is neither in the camp of Pancratius nor in the feudal
castle of the count, our hero, the victory will profit neither party!
The opening of the last act is exceedingly beautiful. No painter could
reproduce on canvas the sublime scenery sketched in its prologue; more
gloomy than the pictures of Ruysdael, more sombre than those of Salvator
Rosa. Before describing the inundation of the masses, our author
naturally recalls the traditions of the Flood. The nobles, the
representatives of the Past, with their few surviving adherents, have
taken refuge in their last stronghold, the fortress of the Holy Trinity,
securely situated upon a high and rocky peak overhanging a deep valley,
surrounded and hedged in by steep cliffs and rocky precipices. Through
these straits and passes once howled and swept the waters of the deluge.
As wild an inundation is now upon them, for the valley is almost filled
with the living surges of the myriads of the 'New Men,' who are rolling
their millions into its depths. But everything is hidden from view by an
ocean of heavy vapor, wrapping the whole landscape in its white, chill,
clinging shroud. The last and only banner of the Cross now raised upon
the face of the earth, streams from the highest tower of the castle of
the Holy Trinity; it alone pierces through and floats above the cold,
vague, rayless heart of the sea of mist--nought save the mystic symbol
of God's love to man soars into the unclouded blue of the infinite sky!
After frequent defeats, after the loss of all hope, the hero, wishing to
embrace for the last time his sick and blind son, sends for the
precocious boy, whose death-hour is to strike before his own. I doubt if
the scene which then occurs has, in the whole range of fiction and
poetry, ever been surpassed. This poor boy, the son of an insane mother
and a poet-father, is gifted with supernatural faculties, endowed with
second or spiritual sight. Entirely blind, and consequently surrounded
by perpetual darkness, it mattered not to him if the light of day or the
gloom of midnight was upon the earth; and in his rayless wanderings he
had made his way into the dungeons, sepulchres, and vaults, which were
lying far below the foundations of the castle, and which had for
centuries served as places of torture, punishment, and death to the
enemies of his long and noble line. In these secret charnel houses were
buried the bodies of the oppressed, while in the haughty tombs around
and above them lay the bones of their oppressors. The unfortunate and
fragile boy, the last sole scion of a long line of ancestry, had there
met the thronging and complaining ghosts of past generations. Burdened
with these dreadful secrets, when his vanquished father seeks him to
embrace him for the last time, he shudderingly hints to him of fearful
knowledge, and induces his parent to accompany him into the subterranean
caverns. He then recounts to him the scenes which are passing before his
open vision among the dead. The spirits of those who had been chained,
tortured, oppressed, or victimized by his ancestors appear before him,
complaining of past cruelties. They then form a mystic tribunal to try
their old masters and oppressors; the scenes of the dreadful Day of
Judgment pass before him; the unhappy and loving boy at last recognizes
his own father among the criminals; he is dragged to that fatal bar, he
sees him wring his hands in anguish, he hears his dreadful groans as he
is given over to the fiends for torture--he hears his mother's voice
calling him above, but, unwilling to desert his father in his anguish,
he falls to the earth in a deep and long fainting fit, while the
wretched father hears his own doom pronounced by that dread but unseen
tribunal: '_Because thou hast loved nothing, nor revered aught but
thyself and thine own thoughts, thou art damned to all eternity!_'
It is true this scene is very brief, but, rapid as the lightning's
flash, it lasts long enough to scathe and blast, breaking the darkness
but to show the surrounding horror, to deepen into despair the fearful
gloom. Although of the most severe simplicity, it is sublime and
terrible. It is so concise that our hearts actually long for more,
unwilling to believe in the reality of the doom of that ghostly
tribunal. It repeats the awful lessons of Holy Writ, and our conscience
awakes to our deficiencies, while the marrow freezes in our bones as we
read.
The close of the drama is equally sublime. Because the 'TRUTH' was
neither in the camp of Pancratius nor the castle of the count, IT
appears in the clouds to confound them both.
After Pancratius has conquered all that opposed him--has triumphantly
gloated over his Fourieristic schemes for the _material_ well-being of
the race whom he has robbed of all higher faith--he grows agitated at
the very name of God when it falls from the lips of his confidant,
Leonard: the sound seems to awaken him to a consciousness that he is
standing in a sea of blood, which he has himself shed; he feels that he
has been nothing but an instrument of destruction, that he has done
certain evil for a most uncertain good. All this rushes rapidly upon
him, when, on the bosom of a crimson sunset cloud, he perceives a mystic
symbol, unseen save by himself: 'the extended arms are lightning
flashes, the three nails shine like stars--his eyes die out as he gazes
upon it--he falls dead to the earth, crying, in the strange words spoken
by the apostate emperor Julian with his parting breath: '_Vicisti
Galilee_!' Thus this grand and complex drama is really consecrated to
the glory of the Galilean!
The intense melancholy characterizing every page of this drama, has its
root in the character and intensity of the truths therein developed, and
is not manifested in artistic declamation, in highly wrought phrases, or
in glowing rhetorical passages proper for citation. It is as bitter as
life; as gloomy as death and judgment. The style is one of utter, almost
bald, simplicity. The situations are merely indicated, and the
characters are to be understood, as are those of the living, rather from
a few words in close connection with accompanying facts, than from
eloquent utterances, sharp invectives, or bitter complaints. There are
no highly wrought amplifications of imaginative passions to be found in
its condensed pages, but every word is in itself a drop of gall,
reflecting from its sphered surface a world of grief, of agony. The
characters pass before us like shadows thrown from a magic lantern,
showing only their profiles, and but rarely their entire forms. Flitting
rapidly o'er our field of vision, they leave us but a few lines, but so
true to nature, so deeply significant, that we are able to produce from
these shifting and evanescent shadows a complete and rounded image. Thus
we are enabled to form a vivid conception of every character--we know
the history of their past, we divine the part they will play in the
future. We know the friends, the godfather, the priest, in whom we find
an admirable sketch from a decomposed and dying society. He who, in a
proper state of things, would have been the representative of living
spiritual principles, is a mere supernumerary. He makes signs of the
cross, pronounces accustomed formulas, but he never once thinks of
examining into the strange and contradictory relations existing between
the husband, forced by his very being into the Future, and the wife,
fettered by the conventions and chains of the Past. Neither does he
study, with an eye enlightened by philanthropy and spirituality, the
poor infant, whose mental restlessness began in the cradle, although his
character and destiny seem to have been comprehended by the father. The
priest, however, remains cold and indifferent throughout, never once
seeking to render the two beings, whom he had himself united in a
sacramental bond, intelligible to each other, nor to save the
unfortunate boy brought to him for baptism, the sole fruit of this
unhappy marriage.
Our author also stigmatizes the whole medical art of our day as a
science of death and moral torture. While the anguished father tries to
penetrate the decrees of Providence, and in his agony demands from God
how the innocent and helpless infant can have deserved a punishment so
dreadful as the loss of sight, the doctor admires the strength of the
nerves and muscles of the blue eyes of the fair child, at the same time
announcing to his father that he is struck with total and hopeless
blindness. Immediately after the declaration of this fearful sentence,
he turns to the distressed parent to ask him if he would like to know
the name of this malady, and that in Greek it is called [Greek:
amaurosis]
Indeed, through the whole of this melancholy scene, only one human being
manifests any deep moral feeling--a woman, a servant! Falling upon her
knees, she prays the Holy Virgin to take her eyes, and place them in the
sightless sockets of the young heir, her fragile but beloved charge.
Thus it is a woman of the people who, in the midst of the corrupt and
dissolving society, alone preserves the sacred traditions of sympathy
and self-sacrifice.
The cruel tyranny of Pancratius and the mob, is also full of important
lessons. From it we gather that despotism does not consist in the fact
of the whole power being vested in the hands of one or many, _but in the
truth that a government is without love for the governed, whatever may
be its constitutional form_. One or many, an assembly of legislators or
a king, an oligarchy or a mob, may be equally despotic, if love be not
the ruling principle.
With these few remarks, some of them necessary for a full comprehension
of this subtile and many-sided Polish drama, we leave the reader to the
pleasant task of its perusal.
He will find a full and eloquent criticism, in which its faults and
beauties are ably discussed, in a course of 'Lectures on Sclavonic
Literature,' delivered by the Polish poet Mickiewicz, before the College
of France. Most of the above remarks have been condensed from his
valuable work.