"Here was a scrape! I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage with a

vengeance! Six francs to pay! and how was I ever to pay it? '_Cocher!

cocher!_' I cried out, despairingly, '_attendez!_'

"'_Qu'est-il?_' says the _cocher_, stopping promptly.

"Struck with the appalling thought that every additional rod we

travelled involved an increase of expense, my first impulse was to jump

out and dismiss him. But then came the more frightful nightmare fancy,

that it was not possible to dismiss him unless I could pay him! I must

keep him with me until I could devise some means of raising the six

francs, which an hour later would be eight francs, and an hour later ten

francs, and so forth. Every moment that I delayed payment swelled the

debt; like a ruinous rate of interest, and diminished the possibility of

ever being able to pay him at all. And of course I could not keep him

with me forever,--go about the world henceforth in a hired coach, with a

driver and span of horses impossible to get rid of.

"'_Que veut Monsieur?_' says the driver, looking over at me with his red

face, and waiting for my orders.

"That recalled me from my hideous revery. I knew I might as well be

travelling as standing still, since he was to be paid by the hour; so I

said, 'Drive on, drive faster!'

"I had one hope,--that on reaching my lodgings I might prevail upon the

_concierge_ to pay for the coach. I stepped out with alacrity, said

gayly to my coachman, '_Combien est-ce que je vous dois?_' and put my

hand in among my fifteen sous with an air of confidence.

"The driver looked at his watch, and said, with business-like

exactness, '_Six francs vingt-cinq centimes, Monsieur._' _Vingt-cinq

centimes!_ My debt had increased five cents whilst I had been thinking

about it! '_Avec quelque-chose pour la boisson_,' he added with a

persuasive smile. With a trifle besides for drink-money,--for that every

French driver expects.

"Then I appeared to discover, to my surprise, that I had not the change;

so I cried out to the old woman in the porter's lodge, 'Give this man

five francs for me, will you?' 'Five francs!' echoed the ogress with

astonishment: '_Monsieur, je n'ai pas le sou!_'

"I might have known it; of course she wouldn't have a sou for a poor

devil like me; but the reply fell upon my heart like a death sentence.

"I then proposed to call at the driver's stand and pay him in a day or

two, if he would trust me. He smiled and shook his head.

"'Very well,' said I, stepping back into the coach, 'drive to number

five, Cité Odiot.' I had an acquaintance there, of whom I thought I

might possibly borrow. The coachman drove away cheerfully, seeming to be

perfectly well satisfied with the state of things: he was master of the

situation,--he was having employment, his pay was going on, and he could

hold me in pledge for the money. We reached the Cité Odiot: I ran in at

number five, and up stairs to my friend's room. It was locked; he was

away from home.

"I had but one other acquaintance in Paris on whom I could venture to

call for a loan of a few francs; and he lived far away, across the

Seine, in the Rue Racine. There seemed to be no alternative; so away we

posted, carrying my ever-increasing debt, dragging at each remove a

lengthening chain. We reached the Rue Racine; I found my friend; I wrung

his hand. 'For Heaven's sake,' said I, 'help me to get rid of this Old

Man of the Sea,--this elephant won in a raffle!'

"I explained. He laughed. 'What a funny adventure!' says he. 'And how

curious that at this time, of all others, I haven't ten sous in the

world! But I'll tell you what I can do,' says he.

"'For mercy's sake, what?'

"'I can get you out of the building by a private passage, take you

through into the Rue de la Harpe, and let you escape. Your coachman will

remain waiting for you at the door until you have traversed half Paris.

That will be a capital point to the joke,--a splendid _finale_ for your

little comedy!'

"I confess to you that, perplexed and desperate as I was, I felt for an

instant tempted to accept this infamous suggestion. Not that I would

willingly have wronged the coachman; but since there was no hope of

doing him justice, why not do the best thing for myself? If I could not

save my honor, I might at least save my person. And I own that the

picture of him which presented itself to my mind, waiting at the door so

complacently, so stolidly, intent only on sticking by me at the rate of

two francs an hour until paid off,--without feeling a shadow of sympathy

for my distress, but secretly laughing at it, doubtless,--that provoked

me; and I was pleased to think of him waiting there still, after I

should have escaped, until at last his beaming red face would suddenly

grow purple with wrath, and his placidity change to consternation, on

discovering that he had been outwitted. But I knew too well what he

would do. He would report me to the police! Worse than that, he would

report me to Madam Waldoborough!

"Already I fancied him, with his whip under his arm, smilingly taking

off his hat, and extending his hand to the amazed and indignant lady,

with a polite request that she would pay for that _coupé_! What _coupé_?

And he would tell his story, and the Goddess would be thunderstruck; and

the eyes of the Spider would sparkle wickedly; and I should be damned

forever!

"Then I could see the Parisian detectives--the best in the world--going

to take down from the lady's lips a minute description of the

adventurer, the swindler, who had imposed upon them, and attempted to

cheat a poor hack-driver out of his hard-earned wages! Then would

appear the reports in the newspapers,--how a well-dressed young man, an

American, Monsieur X., (or perhaps my name would be given,) had been the

means of enlivening the fashionable circles of Paris with a choice bit

of scandal, by inviting a very distinguished lady, also an American,

(whose Thursday evening receptions we well know, attended by some of the

most illustrious French and foreign residents in the metropolis,) to

accompany him on a tour of inspection to the Gobelins, and had

afterwards been guilty of the unexampled baseness of leaving the _coupé_

he had employed standing, unpaid, at the door of a certain house in the

Rue Racine, whilst he escaped by a private passage into the Rue de la

Harpe, and so forth, and so forth. I saw it all. I blushed, I shuddered

at the fancied ignominy of the exposure.

"'No,' said I; 't is impossible! If you can't help me to the money, I

must try--but where, how can I hope to raise eight francs, (for it is

four hours by this time, to say nothing of the drink-money!)--how can I

ever hope to raise that sum in Paris?'

"'You can pawn your watch,' says my false friend, rubbing his hands, and

smiling, as if he really enjoyed the comicality of the thing.

"But I had already eaten my watch, as the French say: it had been a week

at the Mont de Piété.

"'Your coat then,' says my counsellor, with good-mannered unconcern.

"'And go in my shirt-sleeves?' for I had placed my trunk and its

contents in the charge of my landlord, as security for the payment of my

board and room-rent.

"'In that case, I don't see what you will do, unless you take my

original advice, and dodge the fellow.'

"I left my fair-weather acquaintance in disgust, and went off, literally

staggering under the load, the ever-increasing load, the Pelion upon

Ossa, of francs, francs, francs,--despair, despair, despair.

"'_Eh bien?_' says the driver, interrogatively, as I went out to him.

"'_Pas de chance!_' And I ordered him to drive back to the Cité Odiot.

"'_Bien!_' says he, polite as ever, cheery as ever; and away we went

again, back across the Seine, up the Champs Élysées, into the Rue de

l'Oratoire, to the Cité,--my stomach faint, my head aching, my thoughts

whirling, and the carriage wheels rattling, clattering, chattering all

the way, 'Two francs an hour and drink-money! Two francs an hour and

drink-money!'

"Once more I tried my luck at number five, and was filled with

exasperation and dismay to find that my friend had been home, and gone

off again in great haste, with a portmanteau in his hand.

"Where had he gone? Nobody knew; but he had given his key to the

house-servant, saying he would be absent several days.

"'_Pensez-vous qu'il est allé à Londres?_' I hurriedly inquired.

"'_Monsieur, je n'en sais rien_,' was the calm, decisive response.

"I knew he often went to London; and now my only hope was to catch him

at one of the railway stations. But by which route would he be like to

go? I thought of only one, that by way of Calais, by which I had come,

and I ordered my coachman to drive with all speed to the Northern

Railway Station. He looked a little glum at this, and his '_Bien!_'

sounded a good deal like the 'bang' of the coach-door, as he shut it

rather sharply in my face.

"Again we were off, my head hotter than ever, my feet like ice, and the

coach-wheels saying vivaciously, as before, 'Two francs an hour, and

drink-money! Two francs an hour, and drink-money!' I was terribly afraid

we should be too late; but on arriving at the station, I found there was

no train at all. One had left in the afternoon, and another would leave

late in the evening. Then I happened to think there were other routes to

London, by the way of Dieppe and Havre. My friend might have gone by one

of those! Yes, there was a train at about that time, my driver somewhat

sullenly informed me,--for he was fast losing his cheerfulness: perhaps

it was his supper-time, or perhaps he was in a hurry for his

drink-money. Did he know where the stations were? Know? of course he

did! There was but one terminus for both routes; that was in the Rue St.

Lazare. Could he reach it before the train started? Possibly; but his

horses were jaded; they needed feeding. And why didn't I tell him before

that I wished to stop there? for we had come through the Rue St. Lazare,

and actually passed the railway station there, on our way from the Cité

Odiot! That was vexing to think of, but there was no help for it; so

back we flew on our course, to catch, if possible the train, and my

friend, who I was certain was going in it.

"We reached the Lazarus Street Station; and I, all in a frenzy of

apprehension, rushed in, to experience one of those fearful trials of

temper to which nervous men--especially nervous Americans in Paris--are

sometimes subject. The train was about starting; but, owing to the

strict regulations which are everywhere enforced on French railways, I

could not even force myself into the passenger-room,--much less get

through the gate, and past the guard, to the platform where the cars

were standing. Nobody could enter there without a ticket. My friend was

going, and I could not rush in and catch him, and borrow my--ten francs,

I suppose, by that time, because I had not a ticket, nor money to buy a

ticket! I laugh now at the image of myself, as I must have appeared

then,--frantically explaining what I could of the circumstances to any

of the officials who would hear me,--pouring forth torrents of broken

and hardly intelligible French, now shrieking to make myself understood,

and now groaning with despair,--questioning, cursing, imploring,--and

receiving the invariable, the inexorable reply, always polite, but

always firm,--

"'ON NE PASSE PAS, MONSIEUR.'

"Absolutely no admittance! And while I was convulsing myself in vain,

the train started! It was off,--my friend was gone, and I was ruined

forever!

"When the worst has happened, and we feel that it is so, and our own

efforts are no longer of any avail, then we become calm: the heart

accepts the fate it knows to be inevitable. The bankrupt, after all his

anxious nights and terrible days of struggle, is almost happy at last,

when all is over. Even the convict sleeps soundly on the night preceding

his execution. Just so I recovered my self-possession and equanimity

after the train had departed.

"I went back to my hackman. His serenity had vanished as mine had

arrived; and the fury that possessed me seemed to pass over and take up

its abode with him.

"'Will you pay me?' he demanded, fiercely.

"'My friend,' said I, 'it is impossible.' And I repeated my proposition

to call and settle with him in a day or two.

"'And you will not pay me now?' he vociferated.

"'My friend, I cannot.'

"'Then I know what I shall do!' turning away with a gesture of rage.

"'I have done what I could, now you shall try what you can,' I answered,

mildly.

"'_Écoutez donc!_' he hissed, turning once more upon me. 'I go to Madam,

I demand my pay of her. What do you say to that?'

"A few minutes before I should have been overwhelmed by the suggestion.

I was not pleased with it now. No man who has enjoyed the society of

ladies, and fancied that he appeared smart in their presence, fancies

the idea of being utterly shamed and humiliated in their eyes. I ought

to have had the courage to say to Mrs. Waldoborough, when she had the

coolness to send me off with the _coupé_, instead of my dinner: 'Excuse

me, Madam, I have not the money to pay this man!'

"It would have been bitter, that confession; but better one pill at the

beginning of a malady than a whole boxful afterwards. Better truth,

anyhow, though it kills you, than a precarious existence on false

appearances. I had, by my own folly, through toadyism in the first place

and moral cowardice afterwards, placed myself in an embarrassing and

ludicrous position; and I must take the consequences.

"'Very well,' said I, 'if you are absolutely bent on having your money

to-night, I suppose that it is the best thing you can do. But say to

Madam that I expect my uncle by the next steamer; that I wished you to

wait till his arrival for your pay; and that you not only refused, but

put me to a great deal of trouble. It is nothing extraordinary,' I

continued, in the hope to soften him, 'for gay young men, Americans, to

be without money for a few days in Paris, expecting remittances from

home; and you fellows ought to be more accommodating.'

"'True! true!' says the driver, turning again to go. 'But I must have my

pay all the same. I shall tell Madam what you say.'

"He was going. And now happened one of those wonderful things which

sometimes occur in real life, but which, in novels, we pronounce

improbable. Whilst we were speaking a train arrived; and I noticed a

little withered old man,--a little smirking mummy of a man,--with a face

all wrinkles and smiles, coming out of the building with his coat on his

arm. I noticed him, because he was so ancient and dried up, and yet so

happy, whilst I was so young and fresh, and yet so miserable. And I was

wondering at his self-satisfaction, when I saw--what think

you?--something fall to the ground from the waist-pocket of the coat he

carried on his arm! It was--will you believe it?--a pocket-book!--a fat

pocket-book, a respectable, well-worn pocket-book!--the pocket-book of a

millionnaire, by Jove! I pounced upon it, like an eagle upon a rabbit.

He was passing on when I ran after him, politely called his attention,

and surprised him with a presentation of what he supposed was all the

time conveyed safely in his coat.

"'Is it possible!' said he, in very poor French, which betrayed him to

be a foreigner like myself. 'You are very kind,--very honest,--very

obliging, very obliging indeed!'

"If thanks and smiles would answer my purpose, I had them in profusion.

He looked to see that the pocket-book had not been opened, and thanked

me again and again. He seemed very anxious to do the polite thing, yet

still more anxious to be passing on. But I would not let him pass on; I

held him with my glittering eye.

"'Ah!' said he, 'perhaps you won't feel yourself injured by the

offer,'--for he saw that I was well dressed, and probably hesitated on

that account to reward me,--'perhaps you will take something for your

honesty, for your trouble.' And putting his hand in his pantaloons

pocket, he took it out again, with the palm covered with glittering gold

pieces.

"'Sir,' said I, 'I am ashamed to accept anything for so trifling a

service; but I owe this man here,--how much is it now?'

"'Ten francs and a half,' says the driver, whom I had stopped just in

time.

"'Ten francs and a half,' I repeated.

"'_Mais n'oubliez pas la boisson_,' he added, his persuasive smile

returning.

"'With something for his dram,' I continued: 'which if you will have the

kindness to pay him, and at the same time give me your address, I will

see that the money is returned to you without fail in a day or two.'

"The smiling little man paid the money on the spot; saying it was of no

consequence, and neglecting to give me his address. And he went his way

well satisfied, and the driver went his, also well satisfied; and I went

mine, infinitely better satisfied, I imagine, than either of them.

"Well, I had got rid of Madam Waldoborough's carriage, and learned a

lesson which, I think, will last me the rest of my life. If ever again

I run after great folks, or place myself in a false position through

folly or cowardice, may the Fates confound me! But I must haste and tell

you the curious _dénouement_ of the affair.

"I was not so anxious to cultivate Madam's acquaintance _after_ riding

in her carriage, you may well believe. For months I did not see her. At

last my Todworth cousin and her yellow-complexioned husband came to

town, and I went with my uncle to call upon them at Meurice's Hotel.

They were delighted to see me, and fondly pressed me to come and take a

room adjoining their suite, as I did at Cox's. A card was brought in. My

cousin smiled, and directed that the visitor should be admitted. There

was a rustle,--a volume of flounces came sweeping in,--a well-remembered

voice cried, 'My dear Louise!'--and my Todworth cousin was clasped in

the buxom embrace of Madam Waldoborough.

"But what did I behold? Following in Madam's wake, like a skiff towed at

the stern of a rushing side-wheel steamer, a dapper little old man, a

withered little old man, a gayly smiling little old man, whose

countenance was somehow strangely familiar to me. I considered him a

moment, and the scene in the Rue St. Lazare, with the _coupé_ driver and

the man with the pocket-book, flashed across my mind. This was the man!

I remembered him well; but he had evidently forgotten me.

"Madam released Louise from her divine large arms, and greeted the

yellow-complexioned one. Then she was introduced to my uncle. Then the

bride said, 'You know my cousin Herbert, I believe?'

"'Ah, yes!' says the Waldoborough, who had glanced at me curiously, but

doubtfully, 'I recognize him now!' giving me a smile and two fingers. 'I

thought I had seen him somewhere. You have been to one or two of my

receptions, haven't you?'

"'I have not yet had that pleasure,' said I.

"'Ah, I remember now! You called one morning, didn't you? And we went

somewhere together,--where did we go?--or was it some other gentleman?'

"I said I thought it must have been some other gentleman; for indeed I

could hardly believe now that I was that fool.

"'Very likely,' said she; 'for I see so many,--my receptions, you know,

Louise, are always so crowded! But, dear me, what am I thinking of?

Where are you, my love?' and the steamer brought the skiff alongside.

"'Louise, and gentlemen,' then said my lady, with a magnificent

courtesy, the very wind of which I feared would blow him away,--but he

advanced triumphantly, bowing and smiling extravagantly,--'allow me the

happiness of presenting to you Mr. John Waldoborough, my husband.'

"How I refrained from shrieking and throwing myself on the floor, I

never well knew; for I declare to you, I was never so caught by surprise

and tickled through and through by any _dénouement_ or situation, in or

off the stage! To think that pigmy, that wart, that little grimacing

monkey of a man, parchment-faced, antique,--a mere moneybag on two

sticks,--should be the husband of the great and glorious Madam

Waldoborough! His wondrous self-satisfaction was accounted for.

Moreover, I saw that Heaven's justice was done: Madam's husband had paid

for Madam's carriage!"

Here Herbert concluded his story. And it was time; for the day had

closed, as we walked up and down, and the sudden November night had come

on. Gas-light had replaced the light of the sun throughout the streets

of the city. The brilliant cressets of the Place de la Concorde flamed

like a constellation; and the Avenue des Champs Élysées, with its rows

of lamps, and the throngs of carriages, each bearing now its lighted

lantern, moving along that far-extending slope, looked like a new Milky

Way, fenced with lustrous stars, and swarming with meteoric fire-flies.

PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

IV.

_Salem, August 22d, 1837._--A walk yesterday afternoon down to the

Juniper and Winter Island. Singular effect of partial sunshine, the sky

being broadly and heavily clouded, and land and sea, in consequence,

being generally overspread with a sombre gloom. But the sunshine,

somehow or other, found its way between the interstices of the clouds,

and illuminated some of the distant objects very vividly. The white

sails of a ship caught it, and gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull

being scarcely visible, and the sea around dark; other smaller vessels

too, so that they looked like heavenly-winged things just alighting on a

dismal world. Shifting their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack,

they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Islands are seen

in summer sunshine and green glory; their rocks also sunny and their

beaches white; while other islands, for no apparent reason, are in deep

shade, and share the gloom of the rest of the world. Sometimes part of

an island is illuminated and part dark. When the sunshine falls on a

very distant island, nearer ones being in shade, it seems greatly to

extend the bounds of visible space, and put the horizon to a farther

distance. The sea roughly rushing against the shore, and dashing against

the rocks, and grating back over the sands. A boat a little way from the

shore, tossing and swinging at anchor. Beach birds flitting from place

to place.

* * * * *

The family seat of the Hawthornes is Wigcastle, Wigton, Wiltshire. The

present head of the family, now residing there, is Hugh Hawthorne.

William Hawthorne, who came over in 1635-6, was a younger brother of the

family.

* * * * *

A young man and girl meet together, each in search of a person to be

known by some particular sign. They watch and wait a great while for

that person to pass. At last some casual circumstance discloses that

each is the one that the other is waiting for. Moral,--that what we need

for our happiness is often close at hand, if we knew but how to seek for

it.

* * * * *

The journal of a human heart for a single day in ordinary circumstances.

The lights and shadows that flit across it; its internal vicissitudes.

* * * * *

Distrust to be thus exemplified:--Various good and desirable things to

be presented to a young man, and offered to his acceptance,--as a

friend, a wife, a fortune; but he to refuse them all, suspecting that it

is merely a delusion. Yet all to be real, and he to be told so, when too

late.

* * * * *

A man tries to be happy in love; he cannot sincerely give his heart, and

the affair seems all a dream. In domestic life, the same; in politics, a

seeming patriot; but still he is sincere, and all seems like a theatre.

* * * * *

An old man, on a summer day, sits on a hill-top, or on the observatory

of his house, and sees the sunshine pass from one object to another

connected with the events of his past life,--as the school-house, the

place where his wife lived in her maidenhood,--its setting beams falling

on the churchyard.

* * * * *

An idle man's pleasures and occupations and thoughts during a day spent

by the sea-shore: among them, that of sitting on the top of a cliff, and

throwing stones at his own shadow, far below.

* * * * *

A blind man to set forth on a walk through ways unknown to him, and to

trust to the guidance of anybody who will take the trouble; the

different characters who would undertake it: some mischievous, some

well-meaning, but incapable; perhaps one blind man undertakes to lead

another. At last, possibly, he rejects all guidance, and blunders on by

himself.

* * * * *

In the cabinet of the Essex Historical Society, old portraits.--Governor

Leverett; a dark moustachioed face, the figure two-thirds length,

clothed in a sort of frock coat, buttoned, and a broad sword-belt girded

round the waist, and fastened with a large steel buckle; the hilt of the

sword steel,--altogether very striking. Sir William Pepperell in English

regimentals, coat, waistcoat, and breeches, all of red broadcloth,

richly gold-embroidered; he holds a general's truncheon in his right

hand, and extends the left towards the batteries erected against

Louisbourg, in the country near which he is standing. Endicott,

Pyncheon, and others, in scarlet robes, bands, &c. Half a dozen or more

family portraits of the Olivers, some in plain dresses, brown, crimson,

or claret; others with gorgeous gold-embroidered waistcoats, descending

almost to the knees, so as to form the most conspicuous article of

dress. Ladies, with lace ruffles, the painting of which, in one of the

pictures, cost five guineas. Peter Oliver, who was crazy, used to fight

with these family pictures in the old Mansion House; and the face and

breast of one lady bear cuts and stabs inflicted by him. Miniatures in

oil, with the paint peeling off, of stern, old, yellow faces. Oliver

Cromwell, apparently an old picture, half length or one third, in an

oval frame, probably painted for some New England partisan. Some

pictures that had been partly obliterated by scrubbing with sand. The

dresses, embroidery, laces of the Oliver family are generally better

done than the faces. Governor Leverett's gloves,--the glove-part of

coarse leather, but round the wrist a deep three or four inch border of

spangles and silver embroidery. Old drinking-glasses, with tall stalks.

A black glass bottle, stamped with the name of Philip English, with a

broad bottom. The baby-linen, &c. of Governor Bradford of Plymouth

colony. Old manuscript sermons, some written in shorthand, others in a

hand that seems learnt from print.

Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten aristocracy--of a family

being crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct--than

these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed portraits, such as those of

the Oliver family; the identical old white wig of an ancient minister

producing somewhat the impression that his very scalp, or some other

portion of his personal self, would do.

* * * * *

The excruciating agonies which Nature inflicts on men (who break her

laws) to be represented as the work of human tormentors; as the gout, by

screwing the toes. Thus we might find that worse than the tortures of

the Spanish Inquisition are daily suffered without exciting notice.

* * * * *

Suppose a married couple fondly attached to one another, and to think

that they lived solely for one another; then it to be found out that

they were divorced, or that they might separate if they chose. What

would be its effect?

_Monday, August 27th._--Went to Boston last Wednesday. Remarkables:--An

author at the American Stationers' Company, slapping his hand on his

manuscript, and crying, "I'm going to publish."--An excursion aboard a

steamboat to Thompson's Island, to visit the Manual Labor School for

boys. Aboard the steamboat several poets and various other authors; a

Commodore,--Colton, a small, dark brown, sickly man, with a good deal of

roughness in his address; Mr. Waterston, talking poetry and philosophy.

Examination and exhibition of the boys, little tanned agriculturists.

After examination, a stroll round the island, examining the products, as

wheat in sheaves on the stubble-field; oats, somewhat blighted and

spoiled; great pumpkins elsewhere; pastures; mowing ground;--all

cultivated by the boys. Their residence, a great brick building, painted

green, and standing on the summit of a rising ground, exposed to the

winds of the bay. Vessels flitting past; great ships, with intricacy of

rigging and various sails; schooners, sloops, with their one or two

broad sheets of canvas: going on different tacks, so that the spectator

might think that there was a different wind for each vessel, or that

they scudded across the sea spontaneously, whither their own wills led

them. The farm boys remain insulated, looking at the passing show,

within sight of the city, yet having nothing to do with it; beholding

their fellow-creatures skimming by them in winged machines, and

steamboats snorting and puffing through the waves. Methinks an island

would be the most desirable of all landed property, for it seems like a

little world by itself; and the water may answer instead of the

atmosphere that surrounds planets. The boys swinging, two together,

standing up, and almost causing the ropes and their bodies to stretch

out horizontally. On our departure, they ranged themselves on the rails

of the fence, and, being dressed in blue, looked not unlike a flock of

pigeons.

On Friday, a visit to the Navy Yard at Charlestown, in company with the

Naval Officer of Boston, and Cilley. Dined aboard the revenue cutter

Hamilton. A pretty cabin, finished off with bird's-eye maple and

mahogany; two looking-glasses. Two officers in blue frocks, with a

stripe of lace on each shoulder. Dinner, chowder, fried fish, corned

beef,--claret, afterwards champagne. The waiter tells the Captain of the

cutter that Captain Percival (Commander of the Navy Yard) is sitting on

the deck of the anchor hoy, (which lies inside of the cutter,) smoking

his cigar. The Captain sends him a glass of champagne, and inquires of

the waiter what Percival says to it. "He said, sir, 'What does he send

me this damned stuff for?' but drinks, nevertheless." The Captain

characterizes Percival as the roughest old devil that ever was in his

manners, but a kind, good-hearted man at bottom. By and by comes in the

steward. "Captain Percival is coming aboard of you, sir." "Well, ask him

to walk down into the cabin"; and shortly down comes old Captain

Percival, a white-haired, thin-visaged, weather-worn old gentleman, in a

blue Quaker-cut coat, with tarnished lace and brass buttons, a pair of

drab pantaloons, and brown waistcoat. There was an eccentric expression

in his face, which seemed partly wilful, partly natural. He has not

risen to his present rank in the regular line of the profession; but

entered the navy as a sailing-master, and has all the roughness of that

class of officers. Nevertheless, he knows how to behave and to talk like

a gentleman. Sitting down, and taking in hand a glass of champagne, he

began a lecture on economy, and how well it was that Uncle Sam had a

broad back, being compelled to bear so many burdens as were laid on

it,--alluding to the table covered with wine-bottles. Then he spoke of

the fitting up of the cabin with expensive woods,--of the brooch in

Captain Scott's bosom. Then he proceeded to discourse of politics,

taking the opposite side to Cilley, and arguing with much pertinacity.

He seems to have moulded and shaped himself to his own whims, till a

sort of rough affectation has become thoroughly imbued throughout a

kindly nature. He is full of antique prejudices against the modern

fashions of the younger officers, their moustaches and such fripperies,

and prophesies little better than disgrace in case of another war;

owning that the boys would fight for their country, and die for her, but

denying that there are any officers now like Hull and Stuart, whose

exploits, nevertheless, he greatly depreciated, saying that the Boxer

and Enterprise fought the only equal battle which we won during the war;

and that, in that action, an officer had proposed to haul down the stars

and stripes, and a common sailor threatened to cut him to pieces, if he

should do so. He spoke of Bainbridge as a sot and a poltroon, who wanted

to run from the Macedonian, pretending to take her for a line-of-battle

ship; of Commodore Elliot as a liar; but praised Commodore Downes in the

highest terms. Percival seems to be the very pattern of old integrity;

taking as much care of Uncle Sam's interests as if all the money

expended were to come out of his own pocket. This quality was displayed

in his resistance to the demand of a new patent capstan for the

revenue-cutter, which, however, Scott is resolved in such a sailor-like

way to get, that he will probably succeed. Percival spoke to me of how

his business in the yard absorbed him, especially the fitting of the

Columbus seventy-four, of which ship he discoursed with great

enthusiasm. He seems to have no ambition beyond his present duties,

perhaps never had any; at any rate, he now passes his life with a sort

of gruff contentedness, grumbling and growling, yet in good humor

enough. He is conscious of his peculiarities; for when I asked him

whether it would be well to make a naval officer Secretary of the Navy,

he said, "God forbid, for that an old sailor was always full of

prejudices and stubborn whim-whams," instancing himself; whereto I

agreed. We went round the Navy Yard with Percival and Commodore Downes,

the latter a sailor and a gentleman too, with rather more of the ocean

than the drawing-room about him, but courteous, frank, and good-natured.

We looked at rope-walks, rigging-lofts, ships in the stocks; and saw the

sailors of the station laughing and sporting with great mirth and

cheerfulness, which the Commodore said was much increased at sea. We

returned to the wharf at Boston in the cutter's boat. Captain Scott, of

the cutter, told me a singular story of what occurred during the action

between the Constitution and Macedonian,--he being powder-monkey aboard

the former ship. A cannon-shot came through the ship's side, and a man's

head was struck off, probably by a splinter, for it was done without

bruising the head or body, as clean as by a razor. Well, the man was

walking pretty briskly at the time of the accident; and Scott seriously

affirmed that he kept walking onward at the same pace, with two jets of

blood gushing from his headless trunk, till, after going about twenty

feet without a head, he sunk down at once, with his legs under him.

* * * * *

[In corroboration of the truth of this, see Lord Bacon, Century IV. of

his Sylva Sylvarum, or Natural History, in Ten Centuries, paragraph

400.]

On Saturday, I called to see E. H----, having previously appointed a

meeting for the purpose of inquiring about our name. He is an old

bachelor, and truly forlorn. The pride of ancestry seems to be his great

hobby. He had a good many papers in his desk at the Custom-House, which

he produced and dissertated upon, and afterwards went with me to his

sister's, and showed me an old book, with a record of the children of

the first emigrant, (who came over two hundred years ago,) in his own

handwriting. E----'s manners are gentlemanly, and he seems to be very

well informed. At a little distance, I think, one would take him to be

not much over thirty; but nearer to hand one finds him to look rather

venerable,--perhaps fifty or more. He is nervous, and his hands shook

while he was looking over the papers, as if he had been startled by my

visit; and when we came to the crossings of streets, he darted across,

cautioning me, as if both were in great danger to be run over.

Nevertheless, being very quick-tempered, he would face the Devil if at

all irritated. He gave a most forlorn description of his life; how, when

he came to Salem, there was nobody except Mr. ---- whom he cared about

seeing; how his position prevented him from accepting of civilities,

because he had no home where he could return them; in short, he seemed

about as miserable a being as is to be found anywhere,--lonely, and with

the sensitiveness to feel his loneliness, and capacities, now withered,

to have enjoyed the sweets of life. I suppose he is comfortable enough

when busied in his duties at the Custom-House; for when I spoke to him

at my entrance, he was too much absorbed to hear me at first. As we

walked, he kept telling stories of the family, which seemed to have

comprised many oddities, eccentric men and women, recluses and other

kinds,--one of old Philip English, (a Jersey man, the name originally

L'Anglais,) who had been persecuted by John Hawthorne, of witch-time

memory, and a violent quarrel ensued. When Philip lay on his death-bed,

he consented to forgive his persecutor; "But if I get well," said he,

"I'll be damned if I forgive him!" This Philip left daughters, one of

whom married, I believe, the son of the persecuting John, and thus all

the legitimate blood of English is in our family. E---- passed from the

matters of birth, pedigree, and ancestral pride to give vent to the most

arrant democracy and locofocoism that I ever happened to hear, saying

that nobody ought to possess wealth longer than his own life, and that

then it should return to the people, &c. He says old S. I---- has a

great fund of traditions about the family, which she learned from her

mother or grandmother, (I forget which,) one of them being a Hawthorne.

The old lady was a very proud woman, and, as E---- says, "proud of being

proud," and so is S. I----.

* * * * *

_October 7th, 1837._--A walk in Northfields in the afternoon. Bright

sunshine and autumnal warmth, giving a sensation quite unlike the same

degree of warmth in summer. Oaks,--some brown, some reddish, some still

green; walnuts, yellow,--fallen leaves and acorns lying beneath; the

footsteps crumple them in walking. In sunny spots beneath the trees,

where green grass is overstrewn by the dry, fallen foliage, as I passed

I disturbed multitudes of grasshoppers basking in the warm sunshine; and

they began to hop, hop, hop, pattering on the dry leaves like big and

heavy drops of a thunder-shower. They were invisible till they hopped.

Boys gathering walnuts. Passed an orchard, where two men were gathering

the apples. A wagon, with barrels, stood among the trees; the men's

coats flung on the fence; the apples lay in heaps, and each of the men

was up in a separate tree. They conversed together in loud voices, which

the air caused to ring still louder, jeering each other, boasting of

their own feats in shaking down the apples. One got into, the very top

of his tree, and gave a long and mighty shake, and the big apples came

down thump, thump, bushels hitting on the ground at once. "There! did

you ever hear anything like that?" cried he. This sunny scene was

pretty. A horse feeding apart, belonging to the wagon. The

barberry-bushes have some red fruit on them, but they are frost-bitten.

The rose-bushes have their scarlet hips.

Distant clumps of trees, now that the variegated foliage adorns them,

have a phantasmagorian, an apparition-like appearance. They seem to be

of some kindred to the crimson and gold cloud-islands. It would not be

strange to see phantoms peeping forth from their recesses. When the sun

was almost below the horizon, his rays, gilding the upper branches of a

yellow walnut-tree, had an airy and beautiful effect,--the gentle

contrast between the tint of the yellow in the shade, and its ethereal

gold in the fading sunshine. The woods that crown distant uplands were

seen to great advantage in these last rays, for the sunshine perfectly

marked out and distinguished every shade of color, varnishing them as it

were; while, the country round, both hill and plain, being in gloomy

shadow, the woods looked the brighter for it.

The tide, being high, had flowed almost into the Cold Spring, so its

small current hardly issued forth from the basin. As I approached, two

little eels, about as long as my finger, and slender in proportion,

wriggled out of the basin. They had come from the salt water. An

Indian-corn field, as yet unharvested,--huge, golden pumpkins scattered

among the hills of corn,--a noble-looking fruit. After the sun was down,

the sky was deeply dyed with a broad sweep of gold, high towards the

zenith; not flaming brightly, but of a somewhat dusky gold. A piece of

water extending towards the west, between high banks, caught the

reflection, and appeared like a sheet of brighter and more glistening

gold than the sky which made it bright.

Dandelions and blue flowers are still growing in sunny places. Saw in a

barn a prodigious treasure of onions in their silvery coats, exhaling a

penetrating perfume.

* * * * *

How exceeding bright looks the sunshine, casually reflected from a

looking-glass into a gloomy region of the chamber, distinctly marking

out the figures and colors of the paper hangings, which are scarcely

seen elsewhere. It is like the light of mind thrown on an obscure

subject.

* * * * *

Man's finest workmanship, the closer you observe it, the more

imperfections it shows; as in a piece of polished steel a microscope

will discover a rough surface. Whereas, what may look coarse and rough

in Nature's workmanship will show an infinitely minute perfection, the

closer you look into it. The reason of the minute superiority of

Nature's work over man's is, that the former works from the innermost

germ, while the latter works merely superficially.

* * * * *

Standing in the cross-road that leads by the Mineral Spring, and looking

towards an opposite shore of the lake, an ascending bank, with a dense

border of trees, green, yellow, red, russet, all bright colors,

brightened by the mild brilliancy of the descending sun; it was strange

to recognize the sober old friends of spring and summer in this new

dress. By the by, a pretty riddle or fable might be made out of the

changes in apparel of the familiar trees round a house, adapted for

children. But in the lake, beneath the aforesaid border of trees,--the

water being, not rippled, but its glassy surface somewhat moved and

shaken by the remote agitation of a breeze that was breathing on the

outer lake,--this being in a sort of bay,--in the slightly agitated

mirror, the variegated trees were reflected dreamily and indistinctly; a

broad belt of bright and diversified colors shining in the water

beneath. Sometimes the image of a tree might be almost traced; then

nothing but this sweep of broken rainbow. It was like the recollection

of the real scene in an observer's mind,--a confused radiance.

* * * * *

A whirlwind, whirling the dried leaves round in a circle, not very

violently.

* * * * *

To well consider the characters of a family of persons in a certain

condition,--in poverty, for instance,--and endeavor to judge how an

altered condition would affect the character of each.

* * * * *

The aromatic odor of peat smoke in the sunny autumnal air is very

pleasant.

* * * * *

_Salem, October 14th, 1837._--A walk through Beverly to Browne's Hill,

and home by the iron factory. A bright, cool afternoon. The trees, in a

large part of the space through which I passed, appeared to be in their

fullest glory, bright red, yellow, some of a tender green, appearing at

a distance as if bedecked with new foliage, though this emerald tint was

likewise the effect of frost. In some places, large tracts of ground

were covered as with a scarlet cloth,--the underbrush being thus

colored. The general character of these autumnal colors is not gaudy,

scarcely gay; there is something too deep and rich in it: it is gorgeous

and magnificent, but with a sobriety diffused. The pastures at the foot

of Browne's Hill were plentifully covered with barberry-bushes, the

leaves of which were reddish, and they were hung with a prodigious

quantity of berries. From the summit of the hill, looking down a tract

of woodland at a considerable distance, so that the interstices between

the trees could not be seen, their tops presented an unbroken level, and

seemed somewhat like a richly variegated carpet. The prospect from the

hill is wide and interesting; but methinks it is pleasanter in the more

immediate vicinity of the hill than miles away. It is agreeable to look

down at the square patches of corn-field, or of potato-ground, or of

cabbages still green, or of beets looking red,--all a man's farm, in

short,--each portion of which he considers separately so important,

while you take in the whole at a glance. Then to cast your eye over so

many different establishments at once, and rapidly compare them,--here a

house of gentility, with shady old yellow-leaved elms hanging around it;

there a new little white dwelling; there an old farm-house; to see the

barns and sheds and all the outhouses clustered together; to comprehend

the oneness and exclusiveness and what constitutes the peculiarity of

each of so many establishments, and to have in your mind a multitude of

them, each of which is the most important part of the world to those who

live in it,--this really enlarges the mind, and you come down the hill

somewhat wiser than you go up. Pleasant to look over an orchard far

below, and see the trees, each casting its own shadow; the white spires

of meeting-houses; a sheet of water, partly seen among swelling lands.

This Browne's Hill is a long ridge, lying in the midst of a large, level

plain; it looks at a distance somewhat like a whale, with its head and

tail under water, but its immense back protruding, with steep sides, and

a gradual curve along its length. When you have climbed it on one side,

and gaze from the summit at the other, you feel as if you had made a

discovery,--the landscape being quite different on the two sides. The

cellar of the house which formerly crowned the hill, and used to be

named Browne's Folly, still remains, two grass-grown and shallow

hollows, on the highest part of the ridge. The house consisted of two

wings, each perhaps sixty feet in length, united by a middle part, in

which was the entrance-hall, and which looked lengthwise along the hill.

The foundation of a spacious porch may be traced on either side of the

central portion; some of the stones still remain; but even where they

are gone, the line of the porch is still traceable by the greener

verdure. In the cellar, or rather in the two cellars, grow one or two

barberry-bushes, with frost-bitten fruit; there is also yarrow with its

white flower, and yellow dandelions. The cellars are still deep enough

to shelter a person, all but his head at least, from the wind on the

summit of the hill; but they are all grass-grown. A line of trees seems

to have been planted along the ridge of the hill. The edifice must have

made quite a magnificent appearance.

Characteristics during the walk:--Apple-trees with only here and there

an apple on the boughs, among the thinned leaves, the relics of a

gathering. In others you observe a rustling, and see the boughs shaking

and hear the apples thumping down, without seeing the person who does

it. Apples scattered by the wayside, some with pieces bitten out, others

entire, which you pick up, and taste, and find them harsh, crabbed

cider-apples though they have a pretty, waxen appearance. In sunny spots

of woodland, boys in search or nuts, looking picturesque among the

scarlet and golden foliage. There is something in this sunny autumnal

atmosphere that gives a peculiar effect to laughter and joyous

voices,--it makes them infinitely more elastic and gladsome than at

other seasons. Heaps of dry leaves, tossed together by the wind, as if

for a couch and lounging-place for the weary traveller, while the sun is

warming it for him. Golden pumpkins and squashes, heaped in the angle of

a house, till they reach the lower windows. Ox-teams, laden with a

rustling load of Indian corn, in the stalk and ear. When an inlet of the

sea runs far up into the country, you stare to see a large schooner

appear amid the rural landscape; she is unloading a cargo of wood, moist

with rain or salt water that has dashed over it. Perhaps you hear the

sound of an axe in the woodland; occasionally, the report of a

fowling-piece. The travellers in the early part of the afternoon look

warm and comfortable, as if taking a summer drive; but as eve draws

nearer, you meet them well wrapped in top-coats or cloaks, or rough,

great surtouts, and red-nosed withal, seeming to take no great comfort,

but pressing homeward. The characteristic conversation among teamsters

and country squires, where the ascent of a hill causes the chaise to go

at the same pace as an ox-team,--perhaps discussing the qualities of a

yoke of oxen. The cold, blue aspects of sheets of water. Some of the

country shops with the doors closed; others still open as in summer. I

meet a wood-sawyer, with his horse and saw on his shoulders, returning

from work. As night draws on, you begin to see the gleaming of fires on

the ceilings in the houses which you pass. The comfortless appearance of

houses at bleak and bare spots,--you wonder how there can be any

enjoyment in them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on

her shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes,--it looks

observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire, grazing

about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which slip away from their

bills.

* * * * *

_October 16th, 1837._--Spent the whole afternoon in a ramble to the

sea-shore, near Phillips's Beach. A beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon,

the very pleasantest day, probably, that there has been in the whole

course of the year. People at work, harvesting, without their coats.

Cocks, with their squad of hens, in the grass-fields, hunting

grasshoppers, chasing them eagerly with outspread wings, appearing to

take much interest in the sport, apart from the profit. Other hens

picking up the ears of Indian corn. Grasshoppers, flies, and flying

insects of all sorts, are more abundant in these warm autumnal days than

I have seen them at any other time. Yellow butterflies flutter about in

the sunshine, singly, by pairs, or more, and are wafted on the gentle

gales. The crickets begin to sing early in the afternoon, and sometimes

a locust may be heard. In some warm spots, a pleasant buzz of many

insects.

Crossed the fields near Brookhouse's villa, and came upon a long

beach,--at least a mile long, I should think,--terminated by craggy

rocks at either end, and backed by a high, broken bank, the grassy

summit of which, year by year, is continually breaking away, and

precipitated to the bottom. At the foot of the bank, in some parts, is a

vast number of pebbles and paving-stones, rolled up thither by the sea

long ago. The beach is of a brown sand, with hardly any pebbles

intermixed upon it. When the tide is part way down, there is a margin of

several yards from the water's edge, along the whole mile length of the

beach, which glistens like a mirror, and reflects objects, and shines

bright in the sunshine, the sand being wet to that distance from the

water. Above this margin the sand is not wet, and grows less and less

damp the farther towards the bank you keep. In some places your footstep

is perfectly implanted, showing the whole shape, and the square toe, and

every nail in the heel of your boot. Elsewhere, the impression is

imperfect, and even when you stamp, you cannot imprint the whole. As you

tread, a dry spot flashes around your step, and grows moist as you lift

your foot again. Pleasant to pass along this extensive walk, watching

the surf-wave;--how sometimes it seems to make a feint of breaking, but

dies away ineffectually, merely kissing the strand; then, after many

such abortive efforts, it gathers itself, and forms a high wall, and

rolls onward, heightening and heightening, without foam at the summit of

the green line, and at last throws itself fiercely on the beach, with a

loud roar, the spray flying above. As you walk along, you are preceded

by a flock of twenty or thirty beach birds, which are seeking, I

suppose, for food on the margin of the surf, yet seem to be merely

sporting, chasing the sea as it retires, and running up before the

impending wave. Sometimes they let it bear them off their feet, and

float lightly on its breaking summit: sometimes they flutter and seem to

rest on the feathery spray. They are little birds with gray backs and

snow-white breasts; their images may be seen in the wet sand almost or

full as distinctly as the reality. Their legs are long. As you draw

near, they take a flight of a score of yards or more, and then

recommence their dalliance with the surf-wave. You may behold their

multitudinous little tracks all along your way. Before you reach the end

of the beach, you become quite attached to these little sea-birds, and

take much interest in their occupations. After passing in one direction,

it is pleasant then to retrace your footsteps. Your tracks being all

traceable, you may recall the whole mood and occupation of your mind

during your first passage. Here you turned somewhat aside to pick up a

shell that you saw nearer the water's edge. Here you examined a long

sea-weed, and trailed its length after you for a considerable distance.

Here the effect of the wide sea struck you suddenly. Here you fronted

the ocean, looking at a sail, distant in the sunny blue. Here you looked

at some plant on the bank. Here some vagary of mind seems to have

bewildered you; for your tracks go round and round, and interchange each

other without visible reason. Here you picked up pebbles and skipped

them upon the water. Here you wrote names and drew faces with a razor

sea-shell in the sand.

After leaving the beach, clambered over crags, all shattered and tossed

about everyhow; in some parts curiously worn and hollowed out, almost

into caverns. The rock, shagged with sea-weed,--in some places, a thick

carpet of sea-weed laid over the pebbles, into which your foot would

sink. Deep tanks among these rocks, which the sea replenishes at high

tide, and then leaves the bottom all covered with various sorts of

sea-plants, as if it were some sea-monster's private garden. I saw a

crab in one of them; five-fingers too. From the edge of the rocks, you

may look off into deep, deep water, even at low tide. Among the rocks, I

found a great bird, whether a wild-goose, a loon, or an albatross, I

scarcely know. It was in such a position that I almost fancied it might

be asleep, and therefore drew near softly, lest it should take flight;

but it was dead, and stirred not when I touched it. Sometimes a dead

fish was cast up. A ledge of rocks, with a beacon upon it, looking like

a monument erected to those who have perished by shipwreck. The smoked,

extempore fireplace where a party cooked their fish. About midway on the

beach, a fresh-water brooklet flows towards the sea. Where it leaves the

land, it is quite a rippling little current; but in flowing across the

sand, it grows shallower and more shallow, and at last is quite lost,

and dies in the effort to carry its little tribute to the main.

* * * * *

An article to be made of telling the stories of the tiles of an

old-fashioned chimney-piece to a child.

* * * * *

A person conscious that he was soon to die, the humor in which he would

pay his last visit to familiar persons and things.

* * * * *

A description of the various classes of hotels and taverns, and the

prominent personages in each. There should be some story connected with

it,--as of a person commencing with boarding at a great hotel, and

gradually, as his means grew less, descending in life, till he got below

ground into a cellar.

* * * * *

A person to be in the possession of something as perfect as mortal man

has a right to demand; he tries to make it better, and ruins it

entirely.

* * * * *

A person to spend all his life and splendid talents in trying to achieve

something naturally impossible,--as to make a conquest over Nature.

* * * * *

Meditations about the main gas-pipe of a great city,--if the supply were

to be stopped, what would happen? How many different scenes it sheds

light on? It might be made emblematical of something.

* * * * *

_December 6th, 1837._--A fairy tale about chasing Echo to her

hiding-place. Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror.

* * * * *

A house to be built over a natural spring of inflammable gas, and to be

constantly illuminated therewith. What moral could be drawn from this?

It is carburetted hydrogen gas, and is cooled from a soft shale or

slate, which is sometimes bituminous, and contains more or less

carbonate of lime. It appears in the vicinity of Lockport and Niagara

Falls, and elsewhere in New York. I believe it indicates coal. At

Fredonia, the whole village is lighted by it. Elsewhere, a farm-house

was lighted by it, and no other fuel used in the coldest weather.

* * * * *

Gnomes, or other mischievous little fiends, to be represented as

burrowing in the hollow teeth of some person who has subjected himself

to their power. It should be a child's story. This should be one of many

modes of petty torment. They should be contrasted with beneficent

fairies, who minister to the pleasures of the good.

* * * * *

A man will undergo great toil and hardship for ends that must be many

years distant,--as wealth or fame,--but none for an end that may be

close at hand,--as the joys of heaven.

* * * * *

Insincerity in a man's own heart must make all his enjoyments, all that

concerns him, unreal; so that his whole life must seem like a merely

dramatic representation. And this would be the case, even though he were

surrounded by true-hearted relatives and friends.

* * * * *

A company of men, none of whom have anything worth hoping for on earth,

yet who do not look forward to anything beyond earth!

* * * * *

Sorrow to be personified, and its effect on a family represented by the

way in which the members of the family regard this dark-clad and

sad-browed inmate.

* * * * *

A story to show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one

another.

* * * * *

To personify winds of various characters.

* * * * *

A man living a wicked life in one place, and simultaneously a virtuous

and religious one in another.

* * * * *

An ornament to be worn about the person of a lady,--as a jewelled heart.

After many years, it happens to be broken or unscrewed, and a poisonous

odor comes out.

* * * * *

Lieutenant F. W---- of the navy was an inveterate duellist and an

unerring shot. He had taken offence at Lieutenant F----, and endeavored

to draw him into a duel, following him to the Mediterranean for that

purpose, and harassing him intolerably. At last, both parties being in

Massachusetts, F---- determined to fight, and applied to Lieutenant

A---- to be his second. A---- examined into the merits of the quarrel,

and came to the conclusion that F---- had not given F. W---- justifiable

cause for driving him to a duel, and that he ought not to be shot. He

instructed F---- in the use of the pistol, and, before the meeting,

warned him, by all means, to get the first fire; for that, if F. W----

fired first, he, F----, was infallibly a dead man, as his antagonist

could shoot to a hair's breadth. The parties met; and F----, firing

immediately on the word's being given, shot F. W---- through the heart.

F. W----, with a most savage expression of countenance, fired, after the

bullet had gone through his heart, and when the blood had entirely left

his face, and shot away one of F----'s side-locks. His face probably

looked as if he were already in the infernal regions; but afterwards it

assumed an angelic calmness and repose.

* * * * *

A company of persons to drink a certain medicinal preparation, which

would prove a poison, or the contrary, according to their different

characters.

* * * * *

Many persons, without a consciousness of so doing, to contribute to some

one end; as to a beggar's feast, made up of broken victuals from many

tables; or a patch carpet, woven of shreds from innumerable garments.

* * * * *

Some very famous jewel or other thing, much talked of all over the

world. Some person to meet with it, and get possession of it in some

unexpected manner, amid homely circumstances.

* * * * *

To poison a person or a party of persons with the sacramental wine.

* * * * *

A cloud in the shape of an old woman kneeling, with arms extended

towards the moon.

* * * * *

On being transported to strange scenes, we feel as if all were unreal.

This is but the perception of the true unreality of earthly things, made

evident by the want of congruity between ourselves and them. By and by

we become mutually adapted, and the perception is lost.

* * * * *

An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making all the

images that have been reflected in it pass back again across its

surface.

* * * * *

Our Indian races having reared no monuments, like the Greeks, Romans,

and Egyptians, when they have disappeared from the earth, their history

will appear a fable, and they misty phantoms.

* * * * *

A woman to sympathize with all emotions, but to have none of her own.

* * * * *

A portrait of a person in New England to be recognized as of the same

person represented by a portrait, in Old England. Having distinguished

himself there, he had suddenly vanished, and had never been heard of

till he was thus discovered to be identical with a distinguished man in

New England.

SAINTE-BEUVE.

The lives of French men of letters, at least during the last two

centuries, have never been isolated or obscure. Had Rousseau been born

on the borders of Loch Lomond, he might have proved in his own person,

and without interruption, the superiority of the savage state; and after

his death the information in regard to him would have been fragmentary

and uncertain. But born on the shores of Lake Leman, centralization laid

its grasp upon him, drew him into the vortex of the "great world," and

caused his name to figure in all the questions, the quarrels, and the

scandals of his day.

The truth is, that literature is a far more important element of society

in France than elsewhere. We seldom think of a French author, without

recalling the history and the manners of his time. In reading a French

play, though it be a tragedy of Racine or a comedy of Molière, we are

reminded of the spectators before whom it was brought out. In reading a

French book, though it be Pascal's "Thoughts" or the "Characters" of La

Bruyère, our minds are continually diverted from the matter of the work

to the circumstances under which it was written and the public for whom

it was intended.

Generally, indeed, the author, however full of his subject, has

evidently been thinking of his readers. His tone is that of a speaker

with his audience before him. Madame de Staël actually composed in

conversation, and her works are little more than imperfect records of

her eloquent discourse. Innumerable productions have been read aloud, or

handed round in private coteries, before being revised and published.

The very excellence of the workmanship, if nothing else, shows that the

article is "custom made." Even if the matter be poor, the writing is

almost sure to be good. French literature abounds, beyond every other,

in _readable_ books,--books such as are welcomed by the mass of

cultivated persons. It excels, in short, as a literature of the _salon_,

rather than of the study.

As a natural corollary, criticism occupies a more distinct and prominent

place in the literature of France than in that of any other nation.

Every writer is sure of being heard, sure of being discussed, sure of

being judged. This may not always have been favorable to originality. A

fixed standard,--which is a necessary consequence,--though the guardian

of taste, is a bar to innovation. When, however, the bar has been

actually crossed, when encroachment has once obtained a footing, French

criticism is swift to adjust itself to the new conditions imposed upon

it, to widen its sphere and to institute fresh comparisons.

The present position of French criticism, its connection with the

general course of literature and of society from the fall of the first

Empire to the establishment of the second,--a period of remarkable

effervescence and even fertility,--will be best illustrated by a sketch

of the writings and career of M. Sainte-Beuve. He is, it is true, one of

a group, compromising such critics as Villemain, Cousin, Vinet, Planche,

Taine, and Scherer; but his name is more intimately associated than any

of these with the progress and fluctuations of opinion and of taste. His

notices of his contemporaries have been by far the most copious and

assiduous. His literary life, extending over forty years, embraces the

rise and the decline of what is known as the Romantic School; and during

all this period his course, whether we regard it as that of a leader or

of a follower, has harmonized singularily with the tendencies of the

age.

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was born at Boulogne--a town not fruitful

in distinguished names--on the 23d of December, 1804. His father, who

had held an employment under the government, died two days before the

birth of the son. His mother was the daughter of an Englishwoman,--a

circumstance which has been thought to account for the appreciation he

has shown of English poetry. The notion would be more plausible if there

were any poetry which he has failed to appreciate. But when it is added

that she was a woman of remarkable intelligence and sensibility, we

recognize a fact of which the influence can neither be doubted nor

defined.

After several years of prepatory instruction at a boarding-school in his

native place, he was sent to Paris, when thirteen years old, and entered

successively in several of the educational establishments which had

succeeded to the ancient University. His studies, everywhere crowned

with honors, were completed by a second course of rhetoric at the

Collége Bourbon, in 1822. He afterwards, however, attended the lectures

of Guizot, Villemain, and other distinguished professors at the

Sorbonne. A hostile critic, though seven years his junior, professes to

retain a distinct recollection of him at this period: "Among the most

assiduous and most attentive auditors was a young man whose face,

irregular in outline but marvellously intelligent, reflected every

thought and image of the speaker, almost as rivers reflect the landscape

that unrolls itself along their banks. When I add that the volatile

waves incessantly efface what they have just before reflected, the

comparison will appear only the more exact." To an impartial inquirer it

might appear singularly inexact; but having picked up the shaft, we

shall not at present stop to examine whether it be poisoned.

On quitting college, M. Sainte-Beuve made choice of medicine as his

profession. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the study of anatomy,

and soon qualified himself for an appointment as _externe_ at the

Hospital of Saint Louis. This ardor, however, far from indicating the

particular bent of his mind, proceeded from that eager curiosity which

is ready to enter every avenue and knock at every door by which the

domain of knowledge can be approached. With the faculties he was endowed

with, and the training he had received, it was impossible that he should

lose in any special pursuit his interest in general literature. His

fellow-townsman and former master in rhetoric, M. Dubois, having become

the principal editor of the newly founded "Globe," invited his

co-operation. Accordingly, in 1824, he began to contribute critical and

historical articles to that journal; and three years later he resigned

his post at the hospital, with the purpose of devoting himself

exclusively to literary pursuits.

The period was in the highest degree favorable to the development and

display of his talent. The literary revolution, which in Germany and

England had already passed through its principal stages, had as yet

scarcely penetrated into France. It had been heralded, indeed, by

Chateaubriand, at the beginning of the century; and Madame de Staël,

some few years later, had come into contact with the reigning chiefs of

German literature, and had made known to her countrymen their character

and activity. But the energies of France were then absorbed in

enterprises of another kind. It was not till peace had been restored,

and a new generation, ardent, susceptible, as eager for novelty as the

veterans were impatient of it, had come upon the stage, that the

requisite impulse was given. Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Mérimée, Alfred de

Vigny, and other young men of genius, were just opening the assault on

the citadel of _classicisme_. Conventional rules were set at defiance;

the authorities that had so long held sway were summoned to abdicate;

nature, truth, above all passion, were invoked as the sources of

inspiration, the law-givers of the imagination, the sole arbiters of

style. As usual, the movement extended beyond its legitimate sphere. Not

only the forms, but the ideas, not only the traditions, but the

novelties, of the eighteenth century were to be discarded. In fact, the

period, though favorable to literary development, was, on the surface at

least, one of political and religious reaction; and reaction often

assumes the aspect of progress, nay, in some cases is identical with

progress. Most of the poets, dramatists, and other writers of the

Romantic School were, either by affinity or predilection, legitimists

and neo-Catholics. Gothic art, mediæval sentiment, the ancient monarchy

and the ancient creed, were blended in their programme with the

abrogation of the "unities," and a greater license of poetical

expression.

Imbued with the precepts of a former age, and fresh from the study of

its masterpieces, M. Sainte-Beuve was at first repelled by the mutinous

attitude of the new aspirants. He made his _début_ in an attack upon the

"Odes and Ballads" of Victor Hugo. But his opposition quickly yielded to

the force of the attraction. Nature had given him a peculiar mobility of

temperament, and a strong instinctive sense of beauty under every

diversity of form. Moreover, resistance would have been useless and

Quixotic. In literature, as in politics, dynasties perish through their

own weakness. The classical school of France had no living

representative around whom its adherents could have rallied. Its only

watchword was "The Past," which is always an omen of defeat.

Properly speaking, therefore, M. Sainte-Beuve began his career, not as

an opponent, but as the champion of the new school. He entered into

personal and intimate relations with its leaders, joined, as a member of

the _Cénacle_, in the discussion of their plans, attended the private

readings of "Cromwell" and other works by which the breach was to be

forced, and took upon himself the task of justifying innovation, and

securing its reception with a hesitating public. Hence his criticism at

this period was, as he himself has styled it, "polemical" and

"aggressive." It was, however, neither violent nor sophistical. On the

contrary, it was distinguished by the candor and the suavity of its

tone. Goethe, who watched from afar a movement which, directly or

indirectly, owed much to German inspiration, was particularly struck

with this trait. "Our scholars," he remarked to Eckermann, "think it

necessary to hate whoever differs from them in opinion; but the writers

in the Globe know how to blame with refinement and courtesy."

At home many, without being converted, were propitiated, and some, while

still hostile or indifferent to the new literature, became warmly

interested in its advocate. At the suggestion of Daunou, one of the most

distinguished among the survivors of the Revolutionary epoch, he

undertook a work on early French literature, with the intention of

competing for a prize offered by the Academy. But his plan soon deviated

from that which had been assigned; and his researches, more limited in

their scope, but far deeper and more minute, than had been demanded,

gave birth to a volume, published in 1828, under the title of _Tableau

historique et critique de la Poésie française et du Théâtre français au

seizième Siécle_. It was received with general favor. Some of the

author's principles were strenuously disputed; but he was admitted to

have made many discoveries in literary history, and to have introduced

an entirely new method of criticism. Perhaps it would be more correct to

say, that he had carried the torch of an enlightened judgment into a

period which the brilliancy of succeeding epochs had thrown into

obscurity.

In 1829 M. Sainte-Beuve published a volume of poetry, _Poésies de Joseph

Delorme_, followed, in 1830, by another, entitled _Consolations_, and

some years later by a third, _Pensées d'Août_. Although different

degrees of merit have been assigned to these productions, their general

character is the same. They exhibit, not the fire and inspiration of the

true poetical temperament, but the experiments of a mind gifted with

delicacy of sentiment and susceptible of varied impressions, in quest of

appropriate forms and a deeper comprehension of the sources from which

language derives its power as a vehicle of art. The influence of

Wordsworth is observable in a studied familiarity of diction, as well as

in the tendency to versify every thought or emotion suggested by daily

observation. These peculiarities, coupled with the frequency of bold

ellipses, provoked discussion, and seemed to promise a fresh expansion

of poetical forms, in a somewhat different direction from that of the

Romanticists. But it was not in this department that M. Sainte-Beuve was

destined to become the founder of a school. His poetical talent, though

unquestionable, had been bestowed, not as a special attribute, but as an

auxiliary of other faculties granted in a larger measure. He has himself

not only recognized its limits, but shown an inclination to underrate

its value. "I have often thought," he remarks in one of his later

papers, "that a critic who would attain to largeness of view would be

better without any artistic faculty of his own. Goethe alone, by the

universality of his poetical genius, was able to apply it in the

estimation of what others had produced; in every species of composition

he was entitled to say, 'Had I chosen, I could have given a perfect

specimen of this.' But one who possesses only a single circumscribed

talent should, in becoming a critic, forget it, bury it, and confess to

himself that Nature is more bountiful and more varied than she showed

herself in creating him. Incomplete artists, let us strive for an

intelligence wider than our own talent,--than the best we are capable of

producing."

To the same period--perhaps to the same spirit of investigation and

experiment--belongs the single prose work of fancy which has proceeded

from his pen. It is a species of romance, bearing the title of

_Volupté_, and designed to exhibit the struggle between the senses and

the soul, or, more strictly speaking, the effect upon the intellectual

nature of an early captivity to the pleasures of sense. The hero,

Amaury, after a youth of indulgence, finds himself in the prime of his

manhood, with his powers of perception and of thought vigorous and

matured, but incapable of acting, of willing, or of loving. He inspires

love, but cannot return it; he feels, he admires, but he shrinks from

any step demanding resolution or self-devotion. Hence, instead of

conferring happiness, he makes victims,--victims not of an active, but

of a merely passive and negative egotism. A conjunction of circumstances

brings him to a sudden and vivid realization of his condition and its

results. Instead of escaping by suicide, as might be expected,--and as

would probably have been the case if Werther had not forestalled

him,--he breaks loose from his thraldom by a supreme effort, and finds

in the faith and sacrifices of a religious life the means of restoration

and of permanent freedom. He enters a seminary, is ordained priest, and

performs the funeral rites of the woman whose affection for him had been

the most ardent and exalted, and whom his purified heart could have best

repaid.

In form, the work is an autobiography. The thoughts with which it teems

are delicate and subtile; the style, somewhat labored and over-refined,

is in contrast with that of the _Poésies_, while it betrays the same

struggle for a greater amplitude and independence. In point of art the

book appears to us a failure. The theme is not objectionable in itself.

It is similar to that of many works which have sprung from certain

phases of individual experience. But if such experience is to be

idealized, its origin should disappear. Shakespeare may have undergone

all the conflicts of doubt and irresolution represented in "Hamlet"; but

in reading "Hamlet" we think, not of Shakespeare's conflicts, but of our

own. _Volupté_ is too palpably a confession. The story is not a

creation; it has been simply evolved by that process of thought which

transports a particular idiosyncrasy into conditions and circumstances

where it becomes a kind of destiny and a subject of speculation. Reality

is wanting, for the very reason that the Imagination, after being called

into play, has proved too feeble for her office. Herein Amaury differs

widely from René. Apart from the difference of power, Chateaubriand had

poured out his entire self; he had transcended the limits of his actual

life, but never those of his mental experience. M. Sainte-Beuve had felt

only a part of what he sought to depict; the rest he had conjectured or

borrowed. The pages which describe the hero's impressions and emotions

in consecrating himself to the service of the Church were written by

Lacordaire. They are a faithful transcript from nature, but from a

nature not at all resembling that to which they have been applied. The

circumstances under which the book was composed will exhibit the

difference. The author was then intimate with Lamennais, whose eloquent

voice, soon afterwards to be raised in support of the opposite cause,

was proclaiming the sternest doctrines of a renovated Catholicism. A

spell which acted so widely and so marvellously could not be altogether

unfelt by a mind whose peculiar property it was to yield itself to every

influence in order to extort its secret and comprehend its power. Beyond

this point the magic failed. "In all my transitions,"--thus he has

written of himself,--"I have never alienated my judgment and my will; I

have never pledged my belief. But I had a power of comprehending persons

and things which gave rise to the strongest hopes on the part of those

who wished to convert me and who thought me entirely their own." Thus

Lamartine, in a rapturous strain, had congratulated himself on having

been the instrument of saving his friend from the abysm of unbelief.

When Lamennais was forming the group of disciples who retired with him

to La Chesnaye, M. Sainte-Beuve was invited to join them. While

declining the proposal, he imagined the position in which he might have

been led to embrace it, and--wrote _Volupté_.

The revolution of 1830, with the events that led to it, marks a

turning-point in literary as well as in political history. The public

mind was in a state of ebullition very unlike that of an ordinary

political contest, in which one party pulls while the other applies the

drag, one seeks to maintain, the other to destroy. All parties were

pulling in different directions; all sought to destroy, in order to

reconstruct; principles, except with the extremists, were simply

expedients, adopted to-day, abandoned on the morrow. Nor is this to be

explained, as English writers generally explain it, by the mere

volatility of the French temperament. In England, an established basis

of political power is slowly but constantly expanding; privilege

crumbles and wears away under the gradual action of democracy;

concession on the one side, moderation on the other, are perfectly

feasible, and obviate the necessity for sudden ruptures and violent

transitions. But in France the question created by past convulsions, and

left unsolved by recent experiments, was this: What _is_ the basis of

power? Privilege had been so shorn that those who desired to make that

the foundation were necessarily not conservatives, but reactionists. On

the other hand, if popular power were to be accepted in its widest

sense, then a thousand questions, a thousand differences of opinion in

regard to the mode, the form, the application, would naturally spring

up. Besides, would it not be safer, wiser, to modify ideas by

experience, to look abroad for patterns, to seek for an equilibrium, a

_juste milieu_? Thus there was a diversity of systems, but all

contemplative of change. No one was in favor of standing still, for

there was nothing to stand upon. In a word, the agitation was not so

much one of measures, of principles, or of prejudices, as of ideas.

Now in an agitation of this kind, literary men--that is to say, the men

whose business is to think--are likely to be active, and in France, at

least, are apt to become prominent and influential. But they, of all

men, by the very fact that they think, are least under the control of

party affinities and fixed doctrines, the most liable to be swayed by

discussion and reflection. Hence the spectacle, so frequent at that time

and since, of men distinguished in the world of letters passing from the

ranks of the legitimists into those of the republicans, from the

advocacy of papal supremacy in temporal affairs to that of popular

supremacy in religious affairs, from the defence of a landed aristocracy

to the demand for a community of property; and afterwards, in many

instances, returning with the backward current, abjuring freedom and

embracing imperialism.

In the case of M. Sainte-Beuve the changes were neither so abrupt nor so

complete as in that of many others. But his course was still more

meandering, skirting the bases of opposite systems, abiding with none.

Never a blind adherent or a vehement opponent, he glided almost

imperceptibly from camp to camp. He consorted, as we have seen, with

legitimists and neo-Catholics, and allowed himself to be reckoned as one

of them. Through the columns of the Globe, which had now become the

organ of the Saint-Simonians, he invited the Romanticists to "step forth

from the circle of pure art, and diffuse the doctrines of a progressive

humanity." On the advent of Louis Philippe, he was inclined to accept

the constitutional _régime_ as the triumph of good sense, as affording a

practical solution and a promise of stability. But he appears soon to

have lost his faith in a government too narrow in policy, too timid in

action, too vulgar in aspect, to satisfy a cultivated Parisian taste.

A similar flexibility will be noticed in his literary judgments. Shall

we then pronounce him a very chameleon in politics and in art? Shall we

say, with the critic already quoted, M. de Pontmartin, that his mental

hues have been simply reflections, effaced as rapidly as they were made?

On the contrary, we believe that he, of all men, has retained the

various impressions he has once received. Unlike so many others, who, in

changing their views, have contradicted all their former utterances,

disowned their former selves, undergone a sort of bisection into two

irreconcilable halves, M. Sainte-Beuve has linked one opinion with

another, modified each by its opposite, and thus preserved his

continuity and cohesion. "Everything has two names," to use his own

expression, and he has never been content with knowing only one of them.

Guided by a sympathetic intelligence, adopting, not symbols, but ideas,

he has, by force of penetration and comprehension, extracted the essence

of each doctrine in turn. His changes therefore indicate, not

superficiality, but depth. He is no more chargeable with volatility than

society itself. Like it he is a seeker, listening to every proposition,

accepting what is vital, rejecting what is merely formal. There is not

one of the systems which have been presented, however contrasted they

may appear, but has left its impress upon society,--not one but has left

its impress on the mind and opinions of M. Sainte-Beuve.

In one particular--the most essential, in reality, of all--his constancy

has been remarkable. He has remained true to his vocation. At the moment

when his literary brethren, availing themselves of the opening we have

noticed, were rushing into public life,--scholars and professors

becoming ambassadors and ministers of state, poets and novelists

mounting the tribune and the hustings, historians descending into the

arena of political journalism,--M. Sainte-Beuve settled himself more

firmly in the chair of criticism, concentrating his powers on the

specialty to which they were so peculiarly adapted. His opportunities

for doing this more effectively were themselves among the results of the

events already mentioned. A greater freedom and activity of discussion

demanded new and ampler organs. Cliques had been broken up; co-workers,

brought together by sympathy, separated by the clash of opinions and

ambitions, had dispersed; both in literature and in politics a wider,

more inquisitive, more sympathetic public was to be addressed. Already

in 1829, Véron, one of those shrewd and speculative--we hardly know

whether to call them men of business or adventurers, who foresee such

occasions, had set up the _Revue de Paris_, on a more extended plan than

that of any previous French journal of the kind. The opening article of

the first number was from the pen of M. Sainte-Beuve. But this

undertaking was subsequently merged in that of the _Revue des Deux

Mondes_, which, after one or two abortive beginnings, was fairly started

in January, 1831, and soon assumed the position it has ever since

retained, at the head of the publications of its class. It enlisted

among its contributors nearly all the leading writers of the day, none

of whom was so regular and permanent, none of whom did so much to build

up its reputation and confer upon it the stamp of authority, as M.

Sainte-Beuve. His connection with it extended over seventeen years, the

period between the last two revolutions. His papers seem to have

averaged five or six a year. They form, with those which had been

previously inserted in the _Revue de Paris_, a series of _Portraits_,

now embraced in seven volumes, and divided, somewhat arbitrarily, into

_Portraits littéraires_, _Portraits contemporains_, and _Portraits de

Femmes_. The names included, which with few exceptions are those of

French writers, belong to different epochs, different schools, and

different departments of literature. Many are famous; some are obscure;

not a few, which had before been overlooked or overshadowed, owe the

recognition they have since received to their admission into a gallery

where the places have been assigned and the lights distributed by no

partial or incompetent umpire.

In the case of any kind of literature, but especially in that of

criticism, it is interesting to have an author's own ideas of his office

and art. The motto of the Edinburgh Review--"_Judex damnatur cum nocens

absolvitur_"--was a very good indication of the spirit of its founders,

whose legal habits and aspirations naturally suggested the spectacle of

a court, in which the critic as judge was to sit upon the bench, and the

author as prisoner was to stand at the bar. Had Jeffries, instead of

Jeffrey, presided over the assizes, they could not have been gayer or

bloodier. It is interesting to remember that among the criminals

sentenced without reprieve were the greatest poet and the most original

thinker of the time. A journal which has earned something of the

prestige that attached to the youthful Edinburgh takes a not very

different view of its own functions. "An author may wince under

criticism," say the writers of the Saturday Review; "but is the master

to leave off flogging because the pupil roars?" Here, too, the notion of

the relative position of author and critic is perfectly natural. Young

gentlemen, with a lively recollection of their own construings and

birchings, are only too happy in the opportunity of sitting with bent

brows and uplifted rod, watching for a false quantity or similar

peccadillo, which may justify a withering rebuke or a vigorous

flagellation. If we add, that these writers exhibit that accuracy of

statement which usually accompanies the assumption of infallibility, and

that their English is of that prim and painful kind, common to

pedagogues, which betrays a constant fear of being caught tripping while

engaged in correcting others, the comparison--to cite once more M. de

Pontmartin--"will appear only the more exact." We forbear to descend to

a far lower class, judges who know nothing of law, masters who have

never been scholars, truly "incomplete artists" who cannot "forget or

bury" their own extremely "circumscribed talent," but who are perfectly

willing to bury, and would fain induce the world to forget, that of

every suspected rival.

Had M. Sainte-Beuve entered upon his task with similar conceptions and

associations, his early anatomical studies would perhaps have suggested

the patient under the scalpel as an appropriate device. But we are in

danger of dishonoring him by the mere supposition. Scattered through his

works--beginning with the earliest and coming down to the latest--we

find such sentences as the following: "The critical spirit is in its

nature facile, insinuating, mobile, and comprehensive; it is a great and

limpid river, which winds and spreads itself around the productions and

the monuments of genius." "The best and surest way to penetrate and to

judge any writer, any man, is to listen to him,--to listen long and

intently: do not press him; let him move and display himself with

freedom, and _of_ himself he will tell you all _about_ himself; he will

imprint himself upon your mind. Be assured that in the long run no man,

no writer, above all no poet, will preserve his secret." "It is by

virtue of an exquisite analogy that the word 'taste' has prevailed over

the word 'judgment.' Judgment! I know minds which possess it in a high

degree, but which are yet wanting in taste; for taste expresses what is

finest and most instinctive in an organ which is at once the most

delicate and the most complex." "To know how to read a book, judging it

as we go along, but never ceasing to _taste_ it,--in this consists

almost the whole art of criticism." "What Bacon says as to the proper

mode of educing the natural meaning from Scripture may be applied to

ancient writings of all kinds, or even to the most modern. The best and

sweetest criticism is that which exudes from a good book, not pressed as

in a wine-press, but squeezed gently in a free reading. I love that

criticism should be an _emanation_ from the book." "Whenever I speak of

a writer, I prefer to exhibit him in the brightest and happiest hour of

his talent, to place him, if possible, directly under the rays." "The

greatest triumph of criticism is when it recognizes the arrival of a

power, the advent of a genius." "I cannot admit that the best mode of

correcting a talent which is in process of development is to begin by

throwing an inkstand at its head." "I am almost frightened at seeing to

what an extent literary criticism becomes difficult, when it refrains

from arrogance and from insult, claiming for itself both an honest

freedom of judgment and the right to participate largely in the

bestowment of deserved praise, as well as to maintain a certain

cordiality even in its reservations." "If Diderot was as far as possible

from being a dramatic poet, if he was destitute of that supreme creative

power which involves the transformation of an author's own personality,

he possessed, on the other hand, in the highest degree, that faculty of

demi-metamorphosis which is the exercise and the triumph of criticism,

and which consists in putting one's self in the the place of the author,

occupying the point of view to the subject under examination, and

reading every writing in the spirit by which it was dictated."

Let us admit that these are not so much absolute principles of criticism

as the features which characterize that of the writer himself and the

method which he has almost involuntarily pursued. Let us admit this, and

in doing so we concede to him all the qualities that are rarest and most

desirable in his art,--impartiality, sincerity, disinterestedness;

freedom from theory, from passion, and from prejudice; insight,

comprehension, sensitiveness to every trait and every kind of beauty and

of power; a patient ardor and pure delight in acquisition, and a

generous desire, in the interest of literature itself, to communicate

the results and inspire similar feelings. Without denying that all good

criticism will partake more or less largely of these qualities, or that

some of them have been more abundantly possessed, more profoundly

applied, by others, we believe that it would be difficult to cite an

instance in which they have been so entirely combined or so continuously

exercised. M. Sainte-Beuve is pre-eminently an _artist_ in criticism. He

has exhibited that self-absorption which it is easy to imagine, easy to

find examples of, in poetry, in painting, and in music, but which in

criticism had hitherto been hardly conceivable. "There is in him," wrote

Gustave Planche in 1834,--and the force of the eulogy is in no degree

impaired by subsequent censures from the same quarter,--"a happy

mingling of enthusiasm and curiosity, renewed in proportion as they are

appeased, and enrolled in the service of all nascent or unrecognized

abilities.... He speaks the truth for the sole pleasure of speaking it,

and asks no gratitude either from the disciples whom he initiates or

from the new deities whom he exalts.... Whenever he finds a poet not

sufficiently listened to, he aims to enlarge the audience, erects a

stage on which to place him, and arranges everything for enabling him to

produce the fullest effect.... Before him French criticism, when it was

not either acrimonious or simply learned, consisted in a mere

commonplace repetition of precepts and formulas of which the sense had

been lost. His perpetual mobility is but a constant good faith; he

believes in the most opposite schools, because believing is with him

only a mode of comprehending."

Let it not be supposed from this description that M. Sainte-Beuve is

wanting in acuteness, that his enthusiasm predominates over his

sagacity. On the contrary, there is no keener eye than his for whatever

is false, pretentious, or unsound. His sure instinct quickly separates

the gold from the alloy. Unlike the critics of the _nil admirari_

school, whose reluctance to trust themselves to their emotions proceeds

in great part from the absence of this instinct, he is proof against the

approaches of the charlatan, and has never debased the word "art" by

applying it to a mere melodramatic mechanism. But he rightly considers

the office of the detector as insignificant in comparison with that of

the discoverer, and his glow of satisfaction is reserved for the nobler

employment. The points on which he insists are the obligation of

honestly desiring to understand an author; the impropriety of fastening

on defects, or of simply balancing between defects and merits; the duty

of approving with heartiness and warmth, in place of that cold-blooded

moderation which he pronounces, with Vauvenargues, "a sure sign of

mediocrity." If, therefore, we say that his is only one species of

criticism, we cannot deny its claim to be entitled the "criticism of

_appreciation_." It is thus the exact reverse of that species to which

we have before alluded, and which deserves to be called the "criticism

of _depreciation_."

We come now to the particular characteristics of the _Portraits_, the

manner in which the author has there applied his principles. "I have

never," he remarks in a recent defence, "vaunted my method as a

discovery, or affected to guard it as a secret." It involves, however,

both the one and the other. The discovery consists in the perception of

the truth that an author is always in his works; that he cannot help

being there; that no reticence, no pretences, no disguises, will avail

to hide him. The secret lies in the skill with which the search is

pursued and the object revealed. We do not, of course, mean to say that

M. Sainte-Beuve is the originator of biographical criticism, which in

England especially, favored by the portly Reviews, has been carried to

an extent undreamt of elsewhere. But in general it may be noticed that

English articles of this kind have been simply biographies accompanied

with criticism; their model is to be found in Johnson's "Lives of the

Poets." The critical articles of Mr. Carlyle are a striking exception.

Of Carlyle it may be said, as it has been said of M. Sainte-Beuve, that

"what chiefly interests him in a book is the author, and in the author

the very mystery of his personality." In other words, each looks upon a

literary work, not as the production of certain impersonal intellectual

faculties, but as a manifestation of the author in the totality of his

nature. But while the point of view is thus identical, there is little

similarity in the treatment. In the one case a powerful imagination

causes the figure to stand out in bold relief, while a luminous humor

plays upon every feature. The method of the _Portraits_--again we cite

the author's own language--is "descriptive, analytical, inquisitive." We

are led along through a series of details, each lightly touched, each

contributing to the elucidation of the enigma, by a train of closely

linked and subtile observation, which penetrates all the obscurities,

unravels all the intricacies, of the subject. And the result is, not

that broad but mingled conception which arises from personal intimacy or

from the art which simulates it, but that idea, that distilled essence,

which is obtained when what is most characteristic, what is purely

mental and individual, has been selected and condensed.

The sympathetic nature of the critic displays itself in his general

treatment of the theme, in the post of observation which he chooses. He

is not an advocate or an apologist. But the opinions in which he does

not coincide, the defects which he has no interest in concealing, he

sets in their natural connection, and regards as portions of a living

organism. Put before him a nature the most opposite to his own,--narrow,

rigorous, systematic. Shall he oppose or condemn it because of this

contrariety? But why, then, has he himself been endowed with suppleness

and insight, why is he a critic, unless that he may enter into other

minds see as they have seen, feel as they have felt? He must get to the

centre before he can trace the limits and imperfections. Once there,

once identified with his object, he can observe its irregularities

without being irritated or perturbed. As for that Rhadamanthine

criticism which sits aloof from its object, and treats every aberration

from a straight line as something abnormal and abominable, he leaves it

to the immaculate. In truth, such criticism, with all its pretences to

authority, is open to this fatal objection,--it tends to destroy our

relish for literature; instead of stimulating the appetite, it creates

disgust.[C] How different is the effect produced by the _Portraits_! Of

all criticism they have the most power to refresh our interest in

familiar topics, and to kindle curiosity in regard to those with which

we are unacquainted. They serve as the best possible introduction to the

study of the works themselves, to which, accordingly, they have in many

cases been prefixed. They put us in the proper disposition for _tasting_

as we read. Often they are guides with which we could hardly dispense.

M. Sainte-Beuve is never more happy than in dealing with complexities or

contradictions, with characters that puzzle the ordinary observer, with

harmonies which are hidden in discords. Of women, it has been well said,

he writes "as if he were one of them." Like Thackeray, like Balzac, he

knows their secret. So, too, the spirit of a particular epoch or a

particular school is seized, its successive phases are distinguished,

with a nicety defying competition. Especially is this applicable to the

developments of the present century. Who, indeed, was so competent to

describe its parties and conflicts, its emotions and languors, as one

who had shared in all its transitions, in all its experiences?

The style of the _Portraits_ might form the subject of a separate study.

Abjuring antithesis and epigram on the one hand, pomp and declamation on

the other, it has yet none of the limpidity, the rapid flow, the

incisive directness, of classical French prose. On the contrary, it is

full of shadings and undulations. It abounds in caressing epithets, and

in figures sometimes elaborated and prolonged to the last degree,

sometimes clustered and contrasted like flowers in a bouquet. After a

continuous reading a sense of luxury steals over us; we seem to be

surrounded by the rich draperies and scented atmosphere of a boudoir.

Yet the term "florid" will not apply to what is everywhere pervaded by

an exquisite harmony and taste. Simplicity of expression, energy of

tone, would be out of place, where the thought is so subtile and

refined, the glow of feeling so soft and restrained, the mind so

absorbed in the effort to catch every echo, every reflection, floating

across the field of its survey. Difficult as it is to convey any

adequate notion of such a style by mere description, it would be at

least as difficult to do justice to its peculiarities in a translation.

Our impressions of it may perhaps be best summed up by saying that it

is the farthest remove from oratory, and the nearest approach to poetry,

of any prose not professedly idyllic or lyric with which we are

acquainted.

It has been stated by the author himself, as one defect in his criticism

at this period, that it was not "conclusive." It was perfectly sincere,

but not equally frank. In fact, it was not full-grown. A mind like that

of M. Sainte-Beuve is slow in arriving at maturity. It is quick to

comprehend; but the very breadth of its comprehension and the variety of

its researches make it tardy in attaining that completeness and

decision, that air of mastery, which less capacious minds assume through

the mere instinct, and as the outward sign, of virility. He has himself

indicated the distinction in his notice of M. Taine, whom he describes

as "entering the arena fully armed and equipped, taking his place with a

precision, a vigor of expression, a concentration and absoluteness of

thought, which he applies in turn to the most opposite subjects, without

ever forgetting his own identity or losing faith in his system." There

were, however, in the case of M. Sainte-Beuve, further impediments to

the assumption of an explicit and confident tone. Among the authors whom

he was called upon to criticise were his acknowledged leaders, those by

whom he had been initiated into the mysteries of modern art. Though he

was fast outgrowing their influence, he was in no haste to proclaim his

independence. An indefatigable student, he was accumulating stores of

material without as yet drawing upon them to any proportionate extent,

or putting forth all the strength with which they supplied him. Besides

the "Portraits," his only other work during this period was his "History

of Port Royal," the five volumes of which were published at long

intervals. Social relations, too, exerted a restraining influence. His

position in the world of letters was generally recognized, and had

brought him the distinctions and rewards which France has it in her

power to bestow. In 1840 he was appointed one of the conservators of the

Mazarine Library. In 1845 he was elected to the French Academy. He lived

on terms of intimacy with men of all parties, and with the highest in

every party. He moved in the _élite_ of Parisian society, accepting

rather than claiming its attentions, but fully sensible of its charms.

All these circumstances combined to prolong, in his case, that season

when, though the fruit has formed, the blossoms have not yet fallen,

when the mind still yields itself to illusions as if loath to be

disenchanted. His sincere admiration for the genius of Chateaubriand did

not blind him to the monstrosities or the littlenesses by which it was

disfigured. But should he rudely break the spell in the presence of the

enchanter? should he disturb the veneration that encircled his decline?

should he steel himself against the gracious pleadings of Madame

Récamier, and throw a bomb-shell into that circle of which no one could

better appreciate the seductive repose? He chose rather to limit the

scope of his judgment, to look at the object solely on its attractive

side, to postpone _reservations_ which would have had the effect of a

revolt.

Yet the extent of his concessions has been much exaggerated. No

extravagant laudations ever fell from his pen. Moreover, his gradual

emancipation, so to speak, is apparent in his writings,--in the last

volumes of his "Port Royal" and in the later "Portraits." It was

facilitated by the waning power displayed in the productions of some

with whom he had been closely associated. It was suddenly completed by

an event of which the momentous and wide-spread consequences are still

felt,--the Revolution of February, 1848.

M. Sainte-Beuve has given a curious account of the immediate effect of

that event upon his own external circumstances and position. Some

lurking irony may be suspected,--a disposition to reduce the apparent

magnitude of a great political convulsion by setting it in juxtaposition

with its more trivial results. But as the narrative is characteristic,

and contains some passages that throw light upon the author's habits and

sentiments, we give it, very slightly abridged, in his own words. It is

prefixed to a course of lectures on Chateaubriand and his literary

friends, delivered at Liége in 1848-49.

"In October, 1847, in my capacity as one of the Conservators of the

Mazarine Library, I occupied rooms at the Institute, where I had a

chimney that smoked. With the view of guarding against this

inconvenience before the winter should have set in, I summoned the

_fumiste_ of the establishment, who, after entering into details and

fixing upon the remedy,--some contrivance on the roof in the nature of a

hooded chimney-pot,--observed that the expense, amounting to a hundred

francs or so, was one of those which are chargeable to the landlord,

that is to say, in this case, the government. Consequently I made a

requisition on the Minister to whose department it belonged; the work

was executed, and I thought no more of it.

"Some months later, the Revolution of the 24th of February broke out. I

perceived from the first day all the importance of that event, but also

its prematureness. Without being one of those who regretted the fall of

a dynasty or of a political system, I grieved for a civilization which

seemed to me for the moment greatly compromised. I did not, however,

indulge in the gloomy anticipations which I saw had taken possession of

many who the day before had professed themselves republicans, but who

were now surprised, and even alarmed, at their own success. I thought we

should get out of this, as we had already got out of so many other

embarrassments. I reflected that History has more than one road by which

to advance; and I awaited the development of facts with the curiosity of

an observer, closely blended, I must confess, with the anxieties of a

citizen.

"About a month later, towards the end of March, I was told by a friend

that M. Jean Reynaud, who then filled an office which, though nominally

in the department of Public Instruction, corresponded in fact with that

of Under-Secretary of State, wished to see me. I had been well

acquainted with M. Reynaud for seventeen or eighteen years, and had

dined with him, in company with M. Charton, on Wednesday, the 25th of

February preceding, while the Revolution was in full blast. Profiting by

a short truce which had suddenly intervened on the afternoon of that

day, I had been able to traverse the Champs-Élysées, at the farther end

of which he lived, and to keep an appointment dating from several days

before. On that Wednesday, at six o'clock in the evening, I did not

expect, and as little did M. Reynaud himself expect, that two days later

he would be holding the post of quasi-minister in the department of

Public Instruction. I heard with pleasure of his appointment, in

conjunction with that of M. Carnot and M. Charton, for I knew their

perfect integrity.

"Summoned then, about a month after these events, by M. Reynaud, and

having entered his office and approached him with my ordinary air, I saw

in his countenance a look of consternation. He informed me that

something very grave had taken place, and that this something concerned

me; that certain lists specifying the sums distributed by the late

government, with the names of the recipients, had been seized at the

Tuileries; that my name had been found in them; that it occurred several

times, with a sum--with sums--of a considerable amount attached to it.

At first I began to laugh; but perceiving that M. Reynaud did not laugh,

and receiving from him repeated appeals to my recollection, I began to

ply him with questions in return. He was unable to enter into any exact

details; but he assured me that the fact was certain,--that he had

verified it with his own eyes; and as his alarm evidently proceeded from

his friendship, I could not doubt the reality of what he had told me.

"I believe that, by my manner of replying on the instant, I convinced

him of the existence of some error or some fraud. But I perceived that

there were others, near him, behind him, who would be less easily

convinced. As soon, therefore, as I had returned home, I addressed to

the _Journal des Débats_ a letter of denial, a defiance to calumny, in

the tone natural to honorable persons and such as feel secure in their

own innocence. This letter furnished M. Reynaud with a weapon against my

accusers behind the scene. As a proof that he accepted both the

sentiment and the terms, he caused it to be inserted in the _Moniteur_.

"However, I was not entirely satisfied; I wished to bring the affair

fully to light. I made attempts to procure the lists in question. I went

to see M. Taschereau, who was publishing them in his _Revue

rétrospective_; I saw M. Landrin, the Attorney-General of the Republic;

I even caused inquiries to be made of the former Ministers, then in

London, with whom I had had the honor of being personally acquainted. No

result; nobody understood to what my questions had reference. Wearied

out at last, I discontinued the pursuit, though without dismissing the

subject from my thoughts.

"I will get to the bottom of this affair. There was in the department of

Public Instruction a man newly elevated to power, who honored me with an

enmity already of long standing. I have never in my life met M. Génin; I

have never once seen his face; but the fact is that he has always

detested me, has often in his writings made me the object of his satire,

and in his critical articles especially has ridiculed me to the extent

of his powers. I did not suit this writer, whom all his friends

pronounced a man of intellect; I appeared to him affected and full of

mannerisms; and to me, on the other hand, he perhaps appeared neither so

subtile, nor so refined, nor so original, as he seemed to others. Now M.

Génin, who had been intrusted, after the 24th of February, 1848, with

the distribution of the papers in the Bureau of Public Instruction, was

undoubtedly the person who had availed himself of the list in which my

name was said to figure, for the purpose of bringing an accusation

against my honor. He was himself a man of probity, but one who, in the

violence of his prejudices and the acerbity of his disposition, could

hardly stop short of actions positively bad.

"If M. Génin had lived in the world, in society, during the fifteen

years previous to 1848 which I had passed in it, he would have

comprehended how a man of letters, without fortune, without ambition, of

retiring manners, and keeping strictly to his own place, may yet--by his

intellect perhaps, by his character, by his tact, and by his general

conduct--obtain an honorable and agreeable position, and live with

persons of every rank, the most distinguished in their several

walks,--persons not precisely of his own class,--on that insensible

footing of equality which is, or which was, the charm and honor of

social life in France. For my own part, during those years,--happy ones

I may call them,--I had endeavored, not without a fair degree of

success, to arrange an existence combining dignity with ease. To write

from time to time things which it might be agreeable to read; to read

what was not only agreeable but instructive; above all, not to write too

much, to cultivate friendships, to keep the mind at liberty for the

intercourse of each day and be able to draw upon it without fear of

exhausting it; giving more to one's intimates than to the public, and

reserving the finest and tenderest thoughts, the flower of one's nature,

for the inner sanctuary;--such was the mode of life I had conceived as

suitable to a literary knight, who should not allow has professional

pursuits and associations to domineer over and repress the essential

elements of his heart and soul. Since then necessity has seized upon me

and constrained me to renounce what I considered the only happiness. It

is gone, it has forever vanished, that better time, adorned with study

and leisure, passed in a chosen circle, where I once received, from a

fair friend whose loss has been irreparable, this charming counsel

insinuated in the form of praise: 'If you think yourself dependent on

the approbation of certain people, believe me, that others are dependent

upon yours. And what better, sweeter bond can there be between persons

who esteem each other, than this mutual dependence on moral approbation,

balancing, so to speak, one's own sentiment of freedom. _To desire to

please and at the same time to remain free_,--this is the rule we ought

to follow.' I accepted the motto; I promised myself to be faithful to it

in all that I might write; my productions at that period will show

perhaps the degree in which I was influenced by it. But I perceive that

I have strayed from my text.

"I had forgotten to mention that, on the same day on which I wrote the

letter inserted first in the _Journal des Débats_, and afterwards in the

_Moniteur_, I forwarded to Messieurs Reynaud and Carnot the resignation

of my place at the Mazarine. I did not wish to expose myself to

interrogatories and explanations where I could be less sure of being

questioned in a friendly spirit and listened to with confidence. From

the moment of taking this step there was no longer much choice for me. I

had to live by my pen; and during the year 1848, literature in my

understanding of that term--and indeed literature of every kind--formed

one of those branches of industry, devoted to the production of

luxuries, which were struck with a sudden interdict, a temporary death.

I was asked in conversation if I knew any man of letters who would

accept a place in Belgium as professor of French literature. Learning

that the vacancy was at the University of Liége, I offered myself. I

went to Brussels to confer on the project with M. Charles Rogier,

Minister of the Interior, whom I had known a long time, and I accepted

with gratitude the propositions that were made to me.

"I left France in October, 1848. The press of Paris noticed my departure

only with raillery. When a man of letters has no party, no followers, at

his back, when he takes his way alone and independently, the least that

can be expected is that the world should give itself the pleasure of

insulting him a little on his passage. In Belgium I met with unexpected

difficulties, thrown in my way by hostile compatriots. Pamphlets

containing incredible calumnies were published against me. I have reason

to speak with praise of the youth of Belgium, who decided to wait, and

to judge me only by my acts and words. In spite of obstacles I

succeeded. The present book, which was entirely composed and was to have

been published before the end of 1849, represents one of the two courses

which I delivered.