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Title: The Continental Monthly,  Vol. 4,  No. 1, July, 1863
       Devoted to Literature and National Policy

Author: Various

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THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.


DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.



VOL. IV.

JULY-DECEMBER, 1863.



New York:

JOHN F. TROW, 50 GREENE STREET,

(FOR THE PROPRIETORS.)

1863.




ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by

JOHN F. TROW,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.


JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND ELECTROTYPER, 46, 48, & 50
Greene St., New York.


       *       *       *       *       *


INDEX TO VOLUME IV.

  Abijah Witherpee's Retreat, 16

  Across Maine in Mid-Winter, 138

  A Detective's Story, 474

  American Finances and Resources. By Hon.
    Robert J. Walker, 463

  Autumn Leaves. By Mrs. Martha Walker
    Cook, 136

  Buckle, Draper, and a Science of History.
    By Edward B. Freeland, 610

  Buckle, Draper, and the Law of Human Development.
    By Edward B. Freeland, 529

  Currency and the National Finances. By J.
  Smith Homans, 419

  Dead. By Anna Gray, 683

  Diary of Frances Krasinska; or, Life in Poland
    during the 18th Century, 42, 150, 274 394, 491, 624

  Dying in the Hospital. By Mary E. Nealy,
    Louisville, Ky., 229

  Early History of Printing and the Newspaper
    Press in Boston and New York. By W.
    L. Stone, 256

  Editor's Table, 118, 237, 355, 598, 711

  Emancipation in Jamaica, By Rev. C. C.
    Starbuck, 1

  Evergreen Beauty. By Major S. H. Hurst, 227

  Extraterritoriality in China. By Dr. Macgowan, 556

  Japanese Foreign Relations. By Dr.
    Macgowan, 333

  Jefferson Davis and Repudiation. By Hon.
    Robert J. Walker, 207, 352

  Jefferson Davis--Repudiation, Recognition,
    and Slavery. By Hon. R. J. Walker, 390

  Ladies' Loyal League. By Mrs. O.S. Baker, 51

  Letters to Professor S. F. B. Morse. By
    Rev. Dr. Henry, 514

  Letter Writing. By Park Benjamin, 648

  Literary Notices, 114, 231, 478, 594, 706

  Maiden's Dreaming. By E. W. C., 403

  Matter and Spirit. By Lieut. E. Phelps,
    with Reply of Hon. F. P. Stanton, 546

  Mrs. Rabotham's Party. By L. V. F. Randolph, 33

  My Lost Darling, 160

  My Mission. By Ella Rodman, 633

  November. By E. W. C., 500

  October Afternoon In the Highlands, 433

  Our Future. By Lt. Egbert Phelpe, U.S.A. 121

  Patriotism and Provincialism. By H. Clay
    Preuss, 59

  Reason, Rhyme, and Rhythm. Compiled
    and written by Mrs. Martha Walker
    Cook, 20, 168, 293, 412

  Reconnoissance near Fort Morgan, and Expedition
    in Lake Pontchartrain and Pearl
    River, by the Mortar Flotilla of Captain
    D. D. Porter, U. S. N. By F. H. Gerdes,
    Ass't U.S. Coast Survey, 269

  Reconstruction. By Henry Everett Russell, 630

  Remembrance. By G.F.G., 296

  She Defines her Position. By Eliza S. Randolph, 702

  Southern Hate of New England. By Miss
    Virginia Sherwood, 241

  Spring Mountain, 314

  The Assizes of Jerusalem. By Prof. Andrew
    Ten Brook, 501

  The Brothers. An Allegory, 367

  The Buccaneers of America. By W. L.
    Stone, 175

  The Cavalier Theory Refuted. By W. H.
    Whitmore, 60

  The Chicago (Illinois) and other Canals. By
    Hon. Robert J. Walker, 92

  The Defence and Evacuation of Winchester.
    By Hon. Frederick P. Stanton, 481

  The Deserted House, 312

  The Early Arbutus. By Grace De la Veríte, 72

  The Freedom of the Press. By Edward B.
    Freeland, 361

  The Grave, 292

  The Great American Crisis. By Stephen P. Andrews, 658

  The Great Riot. By Edward B. Freeland, 302

  The Isle of Springs. By Rev. C. C. Starbuck, 284, 433

  The Lions of Scotland. By W. Francis Williams, 584

  The Nation. By Hugh Miller Thompson, 601

  The Restoration of the Union. By Hon. F.P. Stanton, 73

  The Sleeping Peri, 159

  The Sleeping Soldier. By Edward N. Pomeroy, 632

  The Spirit's Reproach. By Mrs. Martha W. Cook, 204

  The Third Year of the War. By Hon. F. P. Stanton, 73

  The Two Southern Mothers. By Isabella MacFarlane, 490

  The Year. By W. H. Henderson, 657

  Thirty Days with the Seventy-First Regiment, 404

  Treasure Trove, 545

  Under the Palmetto. By H. G. Spaulding, 188

  Unuttered. By Kate Putnam, 377

  Virginia. By H. T. Tuckerman, 690

  Voiceless Singers, 473

  Waiting for News. By Mrs. Mary E. Nealy, 255

  Was He Successful? By Richard B. Kimball, 82, 346, 452, 670

  West of the Mississippi, 56

  We Two. By Clarence Butler, 591

  Whiffs from My Meerschaum. By Lieut. R. A. Wolcott, 704

  William Lilly, Astrologer. By H. Wilson, 379

  Woman, 105


       *       *       *       *       *



  Number 19           25 Cents

  THE
  CONTINENTAL
  MONTHLY.

  DEVOTED TO

  Literature and National Policy.

  JULY, 1863.


  NEW YORK:
  JOHN F. TROW 50 GREENE STREET
  (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).

  HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY.
  WASHINGTON, D. C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.


  CONTENTS.--No. XIX.


  Emancipation in Jamaica. By Rev. C. C. Starbuck,                     1

  Abijah Witherpee's Retreat,                                         16

  Reason, Rhyme and Rhythm. Compiled and written by
  Mrs. Martha Walker Cook,                                            20

  Mrs. Rabotham's Party. By L. V. F. Randolph,                        33

  Diary of Frances Krasinska,                                         42

  Ladies' Loyal League. By Mrs. O. S. Baker,                          51

  West of the Mississippi,                                            56

  The Cavalier Theory Refuted. By W. H. Whitmore,                     60

  The Early Arbutus. By Grace De la Veríte                            72

  The Third Year of the War. By Hon. Frederick P.
  Stanton,                                                            73

  Was He Successful? By Richard B. Kimball,                           82

  The Chicago (Illinois) and other Canals. By Hon. Robert J. Walker,  92

  Woman,                                                             105

  Literary Notices,                                                  114

  Editor's Table,                                                    118



This Number of the Continental contains an article by the Hon. ROBERT J.
WALKER, written from Ireland.


All communications, whether concerning MSS. or on business, should be
addressed to

JOHN F. TROW, Publisher, 50 GREENE STREET, NEW YORK.


ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by JOHN F.
TROW, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.

JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER.


       *       *       *       *       *




THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.


VOL. IV.--JULY, 1863.--No. I.




EMANCIPATION IN JAMAICA.


The luminous summary of statistical facts published in the March number
of the _Atlantic Monthly_ for 1862, has, in a few pages, conclusively
settled the question whether emancipation in the smaller islands of the
British West Indies has been a success or a failure. It applies the
standard of financial results, which, though the lowest, is undoubtedly
the best; for the defenders of slavery would hardly choose its moral
advantages as their strong position, and if its alleged economical
advantages turn out also an illusion, there is not much to be said for
it. Indeed, of late they have been growing shy of the smaller islands,
which furnish too many weapons for the other side, and too few for their
own; and have chosen rather to divert attention from these by triumphant
clamors about the forlorn condition of Jamaica. This magnificent island,
once the fairest possession of the British crown, now almost a
wilderness, has been the burden of their lamentations over the fatal
workings of emancipation. And truly if emancipation has really done so
much mischief in Jamaica as they claim, it is a most damaging fact.
Testimony of opposite results in the smaller islands would hardly
countervail it. Such testimony would be good to prove that the freedom
of the negro works well in densely peopled insular communities, where
the pressure of population compels industry. The opponents of
emancipation are willing sometimes to acknowledge that where the
laboring population are, as they say, in virtual slavery to the
planters, by the impossibility of obtaining land of their own, their
release from the degradation of being personally owned may act favorably
upon them. But they maintain that where the negro can easily escape from
the control of the planter, as in Jamaica, where plenty of land is
obtainable at low rates, his innate laziness is there invincible. This
very representation I remember to have seen a few years ago in a Jamaica
journal in the planting interest, which maintained that unless the
negroes of that island were also reduced to 'virtual slavery'--using
those very words--by an immense importation of foreign laborers, it
would be impossible to bring them to reasonable terms.

Now the condition of the South is like that of Jamaica, not like that of
the smaller islands. Were the Southern negroes emancipated, and should
they desert the plantations in a body, it is not likely that they would
starve. They could at least support themselves as well as the white
sandhillers, and probably better, considering their previous habits of
work. Besides, as in Jamaica, there would of course be many small
proprietors, who would be ruined by emancipation or before it, and from
whom the negroes could easily procure the few acres apiece that would be
required by the wants of their rude existence. Jamaica, then, is far
nearer a parallel to the South than most of the smaller islands, and for
this reason an inquiry into the true workings of emancipation there is
of prime interest and importance.

The writer is very far indeed from pretending to have carried through
such an inquiry. His personal acquaintance extends to but seven of the
twenty-two parishes of the island, and he is intimately acquainted with
not more than three of those seven. He has but a meagre knowledge of
statistical facts, bearing on the workings of emancipation in the
island, and indeed the statistics themselves, as Mr. Sewell complains,
are very meagre and very hard to get. Still the writer has been able to
gather some facts which will speak for themselves, and he claims for his
personal impressions on points concerning which he cannot give
particular facts the degree of confidence deserved by one who has
resided five years and a half in a rural district, who has lived
familiarly conversant with negroes and with whites of all classes, who
has heard all sides of the question from valued personal friends, and
who neither carried to Jamaica nor brought away from it any peculiar
disposition to an apotheosis of the negro character.

There is, however, an excess of candor affected by some writers on this
question, which is neither honorable to them nor wholesome to their
readers. They would have us believe that they began their inquiries
entirely undecided whether slavery or freedom is the normal condition of
the African race, and that their conclusions, whatever they are, have
been purely deduced from the facts that they have gathered. The writer
lays claim to no such comprehensive indifference. He would as soon think
of suspending his faith in Christ until he could resolve all the
difficulties of the first of Genesis, as of suspending his moral
judgment respecting the system which makes one man the brute instrument
of another's gain, till he knew just how the statistics of sugar and
coffee stand. Woe unto us if the fundamental principles which govern
human relations have themselves no better foundation than the
fluctuating figures of blue-books!

But if freedom is better than slavery, she will be sure to vindicate her
superiority in due time, and is little beholden to overzealous friends
who cannot be content meanwhile that present facts shall tell their own
story, whatever it be. There is much, very much, in the present
condition of Jamaica, to cause an honest man to think twice before
setting it down as testifying favorably for emancipation, or before
dismissing it as not testifying unfavorably against it.

And first, all rose-colored accounts of the Jamaica negro may be
summarily dismissed. He is not a proficient in industry, economy,
intelligence, morality, or religion, but, though rising, is yet far down
on the scale in all these respects. Nor is it true that all his peculiar
vices are to be referred to slavery. The sensuality, avarice, cunning,
and litigiousness of the Creole[1] negro correspond exactly with Du
Chaillu's and Livingstone's descriptions of the native African.[2] But
on the other hand, the accounts of these travellers bear witness to a
freshness and independence of spirit in the native African, which has
been crushed out of the enslaved negro. Several missionaries have gone
from Jamaica to Africa, and they speak with delight of the manliness
and vigor of character which they find among the blacks there, as
contrasted with the abjectness of those who have been oppressed by
slavery and infected with its sly and cringing vices. Although the
faults of the negro, except this servile abjectness, may not have been
created by slavery, yet slavery and heathenism are so identical in
character and tendency that there is scarcely a heathen vice, and, as we
have found of late to our sorrow, scarcely a heathen cruelty, which
slavery would not create if it did not exist, and of course scarcely one
already existing which it does not foster and intensify. The unsocial
selfishness of the emancipated black man, his untrustworthiness and want
of confidence in others, are traits that his race may have brought with
it from Africa, but they have been nourished by slavery, until it seems
almost impossible to eradicate them. I am happy to say, however, that
the young people who have been subjected to the best influences, exhibit
already the virtues of public spirit and faithfulness to a very
gratifying degree. The trouble is that they are a minority of the whole.
And until the character of the negroes can be so elevated as to bring
them to put some confidence in one another, they may improve in
individual industry, as they manifestly are improving, but the benefits
resulting from combined action can be enjoyed only in a very limited
measure. Even now two black men can hardly own so much as a small sugar
mill in common. They are almost sure to quarrel over the division of the
profits. The consequence is, that, whereas they might have neighborhood
mills and sugar works of the best quality at much less expense, now,
where the small settlers raise the cane, each man must have his little
mill and boilers to himself, at all the extra cost of money and labor
that it occasions. And so of savings banks and associations for
procuring medical aid, and a thousand other objects of public utility,
without which a people must remain in the rudest state. Fortunately,
however, the negro is strongly disposed to worship, and the church, that
society out of which a thousand other societies have sprung, has a
strong hold upon him. Under the shelter of that, many other beneficent
associations will doubtless grow up.

But if rose-colored accounts of the freed negro are to be dismissed
unceremoniously, on the other hand, the malignant representations which
Mr. Carlyle seems to find such a relish in believing deserve to be
branded as both false and wicked. His mythical negro, up to the ears in
'pumpkin,' working half an hour a day, and not to be tempted by love or
money to work more, would have been, during my whole residence in the
island, as great a curiosity to me as an ornithorhynchus. Doubtless
something approaching to the phenomenon can be found; for a young
Scotchman, a friend of mine, who was appointed to take the census of a
secluded district, came to me after visiting it, and gave me an account
of the people he had found in the bush, answering pretty nearly to Mr.
Carlyle's description. But though he had been in the island from a boy,
he spoke of it with something of the surprise attending a new discovery.
I should state, however, that my residence was in a district mostly
occupied by small freeholders, and containing but few estates. In
planting districts the number of worthless, idle negroes is much larger.
I have been assured that the negroes of the parish of Vere are
peculiarly so. The men, I have been told, do scarcely any work, except
in crop time; the women do none at all, not even to keep their houses
neat. There is scarcely a cottage in the parish that has a bread-fruit
or a cocoanut tree on its ground.[3] Everything is dirty and forlorn. On
the other hand, in Metcalfe and the adjoining parts of St. Andrew, and
St. Thomas in the Vale, although the mass of the working people have
certainly not learned much about comfort yet, still the number of neat,
floored, and glazed houses, the fruit trees on almost every negro plot,
the neat hibiscus hedges, with their gay red flowers, surrounding even
the poorer huts, the small cane fields and coffee pieces noticeable at
every turn, and the absence of loungers about the cottages, go to make
up a very different picture from what has been drawn of Vere. It is
plain, then, that the impressions which travellers bring away with them
from Jamaica will vary almost to entire opposition, according to the
quarters they have visited. Now what is the cause of these glaring
contrasts? The negro character is remarkably uniform. If there are great
differences among them, every one that knows them will ascribe it to a
difference in circumstances. What is the difference then between
Metcalfe and Vere? Simply this: Metcalfe is the home of small
freeholders; Vere is a sugar parish, where the estates are in prosperous
activity. It has been less affected by emancipation than any other
parish. In Metcalfe the negroes are independent; in Vere they are
completely subject to the planters. It is said that not even an ounce of
sugar is permitted to be sold in the parish. All is for exportation. If
the writer then attempts to vindicate the character of the blacks from
the reproaches of incurable laziness and unthriftiness that have been
cast upon it, he wishes it to be understood that he speaks only for the
freeholders, who have homes of their own, which they have an inducement
to improve and beautify, and who have land of their own which no
dishonest motive prompts them to neglect, and for the estate laborers
whose condition most nearly resembles theirs. If the blacks on many
plantations are little disposed to adorn homes from which they may be
ejected at any time; if they are discouraged from the minor industries
essential to comfort, lest these should interfere with the grosser labor
required of them; if they are kept idle out of crop time for fear they
should not be available in crop time; if their mental improvement is
discouraged by the planter instinct, unchanged in nature though
circumscribed in scope; if on many estates they are herded in barracks
whose promiscuous life debases still lower their already low morality;
if their labors are directed for absentee masters by hired overseers,
whose interest is not to create a wholesome confidence between laborers
and proprietors, but to get the most they can out of them during their
own term of employment; if they are treated with the old slaveholding
arrogance, embittered by the consciousness of a check; and if thereby
the more self-respecting are driven off, and the more abject-spirited
who remain are rendered still more abject: I submit it is not fair to
argue from this class of semi-slaves to the character of those who are
really free, who call no man master, who have a chance to be men if they
will, unhampered except by the general depressing influences that will
always work in a country where slavery has lately existed, and where the
slaveholding class have still a predominant social and political
influence. And it is to be noted that Carlyle's picture is drawn from
the neighborhood of a plantation, and so are Trollope's. Mr. Trollope,
it is true, takes all imaginable pains to write himself down an ass. By
his own ostentatious confessions, the only intellectual
comprehensiveness to which he can lay claim is an astonishingly
comprehensive ignorance. In view of this, his sage discoursings upon
grave questions of political and social economy have about as comical an
effect as the moralizings of a harlequin. But he is a lively describer
of what passes under his eyes, and his sketches of what he heard and saw
among the planters and on the plantations are doubtless authentic.
However, he did not visit the small settlers; and to take pains to
inform himself of the condition of a class of the population which he
was not among, except by catching up the dinner-table maledictions of
his planting friends against the class which they hate most, as being
least dependent on them, would be of course entirely contrary to his
professed superficiality.

There are but two recent works of much value on emancipation in
Jamaica--Underhill's and Sewell's. The work of Mr. Underhill, although,
as a delegate of a missionary society which had much to do in bringing
about emancipation, he might be supposed to have a strong party
interest, is marked by an impartial caution which entitles it to great
respect and confidence.[4]

As to Mr. Sewell's book, it is marvellous how he could obtain so clear
an insight in so short a time into the true condition of things. The
paucity of statistical facts, however, plagued him, as it does every
writer on Jamaica; and while the delinquencies of the planters are
patent and palpable, he could not appreciate so well as a resident the
difficulties arising from the provoking treacherousness of the negro
character.

It is known by most, who do not choose to remain conveniently ignorant,
that though the ruin of Jamaican planting prosperity has been
accelerated by emancipation, it had been steadily going on for more than
a generation previous. In 1792 the Jamaica Assembly represented to
Parliament that in the twenty years previous one hundred and
seventy-seven estates had been sold for debt. In 1800, it is stated in
the Hon. Richard Hill's interesting little book, 'Lights and Shadows of
Jamaica History,' judgments had been recorded against estates in the
island to the enormous amount of £33,000,000. In the five years before
the slave trade was abolished in 1807, sixty-five estates had been given
up. Against the abolition of the slave trade the Assembly made the most
urgent remonstrances, representing that it would be impossible to keep
up the supply of labor without it. In other words, the slaves were
worked to death so rapidly that natural increase alone would not
maintain their number. The result justified their prediction.[5] In
1804, it appears that there were eight hundred and fifty-nine sugar
estates in operation in the island. In 1834 there were six hundred and
forty-six. In 1854 there were three hundred and thirty. Thus it appears
that in the thirty years previous to the abolition of slavery, one
quarter of the estates in operation at the beginning of that term had
been abandoned, and in the twenty years succeeding abolition one half of
those remaining had been given up. It is certainly no wonder that so
great a social shock as emancipation, coming upon a tottering fabric,
hastened its fall. But the foregoing facts show that, in the language
of Mr. Underhill, 'ruin has been the chronic condition of Jamaica ever
since the beginning of the century.'

The distinguished historian of the island, Bryan Edwards, himself a
planter, and opposed to the abolition of the slave trade, describes the
sugar cultivation, even before the supply of labor from Africa was cut
off, as precarious in the highest degree, a mere lottery, and often, he
says, 'a millstone around the neck of the unfortunate proprietor.' That
this was from no invincible necessity, the uniform prosperity of
numerous estates shows. But these estates are all conducted
economically, while, on the other hand, reckless extravagance was the
rule in the palmy days of the olden time, and has remained, even in
humbler circumstances, an inborn trait of the Creole gentleman.

If this was so during the continuance of the slave trade, what could
have been looked for when this means of obtaining labor was suddenly cut
off? Sewell states the estimated supply of negroes from Africa necessary
to make up the annual waste at ten thousand. When this ceased it was
obvious that only such a complete revolution in the system of labor as
should save the horrible waste of life could preserve the plantations
from ruin and the island from depopulation. But though the waste of life
was diminished, it still went on. Estate after estate had to be given up
for want of hands, at the same time that a constant decrease in the
price of sugar in London, amounting to fifty per cent between 1815 and
1835, made it less and less profitable to work the remaining ones, and
thus the planters were going steadily to ruin and the negro population
steadily to extinction, for almost a generation before emancipation. In
a memorial of the planters to Parliament in 1831, three years before
abolition, they declare that without Parliamentary aid they are doomed
to hopeless ruin. Already, they say, hundreds of respectable persons had
been reduced almost to beggary by the precarious condition of the
planting interest. In this memorial they make no allusion to the
anti-slavery agitations, which produced no serious effect in the colony
till 1832. Indeed the West Indian interest had been a notorious
mendicant of old, and as in time a large part of West Indian estates had
come to be owned by the British aristocracy, this begging was not apt to
be in vain. Could Creole thriftlessness have been abolished and the
slave trade retained, the ruin of the estates might have been averted.
But as human power was not adequate to the first, nor Christian
conscience capable of the second, no course was left but to let planting
prosperity go its own way to destruction, and endeavor at least to save
the population of the island from extermination. This emancipation
effected, and this was its work. If it hastened the ruin of an interest
which not even Parliamentary subsidies and high protective duties could
prop up without the horrors of the middle passage, its trespass was
certainly a very venial one compared with its work of salvation.
Undoubtedly the great transition from slavery to freedom might have been
better managed had the planters, recognizing it as inevitable, concurred
heartily in efforts to smoothe the passage. The emancipationists in
Parliament had at first no thought of immediate or even of speedy
abolition. They did not suppose it wise or humane. Their first efforts
merely contemplated such ameliorations of the condition of the slaves as
common decency and humanity would prompt. They brought the Imperial
Government to propose to the slaveholding colonies the enactment of laws
abolishing the flogging of females, mitigating punishments, allowing the
slaves to testify in court in cases to which whites were parties,
providing for their religious instruction, appointing guardians of their
scanty rights, giving them one week day for themselves, and restricting
arbitrary sales of slaves. Not one of the colonies would agree to a
single one of these measures. That peculiar obstinacy which slaveholding
dominion seems to engender, made them, as with us, bent on having all or
nothing. All hopes of instituting a gradual preparation for freedom
being thus defeated by the stubborn refusal of the slaveholders to
concur, speedy emancipation became a necessity. But even yet the
abolitionists had not learned that if slaves are to be set free from
their masters, the more quickly they are put out of their hands the
better. A muzzled wolf, appointed to keep sheep he would much rather
eat, would make about as amiable a custodian as masters allowed to
exercise a limited authority over bondmen whom they have hitherto always
had at their own will, and know they are about to lose altogether. I
think it is generally agreed that the few years of apprenticeship were
more plague than profit to all parties, and made the alienation between
proprietors and laborers still more complete. At the same time, as the
hours of labor were limited to eight, and Saturday was secured to the
apprentices for themselves, the negroes fell into a way of thinking that
they could only work those eight hours anyhow, and must have an idle
time on the Saturday; and this notion continued to foster indolence for
a good while after they were their own masters. The short time, too,
which the planters knew they should have them at their control,
naturally stimulated them to make the most of them meanwhile. One
gentleman in Metcalfe, for instance, laid out a thousand acres of coffee
on a newly enlarged property, and gave orders to transfer a gang of
negroes from an estate of his some twelve miles distant. The negroes
cling like oysters to their birthplace, and they flatly refused to leave
their grounds and their friends. The master summoned policemen, and had
them cruelly flogged till they consented to go. Apprenticeship was
abolished two years earlier than he had reckoned on, and the laborers
thus forcibly transferred left him then in a body, and the thousand
acres of coffee went to ruin. Had some Trollope chanced then to be
travelling through that quarter, and been entertained by the
disappointed proprietor with all the noble bounteousness which
distinguished him, we can easily imagine how this fact would have
figured in his book, as a proof of unconquerable negro laziness.

It was peculiarly unfortunate for Jamaica at this juncture, that the
estates were mostly managed by attorneys and overseers for absentee
landlords. Middlemen, it is said, ruined Ireland, and it is certain that
they have helped mightily to ruin Jamaica. If attorneys had been ever so
honest, how could they be efficient, when one attorney had very commonly
the charge of four, six, ten, or even fourteen estates? If he paid a
hasty visit to each one once in two years he did well. And as to
overseers, how could honesty be expected when common morality was not
permitted? It was a rule, having almost the force of law, that an
overseer, if he married, was at once dismissed.[6] Loose licentiousness
and loose dishonesty are very apt to go hand in hand, and it is certain
that they did in Jamaica. A saying still in use among the whites of the
island illustrates the standard of integrity: 'Make me your executor,
and I do not ask you to make me your heir.' No wonder that estates went
down like a row of bricks, one after another, when they had such
managers. Had Jamaica been occupied at the time of emancipation by a
resident proprietary, it is not likely that even they could have so far
overcome their despotic habits and contempt for the negro as to treat
the laboring population with fairness, and what they value still more,
with decent respect. But still less could it be expected of the
overseers that they would exercise foresight and self-control enough to
retain the good will of the blacks. They had all the feelings of
slaveholders, aggravated by more direct contact with the slaves, while
their interest only bound them to make the most out of the estates
during their own term of employment, no matter if they took a course
that would ruin them eventually. Besides, an overseer must have been
often tempted to work on the fears of a proprietor, just after
emancipation, to persuade him to sell the estate to him; and many a one
would not hesitate to ruin the property to bring down its price to his
own means, knowing that the sale of the land or its conversion to
pasturage would reimburse him.

The various means by which the planters endeavored to keep the negroes
on the estates are too well known to require detail. Summary ejectments
of the refractory from their dwellings, destruction of their provision
grounds, refusal to sell them land except at exorbitant prices, were all
tried. But there is too much land in Jamaica, and too few people, to
make this game successful. There were abundance of thrown-up estates,
and especially of coffee properties in the mountains, whose owners were
only too glad to sell land at reasonable rates, and so this policy of
coercion simply wrought out an incurable alienation between a large part
of the proprietors and a large part of the peasantry. It must not be
supposed, however, that the tyranny was all on one side. If at
emancipation there was an unprincipled strife on the part of the
planters to get the better of the negroes, there was an equally
unprincipled and far more adroitly managed strife on the part of the
negroes to get the better of the planters. Long and close observation of
the emancipated black has satisfied the writer beyond all doubt that
laziness is not one of his prominent faults. Negligent, unthrifty,
careless of time, and sufficiently disposed to take his ease, he
undoubtedly is. But every year of freedom has shown an advance, and the
five years and a half of the writer's residence showed so unmistakable
an advance in regular industry, carefulness of time, skill in laying out
labor, and in the increase of the wants that stimulate industry, that
his early misgivings as to the capacity and disposition of the freed
negro to take care of himself were finally put to rest. But a
disposition to take care of himself and a disposition to be faithful to
the interests of others are two very different things. At emancipation,
the negroes' stimulants to making money were very strong. In the first
impulse of their zeal they were everywhere erecting chapels and schools,
raising large sums for the support of their ministers and schoolmasters;
they were everywhere building houses, buying land, and laying the
foundation of that settled well-being which time has continually made
firmer. Then, too, money was plentiful, sugar bore a high price, and,
notwithstanding the churlishness of many planters, more, perhaps, were
eager to retain their hands by offering the highest possible wages, and
even higher in many cases than the estates would bear. Nor were the
blacks at all averse to making money. But though the Jamaica negro does
not object to work, he dearly loves to cheat. The keenest Yankee that
ever skinned a flint, cannot approach him in trickiness. This native
trait has been sharpened to the utmost by the experience of slavery,
which left him with the profound conviction that 'Buckra'[7] was fair
plunder. The poor fellow could not be very severely blamed for thinking
thus, for certainly he had been fair plunder for Buckra from time
immemorial. Accordingly, the first few years after emancipation appear
on many estates to have been passed in a continual struggle on the part
of the negroes to see how much they could get out of the planters and
how little they could give in return. They knew they had the whip hand
of massa, and they were not slow to profit by the knowledge. They would
saunter to their work at eight or nine o'clock in the morning, dawdle
through it with intensely provoking unfaithfulness till three or four in
the afternoon, and then would raise a prodigious uproar if they were not
paid as liberally as if they had done an honest day's work. The poor
planter meanwhile was at his wits' end. It was of no use to turn them
off and hire another set, for, like the fox in the fable, he knew he
should only fare the worse. If the estate was large enough to stand the
strain for two or three years, and the manager was a man of self-control
enough to keep his temper, and firmness enough to persevere in a
winnowing of the whole region round about, treating them meanwhile with
decency, and paying them honestly and promptly, he would at last be able
to get a set of trusty hands, and give all the negroes of the
neighborhood such an understanding of him that they would be ready, if
they went to work for him, to leave off cheating, and honestly earn
their wages. A friend of mine took an abandoned estate in 1854, and
though for two or three years he was tortured like a bear at a stake, he
succeeded at last, by the most scrupulous fairness on his own part, and
by not tolerating the least dishonesty in a hand, in creating such a
public sentiment among his laborers, that for their own credit they
would themselves expose the dishonesty of a comrade. Now, he has as many
laborers, and profitable ones, as he needs. But how many planters could
be expected to have the principle or patience to carry out such a course
of discipline? The ruin of the estates, or rather the acceleration of
their inevitable ruin, is justly attributed, in large measure, to the
planters, to their imperious bearing toward the enfranchised blacks, to
their harsh expedients for keeping in dependence the large and much the
best class of blacks, who wanted to become freeholders, to the slackness
and unfaithfulness with which the wages of the people were often paid,
to the debasing influences of the plantation, which drove off the more
self-respecting, and to the waste, dishonesty, and shortsightedness
inevitable in the management of several hundred estates mainly by
middlemen. But on the other hand, it is not to be forgotten that the
African barbarian, brought a heathen from home, and plunged into the
deeper darkness of a compulsory heathenism, rigorously secluded by
jealous cupidity from every ray of intellectual, and, so far as
possible, of spiritual light, liable to cruel punishment if he snatched
a few hours from his rest or his leisure to listen to the missionary,
from whom alone he heard words of heavenly comfort or of human sympathy,
condemned to a lifetime of unrequited labor--it must not be forgotten
that he could not fail to come out from this school of supreme
dishonesty with its lessons so deeply imprinted on his mind that not one
generation or two would eradicate them, and that of all others he would
be most inclined to practise them upon the white man, whom, having
always known as a plunderer, he was only too glad to have an opportunity
to plunder in return. Had Jamaica been occupied by a resident
proprietary, attached by hereditary affection and pride to the soil,
elevated by family sanctities, connected by something like kindly ties
with their bondmen, and regarded by these in turn with something of
affectionate fealty, in that case, although it is not likely that the
ruin of the plantations could have been averted, it might have been
delayed and mitigated. Mr. Underhill indeed goes further, and quotes the
testimony of an overseer in the west of the island, that he knew of no
estate managed, since emancipation, by a resident owner, which had not
continued profitable. But a class of hirelings, debased in morals by the
cruel selfishness of their employers, tempted almost irresistibly to
unfaithfulness by the five thousand miles of ocean between them and
their principals, and to recklessness and tyranny by the uncertain
tenure of their places, and connected with the slaves by none but the
grossest and most sordid ties--such management, in such a crisis, when
the ties of old subjection were suddenly dissolved, and the negro stood
independent, and knowing his independence, before his masters, would
have ruined any country under the sun.

As to the present condition of the emancipated blacks, it is certain
that the 7,340 freeholds which had been acquired in 1840, two years
after emancipation, have considerably increased in number. I never heard
of a negro freehold being given up,[8] while I did know of continual
purchases of land by the blacks, either to make new holdings or to
extend old ones.

The parish of Hanover is one in which happily the various classes are in
a good degree united in feeling. The Hanover Society of Industry
prepared a report about three years ago, quoted by Mr. Underhill, which
shows that in that parish about seven eighths of the people are on
holdings of their own, of which 891 consist of 1 acre, 431 of 2 acres,
and 802 average 5-1/4 acres each. Each family on an average consists of
4-1/2 persons, and cultivates something over an acre, securing an income
of about £28. Those who own land are five times as numerous as those who
only hire it. The annual value of produce from the small holdings,
estimated at £28 for each (£2 less than the society's estimate), is
about £60,000. There are, besides, 29 estates having 3,675 acres under
cultivation, and employing 2,760 laborers, of whom two thirds are
females.[9] About one eighth of the population is at work upon them.
These estates average 2,608 hogsheads of sugar, and 1,435 puncheons of
rum. Of the whole area of the estates, 3,555 acres are in pasturage, and
28,552 acres inaccessible or ruinate. There are, besides, 151 small
properties of 20 acres and upward. In six districts, comprising about
one fourth of the parish, there were found 143 small cane mills, valued
at £10 apiece, which turned out, in 1859, 455 barrels of sugar, worth
about £900, to say nothing of the pork fattened on the refuse molasses.
One district of the six, constituting the quarter of the parish
examined, produced, in 1857, 146 barrels; in 1858, 227 barrels; in 1859,
261 barrels.

This is a pretty fair picture of what may be expected in parishes where
the whites show some regard for the blacks; not very magnificent
results, it is true, but showing the disposition of the people to
procure land of their own, and their increasing disposition to add to
the raising of provisions the cultivation of the great staple of the
soil. The report of the Society of Industry bears the following
testimony to their character: 'The peasantry are, generally speaking,
industrious and well behaved, and are gradually becoming more
comfortable in their worldly circumstances. In the town of Lucea there
has been a decided increase in the amount of business within the last
three years as compared with a number of years previously.' In Hanover,
in 1845, there were 70 estates in operation. In 1860 there were only 29.
The planters of this parish, however, do not lay the blame on the
negroes, but attribute the decline to the mountainous character of the
parish, which made it unprofitable to continue the estates after the
great fall in the price of sugar.

Now the blacks of Hanover are just the same race as the rest of the
negro population of the island. The only difference is that the whites
of that parish, instead of treating them with contempt and neglect, have
shown something of courtesy and care toward them. The numerous
conversations which Mr. Underhill reports with the owners and managers
of successful estates show how simple are the rules by which they secure
success. To manifest a decent respect for the blacks, to be firm, but
temperate and fair in dealing with them, to use the best improvements in
machinery, and to exercise a strict economy of management--this appears
to be the sum of the difference between prosperous and unprosperous
plantations, provided of course that both are equally well situated for
success.

Metcalfe, the writer's residence during most of his stay in Jamaica, is,
like Hanover, a parish of small freeholders, but unlike Hanover, the
blacks and the few whites are not on good terms. Excepting what has been
done by missionaries, which is not a little, they are little indebted to
any but themselves for their prosperity. And as one charged with their
religious instruction, the writer can bear witness that for several
years they have needed to be restrained from avarice more than to be
stimulated to industry. A clergyman, a friend of mine, humorously
complained that he had lost by stirring up his people to work, for that
now they were so diligently employed upon their own places, that he
could get scarcely anybody to work for him. The average number of acres
owned by forty families, of which I made lists, is seven--a pretty fair
estimate, I should judge, of the whole; and seven acres in Jamaica is
equivalent in productiveness to a much larger amount here. One fourth
had floored houses, and as large a proportion had sugar mills. Many of
the families have one or two horses, worth commonly from £5 to £12
apiece. Not a few have mules, which are much more valuable; and nearly
all the rest have donkeys. The proportion of floored and glazed houses,
some of them shingled, is steadily though not very rapidly increasing;
and I need not say that in that climate, and with their yet rudimentary
ideas of comfort, a floor of earth is no indication of indigence.

The holdings vary from one to forty acres, but are more commonly from
three to six. Almost every freeholder hires land besides, and a great
deal of time is lost in going to distant pieces of ground. The wants of
the people have increased faster than they reckoned on, and the land was
bought up so rapidly around them that now they are subject to this
disadvantage in making new purchases. In St. Ann, the Baptist
congregations alone spent £10,000 in a few years in buying land.

The furniture of the poorer houses is miserably scanty; £3 would more
than cover it. But the better houses, now multiplying year by year,
boast their four-post bedsteads, often of the native mahogany, sometimes
mahogany chairs, and corresponding articles. If a white family, on
removing, expose their furniture to sale, it is caught up by the people
with eagerness at almost any price asked. The very improvidence of the
negroes stimulates their industry. They are exceedingly litigious, and
exceedingly ostentatious on the few grand occasions they enjoy.[10]
These luxuries, especially the former, cost them dear, but their very
expense makes it the more necessary to work to find the means of
indulging in them. Remunerative labor is eagerly sought after. The
magnificent road now building through the island and traversing the
parish of Metcalfe, has a superfluity of workmen, notwithstanding the
shameful unfairness with which they have often been treated by the
superintendents. I have known the people go in numbers to an estate ten
miles distant, and remain there for weeks, except on the Saturdays and
Sundays, away from their homes, working hard at digging and embanking,
because they could secure one and sixpence sterling a day. I have often
had occasion to employ men on short jobs, and though not unfrequently
obliged to wait some time before securing a workman, I never suffered
delay because they were too idle, but because they were too busy to
attend to me. During my residence among them their progress in industry
became too marked to be overlooked. However negligent our observations,
we could not fail to notice the increasing patches of cane in some
quarters, the extending provision grounds in others, the multiplying
houses of the better sort, the earlier hours of going to the field, and
the later hours coming from it at night. A firm in Kingston, accustomed
to sell the implements of negro labor, found the demand for tools
increasing faster than they could supply it. And we were glad to find
that they were becoming not merely more industrious, but more skilful in
their industry. A friend, who had much to do with them, assured me that
the young men greatly surpass their parents in forecast in the laying
out of labor, and had got over the miserliness shown by the old people
in providing means for carrying it on. He said a few years before he
could not have sold a good tool, and now he could not sell a bad one. An
old negro, he remarked, would groan over a sixpence extra in buying a
tool; the young man would say: 'Come, let us have things in good style
at the start, and our profits will soon pay for them.' Not that habits
of industry are so confirmed that there are not a good many local and
temporary relapses into the old careless ways. But the relapses are
fitful, the advance is steady. Of course, with growing means their wants
rise, and increasing wants in turn react happily upon their industry.
The friend to whom I have several times referred, and who, being both a
missionary and a proprietor, is placed in a pretty impartial equipoise
of judgment, remarks that if some of those at home who imagine the
Jamaica negro as lying lazily in the sun, eating bananas, could see the
bill of fare of a good many black men, and compare it with what they
were used to eat in time of slavery, they would probably be rather
astonished. His estate is not large, but I remember that he has been
unable for several weeks in the height of the sugar season to put up a
barrel of sugar, on account of the people's buying it off in small
quantities as fast as it was made. The many families that have small
mills, of course, supply their own wants fully before they sell, and
they commonly prefer selling the surplus among their neighbors to taking
it down to the exporters. Thus it appears that the diminution in the
exports of Jamaica is not wholly owing to the decrease of production.
Mr. Underhill says he was assured by an overseer that the present
consumption of sugar by the people of Jamaica was much greater
proportionately than its use by the English, and there can be no doubt
of this. It was very different in slavery. Undoubtedly there is less
produced, much less, for production is diminished by the want of the ten
thousand men a year that were used up to keep it at its highest point.
Naturally, freemen prefer their own lives to the extra hogsheads of
sugar that can be turned out by sacrificing them. It is also diminished
by the steady fall in the price of sugar, which has made a difference
between 1815 and 1850 of seventy-five per cent., rendering the
inveterate extravagance of old management ruinous. It is diminished
because slavery ruined confidence and good will between owners and
laborers. It is diminished because an immense amount of labor has been
diverted to the establishment of the homes, churches, and schools of a
prosperous yeomanry. It is diminished because the growth of family life,
though feeble and struggling, has withdrawn from the field wholly, or in
part, thousands of women and children. It is diminished because higher
than bodily necessities now consume time that was once rigorously denied
to them. And lastly, it is diminished because the alienation caused by
slavery has thrown upon themselves thousands of the emancipated bondmen,
formerly accustomed to labor only as mechanical implements, to acquire
skill, economy, and thrift by a long course of untutored experiments. On
the other hand, much that is now produced makes no figure in the markets
of the world, because it is consumed by the people themselves, no longer
kept, for the profit of masters, at the lowest point at which they could
maintain an animal existence. And not only do they consume so much, but
they have enough left to buy from abroad whatever their increased
necessities cannot find at home. It was not so in the good old times.
Then the money that was made was sent to England to be spent by noble
and gentle landlords there, and little good did Jamaica get of it. So
little indeed was the island thought of even by the residents as a place
to spend money on, so much as a place to get money in that was to be
spent in England, that, as Mr. Sewell remarks, good roads have begun to
be built, to any considerable extent, only since freedom. Forlorn as
Kingston is, it was always forlorn; and not till slavery was abolished
did they think to introduce the water which is now supplied in such
abundance to the city. A rude profusion of luxury was all the planters
aimed at till they could get home to the refinements of the mother
country. In a word, in time of slavery, Jamaica was simply an
aggregation of sugar and coffee mills, kept running by a stream of human
blood. Now it is a land whose inhabitants are free to live for
themselves and for God, to enjoy the gifts of His hand, and to send into
the markets of the world, not a surplus which has cost one hundred
hecatombs of men each year, but a surplus which has cost no life, but
whose rich fruits come back to cheer and adorn thousands of lives.
Commerce may have lost by the change, and there may be some jewels the
less in the coronets of English nobility, but we may be permitted to
believe that Christ and humanity have no reason to grieve.

It must not be thought, however, that estates are going down as rapidly
now as formerly. Indeed, for a few years, I question whether more have
not been resumed than abandoned. In 1855 the value of exports of the
four staples, coffee, pimento, rum, and sugar, was £786,429; in 1856,
£814,659; in 1857, £1,141,472. I have not the statistics of the years
following. This check to the ruin of the estates is a matter of
rejoicing, for the entire abandonment of the island by the whites would
be a great disaster. As Mr. Underhill well observes, the ascendency of
the white man is needed to temper the enmity between the browns and the
blacks. The former, who constitute about one fifth of the population,
although sharing the wealth and intelligence of the whites, are regarded
with strong dislike by the blacks. Hayti shows how dangerous it is to
leave these two elements in a society without a moderating force. I
cannot share the pleasure with which some anticipate the complete
Africanization of the West Indies. European intelligence, European
conscience, and European firmness of will are necessary to insure to the
blacks the permanence of those rich blessings which emancipation has
bestowed. The black man has the industry and is daily improving in the
skill necessary to secure his material well-being; but for very many
years to come, it would be a most disastrous thing for him, hazarding
the loss of all that he has gained, to be deprived of either the
religious or the political oversight of the white race. The planters of
Jamaica are not distinguished by a very rigid morality or a very severe
integrity, but their withdrawal would inflict incurable harm on
intelligence, order, industry, and civilization. They may be
contemptuously indifferent to the moral and intellectual improvement of
the blacks, but they have no longer a lively interest in opposing it. By
this time they are gradually becoming convinced that the spirit of
slavery cannot be maintained when its power is gone, and are growing
disposed, so far as they have dealings with the blacks, to deal with
them on more equal terms. Bare justice may be the most they are willing
to accord, but even that is a great gain. The journals in their interest
no longer lavish on the freeholding blacks the abuse with which they
once teemed, even after the writer went to the island. The planters are
willing to admit, like those of Westmoreland in an appeal to the
Assembly in behalf of immigration, 'that they do not find fault with
the difficulty of getting labor, which is a necessary result of the
easy acquisition of land,' The more candid are willing to say, as I
heard a gentleman of their class observe: 'We do not complain of the
negroes; they have done as well for themselves perhaps as any people
would. But just because they are doing so well for themselves, they
cannot be depended on to do well for us.' Hence the call for immigrant
laborers; a just and reasonable call, if only the immigration is
conducted with that rigid and conscientious care for the comfort of the
immigrants for which Mr. Sewell gives the government of Trinidad credit,
and if it is really voluntary. The fear that it will injure the negro,
or that he dreads it, is wholly baseless. The negroes have remained
utterly indifferent to the whole agitation of the subject, and are on
perfectly amiable terms with the few coolies already introduced. Indeed
it will be rather for their interest, as a negro remarked to Mr.
Underhill, by giving them a better sale for their produce. The coolies
now in the island appear to have done well. And the danger of
overcrowding the population on a land teeming with tropical plenty,
whose area of 6,400 square miles is occupied by but 441,000 inhabitants,
is not a very imminent one, from any number within the means of the
colony to introduce. And on the ability to procure foreign labor very
much depends the hope of reviving the planting prosperity of Jamaica on
a sounder basis, and in such a degree as is compatible with the
substantial good of the whole population. It is true the population,
relieved from the dreadful waste of slavery, is increasing. The census
of 1844 showed a population of 377,433. That of 1861 showed one of
441,264, an increase of 63,831 in seventeen years. The immigration of
coolies during that time has been between 18,000 and 20,000; the
decrease of the whites, 3,000. The net increase by immigration then has
been at the most 17,000, leaving 47,000 as the natural increase, or 12
per cent., in seventeen years. This is what remains after two terrible
visitations of cholera, and one of small pox, all within eleven years,
which together are computed to have swept off 40,000 persons. The
increase would doubtless be much greater but for the loose living and
careless habits of the negroes, and their almost entire destitution of
medical attendance. There are now, it appears, but fifty qualified
practitioners in the island, with no hopes of reinforcement.

The results of this census were very gratifying, and very unexpected.
Such scanty means are there, ordinarily, of knowing the true condition
of the country, that it was a prevailing impression that the population
was decreasing. Had slavery continued, the present population would
probably have been about 275,000. The difference of 165,000 in favor of
freedom tells its own story. But the present necessities of the estates
call for a more speedy augmentation of the laboring force than is
furnished by natural increase alone.

I have omitted to mention in its proper place one gratifying sign that
those minor industries which make so large a part of the prosperity of
the wealthiest free communities, but which are neglected by the coarse
labor of slaves, and have been particularly despised by the Jamaica
planters, are now coming up in the island. Hitherto, sugar, rum, and
coffee have been the all in all of prosperity to Jamaicans. But in 1838,
the pimento export was 2,708,640 pounds; in 1858, 9,465,261 pounds. In
1838 the export of logwood was 8,432 cwt.; of fustic, 2,126 cwt.; of
mahogany, 1,936 feet; of cocoanuts, 0; of honey, 0. In 1859, the export
of logwood was 14,006 cwt.; of fustic, 2,329 cwt.; of mahogany, 35,000
feet; of cocoanuts, 712,913; of honey, 6,954 pounds. The ginger export
has diminished from 1,834,120 pounds in 1841, to 709,620 pounds in 1858.
This increase in the lesser articles of trade shows a brisker
circulation in the capillaries of the social system, a sure token of
reviving health. Indeed, before the writer left the island, that dreary
uncertainty how affairs were turning, which prevailed for the first half
of his stay, had given way to the returning cheerfulness arising from
the feeling that Jamaica had touched bottom, and that henceforward,
however slowly, her prospects were brightening. This cheerful feeling
displays itself in a late report of Governor Darling to the Home
Government, some paragraphs of which follow, quoted from Mr. Underhill's
book, from which the writer has derived so large a part of the facts
that he has had to take at second hand, and which he is glad again to
commend as kindly, impartial, and full of carefully gathered and exactly
appreciated information. His conjectural estimates of property, however,
are exceptionable, as decidedly too high.

Governor Darling, himself a planter, says:

     'The proportion of those who are settling themselves industriously
     on their holdings, and rapidly rising in the social scale, while
     commanding the respect of all classes of the community, and some of
     whom are, to a limited extent, themselves the employers of hired
     labor, paid for either in money or in kind, is, I am happy to
     think, not only steadily increasing, but at the present moment is
     far more extensive than was anticipated by those who are cognizant
     of all that took place in the colony in the earlier days of negro
     freedom.

     'There can be no doubt, in fact, that an independent, respectable,
     and, I believe, trustworthy middle class is rapidly forming.... If
     the real object of emancipation was to place the freedman in such a
     position that he might work out his own advancement in the social
     scale, and prove his capacity for the full and rational enjoyment
     of personal independence, secured by constitutional liberty,
     Jamaica will afford more instances, even in proportion to its large
     population, of such gratifying results, than any land in which
     African slavery once existed.

     'Jamaica, at this moment, presents, I believe, at once the
     strongest proof of the complete success of the great measure of
     emancipation, as relates to the capacity of the emancipated race
     for freedom, and the most unfortunate instance of a descent in the
     scale of agricultural and commercial importance as a colonial
     community.'

Governor Darling's words suggest the exact reason why Jamaica may be
looked upon either as the most fortunate or the most unfortunate of the
emancipated colonies. All depends upon the point of view. If the largest
amount of individual well-being and the most favorable conditions of
gaining independence and self-respect constitute a community fortunate,
then Jamaica stands at the head of her island sisters. If immense
wealth, centred in a few, constitutes a community fortunate, then
Barbados is at the head. In Barbados the wealth of the planters is
greater, in Jamaica the condition of the laborers is better. The late
Mr. Sewell remarked to the writer that the common people in Jamaica had
a more manly and self-respecting look than in any of the smaller islands
which he had visited. It is much to be lamented that the divorce between
the proprietary and the laboring interest was so complete in this
island, and the consequent industrial anarchy so great. But even this
was better than the depressed condition in which the peasantry of the
smaller islands are kept by the hold that the planters have upon them.
Manhood is a better crop than either sugar or coffee, and in the long
run brings all other things with it. The article in the March number of
the _Atlantic Monthly_ for 1862, shows, in brief compass, what
inestimable benefits have followed in the smaller islands from
conferring the boon of personal freedom, even with so stringent a social
dependence remaining. In Jamaica, freedom has been more complete, and
the recoil of the social elements from each other more violent. The
disaffection of the governing class has also been greater, and Freedom
has been left to take care of herself.[11] But though thwarted and
frowned upon, she is at the last justified of her children. Mr. Sewell
has most happily hit the whole truth in a few lines: 'The crop' (of
freedom), he says, 'appears in patches, even as it was sown, forcing
itself here and there through the ruins of the fabric which disfigures
still the political complexion of the island, and sorely cramps the
energies of its people.' Governor Darling's words show how rapidly the
crop, thus negligently sown, is forcing itself into prosperous and
prevailing growth.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Negro of West Indian birth. Creole, used alone, signifies a
West Indian white.]

[Footnote 2: However, I should say that there are portions of Western
Africa where trustworthy accounts give to the negroes a widely different
and far more favorable character.]

[Footnote 3: Mr. Underhill's account, so far as it goes, corroborates
this description.]

[Footnote 4: It will be understood that I speak only of his remarks upon
the economical aspect of emancipation.]

[Footnote 5: Different estimates conflict as to numbers, though all
agreeing in the fact of an extensive and steady decline. I have used a
statement which appeared trustworthy.]

[Footnote 6: This was an absurd and wicked expedient for keeping him
free from family interests.]

[Footnote 7: This African epithet for the whites is said, in the
original, to bear the complimentary signification of 'devil.']

[Footnote 8: This is partly owing to the unwillingness of continued from
previous page: the negroes to remove to an unaccustomed place; but also,
I think, to their rooted conviction that the only security for their
independence is in having possession of the soil.]

[Footnote 9: Hanover has about one nineteenth of the whole population of
the island. But the economical condition of the parishes varies too
widely to make that of any one a basis for a general estimate.]

[Footnote 10: In common, they are by no means either so tawdry or so
ostentatious as they have the credit of being.]




ABIJAH WITHERPEE'S RETREAT.


For many years Abijah Witherpee had kept, in East Hampton, the largest
country store for miles around, and by more than ordinary shrewdness had
accumulated a snug little fortune, and with it the reputation among the
country folk of being an immensely rich man. It is no trifle, as every
one knows, in a small village, to be accounted its richest man, but that
was the least of Abijah's honors. It appears by record that Abijah
maintained the responsible--and, since Squire Adams has been gathered to
his fathers, the solitary--dignity of justice of the peace in and for
the county of which East Hampton formed a highly respectable portion. It
was not the mere flourish of 'Esq.' at the end of the great man's
name--it was the essence of the great man himself. It found him, as he
was proud to think, an ordinary, commonplace individual. The good people
of East Hampton saw what it had made him, and trembled. And well they
might, where justice herself, in the person of the magistrate, stood in
awe of her own responsibility and power.

We have been told that, at the outset of Squire Witherpee's
administration, he held his breath at the thought of venturing upon
judicial grounds with much the same uneasiness that the tyro in science
exhibits in some new and hazardous experiment. The honors of office had
grown scarcely a week old upon him, when opportunity offered for a full
display of the 'feeling and perspiration' (to borrow the words of our
informant) 'with which he dispensed justice at the lowest cash price.'

It was bright and early one winter morning that two tall, raw old
farmers drove up to the 'West India Goods and General Emporium'
establishment, and emerging from an avalanche of buffalo robes, made
good their way into the back part of the store, where the customary knot
of hangers-on was gathered around the stove, to drag through the day,
doing nothing and talking politics. A single look convinced the
proprietor that he was wanted 'professionally;' he was informed that
they wished to have a deed executed. With great presence of mind, Abijah
concealed every symptom of growing palpitation, and led the way out of
the store into the kitchen of his house near by, where Mrs. Witherpee
was busy ironing, and several little Witherpees at 'sixes and sevens'
about the floor.

Like all justices, he thought it of prime importance to be assured that
the instrument had been drawn up in proper shape, though he consumed
about five times the time ordinarily devoted to such preliminaries. His
protracted scrutiny would have alarmed the parties in waiting, less
gifted as they were in the mysteries of legal lore, had it not been for
a generous approval that he gave at intervals, of 'Wells' and 'Ahems',
in a tone that was intended to let them know he was doing them a special
favor to think so well of what they had submitted.

'Well, my friends,' he remarked, laying down the sacred document, 'it
seems that at this stage of proceedings, the statute requires that--'
and then a pause which was solemn enough.

''Squire, hadn't I ought to sign that 'ar now?' timidly suggested one of
the party. The 'Squire was taking a hasty run over the pages of the
'Town Justice' for instruction in such emergencies, but finding none, he
kept on at a venture, and replied with native dignity: 'I decide you'd
ought to.'

While the 'grantor' was 'putting his hand and seal' to the deed, in the
largest-sized penmanship that can conveniently be displayed on half a
foot of paper with all the advantages of a slant up hill, the magistrate
had arrived at the place desired, and was now 'in his element.' Kindly,
and yet with no lack of firmness, he is said to have turned to Mrs.
Witherpee and observed:

'Wife, I think you'd better go into the next room and take the children
with you!'

After this fraction of the family had been removed to a place of safety,
the prudent husband and father continued:

'Hold up your hands! You severally and solemnly swear that this is all
right, true, and legal, according to the provisions of the Constitution
of the United States, and the laws and regulations of the State of----.
So help you God, gentlemen, and me, Abijah Witherpee, Justice of the
Peace, fee two shillings.' There is reason to believe that both parties
experienced a sense of relief when the crisis was over, and the
requirements of the law had been satisfied.

Rich and varied as Abijah's legal experiences may have been, it was not
on their account that he has been introduced, but rather for the
contemplation of his 'fine points' as a citizen. He was never classed
among those men who exaggerate to the assessors the value of their
worldly possessions; in fact, it was always difficult to discover where
'what little money he had' _was_ invested. There was one piece of
property, however, of which he not only acknowledged himself the owner,
but publicly declared he never would dispose of, a threat that seemed
harmless enough, there not being the slightest possibility that any one
else would be willing to hold such a miserable waste on any pretext
whatever:--a half acre down by the railroad, slabsided, full of gnarled
stumps and brake, and about equally distributed into rock, black mud,
and water. Had the original trees been standing, it must have approached
quite as near the correct type of the 'howling wilderness,' the _horrida
inculta_, as could be exhibited this side of 'Turkey Buzzard's Land,
Arkansas.' Few strangers were suffered to pass by the locality in
company with any of the East Hampton folk, without having their
attention directed to 'Abijah Witherpee's Retreat;' and the opinion was
apt to be freely ventured that at some period of his life, that
gentleman had come into what is popularly termed 'a tight fix.'

The place had originally belonged to nobody in particular, and one day
fell into the hands of a Mr. Jones, at a merely nominal price, in
connection with a large tract through which it was thought the railroad,
then contemplated, would be likely to run. The railroad changed its
mind, as all railroads do, and Mr. Jones's speculation was not so
profitable as he had anticipated. It happened that among his friends was
a wild, freakish fellow, Charley Davis, who undertook to be on the best
of terms with everybody, and had succeeded admirably, with the exception
of Justice Witherpee, who, he swore, had swindled him outrageously in a
business transaction they had together in getting out lumber. What made
it all the worse, the aggrieved party used to say, was the shameful
manner in which the 'old reprobate' would publicly boast of it.

'I say, Jones,' exclaimed the Major (as he was called) one day as he sat
smoothing off a new ramrod for his fowling piece, 'what would you say to
a chance of getting that old stick-in-the-mud, Witherpee, on the hip? I
rather flatter myself that I can do it.'

'Go ahead, my son,' said Jones, pleasantly, by way of encouragement.

'You own that infernal piece of swamp down by the railroad crossing,
don't you? That air's a valuable piece of real estate!'

'Well, yes. It's never been spoilt by too much cultivation that I know
of.'

'I reckon I can just get a heap of money for that air; and what's more,
I can have the satisfaction of selling it to a gentleman who can
appreciate it.'

'It does you credit, Major. That's what I call a genuine love of nature.
It ain't every man that sees the beauties of a first-class rural retreat
like that,' and the speaker's countenance was radiant with
benignity--whether at the high-toned sentiment of his friend, or at the
prospect of getting the better of the 'Squire, it was difficult to
determine. He thought it well, however, to add: 'But I'd advise you to
be mighty careful if you're calc'lating to run a saw on old 'Bijh.
What's your programme?'

'You see this here interesting and valuable collection of gold dust,'
said the Major, producing a vial which contained particles of the ore in
unusual abundance, and flourishing it in his hand in a manner intensely
theatrical. 'Belonging to a friend of mine, he donates it for this
occasion only, so to speak. It will appear, of course, to have been dug
out of a piece of ground belonging to that highly respectable and public
spirited citizen, Mr. G. G. Jones. With a cupidity not at all to be
wondered at, I shall attempt to keep the matter secret and immediately
to make a purchase. I shall apply to Witherpee, as a man of wealth, to
advance me part of the funds, or get him, rather, to act as my agent in
buying it, because you, Jones, a friend of mine, would suspect me of
being up to something if I should offer to buy it myself. D'ye see the
bait, now? Catch _him_ playing off!'

As further conversation was modulated to an undertone, and accompanied
with a complete signal code of nods and chuckles, it is fair to presume
that Mr. J. _did_ see the bait--and was sure of a good nibble too.

No time was lost before the speculator and his victim had their knees
under the same table--with a mug of hard cider between them. Mingled
suspicion and avarice in Abijah's expression argued well for the success
of the scheme. As is often the case, his love of money was only
surpassed by the credulity with which he gave ear to new plans for
satisfying it. He was slow to trust Davis, because they had not been the
best of friends, but the Major played his cards so well that the old
fellow did not waver long:

'All you will have to do is to hand it right over to me, you know, and
take your commission money. You see just as well as I do that it
wouldn't do no how for me to undertake it on my own hook.'

And the 'Squire said, 'Yes, certainly,' but couldn't see it distinctly
either, and after they had fixed upon the maximum price, and the 'Squire
had feasted his eyes once more on the 'real glitter,' and Charley had
explained for the twenty-first time that the divining rod had
demonstrated the singular fact that not a bit of ground outside that
particular lot was worth a red cent to prospect on, and the 'Squire had
once for all swallowed the whole story, and declared it the most
remarkable thing he ever heard of, he consented to act as agent in the
purchase.

       *       *       *       *       *

For some unaccountable reason, Abijah Witherpee found Mr. Jones not at
all in the humor for a bargain. The land wasn't worth much, he knew, and
it was very handsome in the 'Squire to offer fifty dollars for it, but
the fact was that his feelings somehow prompted him to keep it: it was a
silly idea, perhaps, but he had always thought, ever since he had owned
the land, that some day it would be worth gold to him.

'Gracious goodness!' thought Abijah; 'Jones swore that it was a secret
that only he and the diviner knew. Could this man have felt it out by
animal magnetism, or anything of that sort?' But his mind was at ease
again when he was assured by further conversation that the owner was
entirely ignorant of the momentous truth. The 'Squire's offers were
tempting, and, from byplay and bantering, at last amounted to what
appeared a perfectly fabulous sum. The upshot of the matter was that the
coolheaded Jones got rid of the wretched little lot for $490 cash. The
purchaser was now quite sure that he was the shrewdest fellow in that
part of the country.

Just as had been anticipated, the agent's next move was to lay claim to
the auriferous region himself, and refuse to turn it over to the lawful
owner. The Major exhibited a proper degree of anxiety to learn the
results of the interview, and appeared well enough satisfied with the
price--high as it was.

He was deaf to every proposition of the 'Squire, who was ready almost to
double on the purchase money; till at last the latter declared point
blank that he meant to stick to the property himself; that the agreement
was verbal merely, and he would have ownership in writing, in spite of
what Major Davis or anybody else could do. It was in vain that the Major
protested and threatened prosecution for swindling, and called witnesses
to the transaction. Before sunset, Witherpee was the sole and
indisputable proprietor of the newly discovered El Dorado.

It is hardly worth while to state how so extraordinary a financier
succeeded when he came to actual prospecting. It was currently reported
that there was 'some pretty tall digging going on down in that swamp
lot.' It required a lengthy series of geological arguments, with
practical illustrations, to convince 'Squire Witherpee that the soil of
East Hampton was somewhat feeble in the production of the precious
metals--except, perhaps, in a metaphorical sense.

When he talked of 'taking the law on those rascals,' he found after all
that the best thing he could do was not to move in the matter at all.
Mr. Jones and his friend were no rascals, and took pleasure in
contributing every cent of the money to the town fund for supporting the
poor. Abijah Witherpee was since known to have acknowledged that though
rather hard, it was no more than he had deserved, and the change that
was wrought in his dealings gained him from that time no more faithful
friends than the confederates, Jones and the Major.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: A gradual change is, indeed, observable, but as yet, it is
only an incipient one.]




REASON, RYHME, AND RYTHM.


CHAPTER III.--THE INFINITE.

  The Divine Attributes are the base of all true Art.

No work of art can be considered truly beautiful unless it recalls or
reproduces, even in its finite form, some of the divine attributes; not
that the work must treat of them, or consciously suggest them to the
intellect, but that they must enter into the creation of the artist,
that the immediate and intuitive perception of beauty, always attached
to their manifestation, may appeal to those faculties or instincts which
ever answer in delight when these attributes are suggested to the human
spirit; for, consciously or unconsciously, the soul yearns for a clearer
view of the beauty of God.

Whatever good there may be desirable by man, more especially good
belonging to his moral nature, there will be a corresponding
agreeableness in whatever external object reminds him of such good,
whether it remind him by arbitrary association, by typical resemblance,
or by awakening intuitions of the divine attributes, which he was
created to glorify and to enjoy eternally. Leibnitz says:

     'The perfections of God are those of our own souls, but He
     possesses them without limit; He is the exhaustless ocean from
     which we have received but a drop; we have some power, some wisdom,
     some love; but God is all power, all wisdom, all love. Order,
     unity, proportion, harmony, enchant us; painting, sculpture, music,
     poetry, charm us in the degree in which, in their appropriate
     spheres, they have succeeded in manifesting fragments of the above:
     but God is all order, all proportion, all unity, all harmony; and
     all beauty visible here is but a dim reflex of the eternal rays.'

The fact of our deriving constant pleasure from whatever is a type or
semblance of the divine attributes, and from nothing enduringly but that
which is, is the most ennobling of all that can be said of human nature,
not only setting a great gulf of specific separation between us and the
brutes that perish, but it seems a promise of a communion ultimately
deep, close, and conscious with the Being in whose darkened
manifestations we here unconsciously and instinctively delight. It is at
least probable that the higher the order of intelligences, the more of
the divine image becomes palpable in all around them, and the redeemed
spirits and angels may have perceptions as much more full and rapturous
than ours, as ours than those of the beasts and creeping things. It may
be received almost as an axiom that no natural instinct or desire can be
entirely frustrated, and as these desires for the beautiful are so
unfailing that they have not escaped the thinkers of any age, but were
held divine of old, and even in heathen countries, it must be admitted
that in these visionary pleasures, lightly as we may now be disposed to
regard them, there are causes of gratitude, grounds of hope, anchors of
faith, more than in all the manifold material gifts with which God
mercifully crowns the years and hedges the path of men.

We turn to Plato to show how clearly such ideas were held by the
thinkers of antiquity:

     'Eternal beauty, not created, not made; exempt from increase or
     decay; not beautiful in one part and deformed in another, beautiful
     in such a time, such a place, such a relation; not beauty which
     hath any sensible parts or anything corporeal, or which may be
     found comprised in any one thought or science, or residing in any
     creation different from itself, as in an animal, the earth, or the
     heavens;--but absolute beauty, identical and invariable in itself;
     beauty in which, would they please the spirit of men, other things
     must participate, but their creation or destruction brings IT
     neither diminution, increase, nor the slightest change.'

Plotinus writes in the same spirit:

     'Let him who has closed his eyes upon mere sensuous beauty, advance
     boldly into the depths of the sanctuary. Let him reverently gaze
     upon the true beauty, the original type of those pale and fleeting
     images to which he may have hitherto applied the holy name of
     beautiful.'

We propose to consider reverently and with a humble sense of the limited
sphere from which we must regard the infinite, some of the divine
attributes, which must, in the finite mode, enter into every creation of
artistic excellence. We begin our reflections with the infinite itself.

Infinite--this word is by no means the expression of a clear idea: it is
merely the expression of an effort to attain one. It stands for the
possible attempt at an impossible conception. Man needed a term by which
to point out the direction of this effort--the cloud behind which lay,
forever invisible, the object of this attempt. The fact is, that upon
the enunciation of any one of that class of terms to which 'infinite'
belongs--the class representing thoughts of thought--he who has a right
to say he thinks at all, feels himself called upon, not to entertain a
conception, but simply to direct his mental vision toward some given
point, in the intellectual firmament, where lies a nebula never to be
resolved. And yet to this very point, which the intellect cannot define,
are our spirits forever tending. No artistic creation ever fully pleases
unless there is given in it some suggestion of this mystic attribute,
underlying and permeating all other attributes of Deity. It is the dim
unconscious feeling after this attribute which causes the forever
recurring dissatisfaction with the finite, which so ruthlessly pursues
us through life. It is the source of that vague but tender longing, that
restless but dreamy yearning, that haunting melancholy, which
characterize human souls created for the enjoyment of the infinite;
divining and insatiably thirsting for the absolute.

Let us now attempt to trace some of the various ways in which this
feeling after the infinite manifests itself. Plato and his school tried
to explain the existence of absolute ideas in the soul by the hypothesis
of its preëxistence to that of the body in the bosom of the Absolute,
the Infinite, the Eternal; and, consequently, that such ideas are but
reminiscences of a more perfect life. We find the following passage in
an ode of Wordsworth's:

  'Our birth is but a sleep, and a forgetting:
  The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
    Hath had elsewhere its setting,
        And cometh from afar
      Not in entire forgetfulness,
      And not in utter nakedness,
  But trailing clouds of glory do we come
       From God, who is our home.

  'Hence, in a season of calm weather,
    Though inland far we be,
  Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
    Which brought us hither,
    Can in a moment travel thither,
  And see the children sport upon the shore,
  And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.'

It seems useless here to enter upon the vexed subject of 'innate ideas,'
or to attempt to convince the reader, metaphysically, that the very
negation contained in the word finite, necessarily suggests its
affirmation in the word infinite. Enough that the idea of the infinite
is certainly found in the mind of man, that he seeks it in the material
world, in himself, in God. High gifts may have been wrought into the dim
soul, which are destined to be gradually awakened through the growing
perceptions of the mind. Every spiritual being created by eternal love
may have had imparted to him a ray from the sun of eternal love, which,
in its due time and place, is to manifest itself in his consciousness.
Such participation in God as the primary source of all that is to abide
eternally with the redeemed, has, in the present state of our vague
consciousness, been described by men who felt its stirrings in their
soul as the memory of eternal love. It might more properly be called an
intuition of eternal love; such an instinct as leads the chrysalis to
prepare for the change which it certainly does not understand. Life,
such as the beat of the heart, the action of the lungs, is not
manifested to the consciousness--neither is the source of this
intuition, which, however, gives evidence of itself by an intuitive
feeling of incessant longing. It reveals its presence constantly;
sometimes in an undefinable feeling of profound desire, satisfied with
no earthly object, yet but vaguely directed to the eternal or divine;
sometimes in a profound and absorbing religiosity. This longing exists
in an inchoate state; it is a love yet to be developed. From this mystic
root springs much that is intellectually great, even the love of
scientific certainty. Philosophy may, indeed, almost be termed the
science of longing.

Developing in its normal growth, it gives us our true saints; those who
live but to love God, and to serve man. But like all human gifts, it may
be perverted. It is some such perverted apprehension or illusory longing
for the infinite, which causes a man to surrender himself, heart and
soul, to the despotic tyranny of some ruling habit, some favorite and
engrossing pursuit. Alas! it often leads the most gifted of our race to
devote all their energies, thoughts, feelings, to one faulty, fading,
changing object, vainly pouring that worship upon the creature, which
should be rendered only to the Creator.

                     'He that sits above
  In His calm glory, will forgive the love
  His creatures bear each other, even if blent
  With a vain worship, for its close is dim
  Ever with grief, which leads the wrung soul back to Him.'

The despair which this feeling sometimes occasions in the perverted soul
of one intent upon feeding it with the gross aliments of the debased
senses, is, without doubt, a very frequent cause of suicide. It may
lead, in the soul of the infidel or sensualist, to the idolatry of art.
It is a feeling, and requires direction. When enlightened by revelation
and purified by faith, it manifests itself in the sublime abnegation and
ardent love of the faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

This instinctive longing for the infinite, existing in the soul itself,
cannot be satisfied by any earthly longing, sensual gratification, or
external possession. Made 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever,' man is
ruined and eternally miserable if he refuse to fulfil the destiny for
which he was created. His misery springs from the root of his greatness;
it is because there is an infinite in him, which, with all his cunning,
he cannot succeed in burying under the finite. This is a pregnant
subject; under this strange caption might be written the psychological
history of most human despair.

  'The Fiend that man harries
  Is love of the Best;
  Yawns the pit of the Dragon
  Lit by rays from the Blest.
  The Lethe of nature
  Can't trance him again,
  Whose soul sees the Perfect
  His eyes seek in vain.'

Thus is faith a necessity of the soul, 'the evidence of things not
seen.'

The idea of eternity is necessarily evolved from the negation contained
in the limited meaning of the word time. Eternity is the all embracing,
completely complete time; eternity, which is infinite not only _a parte
externa_, that is everpassing yet everlasting, without beginning and
without end; but also infinite _a parte interna_--so that in the
endlessly living, thoroughly luminous present, the whole past, also the
whole future, are equally actual, equally clear, and equally present to
us, as the very present itself. Can we indeed form any other conception
of a state of _perfect_ bliss? Is the idea of a state of entire
happiness at all compatible with the regret that must be felt for a
blissful past; the consciousness of a flying present; and the fear of an
uncertain future? Yet the idea of time does not seem necessarily
excluded from a conception of the essence and operations of God. Does
there in very reality exist such an absolute opposition between time and
eternity, that it is quite impossible for them to subsist in any mutual
contact or relation? Is there no transition from the one to the other
conceivable? Is eternity anything more than time vitally full,
blissfully complete? If eternity is nothing more than the living, full,
essential time, and if our earthly, fettered, and fragmentary time is,
as the great poet says, 'out of joint,' fallen with man's disobedience
to his God into a state of strange disorder--it is easily conceivable
that the two do not stand apart so as to have no mutual contact. Those
who have seen a holy death leave a calm and beautiful smile upon the
face of a dying Christian, can scarcely help believing that the
beginning of a blissful eternity has impressed itself upon the rapt
features, actually breaking through the shackles of time before the
prisoner was emancipated from its fetters. And those brief intervals of
rapture which are sometimes experienced in the midst of earnest and
ardent devotion--what are they but eternity thus manifesting itself
through time in the soul? Those who have been rescued from the very jaws
of death, frequently tell us that the moment preceding insensibility was
crowded and filled with vivid recollections of the whole apparently
forgotten past--thus bringing into the soul in the midst of time, a
foretaste and interval of eternity! and those prophetic intimations of
things yet to be, which frequently break in with startling power upon
the human spirit, what indeed are they but sudden contacts between our
fettered time, 'so out of joint,' and the fulness of eternity? Men rave
against the justice of eternal punishment, as if its duration were not
essentially part of their own immortality! Ah! if the memories of the
deeds done in the body are essentially undying, were it not well for us
that the writing traced against us by our own hands should be nailed to
the cross, obliterated in the blood of the Immaculate Victim? that
mystic blood which has bathed the universe!

The innate longing for the infinite, with its accompanying intuitions of
the eternal love, and the yearnings for that fulness of time when the
past and future shall live with us as really as the present itself, are
ever vivid within us, and are two of the great vital arteries of all
true art. This burning human thirst for the fulness of eternity in
opposition to our fragmentary time manifests itself in our agonizing
efforts to bring back the past, to which sad efforts we have given the
melancholy name of memory; shows itself in our restless longing for the
future, which we call hope; and frequently reveals itself in an insane
seizing upon something in the imperfect and fleeting present, which it
insists upon worshipping, in regarding as divine. Upon this last phase
is dependent all that excited, exaggerated, but frequently beautiful
passion of language which marks our poems of love. Ah! it is the
merciful will of the Creator that we should worship only the divine, and
so the human passion ends in sobs and wails of anguish, for the finite
idol can never fill the shrine of the Absolute, the infinite God!

As the intuition of eternal love in the past, we find this longing for
the infinite breathing through poetry in the form of elegy; in sad
recollections of a faded world of demigods and heroes; and in the
plaints for the loss of man's native home in Paradise, in the faint and
dying echoes of the happy innocence of creation before the first
outbreak of evil, and the consequent misery of nature. Poetry is indeed
so full of haunting, melancholy memories, that it might almost be called
the 'mind's supersensuous recollection of the eternal.' And what else
can be said of music? Is it not an art eminently addressed to this
intuition of eternal love, this constant longing for the infinite? Do
not its giddy flights and dying falls at once arouse this mystic
yearning, seeking, feeling, which may appropriately be termed the
passion of the soul? That music holds some deep relation to the soul not
yet clearly developed, may be inferred, not only from the magic power it
sways over our spirits, but from the fact that the inspired writers
picture it among the joys of heaven. It is now the language of our
'divine despair;' it is yet to be the speech of our eternal beatitude!

'God is love:' through all the hidden veins of ever-germing life beats
this divine pulse of universal being. Hope, faith, and charity spring
from the revelation and answering intuitions of this blissful love: from
the hope, faith, and love of men sprang all the really noble works of
art. All this is full of consolation, 'though inward far we be'--even
the mournful memory of a past of celestial innocence becomes the
harbinger of a divine hope. Let the poet then still sing of the past;
like the glories of the setting sun flushing down the golden west, it
but whispers of a more glorious rise in the mythic east. The root of art
springs from the intuitions of eternal love; its leaves, flowers, and
fruit, are faith, hope, and charity. May the rapt artist ever remember
that the beauty of this earth was not intended to satisfy the
requisitions of his longing soul, but to awaken and nourish in it the
love of eternal beauty!

A golden thread of glories yet to be, twines through the woof of this
our mortal life, and by tracing its wavy lines of glittering brilliancy,
shining even through the dim symbolism of matter, many secrets of the
life to come may be divined. The arts may be regarded as significant
hieroglyphics of delights yet to be fulfilled in other spheres of being.
The living pulse of omnipotence, the heart of God, beats sensibly in the
beauty of the boundless universe; it is the fountain at which the young
immortal is to imbibe his first draught for eternity. Not that, as
erroneously held by the Pantheists, nature is God, no more than Raphael
is the pictures he paints; but assuming the existence of a God as the
creator of the worlds, what else can nature be but a revelation of God
and divine love, a visible and symbolic representation thereof in
matter; living, because His breath is life?

The following remarkable passage on the religious origin and consecutive
order of the arts occurs in De La Mennais' 'Sketch of Philosophy:'

     'The temple of art is an emanation from that Divine Spirit who
     fills it with Himself. It is the plastic evolution of the idea
     which man has of Him, of His nature, of His ways, as manifested in
     the universe. From its central sanctuary in which He, the unseen,
     dwells, this temple projects, extending itself in space in every
     direction; but by an opposite movement all its parts, closely
     united, converge to the sanctuary, gravitating toward the central
     point where their Head, their essential and primordial Reason,
     dwells; they struggle to penetrate its mystic veil, to mingle with
     it, to have their being in it, in order to accomplish the perfect
     union of variety with unity, of the finite with the infinite.

     'The art temple struggles to develop itself by a process analogous
     to that of creation. The surface of the earth was first clothed
     with vegetation, from the lowly moss and creeping lichen to the
     lofty cedar, whose solemn branches mingle with the floating clouds.
     When the earth was ready for their habitation, came the animals,
     gifted with higher life, with spontaneous motion, with instinct and
     sensibility. At last came man, endowed with the incomparable
     faculties of love and reason.

     'The art temple has also its vegetation. Its walls are covered with
     varied plants, which wind along its cornices and wreathe its
     plinths; they blossom round the oriels, brightening or deepening in
     the light; they twine through the nerves of the vaulted arch; like
     the liane of the cedars, they embrace the tall minarets of the
     heaven-seeking spire, mounting into the blue depths of ether; they
     bind the clustering shafts of the columns in heavy sheaves, and
     crown their capitals with flowers and foliage. The stone grows more
     and more animated, puts forth in more luxuriant growth; multitudes
     of new forms spring up in the bosom of this magnificent creation;
     when lo! at length man completes and embodies them all--his own
     noble image stands revealed--the rude, but white and glittering
     stone glows almost into life under the passion of his forming hand.

     'Sculpture is but an immediate development of architecture,
     proceeding naturally and organically from it. In proof of this, we
     have only to examine it in its first efforts. Forms, unfinished and
     embryonic, at first closely attached to the stone, growing by
     degrees in accordance with their own fixed laws until able to
     detach themselves from the medium through which they were
     originated, after having acquired the conditions necessary for
     their individual life, spring to actual life, to independent life,
     almost as the organized being springs from the womb of its mother.

     'Sculpture, however, represents but imperfectly the marvellous
     glories of God's creation. It can give but faint ideas of the
     various effects of light and shade, the constantly shifting play of
     colors; it cannot offer that full harmony of beauty which nature is
     ever spreading before us in the complicated scenes of life. To
     satisfy this want, a new art is created! Closely linked with all
     those which have preceded it, its development is but their
     legitimate expansion. The gray and stern arches, the hitherto
     colorless sky of the art temple, now take the azure hue of the
     heavens, while hovering cherubs look down from their cerulean
     depths; the relievos glow, and color defines, as it etherealizes,
     the works of man. Painting, at first absorbed in the plastic arts,
     scarcely begins to show symptoms of life until she is fully born,
     and living in her own distinctive form! As that power which
     develops the almost infinite variety of forms is to the universe,
     so is painting with its ever ready and vivid canvas to the temple
     of art.

     'Meanwhile the art temple has not remained wrapped in gloomy
     silence; and another series of developments, bearing the same
     relation to sound and hearing as the first did to light and sight,
     have commenced. As beings ascend in the scale of life, the forms
     appealing to sight alone, become less capable of expressing their
     nature. If the universe had been without voice, the highest which
     it contains had been shrouded in the pall of an eternal silence;
     but creation has a voice which is specific in every genus, in every
     species, in every individual. Transport yourself in thought to one
     of the vast solitudes of the New World--listen to the rustling of
     the myriad-leafed forests as they forever murmur on the banks of
     the thousands of nameless and unknown streams which ripple through
     them; to the clash of the impetuous torrents as they rush down the
     precipitous sides of the mountains to glide on from their feet
     through beds of soft moss or sedgy grass; to the booming thunder,
     driving, scattering, and tearing the flying clouds; to the
     intermingling sounds arising from the myriads of creatures which
     are roaring, bellowing, humming, buzzing, hissing, singing, upon
     the bosom of this primeval world--listen! this is the voice of
     nature, indistinct and confused, but majestic, solemn,
     multitudinous, full of mystery and palpitating with vague emotions.

     'As the art temple symbolizes the creation, is the plastic image of
     it, a voice is also heard from its depths, which rides upon the
     winds, and pierces afar off. The echo of an invisible world, it is
     solemn, mysterious, and multiform, appealing to the inmost
     feelings, rousing the sleeping powers, awakening the internal life
     of the soul, which without it might lie forever benumbed and
     silent. Corresponding to the voice of nature, it, too, is
     specifically marked, is individualized in every medium through
     which it is produced. Developing in unceasing variety, yet ever
     bound in the closest unity, language syllables air into thought,
     love. As soon as man mingles his voice, his speech, with that of
     inferior beings, the whole creation is enlarged, dilates and throbs
     with new and glowing life. A closer tie unites the two worlds--the
     world of phenomena and the world of ideas. Rising from the bosom of
     organic nature, pressing up like a bud closely wrapped in its sheaf
     of clustering and sheltering leaves, destined to indefinite
     development, the human word is born; it is named: Oratory, Poetry,
     Music! The art temple is now complete. Symbol of the universe, it
     represents all that is contained therein under the glittering veil
     of art.'

It is strange how, in the middle ages, the temple of art almost grew
into one with the temple of faith; to this fact may be traced the
elevated and devout character of the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of those dim
centuries. Thus the church became a sublime poem, where the glowing
imagination of a tender faith lavished all its glories. That the
Christian church then satisfied the heart with its mystic dogmas and
symbolic representations, is proved by the fact that the masses did not
care how obscure and squalid their own hovels might be, provided the
temple was great and magnificent. It was the temple of simple,
unreasoning, unquestioning faith, but decorated with the highest marvels
of art; it was always thrown open to the people, and in it they passed
nearly half their days. Man brought what he held to be his best to the
temple in which he came to worship God, and in it was concentrated all
the world knew of beauty. Its light but ornate steeples seemed to pierce
the very clouds; its columns rivalled the shafts of the forest; its
balustrades were exquisitely chiselled; its tapestry inwrought with the
finest needle work;--all gave evidence that the hand of love had
lingered tenderly over every line in the house dedicated by man to his
Maker. The pictured saints and angels seemed to smile upon the kneeling
people, while the majestic chants and requiems sounded to them like the
very voices of the angels, heard from within the 'jasper gates' of the
heavenly city. The white-robed and entoning priests were their joy and
pride; they, as well as the cherished artists, were most frequently from
their own oppressed ranks. Religion and art were alone then democratic;
alone expounded to them the original equality of man. Thus they looked
upon these temples, which art beautified for faith, as peculiarly their
own, their refuge, their solace, their ark of safety in those times of
war and trouble. They earnestly and devoutly believed them to be the
sanctuaries of the risen God, in which dwelt his glorified Body. With
the first rays of the sun flushing with roseate hues the mystic beauty
of the temple, they congregated there to receive, in the glorious unity
of a common humanity, Him whom the heavens cannot contain--the Son of
God. They did not think, they felt; they could not reason, but they
heard the church. Naive, simple, and trusting souls, with the Virgin to
smile upon them, and the saints to pray for them.

It cannot surely be denied that art is full of indefinite and
instinctive longing for the infinite.

Poetry is full of its pining voice. Chateaubriand says:

     'When we are alone with nature, the feeling of the infinite forces
     itself irresistibly upon us. When the universe with its
     inexhaustible variety opens before us, when we contemplate the
     myriads of stars moving in ever-mystic harmony through the
     limitless immensity of space, when we gaze upon the ocean mingling
     with the sky in the boundless distance of the far horizon, when the
     earth and sea are rocked into profound calm, and creation itself
     seems wrapped in mystic contemplation--an undefinable feeling of
     melancholy seizes upon us, unknown desires awaken in the soul, they
     seem to call us into other countries far beyond the limits of the
     known--must it not then be the vague feeling after, the dim longing
     for, the infinite, which at such moments we feel strangely stirring
     in the calm depths of the divining soul?'

We find the same yearning breathing through the following beautiful
poem of Mrs. Osgood's:

  'As plains the home-sick ocean shell
    Far from its own remembered sea,
  Repeating, like a fairy spell,
    Of love, the charmed melody
  It learned within that whispering wave,
    Whose wondrous and mysterious tone
  Still wildly haunts its winding cave
    Of pearl, with softest music-moan--

  'So asks my home-sick soul below,
    For something loved, yet undefined;
  So mourns to mingle with the flow
    Of music from the Eternal Mind;
  So murmurs, with its childlike sigh,
    The melody it learned above,
  To which no echo may reply
    Save from thy voice, Eternal Love!'

It is to his fervent and fiery expression of this longing for the
infinite, characterizing, whether pure or perverted, almost the whole of
Byron's poetry, breaking out sometimes in imprecations and despair, and
not to his immorality, that his great popularity is to be attributed.
Even in the midst of the most unhappy scepticism, it was the haunting
passion of his soul. Alas! that this longing for the food of heaven
should have been fed on husks until the lower rungs of the heaven ladder
became so covered with the corruption of matter and fiery sparks of
evil, that it seemed rather meant for the foul feet of demons, than for
the elastic tread of the redeemed human soul to God! We quote from him
in proof:

  'Blue rolls the water, blue the sky
  Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
  Bespangled with those isles of light,
  So wildly, spiritually bright;
  Who ever gazed upon them shining
  Nor turned to earth without repining,
  Nor wished for wings to flee away,
  And mix with their eternal ray?'

          'Oh, thou beautiful
  And unimaginable ether! and
  Ye multiplying masses of increased
  And still increasing lights! what are ye?
      What
  Is this blue wilderness of interminable
  Air, wherein ye roll along as I have seen
  The leaves along the limpid streams of
      Eden?

  Is your course measured for ye? or do ye
  Sweep on in your unbounded revelry
  Through an aerial universe of endless
  Expansion, at which my soul aches to think--
  Intoxicated with eternity?'

  'All heaven and earth are still--though not in sleep,
    And breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
  And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep;--
    All heaven and earth are still: from the high host
    Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain coast,
  All is concentred in a life intense,
    Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
  But hath a part of being, and a sense
  Of that which is of all Creator and Defence.

  'Then stirs the _feeling infinite_, so felt
    In solitude, where we are least alone;
  A truth, which through our being then doth melt,
    And purify from self: it is a tone
    The soul and source of music, which makes known
  Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,
    Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,
  Binding all things with beauty; 'twould disarm
  The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.'

In some of the most forcible lines ever penned, Byron has given us the
whole psychological analysis of the effects of human passion, when, in
its insane perversion, and misdirected thirst for the infinite, it pours
upon the dust that love and worship which is due to God alone. No one
who has thus sinned, will refuse to acknowledge their force and truth.
Fearful in their Medusa-like beauty, they fascinate the heart, only to
turn its warm pulses into ice. They are actually withering in their
despair. Poor Byron! did he never, never cry with the repentant but
happy St. Augustin: 'Oh, eternal beauty! too late have I known thee!'

  'Alas! our young affections run to waste,
    Or water but the desert; whence arise
  But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,
    Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes,
    Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies,
  And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants
  Which spring beneath her steps, as Passion flies
  O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants
  For some _celestial fruit_ forbidden to our wants.

  'O Love! no habitant of earth thou art--
    An unseen seraph, we believe in thee;
  A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,
    But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see
    The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;
  The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven
    Even with its own desiring phantasy,
  And to a thought such shape and image given,
  As haunts the unquenched soul--parched--wearied--wrung and riven.

  'Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,
    And fevers into false creation:--where,
  Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized?
    In him alone. Can Nature show so fair?
    Where are the charms and virtues which we dare
  Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men,
    The unreached Paradise of our despair,
  Which o'er informs the pencil and the pen,
  And overpowers the page where it would bloom again?

  'Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure
    Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds
  Which robed our idols, and we see too sure
    Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's
    Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds
  The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,
    Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;
  The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,
  Seems ever near the prize--wealthiest when most undone.

  'We wither from our youth, we gasp away--
    Sick--sick; unfound the boon--unslaked the thirst,
  Though to the last, in verge of our decay
    Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first--
    But all too late, so are we doubly cursed.
  Love, fame, ambition, avarice--'tis the same,
    Each idle--and all ill--and none the worst--
  For all are meteors with a different name,
  And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.

  'Few--none--find what they love or could have loved,
    Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
  Necessity of loving, have removed
    Antipathies--but to recur, ere long,
    Envenomed with irrevocable wrong;
  And circumstance, that unspiritual god
    And miscreator, makes and helps along
  Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,
  Whose touch turns hope to dust--the dust we all have trod.

  'Our life is a false nature--'tis not in
    The harmony of things,--this hard decree,
  This uneradicable taint of sin,
    This boundless Upas, this all blasting tree.
    Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be
  The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew--
    Disease--death--bondage--all the woes we see--
  And worse--the woes we see not--which throb through
  The immedicable soul, with heartaches ever new.'

Again:

  'What is the worst? Nay, do not ask--
    In pity from the search forbear:
  Smile on--nor venture to unmask
    Man's heart, and view the hell that's there!'

Merciful God! how men suffer when they fly from Thee. When they refuse
to listen to the sublime voice implanted within, which calls them to
Thee, forever reminding them that they were made for things infinite,
eternal! O ye men of pleasure, it is the very greatness of your nature
which torments you: there is nothing save God capable of filling the
immeasurable depths of your longing! How different the language of
Klopstock, as already quoted: 'What recompense could I ask? I have
tasted the cup of angels in singing of my Redeemer!'

One of the most dangerous, yet most brilliant among the novelists of the
present day, says:

     'Properly speaking, love is not a violent aspiration of every
     faculty toward a created being; it is rather a holy thirst of the
     most ethereal part of our being for the unknown. Tormented with
     intuitions of an eternal love, filled with torturing and insatiate
     desires for the infinite, we vainly seek their gratification in the
     dying forms which surround us, and obstinately adorn our perishable
     idols with that immaterial beauty which haunts our dreams. The
     emotions of the senses do not suffice us; in the treasure house of
     the simple joys of nature there is nothing sufficiently exquisite
     to fill our high demands; we would fain grasp heaven, and it is not
     within our reach. Then we seek it in a creature fallible as
     ourselves; we expend upon it all the high energies given us for far
     nobler ends. We refuse to worship God, and kneel before a worm like
     ourselves! But when the veil falls, when we see behind the clouds
     of incense and the halos woven by love, only a miserable and
     imperfect creature--we blush for our delusion, overturn our idol in
     our despair, and trample it rudely under foot. But as we must love,
     and will not give our hearts to God, for whom they were created, we
     seek another idol--and are again deceived! Through this bitter,
     bitter school we are purified and enlightened, until, abandoning
     all hope of finding perfection on earth, we are at last ready to
     offer God that pure, but now broken-hearted worship, which should
     never have been given save to Him alone.'--GEORGE SAND.

Thus is it that 'love's best interpreter is still a sigh.'

Let him who would in safety delight his soul with mystic intuitions of
the infinite, turn to that most exquisite of all poems, the Apocalypse,
for 'blessed is he that readeth and heareth the words of this prophecy,
and keepeth those things which are written in it.' St. Jerome says 'it
contains as many mysteries as words'--as many truths as mysteries--and
these truths are all revelations of the infinite. 'Be thou faithful unto
death, and I will give thee the crown of life,' says He who can bring
thee into that heavenly city which needeth no temple: 'For the Lord God
Almighty is the temple thereof, and the Lamb! And the city hath no need
of the sun, nor of the moon to shine in it. For the glory of God hath
enlightened it, and the Lamb is the lamp of it.' There shall we feed
upon the infinite!

The pantheistic _feeling_ into which the imaginative mind so readily
falls, is thus sketched by a poet of our own times:

     'I seated myself, after sunset, by the water's side; nothing was to
     be heard save the dash of the waves as they broke upon the lonely
     shore; and I gradually fell into that state so well known among
     solitary travellers:--no distinct remembrance of my own separate
     being remained to me: I seemed to be but a part of some great
     whole, to undulate with the lake, to vegetate with the trees, to
     sigh with the winds, to blossom with the flowers.'

This feeling of the infinite so pervaded antiquity, that man almost lost
the consciousness of his own personality in the immensity of the
universe, regarding himself but as an element of the absolute unity of
the world. His imagination fell into profound reverie, he felt himself
but as an integral part of a universal movement drawing all things to a
single centre, confounding all beings with one sole substance. We have
only to open the Vedas to convince ourselves how deeply this feeling
pervaded the early philosophy of the Hindoos. For example:

     'Brahma is eternal, the only substantial being, revealing himself
     in happiness and joy. The universe is his name, his image; this
     primal existence, containing all in itself, is the only one
     substantially existing. All phenomena have their cause in Brahma:
     he is not subjected to the conditions of time and space. He is
     imperishable; he is the soul of the world; the soul of every
     individual being. The universe is Brahma--it comes from Brahma--it
     subsists in Brahma--Bramah, or the sole self-existing being, is the
     form of all science, the form of systems of worlds, without end
     forever. The universes of stars are one with him; they have no
     being but as they exist in the supremacy of his will. This eternal
     will is the central heart of all that is. It reveals itself in
     creation, in preservation, in destruction, in motion, in rest, in
     space, in time.'

Such an absorption of all things in the infinite, with the consequent
loss of personality, individuality, and all moral responsibility, had a
most depressing effect upon the character of the people who embraced
this strange system. This is so manifest that it may be plainly read in
the sombre character of their architectural remains.

     'In their subterranean, vast, and dim excavations; in the gigantic
     proportions of their colossal architecture, always impressing us
     with sadness and with the nothingness of man; in their long, still,
     damp, dreary cities of sepulchres; in their half-shrouded and
     mummy-like statues, which, in their corpse-like immobility, seem
     struck with eternal death, or in slowly detaching themselves in
     their vast and unfinished forms from primeval and gigantic rocks,
     grow into a kind of dull, embryonic, and stagnant life, far more
     abhorrent than death itself--do we not clearly recognize the idea
     of the infinite absorbing all things into itself, crushing the
     soaring spirit of man under a blind fatalism, robbing him of all
     hope and aim in life, of the dignity of personal effort and moral
     responsibility, presenting as the only aim of all his glowing
     desires, the utter absorption of his own individuality in the bosom
     of the limitless whole--thus reducing the vivid action of his
     varied life to the stillness of the grave, without its repose?'

It is a strange fact, which we will view more closely when we treat of
Unity, that the quest for variety which led men into polytheism, or the
fractioning of the Deity into false and wicked gods and goddesses,
necessarily forced man to the creation of a Fate, to which Jupiter
himself was subjected, more blind, more crushing, more appalling to the
imagination (because while retaining his entire individuality, man was
yet forced to submit to its irrational and pitiless decrees) than was
even the hopeless fatalism consequent upon the pantheistic absorption of
the East.

What a step from the vague yet crushing, abstract yet deadening dreaming
of a fearful and misinterpreted infinite; from the cruel rigors of an
unreasoning and implacable fate--to that full revelation that the
Infinite is a _personal_ God, cognizant of the human, gifting it with a
free will to choose good or evil, and united with it in mercy and love
through the mystic life and still more mystic death of the Divine
Redeemer!

In sculpture, the thirst for the infinite is manifest in the various
statues of the gods which it has given us; in painting, an art more
closely related to Christianity, in the numberless figures of angels and
heads of cherubs, in the countless pictures upon holy subjects with
which it has presented us. The marble speaks, the canvas glows with
human aspirations toward the infinite.

It is certainly a very significant fact, too, that there must be a point
of escape in every picture, a window to let in the light, a glimpse of
the sky: an idea of _distance_ must in some way be given, or the
painting will oppress us like a prison. No amount of beauty in a nearer
form will make us content to remain with it, so long as we are shut down
to it alone, nor is any form so cold but that we may look upon it with
kindness, so that it rise against the infinite light of hope beyond.
Gaze into Vernet's pictures: always sunrises or sunsets, calms or
tempests, nights of moonlight, misty horizons in which it is quite
impossible to distinguish the limiting lines--the infinite is always
suggested in them: hence their hold upon the popular imagination.

It is really wonderful in how many ways this feeling appeals to us; it
seems to be the background of our whole finite being. Saint Pierre says:

     'The reason of the pleasure we experience in the sight of an
     immense tree, springs from the feeling of the infinite which is
     excited in us by its pyramidal form. The decrease in the different
     tiers of its branches; the infinitesimal gradations in its shades
     of green, always lighter at the extremity of the tree than in the
     rest of its foliage--give it an elevation apparently without limit.
     We experience the same sensations in the horizontal lines of
     landscapes, where we see row after row of hills unrolling one
     behind the other, until the last appears to melt into the blue of
     the distant heavens. Nature seems to love to produce the same
     effect upon extended plains or rolling prairies through the means
     of the mists and vapors so frequently rising from the bosoms of
     lakes and rivers. Sometimes these mists hang like curtains along
     the skirts of isolated forests, sometimes they rise like armed
     columns, and move in serried ranks along the beds of rivers;
     sometimes they are gray, gloomy, and motionless, sometimes moving
     with startling rapidity; their sombre hues changing into glowing
     rose, or penetrated and permeated with the glittering and golden
     light of the sun. Under all these shifting aspects they open for us
     perspective after perspective of the infinite into the infinite
     itself.'

Indeed nature seems never wearied in her varied suggestions of the
infinite. Ruskin says, Is not the pleasure we receive from the effects
of calm and luminous distance at the hour of sunset and sunrise among
the most memorable and singular of which we are conscious; and is not
all that is dazzling in color, perfect in form, gladdening in
expression, of evanescent and shallow appealing when compared with the
still small voice of the level twilight behind purple hills, or the
scarlet arch of dawn over the dark and troublous edged sea? Almost all
poets and painters have depicted sunrises and sunsets; every heart
responds--there must then be something in them of a peculiar character,
which must be one of the primal and most earnest motives of beauty to
human sensation. Do they show us finer characters of form than can be
developed by the broader daylight? Not so--for their power is almost
independent of the forms they assume or display; it matters little
whether the bright clouds be simple or manifold, whether the mountain
line be subdued or majestic; the fairer forms of earthly things are by
them subdued and disguised, the round and muscular growth of the forest
trunks is sunk into skeleton lines of quiet shade, the purple clefts of
the hillside are labyrinthed in the darkness, the orbed spring and
whirling wave of the torrent have given place to a white, ghastly,
interrupted gleaming. Have they more perfection or fulness of color? Not
so--for their effect is often deeper when their hues are dim than when
they are blazoned with crimson and pale gold; and assuredly in the blue
of the rainy sky, in the many tints of morning flowers, in the sunlight
on summer foliage and field, there are more sources of mere sensuous
color-pleasure than in the single streak of the wan and dying light of
sunset. It is not then by nobler form, it is not by positiveness of hue,
it is not by intensity of light, that this strange distant apace
possesses its attractive power. But there is one thing which it has or
suggests, which no other object of sight suggests in an equal degree,
and that is--infinity. It is of all visible things the least material,
the least finite, the farthest withdrawn from the earth prison-house,
the most typical of the nature of God, the most suggestive of the glory
of His dwelling place. For the sky of the night, though we may know it
is boundless, is dark; it is a studded vault, a roof that shuts us in
and down; but the transparent distance of sunrise and sunset has no
limit; we feel its infinity as we rejoice in its purity of light. That
this has been deeply felt by artists, is evident in their works.

             'And can the sun so rise,
  So bright, so rolling back the clouds into
  Vapors more lovely than the unclouded sky,
  With golden pinnacles and snowy mountains,
  And billows purpler than the ocean's, making
  In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth,
  So like, we almost deem it permanent,
  So fleeting, we can scarcely call it aught
  Beyond a vision, 'tis so transiently
  Scattered along the eternal vault; and yet
  It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul,
  And blends itself into the soul, until
  Sunset and sunrise form the haunted epoch
  Of sorrow and of love; which they who mark not
  Know not the realm where these twin genii
  (Who chasten and who purify our hearts,
  So that we would not change their sweet rebukes
  For all the boisterous joys that ever shook
  The air with clamor) build the palaces
  Where their fond votaries repose and breathe
  Briefly;--but in that brief cool calm inhale
  Enough of heaven to enable them to bear
  The rest of common, heavy, human hours,
  And dream them through in placid sufferance.'

                                         BYRON.

No work of art in which this expression of infinity is possible, can be
very elevated without it; and in proportion to its presence it will
exalt and render impressive themes in themselves tame and trivial. If we
will but think of it, it is very strange in how many unexpected places
we shall find it lurking: for example, the painter of portraits is
unhappy without his conventional _white_ stroke under the sleeve or
beside the armchair; the painter of interiors feels like a caged bird
unless he can throw a window open or set a door ajar; the landscapist
dare not lose himself in the forest without a gleam of light under its
farthest branches, nor ventures out in the rain unless he may somewhere
pierce to a better promise in the distance, or cling to some closing gap
of variable blue above--escape from the finite--hope--infinity--by
whatever conventionalism sought--the _desire_ is the same in all.

Our ideas of beauty are intuitive, and it is only in a dim way that we
read the types, the powers for whose _immediate_ cognition we lost in
the fall; but it is certain that a _curve_ of any kind is far more
agreeable to us than a right line; may not the reason of this fact be:
every curve divides itself infinitely by its changes of direction?

What curvature is to lines, gradation is to shade and color; it is their
infinity--dividing them into an infinite number of degrees.

Such examples might be indefinitely multiplied, but having placed the
_key_ in the hands of the reader, we leave him to unlock the treasure
houses of suggestive thought, which he will find profusely lying in his
daily paths. This key will not only open for him many of the rarest
caskets in which art stores her gems, but will also unclose some of the
ineffable wonders of God's mystically tender creation. 'My son, give me
thy heart!' is written in God's own hand on everything He hath made.

  'To me, the meanest flower that blows can give
  Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.'

The absence of that mental vision which unites the visible to the
invisible is not only ruinous to the art of the present age, but also to
its faith, and, consequently, to its happiness. Thousands, feeling
themselves in a narrow world while they unceasingly long for the
infinite, rush into rash and wicked suicide, that they may thus escape
from the contradictions and complicated pangs of the finite. The rays of
light from the everlasting sun of wisdom and love are indeed forever
falling round us, but we no longer bear the prism of faith which would
decompose them for us, giving them such direction as they fall upon the
symbolic, the relative, that we might read in their three-fold splendor
the symbolized, the Absolute. The human soul was created for the
enjoyment of God, and, consequently, touches the infinite at every
point, and the health and well being of the spirit are far more
concerned in its exploration than in any of the vaunted discoveries
which it is at present making for the comfort of the body in the
material world.

As the limits of the horizon are constantly enlarging before the eyes of
one who ascends a mountain, so does the moral world, of which the
physical is but the symbol, unroll its immense perspectives of light and
love before the gaze of the rapt seeker of truth.

  'Deep love lieth under
     These secrets of time;
   They fade in the light of
     Their meaning sublime.'

The infinite is the vast background from which all life projects; upon
whose unity the immense variety of the world is sketched. As understood
or sought by the finite, it is the central fire, the burning heart of
art; it is the _last_ line in all our horizons; the _last_ shade in all
our colors; the _last_ note in all our concerts; the alpha and omega of
all true genius. It aspires in the last sigh of the mortal as he
lingeringly leaves its dim manifestations upon earth: it lightens in the
first smile of the immortal as its full fruition greets him in the
presence of his God!

'I am alpha and omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the
end. To him that thirsteth, I will give of the water of life freely.'




MRS. RABOTHEM'S PARTY.

AN EPISODE FROM FASHIONABLE LIFE.


  There dwelleth in sumptuous state and in Gotham
  A merchant of character surnamed Rabothem.
  His wife, once a letterless rustic in Needham,
  Now leadeth the circles of great Upper-Threedom.[12]

  There's nothing surprising in such a transition;
  For many a creature, of humbler position
  In the scale of creation, can shift its condition.
  For instance, the wriggling, despised pollywog
  In time may become a respectable frog;
  Then, perched on a stump, he may croak his disdain
  At former companions, who never can gain
  His present distinguished, sublime elevation,
  So greatly above their inferior station.
  And so, too, a worm, though the meanest of things,
  Becomes a most beautiful creature with wings,
  That bear it for many a sunshiny hour
  Through redolent meadows, from flower to flower.
  And surely if changes like these may occur,
  Ye men who have reason, how could ye demur
  At change in superior orders of nature?
  And least in a species so sure to create your
  Felicity (if it is not the reverse:
  In such an event she is rather a curse).
  No one, that possesses a spark of the human,
  Would think of opposing the progress of woman;
  But all would be happy when one of her kind
  A sphere more refined and exalted should find--
  Should gracefully 'merge from a chrysalis state,
  To bask in the light of a loftier fate.
  But (those hateful digressions, I heartily loathe 'em)
  I was telling you something of Mrs. Rabothem.
  She's a mouthpiece of Fashion. Whatever she wears,
  The closest and carefullest scrutiny bears;
  And, backed by her husband's munificent pile,
  Whatever she does is accomplished in style.

  A wonderful party was given one season
  By this excellent dame, for the excellent reason
  That wonderful parties were greatly in vogue,
  And a man was accounted as worse than a rogue
  Whose wife did not follow the prevalent fashion,
  And make what is commonly known as 'a dash' in
  The choicest society found in the city.
  (That the choice is not better is more than a pity.)

  The writer, who happened to be a relation
  To Mrs. Rabothem, though lower in station,
  Was blest in receiving a kind invitation--
  A delicate note, with a delicate scent on,
  Whose accurate, well-chosen sentences went on,
  In gentlest of terms, to 'solicit the favor,'
  Et cetera, and so on. She couldn't, to save her,
  Have been any more condescending; and so
  I gratefully reached the decision to go.
  And yet my decision was quite a concession,
  As I'll have to explain by another digression,
  In which, at the cost of some time and chirography,
  I'll give you a taste of an autobiography.

  And in its beginning, 'tis proper to state
  That, somehow, it chanced to be part of my fate
  To be born far remote from the populous town,
  And therefore, perhaps, I've a spice of the clown.
  Be this as it may, I acquired a taste
  For joys which, though simple, are equally chaste.
  In rural employments expended, my years
  Knew not the unnatural pleasures, nor fears,
  Which fall to the fortune of one who is bred
  Where men on unwholesome excitements are fed,
  And horrible vices their poisons distil;
  Where Peace, from her home on the verdure-crowned hill,
  The whispering grove, or the tapestried mead,
  With the bright troop of blessings that follow her lead,
  Comes seldom to gladden the wearisome hours,
  And raise to new vigor the languishing powers,
  But when I arrived at the age of discretion
  (I find I must hasten my rambling digression),
  With the popular error my mind was deluded
  That life is not life from the city excluded;
  So I followed the bent of my new inclination,
  With the liveliest hopes of improving my station.
  'Twas easy deciding, and easy to do it;
  'Tis easy, when thinking it over, to rue it.
  To Gotham the writer with joy was transported,
  Where people in lots, either mixed or assorted,
  Are found in abundance, 'kept always on hand,'
  Of every conceivable texture and brand;
  Exposed at the mart and awaiting their sale,
  Like the cotton that lies in the corpulent bale.
  A thousand of such may be bought in a trice--
  Some dearly, and some at a moderate price.
  I mingled among them; I met them on 'Change,
  And elsewhere, and surely it isn't so strange
  If sometimes, contracting to buy or to sell,
  I _should_ be contracting their habits as well.
  But, though the temptations about me were rife,
  I kept from the perils of 'fash'nable life,'
  So that, at the time when my story begins,
  I never had placed in the list of my sins
  (Though often invited, declining each call)
  The crime of attending a party or ball.
  For, early in life, I was taught to believe
  That pleasures are pitfalls prepared to deceive
  By wily old Satan (who constantly tries
  To catch you by throwing his dust in your eyes,
  Thus, blinding his victim, securing his prize);
  That the dance is a maelstrom, where sinners are whirled
  Around a few times, and then suddenly hurled
  From daylight to darkness, from pleasure to woe,
  From terrestrial regions, to regions--below:
  But now was afforded a fine opportunity
  For taking some pleasure with perfect impunity;--
  Ostensibly pleasing a worthy relation,
  But really seeking a gratification.

  I went, and, arriving at nine of the clock,
  I found that the guests were _beginning_ to flock.
  I could but conclude--though 'twas early, they said--
  That when folks go to parties they should go--to bed.

  Ere long the magnificent parlors were thronged
  By radiant beauties and gents, who belonged
  To the circles composed of the lofty _élite_,
  Whose presumption or pride 'twere not easy to beat.
  'Twas a splendid, a gorgeous, a 'glorious' sight
  To be viewed in that parlor on that winter night.
  There were beaux, who the finest of broadcloth were dressed in--
  Invested in vestments they always invest in--
  And belles, who assisted to fill up the scene
  With roods upon roods of their huge crinoline.
  Such flounces! they seemed to my wondering eyes
  Like Alps upon Alps that in majesty rise.
  The costliest jewels and handsomest laces
  Imparted their charms to embellish their graces.
  And the men seemed to float through the mazes of girls,
  Like sharks in an ocean of mermaids and pearls.

  But soon, as the evening began to advance,
  A movement was made to engage in a dance;
  And, being invited to join in a set,
  With a young demoiselle whom I never had met,
  I took a position to dance with the rest,
  And soon I was doing the thing with a zest.

  For an hour the divinest sensations were mine;
  But then my enjoyment commenced to decline.
  In halting to rest, I but wearied the more,
  So I finally 'vowed that the dance was a bore.
  Exhausted at length, I collapsed in a chair,
  And studied the various characters there.
  Together they formed a remarkable show;
  For further particulars _vide_ below.

  There was Trickster, a merchant of physical leanness,
  Distinguished alike for his means and his meanness;
  And Sharper, a lawyer, with manners as courtly,
  And practice as large, as his person was portly.
  There was Aderman Michaels, the head of his faction,
  Who had learned, it was whispered, the rule of subtraction,
  And practised it often in 'grinding his axes,'
  Which helped to account for the rise in the taxes.
  And there was a man with a rubicund nose,
  As bright as the bud of an opening rose,
  Disclosing a liking to 'live and be merry,'
  With a strong fellow feeling for brandy and sherry.
  And then there was one with elongated face,
  Who seemed to have made a mistake in the place.
  Not a jest, nor a pleasure, was known to beguile
  His lugubrious countenance into a smile;
  But he moved through the dance, from beginning to end,
  Like a man on his way to the grave of a friend.

  Again, there was Simpkins, a clerk and a fop,
  Who sported a very luxuriant crop
  Of whiskers, cut clearly for 'cutting a dash,'
  And flanked by a stylishly twisted mustache,
  Adorning the uppermost part of the gash
  In his meaningless face, like a regular hedge
  Of russety foliage skirting the edge
  Of a cavern, containing a prominent ledge
  Of rocky projections, above and below
  (Though the charge was not 'cast in his teeth,' as I know).
  Arrayed, with intent to astonish the vision,
  In garments whose 'set' was the pink of precision;--
  His chain was of workmanship costly and cunning,
  And the stone on his bosom was really stunning.
  The taste of which no one could doubt his possession,
  Had found in his waistcoat a fitting expression;
  Nor less in his neck tie, 'a neat institution,'
  And collar, which threatened to do execution.
  A marvel, indeed--from the soles of his boots
  To the hair, that was scented and greased to its roots--
  A something for silly young damsels to scan,
  And sighingly say--'What a love of a man!'
  And then there was one sentimental young man,
  Got up on a rather irregular plan
  Of features and form, with a wandering air,
  A collar Byronic, and very long hair.
  'Twas whispered about--'He's a genius and poet;
  And as for myself, I was happy to know it,
  For a package of genuine mental precocity
  Is certainly always a great curiosity,
  And worthy the cost and the toil of a visit--
  Like Barnum's astonishing creature--'What is it?'
  (A good advertisement for Phineas, that is,
  And kind of the author to put it in gratis:
  I hope he'll observe my benign disposition,
  And send for the season a card of admission.)

  Of course there was that unavoidable myth,
  Who is everywhere known by the _nomen_ of Smith--
  For there never was aught in the way of sensation,
  From a horrible crime to a great celebration,
  But that somehow, before they had time to get through with it
  Mr. Smith has had something or other to do with it.
  Now Smith was a sensible sort of a fellow,
  With a beard that in color was nearest a yellow,
  And a visage denoting his faith in the creed
  That man is a creature intended to feed.

  Another one still we must certainly mention--
  'Tis Mr. McFudgins, who claims our attention.
  In mould of plebeian he never was cast
  (His caste was of gentlemen, wealthy and 'fast').
  Not noted for morals, nor even sobriety,
  He always had moved in the 'highest society.'
  I had seen him so 'high' as to hiccough and stutter,
  And once I had noticed him low in the gutter;
  Yet he was a 'very respectable' man;
  And into whatever excesses he ran,
  His riches and impudence safely would carry him,
  And plenty of ladies were dying to marry him.

  The ladies assembled were wondrously fine
  (Young Sentimentality called them 'divine').
  So graceful and pleasing, I could but confess
  Not one of the galaxy wanted address
  (For dress was abundant, nor lacking in taste,
  Though the waist was reduced, there was plenty of waste).

  My attention was called to a dashing young widow,
  Whose husband, when living, knew not what he _did_ owe;
  For he helped her attempt to keep up with the fashion,
  Which hurried him on to a terrible crash in
  His business, which tended to shorten his life
  And the means that were left to his sorrowing wife.
  She, taken in charge by a wealthy relation,
  Still lived in the style that befitted her station;
  Displaying her charms with astonishing care,
  In hopes of enticing a man to her snare,
  Who, struck by her beauty, might hasten to court her,
  Then marry, and afterward finely support her.

  Of many, whose fortunes were said to be ample,
  Miss Lily De Lusian may serve as a sample:
  She'd a smatter of French, and a languishing air,
  While of sense she possessed but a limited share.
  She played the piano remarkably well,
  And by all of her friends was considered a belle.
  And perhaps it was so, for she certainly 'told,'
  In the set where she moved, on account of her gold.

  And then there was old Mr. Spriggins's daughter,
  Who wondered that no one in marriage had sought her
  (A trivial bait would have easily caught her);
  And now she had reached the mysterious age
  When maidens are far less attractive than sage.
  By staying so long, she had come to be staid,
  And appeared to be doomed to be always a maid.

  The generous hostess was all in her glory--
  A fact it is fair to infer _a priori_--
  The costly apparel in which she paraded
  Was the best to be found in the store where she traded
  (The splendid establishment kept by a peer
  And the ninth of a man, as is ever so clear,
  If you only will notice the names on their palace--
  A fact that is stated with nothing of malice;
  For a Lord and a Taylor no doubt you will find
  A match for two men of the average kind).

  She moved through the rooms with a beautiful dignity,
  Conversing with all with the greatest benignity;
  Convincing her guests of a flow of geniality,
  As great as the stream of her large hospitality.
  Her dutiful husband was close at her side;
  And, though in his house, it could scarce be denied,
  He wasn't 'at home,' in the splutter and jargon,
  As much as in driving an excellent bargain.
  He suited his wife pretty well, for, at times,
  She found he was useful to furnish 'the dimes.'
  The most of his value she found in his pocket,
  And now he was playing the Stick to the Rocket.

  But while I was noting the forms and the faces
  Of those who were present--their faults and their graces--
  Reposing my arm on a volume of Tupper,
  I was startled to hear the announcement of 'SUPPER.'
  Rejoiced at the news of a change in the bill,
  I sprang from my seat with an excellent will,
  Presented my arm to a feminine guest,
  And marched to a neighboring room with the rest.

  O Ceres and Bacchus! would I were but able
  To picture e'en faintly the scene on the table!
  There was every conceivable thing, beyond question,
  That could tickle the palate and ruin digestion.
  Of course there were oysters in various styles,
  And sandwiches ranged in appropriate piles;
  And turkey was present in lavish abundance,
  And of lobster there seemed to be quite a redundance.
  The cakes on the board were amazingly nice--
  The largest encased in their saccharine ice,
  While some, that with nuts or with fruit were embellished,
  Expectant appeared to be tasted and relished.
  The light was reflected in many a gleam
  From mountains of jelly and towers of cream,
  With castles of Russes (I'd scorn to enlarge)
  Which, like Yorktown, were taken without any charge.
  And then there were several baskets of fruit--
  Of such as were held in the highest repute--
  With nuts, that in reckless profusion were stacked,
  And (like most of the jokes) had already been cracked.
  The liquors were all of the costliest brands
  (They had all been obtained at 'respectable stands');
  And as quickly were bottles deprived of champagne,
  As ever were clouds of their treasures of rain.
  Some lauded the Heidsick, while others concurred
  In the settled opinion that 'Mumm' was the word.
  The sires and the matrons, the lads and the lasses,
  Were pledging each other and clicking their glasses;
  And several gentlemen present were fain
  Their goblets of stronger potations to drain:
  On trifles they certainly never could bandy,
  So great was their liking for excellent brandy.
  For those who might happen to be in the throng
  Whose nerves should be weak, or their principles strong,
  A due preparation was graciously made
  In the shape of a bowl of the best lemonade.
  They ate and they drank, and they laughed and they chattered,
  They simpered, and bantered, and lavishly flattered,
  Till, finally, weary of such an employment,
  They left for the scene of their former enjoyment.

  And now, I had hoped there would be a variety,
  For dancing, I thought, had been done to satiety;
  But, as soon as the party reëntered the room,
  My hopes were consigned to a terrible doom;
  For I saw, to my horror, a body of dancers,
  Who were clearly intent on performing 'The Lancers.'

  Terpsichore ruled with unlimited sway,
  While, moment by moment, the night wore away.
  To me, 'twas an agony sadly prolonged,
  To stay in that parlor, so heated and thronged,
  And witness the sickening, senseless parade,
  Which people, who claimed to be sensible, made.
  I stood it as long as I could, and as well,
  And struggled my rising emotions to quell,
  But hotter my blood momentarily grew,
  Till objects about me were changing their hue,
  And, just as my brain was beginning to totter,
  I rushed from the room for some air and some water.
  Returning refreshed, my composure resumed,
  I awaited the end, like a criminal doomed.
  With one demoiselle I essayed to converse,
  Whose sense I discovered was not worth a--purse.
  Disgusted with one so insipidly brainless,
  I turned from a task that was tedious and gainless,
  Adapted myself to my strange situation,
  And buried my mind in profound cogitation.

  O Fashion, thou tyrant! adored as a god,
  By such as obey thy imperious nod--
  How mortals their 'sweet independence' resign,
  When all that is precious they bring to thy shrine!
  Thy altar they grace with the fruit of their lives,
  Themselves and their fortunes, till nothing survives
  To prove to the world that they ever were free;--
  Their souls and their bodies they offer to thee.
  And thou! how unworthy thou art of their trust!
  Thou givest them nought but a damnable lust
  Of silly, deceitful, contemptible show--
  A lust that is stronger as older they grow.
  For this they surrender their faith and their truth,
  The artless, ingenuous goodness of youth,
  The strength that belongs to maturity's years:
  Exchanging their peace for the paltriest fears,
  Lest something, they happen to do or to say,
  Should not be considered exactly _au fait_;
  Or lest their attempts should be wholly surpassed
  By others who claim to belong to their _caste_.
  Thy fiat, O Fashion, their questions decides;
  Thy wisdom all needed direction provides
  For spending their time in genteel dissipations,
  For cutting their garments, and--poorer relations.
  Controlled by thy will, they select their society;
  Thou art their instructor in manners and piety.
  And thus they obey the decrees of a power,
  To which, in a servile allegiance, they cower--
  A power that binds them in thraldom, and then
  Makes puppets of women and puppies of men.

  Reflections like these were absorbing my mind,
  As I sat on the sofa, or partly reclined,
  While promiscuous edibles recently 'bolted,'
  In assiduous dancing were carelessly jolted.

  The people about me my senses would strike,
  In spite of the facts, as extremely alike;--
  In physical aspect dyspeptic or bilious,
  In manners affected, or quite supercilious,
  In mind, rather flippant--of false education--
  In heart, scarcely worthy of recommendation.
  There was clearly a lack of the highest ability,
  With a splendid array of the 'purest gentility.'
  Of course I was not in condition to judge,
  And some would pronounce an emphatical 'fudge'
  At such an opinion as mine, and would scout it,
  Insisting that I 'could know nothing about it.'
  To which the narrator would humbly submit--
  He has written what seemed to his mind as a fit
  And truthful recountment of all that he saw,
  Without a regard for the general law
  For stuccoing statements, to give them, forsooth,
  A pleasanter face than is worn by the truth.

  The end came at last. I was glad, I avow;--
  As glad--well, as glad as the reader is now,
  When he knows that I'll shortly be making my bow.
  The company left, and I marched in the van,
  A wiser, though hardly a happier, man.

  Of course there are 'morals' attached to my poem,
  Though it may be a difficult matter to show 'em.
  Well, first (let me see, now), the foolishest passion
  Of mortals is that for obeying the fashion.
  It has been, and now is, a curse to humanity,
  A sinful, ridiculous species of vanity,
  The very quintessence of perfect inanity,
  And is likely to lead to a 'moral insanity.'

  A second we'll have, and I think that will do--
  (You will probably not recollect more than two):
  If you have any taste for the honest and hearty,
  Don't go to a GRAND METROPOLITAN PARTY.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 12: See account of the 'Prince's Ball,' given in New York,
some time during the last century.]




DIARY OF FRANCES KRASINSKA;

OR, LIFE IN POLAND DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.


PREFACE.

The following work is from the pen of Clementina Tauska, probably the
most celebrated among the female writers of Poland. Her talents and
judgment were so highly appreciated by her native country, that she was
appointed to the superintendence of all the Polish schools for young
ladies, as also to that of the large establishment at Warsaw devoted to
the education of governesses.

The Diary of Frances Krasinska paints in the most lively manner the
usages, manners, and customs of Poland during the eighteenth century,
and possesses the charm of childlike _naiveté_, united to acute
observation and deep feeling. The authoress has seized upon all that is
peculiar and picturesque surrounding the heroine, and has laid bare
before us a woman's heart in all its strength and weakness, its love and
ambition, its joys and sorrows.

Frances Krasinska, the daughter of a noble house, was allied in various
ways during her life to many distinguished personages, whose names fill
a considerable space in the contemporaneous annals of Poland. Remarkable
for her beauty and intellect, she excited a passionate admiration in the
bosom of Charles, duke of Courland, prince royal, and son of the king of
Poland, Augustus III, elector of Saxony. This attachment, with its
consequences, awakened a lively interest, not only among the Poles, but
also in the various foreign courts.

The castle of Maleszow, where Frances was born, was situated in the
ancient palatinate of Sandomir, now that of Cracow. It is said to have
been a very splendid mansion, and may still be remembered by a few aged
persons, the actual building being no longer in existence. The journal
commences at Maleszow, and continues through the most eventful period of
the heroine's life, principally in and near Warsaw.

TRANSLATOR.

[We are happy to be able to offer to the readers of THE CONTINENTAL, an
excellent translation of this characteristic work, especially noteworthy
at the present time, when Poland is once more engaged in a struggle for
independence, and occupies so important a position in the political
adjustment of the civilized world.--EDS. CONTINENTAL.]


DIARY

CASTLE OF MALESZOW, Monday, _January 1st, 1759_.

Last Christmas day, only a week ago, my father commanded a large volume
to be brought him, in which he inscribed with his own hand various
public and private acts; the book is a medley of speeches, public
documents, letters, poetry, bonmots, etc., all arranged in order
according to their dates. This custom prevails among nearly all the
Polish nobility. My father showed us these records, and even read some
of them aloud to us. I can write quite well in both French and Polish,
and as I am not at all averse to the use of my pen, I think I might keep
a journal; I have been told that many of the women in France do so, and
why should I not follow their example?

I have bound together quite a large volume of blank sheets, which I will
fill with my thoughts as they arise, with minute accounts of all that
concerns me or my family, without omitting public matters. My father, a
grave and serious man, regards little else than the latter; but I, a
very ignorant young girl, may be permitted to follow the dictates of my
fancy, and the capricious guidance of my imagination; at least there
shall be neither pretension nor affectation.

To-day brings a new year, and is truly an excellent time for commencing
my journal. In this castle there will be no want of leisure. We have
already said our morning prayers, and I will finish my spiritual reading
during vespers. It has just struck ten, and I am dressed for the day,
including the arrangement of my hair. I have consequently two spare
hours before dinner. I will note down to-day my reflections upon myself:
I will speak of my family, of our house, of the republic, and will in
future detail all that may happen to any or all of us.

I was born in 1743, and am consequently sixteen years old; I received at
my baptism the name of Frances. I am quite tall; I have often been told
that I am handsome, and in truth my mirror reveals the fact that I am by
no means ill looking. My mother says, however, that 'one must give
thanks to God for such a gift, and beware of pride; for it is His
goodness, and not our merit.' My eyes and hair are black, my complexion
fair and well colored; but still I am not satisfied: I would like to be
much taller. It is true that my figure is slight and well formed, but I
have seen women of a loftier stature than myself, and I must envy them a
little, as all tell me I have attained my full height.

I belong to a very noble and ancient family, the Corvini Krasinski. God
grant that I may never sully so glorious a name by any unworthy action;
my desire is to render it still more illustrious, and I am sometimes
sorry that I am not a man, for I should then have been capable of
performing great and brilliant deeds.

My father and mother are so fully persuaded of the excellence of their
origin, that our neighbors, as well as ourselves, all know the genealogy
of our ancestors by heart. I confess, to my shame, that I am much more
conversant with it than with the succession of our kings.

But what will be the final fate of my journal? Will it live or die? Why
should it not survive through many ages, as so many letters and memoirs
written in France have done? Oh, I must pay great attention to my
studies! What a pity I have not the talent of Madame de Sevigné, or of
Madame de Motteville! Perhaps I could write my journal better in French
... But no--that would be unworthy of a Polish girl; a native of Poland,
I must write in my national tongue. It is true that French is generally
used among all our nobility, but then that is a fashion, which, like
all other fashions, may soon pass away, and I should not like to leave
such a blot upon my memory.

If these pages should escape the rats and the rage for curl papers, and
fall into the hands of any one willing to read them through, I hope the
reader will pardon my ignorance, and kindly remember that I write
without method, and am totally uninstructed in all the rules prescribed
for the keeping of a journal. I am but just sixteen, and the great
little matters now occupying so much of my attention, may in the future
seem futile and unworthy of having excited so much interest. What will a
sensible, sober-minded reader think of all the strange fancies passing
through my brain, and the wild dreams of my imagination? But let us now
return to the genealogy of my family.

[Here follows the chronological enumeration of the Krasinski family,
which we omit, as its interest is purely local, and can hence be neither
amusing nor instructive to readers not of Polish origin. The Diary thus
continues:]

Stanislaus Krasinski, starost of Nowemiasto, of Prasnysz, and of Uyscié,
is my father; and Angelica Humiecka, daughter of the celebrated palatine
of Podolia, my mother: but this branch of the Krasinskis will be extinct
at their death, for to my great sorrow I have no brother. We are four,
and all girls, Barbara, myself, Sophia, and Mary. The members of our
little court often tell me I am the prettiest, but that I do not
believe. We have received the education befitting our position as young
and noble ladies, in short, as starostines.

We are all well grown, and have been taught to hold ourselves as
straight as reeds; we are in excellent health, fair, fresh, and rosy. We
have a governess, who is charged with the care of us; we call her
madame; and when she has laced us, our waists might be spanned, as the
saying is, between one's four fingers.

Madame has taught us to courtesy easily and gracefully, and to behave
ourselves properly in the saloon; we seat ourselves on the edge of our
chairs, with our eyes fixed upon the ground, and our arms modestly
crossed.

Every one believes that we are quite ignorant, and cannot count beyond
three; they fancy, too, that we do not know how to walk, and are always
as quiet as mummies. What would they say could they see us running and
jumping in the fine summer mornings? Ah! then we make up for all this
tedious restraint; we are so joyful when our parents permit us to walk
in the woods: then we leave our frizzed hair, stays, and our high-heeled
shoes all behind us, and run about in our morning dresses like crazy
girls; we climb the mountains, and poor madame, who thinks it her duty
to follow us, soon loses her breath, halts with weary limbs, and can
neither run after us, nor call us back.

My two younger sisters and myself have never been far from our own
castle. Our longest journeys have been a visit to our aunt, the
palatiness Malachowska, who lives at Konskié, and to the village of
Piotrkowicé, which belongs to us.

When my father returned from Italy, he founded a pretty chapel in that
village in imitation of the church of Our Lady of Loretto. He has also
founded another chapel at Lissow, our parish, depending upon Maleszow.
My knowledge of the world is hence very limited. But my elder sister has
been more favored; she has journeyed to the ends of the earth; she has
been twice to Opole, visiting an aunt, the princess Lubomirska,
palatiness of Lublin; my father is most tenderly attached to his sister,
and respects her as if she were his mother.

Barbara passed a year in Warsaw at the seminary of the ladies of the
Holy Sacrament, and she is consequently much more learned than we. She
can courtesy to perfection, and holds herself so straight that it is a
real pleasure to see her; her carriage is admirable. I know that my
parents intend placing me at some seminary, and I expect every day to
see the carriage which is to bear me to Warsaw or Cracow drive up to the
door. I shall be sorry to leave the castle, I am so happy here; but my
sister Barbara found her sojourn in the convent very pleasant, and so
doubtless would I. Meanwhile I must perfect myself in French. It is
indispensable for a lady of quality, and I must also complete my
knowledge of the minuet and of music. I should at least see a great
city, and have something to remember.

As I have never had an opportunity of judging by comparison, it is
impossible for me to decide whether our castle of Maleszow be really
handsome or not; I know that it pleases me very much, but many persons
say it has a melancholy air. It is certainly large and commodious, being
four stories high, and having four towers. A ditch filled with running
water surrounds it, which ditch is crossed by a drawbridge. The
neighboring country is mountainous and well wooded.

My parents complain that their dwelling is not large enough, but then
our household is so very numerous. I said that our castle had four
floors, and each floor is thus divided: first a hall, then six rooms,
and four cabinets in the four towers. We do not all live upon the same
floor; on the first we dine, on the second we play and amuse ourselves
with the other young ladies belonging to our household, and on the
third, we have our own apartments. My parents, being no longer young,
find it irksome to go up and down stairs, but to me it is delightful,
especially before I have my stays on. I mount the balustrades, begin to
slide, and in a moment reach the bottom, without having touched a single
step.

We always have a great many visitors, and I believe that if the castle
of Maleszow were three times its present size, it would still be
crowded; even now it is so gay, animated, and lively, that our neighbors
call it the little Paris. During the winter our guests are still more
numerous; our cavalry captain does not then think it worth the trouble
to lift the drawbridge: the new arrivals pour in from morning until
night--visitors are continually coming and going. The orchestra
belonging to our castle chapel plays unceasingly, and we dance as much
as we can; it is a real pleasure to see us.

In summer we have other pastimes; we take long walks, and play various
games in the vestibule of the castle, which is very lofty, reaching to
the roof of the house, and lighted from above. It is delightfully cool
during the warmest days.

I do not believe there are many mansions in Poland surpassing ours in
magnificence. Our little court is composed of courtiers (dworzanin) and
of the household suite (platny); in other words, of many persons having
various employments in the castle: the first (the courtiers) are the
most esteemed, because they serve for the honor alone, while the others
(the suite) receive salaries; but as they are all gentlemen, they all
wear a sabre at their sides. Some few, however, are of very low
extraction, but my father says that 'a noble on his own territory (and
remember that this territory sometimes consists of but a very few square
feet) is the equal of a palatine.'

No one objects to this, however, as the suites of the great lords are
thus nobly augmented, and they can control so many additional votes in
the dietines; a circumstance of no little importance. The chief duty of
the courtiers consists in awaiting their lord's appearance in his public
apartments, where, suitably attired, they stand ready to serve him and
execute any orders he may choose to give them; but if the lord have no
command for them, they are expected to maintain the conversation as
wittily and agreeably as they can, or to play cards. They must also
accompany him in his walks, rides, drives, and visits, defend him on all
difficult occasions, always give him their votes at the dietines, and
finally, entertain him and all who belong to him whenever an opportunity
may offer.

Our little Matthias performs this last duty to perfection; he is indeed
a singular person! I have been told that all courts had formerly an
attendant of this description, and that they could not do without one.
Matthias is supposed to be stupid and devoid of reason, but he judges of
everything with an accuracy and precision that is truly wonderful; his
bonmots are inimitable. None of the courtiers have so many privileges as
he has, for he alone may speak the truth without adornment or softening.
The courtiers call him the fool, but we call him our little Matthias; he
certainly does not deserve the nickname he has received.

We have, besides, six young ladies of noble families, who live in the
castle, and are under madame's charge. Then there are two dwarfs; one is
at least forty years old, and is about the size of a child of four: he
is dressed in the Turkish fashion. The other is eighteen, and has a
charming figure: he wears the costume of a Cossack. My father often
permits him to mount upon the dining table during dinner, and he walks
among the plates and dishes as if he were in a garden.

I think I mentioned that the courtiers had no salaries; nearly all of
them belong to rich, or at least to independent families. They acquire
fine manners at our court, and their training serves as a passport to
all civil and military employments. They receive food for their horses,
and two florins a week for their grooms. They have also a servant to
wait upon them; this domestic is usually dressed in the Hungarian or
Cossack costume. Nothing amuses me more than to watch their faces while
they stand behind their masters' chairs; their eyes are fixed upon the
plates during the whole of the dinner hour; surely not an unnatural
proceeding, as their sole nourishment consists in what is left upon
their masters' plates. Our little Matthias is never tired of ridiculing
them, and makes us nearly die with laughter.

The major part of our household, however, receive salaries, and do not
sit at the table with us, except the chaplain, the physician, and the
secretary. The steward and butler are on their feet all the time we are
dining; they walk about and watch if the table be properly served; they
pour out the wine for the master of the castle and for the visitors. The
courtiers are served with wine only on Sundays and festival days. The
purveyor, the treasurer, the master of the horse, and the arm offerer
(renkodajny), whose business it is to offer his arm to the master or
mistress of the castle every time either one desires to go out, all dine
at the steward's table. The courtiers who dine at our table certainly
enjoy much honor, but little profit; they are served from the same
dishes as we, but do not eat the same things. The cook arranges the
roast meat in the form of a pyramid; at the top he places the game and
the poultry, while below are the pork and the beef, the coarse food of
the courtiers, to whom the dishes are not carried until after we have
been served, and thus the end of the table where they sit is called the
gray end.

When the dishes are first served, they are so enormous that one would
think there must be a large portion for every one; but they disappear so
rapidly that some poor courtiers have scarcely enough to give a flavor
to their bread. There are some who eat in the most incredible fashion,
and who devour all before the others have had a chance to help
themselves. On ordinary occasions, our dinner consists of four dishes;
but on Sundays and holidays, when we have visitors, from seven to
twelve dishes are placed upon the table. The young ladies, our
companions, dine with us.

The salaried courtiers are very well paid; they receive from three to
four hundred florins every year; but then my father requires that they
shall be well dressed, especially when there is a reception at the
castle. He rewards them largely when he is pleased with their services.
If one among them distinguishes himself by his zeal or his strict
attention to his duties, my father recompenses him on his name day,
either in money or in stuffs taken from his own wardrobe.

The salaried dependents are subject to the jurisdiction of the steward,
who has the right of reprimanding and punishing them. The chamberlains
are also under his command; they are gentlemen, and serve during three
years. Their term of service begins between the ages of fifteen and
twenty. When they have been guilty of any fault, the steward awards them
so many lashes with a leathern strap. A carpet is first stretched over
the floor, for the bare ground is only suitable for servants who are not
noble, and the culprit is then chastised. The steward is very severe,
and says that were he more lenient, it would be impossible to maintain
discipline or pursue a proper and efficient method of education;
severity being necessary to restrain youth within the bounds of reason.
My father has told us that there is not a single room in the castle at
Maleszow in which he has not received correction. This is doubtless the
cause of his being so very good now....

We have a dozen chamberlains in our service; one of them, Michael
Chronowski, will have finished his novitiate on Twelfth day, and the
occasion will be celebrated by certain ceremonies. It is the
chamberlains' duty to be always suitably dressed; they can enter our
apartments; they accompany us on foot or on horseback when we ride out,
and are always ready to carry our letters of invitation or our presents,
whenever we have any to send.

As for the other servants in the castle, I cannot even enumerate them; I
do not know the number of musicians, cooks, guards, Cossacks, and
waiting men and women. I can only say that five tables are spread every
day, and that two distributors (szafarz) are occupied from morning until
night in giving out all that is necessary for the kitchen. My mother is
often present at the distribution of the eatables; she carries with her
the keys of the closets in which are the spices, cordials, and
sweetmeats. Every morning the steward presents the bill of fare to my
parents, who approve or change it as they find it well or ill.

Our every-day life is regulated as follows: We rise in summer at six
o'clock, and in winter at seven. My three sisters and myself sleep in
the third story, in a large room with madame. Each of us has an iron bed
with curtains. Barbara, as the eldest, has two pillows and an eiderdown
coverlet; the rest of us have only one pillow and a woollen counterpane.
After having made a hurried toilet, we say our prayers in French, and
then begin our lessons. Our tutor formerly taught us to read, write, and
count in Polish, and the chaplain taught us our catechism; but Barbara
and I are now entirely under madame's direction; our two younger
sisters, however, still receive lessons from the tutor.

At eight we visit our parents, to wish them good morning, and take our
breakfast. In winter we eat soup made with beer, and in summer we drink
milk; on fast days we have a very good panada. After breakfast we all go
and hear mass in the chapel. Our chapel is very pretty. When the service
is ended, the chaplain says the morning prayers aloud in Latin; the
whole court repeat them; but to tell the truth, I have as yet neglected
to ask the meaning of them, and some day I must do it.

We then return to our apartment and recommence our studies. Madame makes
us write, under her dictation, lines from Malherbe, the French poet.

We have a pianoforte, and a German, who directs our orchestra, gives us
lessons; he receives three hundred florins every year. Barbara plays
quite well. After the music lesson, the hair dresser comes to arrange
our hair; he always begins with the eldest. When he has unfortunately
heard of some new fashion, we rarely escape without shedding some blood.
My hair is longer and thicker than that of my sisters, and when I sit on
the stool it sweeps the floor; the barber consequently tries all his
experiments upon my head. The present fashion pleases me exceedingly: it
is a kind of very elegant _negligé_, one portion of the hair is gathered
upon the top of the head and falls down in rich curls; the rest is in
plaits, which hang about the neck and over the shoulders. The barber
uses a half pound of powder every time he dresses my hair.

We employ two hours in making our toilette; but in order that the time
may not be entirely lost, we learn French proverbs by rote, or madame
reads aloud a new work, which is very moral and quite amusing: 'The
Child's Magazine,' by Madame de Beaumont. I cannot express how charming
I find these tales, narrated by a governess to her pupils. At noon the
Angelus is rung, and we go down to dinner, which usually lasts about two
hours; then, the weather permitting, we take a walk. When we return, we
employ ourselves with our needle, and are now engaged on a piece of
embroidery for the church at Piotrowicé. When the daylight fails us, wax
tapers are lighted, and our work is pursued without intermission. We sup
at seven in all seasons, and after supper we have leisure to do as we
please. We converse or play cards. Our little Matthias makes such
comical faces when he fails in getting the card he wishes! He certainly
has the gift of always making me laugh.

The chamberlain is sent to Warsaw once every week, and brings the
letters and papers; the chaplain reads them aloud to us, and to certain
news I pay the most particular attention. My father often reads to us
out of the old chronicles, but I must confess I am much more entertained
by the books written in French. Madame, who does not know a word of
Polish, always reads to us in French, and we thus become accustomed to
the sound of the language. My father only reads to us one evening in the
week. When the carnival comes, farewell to all reading; all then think
of nothing but of playing, dancing, and amusement. The festivals in
Warsaw must be much more splendid than those at our castle. Oh! how I
long to see the magnificent array of a great court!...

But I hear the midday bell, and must say my Angelus, smooth my hair, and
go down to dinner. I will write to-morrow all that I had no time to say
to-day.

  Tuesday, _January 2d_.

I was too much occupied yesterday with merely private affairs, and now I
must dilate a little upon public matters. I should be unworthy of the
Polish name, if the interests of our dear country did not occupy my
thoughts in preference to all other subjects. I hear much conversation
upon politics, and I am very attentive to all that is said; since I have
commenced to write my journal, I find my desire to follow closely the
course of events much increased.

Augustus III, elector of Saxony, reigns at the present time over Poland
and Lithuania. He was crowned by the archbishop of Cracow on the
seventeenth of this month, twenty-five years ago. The party opposed to
his election wished to raise Stanislaus Leszczynski to the throne, but
Augustus was so powerfully supported that he triumphed over his
competitor. The virtuous Leszczynski, possessing neither money nor
soldiers, was forced to return to his good people in Lorraine, who are
very happy under his beneficent rule. It is said that the queen, who had
so strongly encouraged the king in the struggles through which he won
his throne, was truly worthy of being queen of the Poles, for she really
loved them. Mary Josephine always hated intrigue; she was mild,
charitable, and pious; she was indulgent toward her husband and
children, but most severely stern toward herself in all matters of
morals. She was in truth a model of all feminine virtues. She died in
Dresden, about two years ago. She had had fourteen children, eleven of
whom are still living, seven daughters, and four sons. I remember well
the sorrow which her death caused the Poles. Funeral services were
celebrated for her in every church in the kingdom. In our church at
Piotrowicé there was a mass at which all the poor assisted, and they
wept bitter tears while praying for their queen.

It is said that the king is of an easy temper, and leaves all to his
minister Bruhl, the minister really ruling both Poland and Saxony. The
last-mentioned country is at the present moment exposed to great
miseries. Prussia, which is in fact but a new-born state, makes the
whole of Europe tremble. A great man rules her fate. The elector of
Brandenburg raised himself to the throne in 1701 by the power of his own
will. Our republic has not yet recognized his new title as king, and now
the elector's successor is able to confer crowns upon the heads of other
states. He resists Austria, Saxony, Muscovy, and by means of forces
raised within his little kingdom, daily extends his possessions. All say
that his political capacity and knowledge of the military art are
extraordinary; besides which, he is quite learned, a philosopher, and a
great character. Many think that Poland should be ruled by a man of the
stamp of Frederic the Great, but as we are not his subjects, and as his
present position is contrary to our interests, strong fears are
entertained that he may in the future become the cause of our ruin. God
grant that Prussia, which is really but a fraction of Poland, do not one
day swallow her up!...

The men occupied in public affairs scarcely venture to speak above their
breath when they bewail the critical position of their beloved country.
One circumstance especially seems to deprive us of all hope for the
future, and that is, the apparent gradual extinction of those lofty
virtues of the olden time which formerly contributed so much to the
glory and prosperity of our country. Selfish interests seem now to have
destroyed them nearly all; the wants of the common mother are entirely
forgotten, no one thinks now except of his own personal benefit--the
general cause is nothing. The diets assemble and disperse without having
accomplished anything. The voice of Konarski and of his honorable
friends is heard in vain; they preach in a desert; the vile passions of
the wicked weigh heavily in the balance of our destinies. However, all
means of safety are not yet lost: the throne of Poland is elective; the
reigning monarch is aged; if his successor should be endowed with a
great character, if his virtues accord with the elevation of his
station, he may yet save the republic and restore it to its ancient
preponderance among nations. Our frontiers are still unbroken, and I
place all my hope in the mercy of God.

All good men and true patriots desire a king capable of commanding the
Poles. Several candidates have already been proposed, but the two who
seem to have the fairest prospects of success are Stanislaus
Poniatowski, son of the castellan of Cracow, and Charles, prince royal,
son of the reigning king. Poniatowski's father was the favorite of
Charles XII, and was much beloved by the princess Czartoryska. I cannot
tell though why my heart leans so strongly toward prince Charles.
Poniatowski is a Pole, but the other is said to possess many noble
qualities. I will here add all that I have heard and thought upon the
subject of these two candidates.

Stanislaus Poniatowski is young and very handsome, affable, and
fascinating; he has travelled much, his manners have all the elegance of
the French, and he is generally pleasing to women. He loves science and
learned men; he was more than four years in St. Petersburg in the
capacity of secretary to the embassy. Some time has elapsed since his
recall, and he is in high favor at court; hence the probability of his
future elevation.

Charles, the prince royal, is twenty-six years of age; he is the king's
third son, and is beloved by all who approach him. His figure is said to
be noble, and his face most pleasing in expression; his manners are
mild, and he is very accessible; he wins all hearts to love him. He has
lived in Poland since his infancy, and hence loves the people, and
speaks their language wonderfully well. Educated at the court of our
republic, he is neither proud nor humble, but maintains a happy medium
with every one. The king, recognizing all these qualities in his son,
sent him to many foreign courts, beginning with that of St. Petersburg.
Relying upon the aid of Muscovy, he desired that his son should make his
first essay in arms under that power; besides which, he had other ends
in view. He hoped that Charles would be made duke of Courland, a duchy
tributary to Poland. In 1737 the czarina Anna appointed the count de
Biren governor of Courland, but some years later he fell into disgrace,
and was sent to Siberia with his family. The dukedom was consequently
vacant during several years.

Our king, who had the right so to do, conferred the dignity upon his
son, but the sanction of the court of St. Petersburg was required, and
no one could have been more likely to obtain what he desired than the
prince royal himself, for the fascination of his manners had become
proverbial. He accordingly went to St. Petersburg, remaining on his way
some time at Mittau, the capital of Courland, where he succeeded in
winning the esteem and affection of the inhabitants of the duchy. The
czarina soon after confirmed the nomination of the prince royal. Her
consent was formally announced to the king of Poland during the past
year, at the time of the session of the diet. But according to the fatal
custom which so often rends our councils, that assemblage was dissolved
by a nuncio from Wolhynia named Podhorski, and the affair in which
Courland was so deeply interested was not discussed.

It then became necessary to refer it to the senate, where it occasioned
many fierce debates. The prince Czartoryski especially endeavored to
embroil the question by maintaining that the king had no right to
dispose of the duchy without the consent of the diet; that Biren could
not be degraded from the dignity conferred upon him without having been
properly tried, judged, and condemned; and finally, that the nomination
of the prince royal could only be provisional, or valid during the
lifetime of the czarina. These foolish clamors were rendered powerless
by an imposing majority; one hundred and twenty-eight white balls,
against five black ones, decided in favor of Prince Charles. The diploma
has already been presented to him by the grand chancellor of the crown,
and the ceremony of investiture takes place to-day. The rejoicings in
Warsaw must be truly magnificent, and I am quite sure that all are
delighted.

It is said that the king has grown ten years younger since the happy
termination of this affair. I cannot judge of the importance of these
events to the general welfare of the republic, but I am enchanted with
the good fortune of Prince Charles. I ask myself continually why this
matter interests me so deeply. The destiny of my country may soon depend
upon the prince, and I believe him called to avert the storm which seems
ready to burst upon Poland. I believe that he will give us better laws
and a good government. The dukedom of Courland will serve him as a
stepping stone to the throne. I am truly grieved from the bottom of my
heart that I cannot now be in Warsaw, where I should see such brilliant
fêtes, a splendid court, and Prince Charles. ... But since that is
impossible, I must content myself with drinking his health to-day at our
table.




THE LADIES' LOYAL LEAGUE


As men led the way in the formation of a Loyal League throughout the
country, many women, in view of an association of their sex under that
name, seem to think themselves required to adopt ideas and regulations
approaching as closely as may be to those already existing in the male
League. But as, in private life, woman's duties, though equally
important, are not identical with those of man, so whenever in a
community there is call for united, and therefore public action on the
part of its females, it is because something is necessary to be done
which men by their methods cannot do; consequently, in performing it,
our sex, by striving to merely imitate, without regard to uses, the
machinery or measures of the other, would but defeat their own objects.
This can be realized when we reflect on the fact that the public action
of man has always a tendency to be directive of measures political or
governmental, while that of woman is more legitimately humanitarian or
social.

There is a class of thinking women who are very earnest and undoubtedly
conscientious in their misapprehension of the existence of this fact.
And so great is the restless tumult of their indignation at their
supposed wrongs in not exercising direct influence, political and
governmental, that they fail, either to perceive their own particular
work--sufficient in itself to occupy all their faculties--or else they
confound the sphere of society with the sphere of government, imagine
they are not responsible for errors existing in the former, because they
have no immediate control in the latter, and that in political matters
at least, justice requires the direct action of both sexes; whereas,
according to the natural laws of adaptation of means to ends, the
special control of government on the one hand, and of society on the
other, is distinctly divided between them; so that while the existing
government is an organized expression of the manhood of the age that
founded it, the existing society is a like expression of the womanhood
of the time. Society and government, through the inevitable laws of
sympathy and reaction between things closely connected, influence,
modify, and constantly change each other. But any special interference
on the part of one sex with the direct action of the other in its own
province, not only impedes the other, but also argues a neglect of
legitimate duties, which, it were well to remember, require for their
just performance all the energy, intellect, and moral elevation, each
for its own sphere, possessed by the respective manhood and womanhood
of the community interested.

Although aware that the various circles of the Ladies' Loyal League,
already established, entertain ideas which are in some respects, because
of this existing confusion as to duties, political and social,
dissimilar to each other, yet we believe the one grand moral aim, on the
part of the several branches of the organization everywhere, will
finally be the fostering a healthy, intelligent patriotism, in the
_social and domestic circles_ of our land; and that, through the
aggregate influence of a womanhood true to itself and its own work.

If this conviction be founded in fact, the best method by which such a
patriotism can be cultivated becomes a topic of lively interest to every
woman in America who loves her country. Therefore to all such the
following brief consideration of a subject so intrinsically important,
will not, we trust, seem untimely.

We proceed then to respectfully suggest to the ladies of the Loyal
League some measures and ideas, which, it is hoped, will prove in their
judgment not unworthy of general adoption, in the various branches of
our association.

In enumerating methods whereby it is believed our sex has preëminent
capacity to cultivate a genuine patriotism in our country, we will, as
first in order, mention those easily recognized ones already generally
understood.

As members of the Ladies' Loyal League, we can do good service, first,
by cheering, honoring, and aiding in every fit way, and by every
legitimate means, such men, privates no less than officers, as are our
country's brave defenders, or as have been wounded in being such.
Second, by encouraging new enlistments, and taking pride in seeing the
dear members of our own households go forth to the help of our
imperilled country. Third, by paying special honor to such women in our
midst, as have sent son or husband or father or any near relative to
camp life and battle field, in defence of our free institutions. In
ordinary times, and in ordinary society, individuals take grade
according to active intelligence, or the show of wealth, but in times
like the present--and especially in an association whose awakening
principle is patriotism, those persons who have made the greatest
sacrifices for country should rank first. Indeed is it not advisable
that the League confer honorary distinction on every woman who has given
up such near relatives as son or husband to the dangers of this bloody
war? So long as the United States is in her present condition, so long
must we, as patriots, honor our soldiers, encourage enlistments, and pay
our tribute of respectful admiration to those of our own sex whose
beloved ones have already laid down their lives, or are now offering
their lives in our national defence.

Another moral aim of our League, as explicitly stated in many of the
pledges signed throughout the country, is to frown on all traitors and
all such as we know to be sympathizers with them. We hope no one's
displeasure, will be aroused by a word here. It is very true, no warmly
patriotic woman can now, in the present hour of peril, cordially
associate with such persons as offensively intrude their treasonable
sentiments. But let the patriotic woman not go too far--let her not
forget that when human beings give, as it were, a moral sanction to
feelings of hatred or contempt, they unchain a demon in their breasts.
We are all oftentimes shocked by anecdotes illustrative of the rancorous
spite, and vulgar, unwomanly malignity, cherished by many Southern
females against the Union and its defenders. Now were it not well for
us, on the other side, to take warning, and, for the sake of our own
peace of mind, our own dignity of character, our own Christian virtues,
not fall into the fallacy of thinking it right to indulge in feelings
and words of hate, even toward the criminally disloyal. This topic is
one involving so much of social and personal happiness, we are tempted
to enlarge upon it; but as all our remarks at this time are intended as
mere hints and suggestions, and not as an elaborate discussion, we pass
on to another method of fostering a healthy living patriotism--the fifth
and last of those to which we now direct attention, but the one
evidently the most difficult, and yet for final results the most
important of all. It is the cultivation, in American women, of a true
understanding and appreciation of the principles of our democratic
institutions--with a view to their practical social bearing, and
consequent obligations upon our sex.

Two years ago, a distinguished English philosopher and historian, lately
deceased, expressed the fear that our American system of government was
in advance of the culture of democratic ideas among our people.
Doubtless this observation took the shape of a fear because its author
was cognizant of the truth that when the spirit of a government fails to
be continually nourished by a sympathetic spirit in the prevailing tone
of society throughout the nation over which it presides, then the
government has small assurance of perpetuity.

Being patriots, and having, as women, so much to do with matters social
and educational, would it not be desirable to understand clearly wherein
the foundation principles of our government differ from that of
despotisms and monarchies, and to ascertain whether our practical
life--our society--is in conformity with our own vaunted democracy or
not?

Now the principles upon which our republic was founded teach that one
person has no right to trample on the rights of another--that we can
have no aristocratic order--that he who labors with head or hand is
intrinsically more honorable than the mere idler and pleasure seeker,
however wealthy--that legally neither birth nor riches confer any
special privileges. And in all this the spirit of our American
government is in direct opposition to the spirit of monarchical
institutions. But how is it with American society, in the moulding and
directing of which our sex has so much to do?

However opposed to each other democratic and republican partisans may
feel, the titles of their parties are terms which imply principles
synonymous--and alike in harmony with the genius our government. But
examine society among these parties. Mix with the social circles of our
capitals, during the meetings of our State Legislatures or sessions of
Congress, when democratic ladies are in the ascendency: make another
visit when the ladies of republicans are leading society in the same
places--and do you not find in the practical life of both parties a lack
of the simplicity and earnestness of real republicanism and democracy?

Yes, to our shame as daughters of a republic, we must admit that we take
more pride in ostentation than in simplicity; and that our dominant
social life and culture are a mere reflection, so far as the freedom of
our government will permit them to be, of social life and culture amid
the arrogant aristocracies of Europe!

The relation of an incident which came under our observation in a
Northern city may not be considered out of place here, since it is
illustrative of the workings of our anti-democratic social system, and
how it may even be brought to swallow up practically all sense of the
obligations of patriotism.

Last winter, a sick soldier, who had been suffering in hospital for many
months, was finally discharged as incurable, found by his old widowed
mother, and brought to his relatives, in the city mentioned, to die. As
a soldier, so long as he could bear a musket--and when he was too weak
to carry arms, so long as he could carry a cup of water to the wounded
and dying on the bloody field of Corinth--since which exertion he had
been himself helpless--so long did he serve his country faithfully and
well. But when he came home to die, though some half a dozen Union
families knew his condition, only one paid him the least attention and
respect. It may be supposed this was because his relatives and their
immediate friends were abundantly able to minister to his wants, so that
any outside proffers would seem but officiousness. On the contrary, his
relatives were poor, sickly, and, doubtless because of sickness,
inefficient people. However strange, it is nevertheless true, that
members from two of these Union families, some of them attendants on the
aid society, and all loudly patriotic people, ridiculed the attention of
the one Union family who did try to cheer the suffering soldier,
expressing the sentiment that they would scorn to pay him any attention,
'his people were such a mean, low set.' That was the term applied to the
relatives of the dying hero! and this--not because they failed in
patriotism--not because they were guilty of any immoralities--but
because they were burdened, beyond their strength, by poverty and ill
fortune! And this neglect was persisted in till the end. The dying boy
felt the cruelty of it--if he did not also feel the ingratitude of
it--as may be inferred from the last words he uttered, wherein, after
alluding to the family who did minister to him, he added, with parting
breath, the melancholy comment: 'I am glad somebody noticed me.'

This instance of the pride of class in our country going so far as to
destroy the impulses of ordinary charity, and to blot out of the
conscience the claims of a suffering soldier upon the personal gratitude
of every patriotic heart that can reach him, is, we do hope and believe,
an extreme case. But being a fact, and one illustrative of the
contradiction between the principles of our government and the
principles that sway our social life, we relate it in order to vividly
impress the mournful reality of that contradiction, and the consequent
urgent duty of all women who are indeed patriotic, to make earnest
efforts to bring the daily life of our people, in dress, manners, home
surroundings, and motives of action in family and social circles nearer
to the spirit of true democracy.

To do this requires so much of personal culture and denial of selfish,
arrogant instincts in ourselves, so much of modification in our training
of our children, so much uprooting on our part of cherished prejudices
in society, that, as before stated, it is a most difficult work. But
however difficult, it must be accomplished--and by American women, too,
for men have no power to lead in such a matter as this: it must be
accomplished, or the hope of the freedom and progress of humanity will
be crushed, and democracy on earth die, even out of institutions of
government.

The action of a government, if not modified by the differing social life
of its people, is the practical realization of its theory: and social
life among the people, if not too far restricted by the arbitrary
interference of government, is also a practical realization of its
controlling spirit; consequently, the freer the government the more
plainly are evinced the prevailing principles of those who give the tone
to society; and under our democratic system, women--those who give this
tone to society--are with justice esteemed freer than elsewhere.

But of what value to the race is this greater freedom, if we employ it
in imitating the spirit and customs that are the result of the impeded
society of nations less beneficently governed; rather than in taking
advantage of our wider opportunities to develop a true womanhood, such
as would cause us to regard man neither as a natural foe nor as a model
for servile imitation--such as would prompt us to influence man, not by
any direct sharing in the performance of his peculiar work, but by doing
our own so intelligently and beautifully, that it shall sympathize with,
and elevate the spirit of his.

The society and government of a nation are two great institutions
equally important, and requiring for their wise development equal mental
capacity. And in the economy of Providence in regard to the distribution
of responsibility between the sexes, while man has hitherto modified
governments, woman, among Christian nations--and possibly among pagan
also--has always moulded society. We glance back thus to repeat our
leading idea, because we wish to add here, that to the minds of those
who realize the truth of it, the often vexed question of the comparative
intellectual ability of the sexes is put at rest. For where the imposed
responsibilities, though differing, are equally great, we may justly
infer that the Deity has bestowed on the differing sexes, upon whom
these responsibilities are respectively distributed, equal capacity for
wise performance in its own sphere, and equal power to intellectually
comprehend the other's sphere. For although not so well fitted to
perform the peculiar duties which belong to the other sex--yet each one,
in order to intelligently perform its own labor, must of necessity
understand and sympathize entirely with that of the other.

We cannot linger now upon how society and government always act and
react upon each other--how, in our own particular case, the colonial
matrons of the country lived democracy, before our forefathers
instituted it--how, in times of after peace, the introduction of the
leaven of the spirit of European manners and society caused the
daughters, not having been sufficiently warned and instructed of their
danger, to fall from the practised faith of their mothers, till to-day
we read the alarming fact that American society has slid back, little by
little, till now, alas, it is nearly in conformity with the moral
barbarism of aristocratic institutions! In view of this retrograde state
of things, as patriotic women of America, we can do nothing less than
perform the work of our mothers over again. God grant we may do it--and
do it more effectually than they--inasmuch as we, it is to be hoped,
realize the necessity of so instructing our daughters, that after
generations of women will never, like us, see society lagging behind the
divine principles of true democracy.

The heart of many a patriotic female, throbbing with anguish for her
torn and bleeding country, who has no husband, struggling on the side of
the holy cause, at home or in the army, to be sustained by the
inspiration of a loving woman's self-denying patriotism; who has no sons
or brothers to send to the battle field, and to write brave, cheering,
blessed letters to; whose means are so swallowed up by daily necessities
that she has no money--has not even time to bestow on aid societies and
loyal leagues--the heart of many such, in our land now, bends low in
self-abasement, and groans daily with the thought that she is useless to
her country in its hour of bitter need. Let all such females raise up
their drooping heads, cheer up their hearts, and take courage. Neither
God nor her country requires a woman to act in the face of circumstances
which are inexorable. But this work of reforming the spirit and
remodelling the customs of society on a simple democratic basis, is one
in which every woman--no matter what her condition, nor how
circumstanced--is capable of doing loyal service to country and
humanity. For if she has the will, she can bring her own life, and that
of those affected by her influence, gradually away from the sphere of
principles which are antagonistic to our national institutions.

Let a controlling majority of our sex throughout the United States thus
act--and were our threatened Government doomed now to be indeed
overturned, the startled world has no cause to despair! For then the
women of our land would prove its saviors--for, having recreated society
according to the principle of democracy, they would, through the laws of
reaction, restore that principle again to American institutions;
restore--never again to be shaken thence, because upheld by the
intelligent coöperation of woman.




WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.


[The Continental, drawing its very life from its desire of upholding,
strengthening, and sustaining our sacred Union, welcomes the article
from 'west of the Mississippi,' the object of which is to encourage,
through a common literature, the fraternal relations between East and
West, and cherish the great bond of national unity by proclaiming
kindred ties.

We of the East stretch forth loving hands to our brothers of the West,
and, feeling true and loyal hearts beating through the dim spaces
dividing us, bid them God speed, as bone of our bone, and flesh of our
flesh, whose prosperity is our life, whose ruin would be our own
desolation.

  'As from the East the lovely exile goes,
  Fair on the West a young Aurora glows;
  And all the flowers Ionian shores could yield
  Blush forth, reblooming in the Hesperian field.'

  EDS. CONTINENTAL.]

From our quiet homes, on the western bank of the Mississippi, very
nearly in Boston latitude, we send daily thoughts of business, friendly
interest, and political sympathy unto you who dwell upon our Atlantic
shore. Some of us look back unto you as the prodigal son is said to have
regarded his father's house. All of us have intimate ties binding us
unto you. From you, as the fountain head of literature and intelligence,
through your magazines and journals, we are constantly supplied with the
living current of thought and mental activity. Is it anything but fair
that we should occasionally seek to respond and acknowledge the debt and
the fellowship? For what shall more tend to strengthen the bonds of our
broad Union than these common sympathies of a widespread and national
fraternity of literary tastes and gratifications? Assimilation of mind,
community of thought produced by free interchange of opinion, in the way
of social intercourse, these will open our hearts to each other and
strengthen the links of our national brotherhood. That we may love each
other, let us know each other; that we may know each other, let us not
fail to look each other fairly in the face.

West of the deep and gently flowing northern Mississippi, I know, is a
long way off from the surging waters of your eastern coasts. When you
have come this distance, you are, in so far as distance only is
concerned, pretty well on your way toward the Rocky Mountains, and the
new land of El Dorado, the young and golden Nevada. But yet we are in
fact much nearer to your golden markets than to the hidden ore of our
new Territories. Time and space, whose natural demands have been so
rudely disregarded by the iron progress of science and skill between you
and us, still to a great degree maintain their ancient rule over the
lands west of us. That vast, thrifty vine of speedy transportation,
which has wound itself about the trunk of our national tree, strikes
here and there one of its tendrils out upon the branches beyond us, over
the region of a few counties. In one instance, in the State immediately
south of us, a single energetic scion has crept even to the banks of
the rapid Missouri, and others are pushing steadily on in determined
emulation. But in most cases, we must be content to ride to the
westward, only on the back of the laggard and unambitious coach, that
tortoise of travel, crawling on through prairie and swamp. And it is
still within the recollection of almost the youngest inhabitant, how the
daily trains, drawn by horse, mule, or ox, dragged themselves through
our streets, proclaiming from their cotton coverings their distant
destination, illustrating on their march the Western 'Excelsior'--

  'The wheels in mud were sticking fast,
  As through a boundless prairie passed
  A youth, who drove a two-mule team,
  While on his wagon top was seen.

  PIKE'S PEAK.'

Thus eastward we are within forty-eight hours of your press, while
westward we are nearly as many days distant by private conveyance from
the land of fabled wealth. But time and space must eventually give in.
They are not equal to the task; and already the shadow of the great
Pacific road makes them tremble for their natural tenure of the free
West. It might have done for Æsop to talk about the tortoise and the
hare, when they had not steam in those days to course their streams and
stalk across their plains with giant tread, eclipsing the old
seven-league boots of their fancy; but the tortoise is a used-up
individual, is short of breath, and it is the passenger that sleeps,
while the hare leaps onward to his covert.

Being thus brought near to you by the swift convoys of science, it will
be evident that we are not so far away as we seem. We do not perpetrate
an Irish bull when we say that the distance _to_ a place is often
greater than the distance in returning. It is, on the contrary, a well
authenticated natural fact--a phenomenon, if you please. And by way of
illustration we may aver that it is a great deal farther from your
metropolis to west of the Mississippi, than from west of the Mississippi
to the metropolis.

You sit in your cosy parlors and offices and think of some friend or
relative, perhaps a son or daughter, in the 'far West.' It seems as if a
sea spread out between you, or at least the better part of a continent.
You think of India and China, perchance, or of England or France, and
you feel as if they were all nearly equidistant with the home of your
beloved ones. It is so far away out to the Father of Waters, and you can
never make up your mind, without great and frequent resolution, to
undertake such a journey as this.

But, my friends, it is not half so far as that, from us to the Atlantic
coast. It is not so far from us to you, as it is to some tardy customer,
whose bills are yet to collect, a hundred miles down the country by a
two-days' stage adventure. Not nearly so far. Why, when we want to go to
New York or Boston, we don't pack our trunks and take a cargo of luggage
on board for a two-months' voyage. We just tumble hurriedly a few things
into a valise or carpet sack before we go to bed, and the next morning
off we start, and after two days of sight-seeing and newspaper reading
along the way, and two nights' comfortable sleeping-car rest, we wake up
at the dawn of the third day to bid you good morning and inquire after
the markets; and that is the end of it.

It isn't so very far, after all. We put off in the morning, bid good
evening to Chicago, good morning to Toledo, a ten-o'clock good night to
Buffalo, and we sit down to a late breakfast with you the following day.

But then if you have never been out here, it's a long, long distance,
and we advise you not to try it all of a sudden, nor to come without a
trunk. _Quod erat demonstrandum._

Then, in the next place, being out here, what sort of a people are we?
This is a very important query. In the eyes of many we are Western
semi-barbarians, without an overplus of manners, means, comforts,
knowledge, or many, if any, of the means of Eastern and refined
enjoyment. We have come hither to make our fortunes, or to care for
those who have, and we are the fit objects of spiritual and temporal
commiseration and missionary operations. That is the idea somewhat
candidly expressed, isn't it? Oh, no! you don't think so poorly of us as
that; but then we are a great ways off, in fact, in a new country, among
strangers for the most part, and of course we cannot expect to find
everything at hand which we enjoyed in our former comfortable homes.

Well, we are, many of us, from the 'far' East, and most of us from
eastward. But we have tried to bring whatever of refinement, manners,
knowledge, proprieties, and comforts we before possessed, such as they
were, with us, and we haven't lost many of them. We do not believe that
contact with the Indians has very much barbarized us. We still read and
write and live in houses which we have built, and conduct mercantile and
other transactions on former equitable principles; and our
communications and intercourse with each other may still be said to be
civilized, at least in great measure. We eat and drink what we formerly
did, not excepting occasional shad and frequent oysters; and you do not
seem to be averse to trying our deer and grouse once in a while--while
we even share with you our wheat, cattle, and pork. We don't wear
moccasons as yet, nor buckskin with Indian trimmings, instead of doeskin
with the latest cut. We try, for the sake of appearances, to wear cotton
and woollen and silk; and beads and trinkets are in no extraordinary
demand. Beavers and furs are seen upon our streets; and the sound of the
piano heard in the land, is not a very unusual disturbance. Our boys, as
of old, smoke cigars in secret, fearful of ancient birch, and gum drops
still adhere to the pockets of our girls in school. We don't see a very
remarkable difference between the children about us and those we knew at
a somewhat early age. Brick and stone rise with us into comfortable and
even aspiring buildings, and the price of board is not less than we have
paid before, nor so very much more. We neither travel nor live on half
fare. And men still drive the horse before the cart, and carry the wheat
in both ends of the bag as they go to mill.

In fact, we don't see that civilization has lost much flesh in its
arduous journey to the far West; nor that, being human before, we have
become less human now, or discarded our manners when we shut the doors
of our birthplace behind us. We know indeed that Colenso went to convert
the heathen, and that the heathen succeeded in converting him, thus
putting the boot on the other leg; but the Indians have not yet won us
to their dusky faith, although we must confess that assimilation to
their copper-colored principles seems to have made some Copperheads
among us.

As to works of art, they are not very plentiful hereabouts, excepting in
the way of monuments perhaps. We have a generous number of those,
erected to the large-heartedness and wisdom of persons who engaged in
great improvement schemes, in the line of speculation, when there was
but a fictitious basis of wealth in this land, before the bubble burst.
These monuments, however, are not generally esteemed ornamental, and the
wealth so lavishly expended upon them came not from the bosom of our
communities, neither was it imported from north of us, nor west of us,
but from whence I will not say. Perhaps some one who reads can help to
account for part of it. These monuments, however, such as they are,
have, by the liberal contributions made for their erection, exceeded in
cost that of Bunker Hill, or the half-finished shot tower in Washington.
Our only statues do not represent either the Father of his Country, nor
the late old public defunctionary who sat in his chair--but they are
principally devoted to 'the poor Indian,' in native costume. These
statues, frequently wooden, exhibit the wonted hospitality of this race,
and maintain the attitude of proffering a cigar to the friendly passer
by.

Of paintings there is not a superfluity; still we have a small
collection, comprising several which have for some years been on public
exhibition, illustrating 'The Good Samaritan;' 'Prodigious;'
'Washington's Blacksmith shoeing Washington's Horse,' and others of
less note, while ----'s panorama of the war has lately departed from us.

Still we have our public and private schools, seminaries, and churches,
as others have in fully civilized countries; our newspapers, white and
bronze; our leading men, and officeholders; natives of all climes and
kindreds, Jew and Gentile, German and French, Bohemian and Scotch,
English and Irish; our generals and our corporals; our learned and our
unlearned; debtors and creditors--comprising mostly all of us; but
believe me, friend, not a solitary living Indian.

I think we are a generous, hospitable, liberal people, up to the full
limit of our means and capabilities. Being all away from home, as it
were, and all strangers together, we have learned the blessedness of
sympathy, and how a little lift is often a great boost, and a friend in
need a friend indeed. It was formerly said that when a stranger
appeared, the inhabitants emulously set to work to take him in, not
however in the flattering and hospitable sense of the words. But as
almost without exception any man in a new place or position is a verdant
man, so we honestly maintain that they took themselves in, and found it
rather difficult to take themselves out again. I believe that we are as
quiet, honest, genteel, and mind-your-own-business a set of folks as you
may find in most other and more favored communities. With the constant
and increasing accessions to our society from more enlightened regions,
it would be a wonder did we not attain in time to a level with many
other and older-settled countries, who are apt to look abroad with
serene complacency gathering motes in open eyes, We have had our castles
in the air, and some of them are now underground; but we have read of
South Sea bubbles, rise and fall in stocks, 'On to Richmonds,'
McClellans, and Congress; and we don't think the beams are all in our
own eyes and the motes too.

In fact we are not heathen nor barbarian, Goth nor Vandal, Hottentot nor
Fire Eater--but bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh--one with you in
all the customs, proprieties, civilization, and hopes of the great
American people; bound to save the republic of our fathers, if we go to
the death in defence of our mutual rights, principles, and homes.

Do you ask then, 'What is the need of saying all this, since we know it
all?' I reply, there is need of saying it, and of repeating it again.
There may not be need of it for you, my friend; there is need of it for
many others. Talk not of making us of one flesh twain. It cannot be. It
is not a question of mere _interest_ that shall bind us as a people
inseparably in one. God will not solder a chain. It is a higher bond, a
holier bond. We are essentially and intrinsically one; one by nature;
one by mutual sympathies, by blood relations, by dearest ties; one in
all that constitutes the unity of a family relation; one in heart, one
in aim, one in mind, purpose, education, and will. None can make us two.
Lines may be drawn by ambitious schemers, divisions discussed, but these
do not constitute separation or alienation. The heart of the people
beats in profound and resolute unison. What God hath joined together let
not man put asunder.

Rise, then, as thou art already rising, great heart of the troubled
nation, throb from one confine to the other, bid faction's agitation
hush, crush down opposition, scorn the unholy threat, dash the
traitorous scheme, and declare the resolute and solemn purpose of all
the members to live and govern together, as parts of the same living
unity, till the whole body politic becomes a prostrate, lifeless corpse.
And from the western border of the States, even from among the youngest
and least of the children of the Union of Seventy-six, the union of
oaths and the union of hearts, the union of instincts and the union of
hopes, do we, in the name of her daughters and sons, bid you, upon the
eastern confines, and the States between, you the mothers, and you the
elder daughters, all hail, and God speed you in the work of forging
anew, even in the fierce fires, the links that bind us into one; 'so
making peace.'

For we are of you and with you, and will be ever, while our setting sun
is your rising sun--ever, until we become two distinct and divergent
races--till you cease to be Joseph and we cease to be Benjamin--till you
become Edom and we become Moab--till long centuries shall have erased
all kindred ties and bonds of consanguinity, and all men, forgetful of
history, shall sink together into vassalage and ancient barbarism. But
until then we are one in heart, one in life, and must abide one in fact,
or sink together to common shameful desolation.




THE CAVALIER THEORY REFUTED.


A remarkable feature of all discussions of questions connected with the
present civil war, is the lack of any attempt to question the foundation
of important assertions. Our orators and writers have been ready to
explain or soften adverse statements, but they have rarely questioned
the existence of any asserted facts. One of the most persistent
assumptions of the secessionists has been that the inhabitants of their
States are the descendants of the gentry of England, and that the
Unionists of the loyal States have neither any identity of origin nor a
historical pedigree. On this assumed fact they build two arguments:
first, that being homogeneous, they are united to a degree to which the
Northerners can never attain; secondly, that the English people, and
especially the English gentry, are closely allied to them in blood, and
should naturally sympathize with them in their voluntary opposition to
the constituted Government.

I propose to show that not only are these assertions unfounded, but that
the reverse is the truth; and this I feel authorized in doing for
several reasons.

In the first place, if there be no advantage in placing ourselves right
in our own eyes, our cause can be advanced in the eyes of foreign
observers, by the publication of the truth. Were the facts as
represented, an Englishman would be justified, to a certain degree, in
sympathizing with a large number of the descendants of Englishmen,
engaged in a revolt against a superior number of foreigners. His intense
nationality, which has so long given his nation an undue influence,
leads him to take this view, and his belief in English invincibility
causes him to prejudge the case, and to deem the subjugation of his
Southern relatives an impossibility.

Secondly, class prejudices are aroused everywhere in Europe by the idea
that a nation of gentlemen is contending for every right against a
vulgar crowd; the idea of what in reality constitutes an American
democracy being still exceedingly nebulous to the European mind.

Thirdly, we have borne too long the imputation thus cast on us, for our
own good in the management of our own affairs. Already expression has
been given to threats of ultimate division of the North into separate
nationalities, on the ground that we have no common interests and no
common origin. It seems well, therefore, to investigate the data at
hand, and to see if the South be so united or the North so divided as
alleged.

A few tables, prepared from the official Census returns, will serve to
place the question in a clear light, and they will be easily confirmed
or rejected.

I assume in the following table that the inhabitants of the United
States were citizens by birth, and by deducting at the end of each
decade the number of immigrants, we have what may fairly be claimed as
the percentage of natural increase. I have added the slight excess over
the percentage to the column of native born, believing this advantage at
least belongs to them:


WHITE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES.

TABLE NO. I.--INCREASE AND IMMIGRATION.

 -----+--------+----------+----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
      |Percent |  Total   | Natives. |Aliens.|Aliens.|Aliens.|Aliens.|
 Date.|  of    |   per    |          |       |       |       |       |
      |Natural | Census.  |   1790.  | 1800. | 1810. | 1820. | 1830. |
      |Increase|          |          |       |       |       |       |
 -----+--------+----------+----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
 1790 |        | 3,172,464| 3,172,464|       |       |       |       |
      |  33.7  |          | 1,071,971| 50,000|       |       |       |
      |        |          |----------+-------|       |       |       |
 1800 |        | 4,294,435| 4,244,435| 50,000|       |       |       |
      |  34.4  |          | 1,465,290| 16,200| 70,000|       |       |
      |        |          |----------+-------+-------|       |       |
 1810 |        | 5,845,925| 5,709,725| 66,200| 70,000|       |       |
      |  32.1  |          | 1,835,672| 21,250| 22,470|114,000|       |
      |        |          |----------+-------+-------+-------+       |
 1820 |        | 7,839,317| 7,545,397| 87,450| 92,470|114,000|       |
      |  32.1  |          | 2,424,228| 28,071| 29,781| 36,594|151,824|
      |        |          |----------+-------+-------+-------+-------|
 1830 |        |10,509,815| 9,969,625|115,521|122,251|150,594|151,824|
      |  29    |          | 2,899,444| 33,501| 35,452| 43,673| 44,028|
      |        |          |----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
 1840 |        |14,165,038|12,869,069|149,022|157,703|194,267|195,852|
      |  25.1  |          | 3,238,699| 37,403| 39,583| 48,761| 49,157|
      |        |          |----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
 1850 |        |19,442,272|16,107,768|186,425|197,286|243,028|245,009|
      |  23.9  |          | 3,868,994| 44,456| 47,151| 58,083| 58,557|
      |        |          |----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
 1860 |        |26,706,425|19,976,762|230,881|244,437|301,111|303,566|
 -----+--------+----------+----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

 -----+--------+----------+-------+---------+---------
      |Percent |  Total   |Aliens.| Aliens. | Aliens.
 Date.|  of    |   per    |       |         |
      |Natural | Census.  | 1840. |  1850.  |  1860.
      |Increase|          |       |         |
 -----+--------+----------+-------+---------+---------
 1790 |        | 3,172,464|       |         |
      |  33.7  |          |       |         |
      |        |          |       |         |
 1800 |        | 4,294,435|       |         |
      |  34.4  |          |       |         |
      |        |          |       |         |
 1810 |        | 5,845,925|       |         |
      |  32.1  |          |       |         |
      |        |          |       |         |
 1820 |        | 7,839,317|       |         |
      |  32.1  |          |       |         |
      |        |          |       |         |
 1830 |        |10,509,815|       |         |
      |  29    |          |599,125|         |
      |        |          |-------|         |
 1840 |        |14,165,038|599,125|         |
      |  25.1  |          |150,380|1,713,251|
      |        |          |-------+---------|
 1850 |        |19,442,272|749,505|1,713,251|
      |  23.9  |          |179,131|  409,467|2,598,214
      |        |          |-------+---------+---------
 1860 |        |26,706,425|928,636|2,122,718|2,598,214
 -----+--------+----------+-------+---------+---------

This table shows us that in the States in 1860, out of 26,706,425 white
inhabitants, 19,976,762 were the descendants of the original citizens of
1790. I omit the Territories, as the number of inhabitants cannot affect
the result, and it is difficult to decide upon their nationality.

In Table II, I propose to divide the inhabitants of 1790 into four
classes, the first comprising New England; the second, New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania; the third, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia; and the fourth, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and
Tennessee.

Allowing to each class the same percentage of increase as in the former
table, we shall see how our nineteen millions of native-born citizens
originated:


INCREASE OF NATIVE WHITE POPULATION.

TABLE NO. II.

 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
      |         |   TOTAL    |           |           |           |
      |         |   as per   |           |           |           |
      | Percent |  'Native'  |           |           |           |
      |   of    |   column,  |    New    | New York, | Virginia, | Delaware,
 Date.|Increase.|Table No. I.|  England. |    &c.    |    &c.    |    &c.
 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
 1790 |         |  3,172,464 |   992,781 |   908,195 |   923,383 |   348,105
      |   33.7  |            |   335,417 |   306,911 |   312,030 |   117,618
 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
 1800 |         |  4,244,435 | 1,328,198 | 1,215,106 | 1,235,413 |   465,718
      |   34.4  |            |   458,465 |   419,596 |   426,582 |   160,647
 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
 1810 |         |  5,709,725 | 1,786,663 | 1,634,702 | 1,661,995 |   626,365
      |   32.1  |            |   574,369 |   525,589 |   534,350 |   201,364
 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
 1820 |         |  7,545,397 | 2,361,032 | 2,160,291 | 2,196,345 |   827,729
      |   32.1  |            |   758,541 |   694,103 |   705,676 |   265,908
 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
 1830 |         |  9,969,625 | 3,119,573 | 2,854,394 | 2,902,021 | 1,093,637
      |   29    |            |   907,176 |   830,274 |   844,086 |   317,908
 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
 1840 |         | 12,869,069 | 4,026,749 | 3,684,668 | 3,746,107 | 1,411,545
      |   25.1  |            | 1,012,464 |   927,852 |   943,272 |   355,111
 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
 1850 |         | 16,107,768 | 5,039,213 | 4,612,520 | 4,689,379 | 1,766,656
      |   23.9  |            | 1,210,270 | 1,108,292 | 1,126,661 |   423,771
 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
 1860 |         | 19,976,762 | 6,249,483 | 5,720,812 | 5,816,040 | 2,190,427
 -----+---------+------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------

Here then we see that New England has contributed nearly one third of
the number, and nearly one quarter of the entire population.

But I will endeavor further to analyze the constitution of the different
States which were added to the Union previous to 1860. The following
table will show the numbers at each decade:


TABLE NO. III.

NORTHERN FOREIGN IMMIGRATION AND SOUTHERN EMIGRATION.

 -----+----------------------------------++-----------------------------------
      |            FREE STATES.          ||     SLAVE STATES.
      |-----------+----------+-----------++-----------+----------+------------
      |Inhabitants|          |           ||Inhabitants|          |
 Date.|per Census.| Natives. |Immigrants.||all Native.|Emigrants.|Immigrants.
 -----+-----------+----------+-----------++-----------+----------+-------------
 1810 |  3,653,219| 3,421,365|   231,854 || 2,192,706 |  95,654  |
      |           |          |           ||           |          |
 1820 |  5,030,371| 4,521,323|   509,048 || 2,808,946 | 215,048  |
      |           |          |           ||           |          |
 1830 |  6,874,302| 5,973,967|   900,335 || 3,635,513 | 360,145  |
      |           |          |           ||           |          |
 1840 |  9,560,165| 7,711,417| 1,848,748 || 4,604,873 | 552,779  |
      |           |          |           ||           |          |
 1850 | 13,257,795| 9,651,733| 3,606,062 || 6,184,477 | 271,558  |
      |           |          |           ||           |          |
 1860 | 17,993,585|11,970,295| 6,023,290 || 8,712,840 |   --     |  706,373
 -----+------------------------------------------------------------------------

We have now certain data from which to argue, and I will first
investigate the alleged homogeneity of the South. Conceding that every
citizen of the two classes of Virginia, etc., and Delaware, etc., in
1790, was indisputably the descendant of an English cavalier, and that
the increase of population found an outlet into the new Slave States,
how would the case stand?

In 1860 these States contained 8,712,840; by Table II we calculated they
should contain 8,006,467; so that even in this case there are some
700,000 foreigners. But a little more research shows that the case is
much more unfavorable.

Up to 1840, the Southern States not only could have furnished all the
settlers in the Slave States, but must have sent out colonists. In 1840,
they had 4,604,873 inhabitants; add to this the natural increase, 25.1
per cent. (1,155,823), and we have 5,760,696 native born, and 423,781
foreigners required make their total of 6,184,477 inhabitants.

But in the next decade, add to the 5,760,696 native born, their
percentage of increase 23.9 (1,376,806), and we have 7,137,502,
requiring 1,575,338 foreigners, _more than one sixth_, for their total
of 8,712,840 white inhabitants.

By no conceivable chance can more than five sixths of the population of
the South be descended from the English cavaliers.

But if we concede to every Virginian, not only his inherent gentility,
but his unswerving purpose never to emigrate out of slave territory, and
an intuitive presentiment which pointed out which were to be the slave
portions of adjacent Territories, by these same percentages of increase
the 442,215 Virginian cavaliers of 1790 could be the progenitors of only
2,785,927 patricians to rally around the model cavalier of
1860--Jefferson Davis.

Lastly, in an estimate published in 1848 by Mr. Jesse Pickering, devoted
entirely to the consideration of immigration as a national question, it
is argued, with every appearance of truth, that in 1840 the foreign
population of the Slave States was 1,177,965. But these must have
displaced an equal number of the native born, and we should have only
3,426,908 of that class in 1840, 4,287,061 in 1850, and 5,311,668 in
1860, or in that case only five eighths of the population could be of
native descent, provided that not one emigrated. When we consider that
the great immigration of all was between 1840 and 1860, we are forced to
conclude that certainly not more than one half of the inhabitants of the
present confederate States can present the faintest claim to a descent
from the citizens of 1790.

When we seriously endeavor to investigate the claims of Virginians to a
descent from the English gentry, we are stopped by their practical
denial of the first principles of genealogy.

The public records of their State, as shown by the highest authority,
the bishop of the diocese, are most imperfect. The records of the
parishes have been lost, the churchyards destroyed, and few authorities,
save tradition, can be given for these ambitious claims. Bishop Meade's
work, especially devoted to the history of the 'Old Churches and Old
Families of Virginia,' gives less than thirty families, clearly traced,
to the English gentry. These are those of Ambler, Barradall, Baylor,
Bushrod, Burwell, Carter, Digges, Fairfax, Fitzhugh, Fowke, Harrison,
Jacqueline, Lee, Lewis, Ludwell, Mason, Robinson, Spottswood, Sandys,
and Washington. I believe I have omitted none, and have rather strained
a point in admitting some.

I do not, of course, mean to deny that others may exist, but until the
proofs are submitted to examination, there is no justice in presuming
them to exist. Let us see how far the historians of Virginia support the
'cavalier' theory. Robert Beverley (I quote from the edition published
at Richmond in 1855) says:

     'Those that went over to that country first, were chiefly single
     men who had not the incumbrance of wives and children in England;
     and if they had, they did not expose them to the fatigue and hazard
     of so long a voyage, until they saw how it should fare with
     themselves. From hence it came to pass, that when they were settled
     there in a comfortable way of subsisting a family, they grew
     sensible of the misfortune of wanting wives, and such as had left
     wives in England sent for them, but the single men were put to
     their shifts. They excepted against the Indian women on account of
     their being pagans, as well as their complexions, and for fear
     they should conspire with those of their own nation to destroy
     their husbands. Under this difficulty they had no hopes but that
     the plenty in which they lived might invite modest women, of small
     fortunes, to go over thither from England. However, they would not
     receive any but such as could carry sufficient certificate of their
     modesty and good behavior. Those, if they were but moderately
     qualified in all other respects, might depend upon marrying very
     well in those days, without any fortune. Nay, the first planters
     were so far from expecting money with a woman, that 'twas a common
     thing for them to buy a deserving wife that carried good
     testimonials of her character, at the price of one hundred pounds,
     and make themselves believe they had a bargain.

     '§67. But this way of peopling the colony was only at first. For
     after the advantages of the climate and the fruitfulness of the
     soil were well known, and all the dangers incident to infant
     settlements were over, people of better condition retired thither
     with their families, either to increase the estates they had
     before, or to avoid being persecuted for their principles of
     religion or government.

     'Thus in the time of the rebellion in England _several_ good
     cavalier families went thither with their effects to escape the
     tyranny of the usurper, or acknowledgment of his title. And so
     again, upon the Restoration, many people of the opposite party took
     refuge there, to shelter themselves from the king's resentment. But
     Virginia had not many of these last, because that country was
     famous for holding out the longest for the royal family of any of
     the English dominions.[13] For which reason the Roundheads went,
     for the most part, to New England, as did most of those that in the
     reign of King Charles II were molested on account of their
     religion, though some of these fell likewise to the share of
     Virginia.

     As for malefactors condemned to transportation, though the greedy
     planter will always buy them, yet it is to be feared they will be
     very injurious to the country, which has already suffered many
     murders and robberies, the effect of that new law of England.'

Beverley notes also about these servants that 'a white woman is rarely
or never put to work in the ground, if she be good for anything else.'

Bishop Meade (vol. i, p. 89) speaks also of these female servants:

     'While the company and the Governor were endeavoring to improve the
     condition of the colony, by selecting a hundred young females of
     good character, to be wives to the laborers on the farms of
     Virginia, King James had determined to make of the colony a Botany
     Bay for the wretched convicts in England, and ordered one hundred
     to be sent over. The company remonstrated, but in vain. A large
     portion, if not all of them, were actually sent. The influence of
     this must have been pernicious. Whether it was continued by his
     successors, and how long, and to what extent, I know not.'

And again (pp. 365-'6), he says:

     'The greatest difficulty they (the vestrymen) appear to have had
     was with the hired servants, of whom, at an early period, great
     numbers came over to this country, binding themselves to the richer
     families. The number of illegitimate children born of them and
     thrown upon the parish, led to much action on the part of the
     vestries and the legislature. _The lower order of persons in
     Virginia, in a great measure, sprang from these apprenticed
     servants and from poor exiled culprits.'_

Stith says (ed. 1747, p. 103), under date of 1609:

     'But a great part of this new company consisted of unruly sparks,
     packed off by their friends to escape worse destinies at home. And
     the rest were chiefly made up of poor gentlemen, broken tradesmen,
     rakes, and libertines, footmen, and such others as were much fitter
     to spoil or ruin a commonwealth, than to help to raise or maintain
     one.'

Again (p. 306), in describing one of the domestic quarrels of the
colony, he copies a statement:

     'And whereas it was affirmed that very few of his majesty's
     servants were lost in those days, and those persons of the meanest
     rank, they replied that for one that then died, five had perished
     in Sir Thomas Smith's time, many being of ancient houses, and born
     to estates of a thousand pounds a year, some more, some less, who
     likewise perished by famine.'

These extracts are all that I can urge in support of the claim of
Virginians to be descended from the English gentry. There may be many
other authorities; it is for the asserters of this theory to produce
them, and I certainly would republish them if I could obtain them.

Let us, however, leave Virginia for a time, to consider the origin of
the inhabitants of Delaware, Maryland, the Carolinas, Georgia, and those
other confederate States which also claim the honor of an English
paternity. Here our means of information become more plain and
accessible. From about 1730 up to the time of the Revolution, these
colonies were the object of the constant attention of England. The wars
with France and Spain and the projects of the proprietors of these
grants of land combined to make the public of England anxious for
information concerning them. I will merely cite from the _London
Magazine_ of that date, though a more extended search, I doubt not,
would add to the strength of my position. I find in the first place that
the new population was not only not cavalier, but not even English. I
find that 'the design of this settlement (Georgia) was to provide an
asylum or place of refuge for the honest industrious poor, and the
unfortunate, with some view to the relief of the persecuted Protestants
in Germany. Among these unfortunate persons it could not be guarded
against that numbers, unfortunate only by their own vices or follies,
intruded themselves among the real 'objects of charity.' In 1737, these
Saltzburghers had built a town, Ebenezer, in Georgia. Mr. Oglethorpe
also 'planted upon the fourth frontier, at a place called by him Darien,
a colony of Scottish Highlanders.' 'The southernmost settlement in South
Carolina is now the town of Purrysburg, which was built by Captain
Purry, a gentleman of Swisserland, at the head of a number of his own
countrymen, who went over with him soon after that country became a
royal government.' In 1765 a new fort was built 'on the Savannah river,
about fifteen miles above Hillsborough township, which will be of great
use to the three new settlements of Irish, French, and German
Protestants.' In 1762, 'the Governor of South Carolina has granted forty
thousand acres of land to be laid out into two townships for a number of
people from Ireland, who are expected here.'

In 1762, 'upward of six hundred German emigrants, men, women, and
children, consisting of Wurtzburghers and Palatines, all Protestants,
who were brought here by one Colonel Stumpel, with a promise to be
immediately settled in America,' were landed in England, and charitably
aided to go to South Carolina. In 1766, I read of Florida, 'the
principal town is Pensacola, and as many of the French, who inhabited
here before the treaty, have chose to become British subjects for the
sake of keeping their estates,' that more foreigners were added to the
Southern colonies.

Mr. Pickett, whose history of Alabama was published at Charleston, S.
C., in 1851, adds, 'a company of forty Jews, acting under the broad
principle of the charter, which gave freedom to all religions, save that
of the Romish Church, landed at Savannah. Much dissatisfaction, both in
England and America, arose in consequence of these Israelites, and
Oglethorpe was solicited to send them immediately from the colony. He,
however, generously permitted them to remain, which was one of the
wisest acts of his life, for they and their descendants were highly
instrumental in developing the commercial resources of this wild land.'
'The colony of Georgia had prospered under the wise guidance of
Oglethorpe. The colonists, being from different nations, were various in
their characters and religious creeds. Vaudois, Swiss, Piedmontese,
Germans, Moravians, Jews from Portugal, Highlanders, English, and
Italians were thrown together in this fine climate, new world, and new
home.'

Even Virginia was not entirely English. Barber's account of the State
(p. 451) says of the valley of the Shenandoah:

     'The eastern part of the valley being conveniently situated for
     emigrants from Pennsylvania, as well as from lower Virginia, the
     population there came to be a mixture of English Virginians and
     German and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The German Pennsylvanians,
     being passionate lovers of fat lands, no sooner heard of the rich
     valleys of the Shenando and its branches, than they began to join
     their countrymen from Europe in pouring themselves forth over the
     country above Winchester. Finding the main Shenando mostly
     preoccupied, they followed up the north and south branches on both
     sides of the Massanutten, or Peaked Mountain, until they filled up
     all the beautiful vales of the country for the space of sixty
     miles. So completely did they occupy the country, that the few
     stray English or Irish settlers among them did not sensibly affect
     the homogeneousness of the population.'

And again:

     'The first settlements of this portion of the valley were made by
     the Scotch Irish, with a few original Scotch among them. They
     settled in the neighorhoods around Martinsburg, in Berkely county,
     Winchester, and almost the entire counties of Orange and Guilford.
     The same race went on into North Carolina, and settled in the
     counties of Orange and Guilford, especially in the northern and
     middle parts of the latter county.'

Beverley writes (p. 228):

     'The French refugees sent in thither by the charitable exhibition
     of his late majesty King William, are naturalized by a particular
     law for that purpose. In the year 1699 there went over about three
     hundred of these, and in the year following about two hundred more,
     and so on, till there arrived in all between seven and eight
     hundred men, women, and children, who had fled from France on
     account of their religion.'

Bishop Meade (ii. 75) writes:

     'That twelve Protestant German families, consisting of about fifty
     persons, arrived, April 17th, in Virginia, and were therein settled
     near the Rappahannock river. That in 1717, seventeen Protestant
     German families, consisting of about fourscore persons, came and
     set down near their countrymen. And many more, both German and
     Swiss families, are likely to come there and settle likewise.'

This report was made in 1720.

These facts show in the clearest manner that a great percentage of the
inhabitants of the seceding States are not of English origin. Even the
English were not all Cavalier and Episcopalian. The _London Magazine_,
in an 'Account of the British Plantations,' says:

     'What contributed much more toward the establishment of the colony,
     was their granting a plenary indulgence to people of all religions,
     as by their charter they were empowered to do; for by this great
     numbers of dissenters were induced to sell their estates in England
     and transport themselves and families to Carolina; so that by the
     year 1670 a numerous colony was at once sent out.'

One last consideration, of possible impurity of blood, and I will
proceed to examine the antecedents of those colonists who were of
English blood.

In 1853, a memoir of James Fontaine was published, accompanied by
letters from members of his family. He was a Huguenot, who had settled
in Virginia, and his descendants have been among the most distinguished
of her citizens.

The letters of his sons to relatives in England are very instructive. I
quote from one from Peter Fontaine, dated March 2, 1756, in which he
regrets that the English had not intermarried with the Indians:

     'But here methinks I can hear you observe, 'What! Englishmen
     intermarry with Indians?' But I can convince you that they are
     guilty of much more heinous practices, more unjustifiable in the
     sight of God and man (if that indeed may be called a bad practice);
     for many base wretches among us take up with negro women, by which
     means the country swarms with mulatto bastards, and these
     mulattoes, if but three generations removed from the black father
     or mother, may, by the indulgence of the laws of the country,
     intermarry with the white people, _and actually do every day so
     marry_.'

This is the testimony of a Virginian gentleman, made a century ago; I do
not care to more than point to the possible infusion of other than
English blood into the veins of the gentlemen who desire to adopt the
Cavalier as their national device.

We now proceed to examine the social position, prior to the emigration,
of those Englishmen who did in a certain degree colonize the present
Slave States, and in a much greater degree colonize New England. I must
confess having long wondered at the persistent statement of Englishmen
that the citizens of the United States were the offspring of the
vagabonds and felons of Europe. Having examined the history of the
families of New England with much interest, and finding therein no
confirmation of this idea, I had held it but the outbreak of prejudice
and ignorance. Yet since the present rebellion has caused so much
inquiry into the antecedents of the Southerners, I find that the
assertion is well founded, but that it concerns those who have hitherto
been loudest in their claims to a distinguished ancestry.

I find among the items of monthly intelligence in the _London Magazine_,
the records of felons sentenced to transportation to his majesty's
plantations in America, and often the different colonies named. I find a
calculation incidentally made, about 1750, that 500 culprits were hung
annually in Great Britain--and bloody as the circuits then were, I
cannot believe that less than ten times that number annually received
the questionable charity of expatriation. I will give a few extracts to
show the foundation upon which Southern society has been erected.

In October, 1732, '68 men and 50 women, felons convict, were carried
from Newgate to Black Fryars, and put on board a lighter to be carried
down the river to be shipped on board the Cæsar, off of Deptford, for
transportation to Virginia.' January, 1736: 'This morning 140 felons
convict for transportation, were carried from Newgate, and shipped for
the plantations, and 18 likewise from the new gaol at Southwark.' In
May, 106 were also so shipped. In 1738, 126 were shipped at one time
'for the plantations.' In 1739, 127 were shipped 'to America.' In 1741,
9 of the felons on board a ship lying at Blackwall, 'to be transported
to Virginia,' made a bold dash to escape. In May, 1747, 'We are informed
that several large ships sailed lately from Liverpool with the rebel
prisoners, under a strong convoy to Virginia and Maryland, and other of
his majesty's plantations, which makes the whole of what have been
transported upward of 1,000.' In January, 1749, 'the 'Laura,' with 135
convicts, bound to Maryland, was cast away.' In 1754, Mr. Stewart was
the contractor to transport convicts 'to America.' In 1758, '63 men and
women transports were sent from Newgate on board the ship 'Trial,' bound
to Maryland, and 45 from the new gaol, Southwark.' Later in the same
year, 53 'for America'--36 men and 20 women 'for the plantations.' In
1761, a ship sails with 8 men and 27 women 'convicts to America.' In
October, '27 women and 18 men from Newgate, 14 from the new gaol, and 62
from the country gaols, were transported to America this month.' In
1762, 36 women and 5 men convicts were shipped 'to America;' '62
convicts were embarked for Maryland.'

In 1766, I find: 'The above observation occurred to my mind a few days
ago, on seeing the convicts pass along to the water side, in order to be
shipped for America, with fifes playing before them, 'Through the wood,
laddie,' '--as an evidence that the practice was then in force and a
matter of course.

In a 'Tour through the British Plantations,' published in this magazine,
in 1755, which contains a good account of each colony, I read of
Virginia that under Sir Edwyn Sandys, 'there were 12,000 acres laid off
for the use of the company, and 100 tenants or planters sent to be
placed thereon; and 3,000 acres for the support of the Governor, for the
planting of which 100 more men were sent; and what was now become
absolutely necessary, there were no less than 90 young women, of a
healthful constitution, and unspotted reputation, sent out to be married
to the planters, instead of diseased and profligate strumpets, _as is
now_ the ridiculous practice.... Thus the company and colony began to be
in a thriving way: but now they began to be oppressed by the Government
here, for in November they were ordered to send over to Virginia, at
their own charge, 100 felons or vagabonds, then it may be supposed in
prison, which they were obliged to comply with.'

The same writer says of Maryland:

     'The convicts that are transported here sometimes prove very worthy
     creatures and entirely forsake their former follies; but the trade
     has for some time run in another channel; and so many volunteer
     servants come over, especially Irish, that the other is a commodity
     much blown over. Several of the best planters, or their ancestors,
     have, in the two colonies,[14] been originally of the convict
     class, and therefore are much to be praised and esteemed for
     forsaking their old courses.'

In 1751 (p. 293) is printed the following:

     'A LETTER LATELY PUBLISHED IN VIRGINIA.

     'SIR: When we see our papers filled continually with accounts of
     the most audacious robberies, the most cruel murders, and infinite
     other atrocities perpetrated by convicts transported from Europe,
     what melancholy, what terrible reflections must it occasion! What
     will become of our posterity? These are some of thy favors,
     Britain! Thou art called our mother country; but what good mother
     ever sent thieves and villains to accompany her children; to
     corrupt some with their infectious vices, and murder the rest? What
     father ever endeavored to spread the plague in his family! We do
     not ask fish, but thou givest us serpents, and worse than serpents!
     In what can Britain show a more sovereign contempt for us, than by
     emptying their gaols into our settlements, unless they would
     likewise empty their offal upon our tables? What must we think of
     that board, which has advised the repeal of every law we have
     hitherto made to prevent this deluge of wickedness overwhelming us;
     and with this cruel sarcasm, that these laws were against the
     public utility, for they tended to prevent the improvement and well
     peopling of the colonies! And what must we think of those
     merchants, who, for the sake of a little paltry gain, will be
     concerned in importing and disposing of these abominable cargoes?'

With these quotations I would leave the subject to the consideration of
every unprejudiced judgment. Is it not for the Southerner, even for the
Virginian, to produce further evidence of his Cavalier descent before it
can be allowed? We see abundant proofs, taken from authorities in no way
connected with the present inimical feelings of the North and South,
that a very large portion of the English colonists consisted of
transported felons. To this direct evidence--which can only be rebutted
by evidence of the extinction of the descendants of this class and the
infusion of an equal amount of gentle blood--we have thus far only the
fact of the presence of a very few good families, and the boasts of
prejudiced partisans.

And now, after having indicated the grounds for a careful criticism of
Southern claims, let me assert the claims of New England, not to gentle
blood, but to a purely English ancestry. Here we come at once upon solid
ground, and the authorities are numerous and trustworthy. Genealogy has,
for the past ten or twelve years, been a favorite study in New England;
and, as Sir Bernard Burke writes, 'for ten or twelve years before the
civil conflict broke out ... Massachusetts was more genealogical than
Yorkshire, and Boston sustained what London never did, a magazine
devoted exclusively to genealogy.' The history of different families,
the records of nearly all the older towns, the colonial records, have
all been placed in print. Many of these books are larger than any
English works on the subject, and are monuments of patient industry.
After such researches we may claim to speak intelligently of our
ancestry, and to point to the proofs of our assertions. In one work,
contained in four volumes, covering two thousand five hundred pages, Mr.
Savage has attempted to record the names of the settlers of New England
and of two generations of their descendants. Imperfect as such an
attempt may be, what other section of our country or any nation can
pretend to such a knowledge of its antecedents? I give the result of his
twenty years' study in his own words:

     'From long and careful research I have judged the proportion of the
     whole number living here in 1775, that deduce their origin from the
     kingdom of England, i.e., the southern part of Great Britain,
     excluding also the principality of Wales, to exceed ninety-eight
     in a hundred.'

     'A more homogeneous stock cannot be seen, I think, in any so
     extensive a region at any time, since that when the ark of Noah
     discharged its passengers on Mount Ararat, except in the few
     centuries elapsing before the confusion of Babel.'

So much for the idle slander that New England has no records nor
homogeneity.

As to the other alleged stigma of Puritanism. Could Virginia maintain
her claim to a Cavalier ancestry instead of failing on even a
superficial scrutiny, the contrast attempted to be drawn between Puritan
and Cavalier is based on a fallacy. When these colonies were
established, the distinction was a political one as clearly as the
succeeding divisions of Whig and Tory. In those days the gentry were the
leaders--the Puritan was as much a gentleman in the technical English
sense as the Cavalier. To take an instance which will strike our
Virginia friends, who quote the Fairfaxes and Washingtons: Lord Fairfax,
the Puritan, married the daughter of Lord Vere, 'a zealous Presbyterian
and disaffected to the king.' Their daughter married the gay Cavalier,
duke of Buckingham.

The Washingtons were connections, and rather humble ones, of the
Spencers. Yet the latest account of the families show Henry Lord Spencer
'standing by the side of the Lords Northumberland and Essex, and the
other noblemen who were afterward the leaders of the Parliament during
the civil war.'

Puritan and Cavalier! The phrase only means that those, both of gentry
and yeomanry, who had sufficient brains to understand liberty, and the
courage to fight for it, combined and forever broke the chains of royal
or oligarchical oppression. If the gentry were a minority in the party,
so much the less reason to boast of such an ancestry.

Still, as no point in a contest should be thrown away, let it be avowed
that Puritanic New England could always display a greater array of
'gentlemen by birth' than Virginia, or even the entire South. This is
said deliberately, because we know whereof we speak. If the fact be of
service in any way, it can easily be substantiated. A list of such names
as I can at present remember is longer than any list I have been able to
collect from Southern publications. These are, Adams, Amory, Anderson,
Appleton, Belcher, Bond, Bowdoin, Bromfield, Browne, Burrill, Chauncy,
Chester, Chute, Checkley, Clark, Clarke, Cotton, Coolidge, Corwin,
Cradock, Davenport, Downing, Dudley, Dummer, Eyre, Fairfax, Foxcroft,
Giffard, Jaffrey, Jeffries, Johnson, Hawthorne, Herrick, Holyoke,
Hutchinson, Lawrence, Lake, Lechmere, Legge, Leverett, Lloyd, Lowell,
Mascarene, Mather, Miner, Norton, Oliver, Pepperell, Phips, Phippen,
Prince, Pynchon, Saltonstall, Sears, Sewall, Thornton, Usher, Vassall,
Ward, Wendell, Wetmore, Wilson, Winslow, Winthrop, Wyllys.

I insert this list only for the benefit of those who have yielded to the
claims of Virginia through ignorance on points which are peculiarly the
care of genealogists. It can easily be extended, and every year, as our
records are more fully examined, it will increase.

If we leave the dry details, which I have presented simply as
indications of the method in which this question can be discussed, and
regard the problem in a more general view, it is surprising to see how
theory and fact agree. The United States are essentially English to-day,
despite the millions of foreigners which have been absorbed into its
population. The tendency of its citizens has been toward a democracy,
and yet not toward anarchy and lawlessness. The throes of a gigantic
revolution have not sufficed to outweigh the instinctive love of law and
order peculiar to the English race. Though events unforeseen by the
authors of the Federal Constitution have called for exercises of power,
obscurely permitted perhaps by that instrument, yet unknown to former
practice, still there has been no popular convulsion at the North, no
armed outbreak, no phrensy of mob power. There is as yet no such thing
known as an American mob.

When we inquire what controlling influence has impressed this form upon
the national character, the enemies of the predominant party
instinctively show that it is New England. Not the comparatively limited
New England of 1863, but the New England stock and influence which has
invigorated nearly every State of the Union. In their ignorance of the
past, these revilers of New England have been blindly attacking a
greater fact than they were aware of. Not only is nearly a third part of
our native-born population the offspring of the New England of the
Revolution, but long before that time the intermixture had commenced.
Whitehead's 'New Jersey' (p. 159) quotes Governor Burnet's letter,
written in 1729:

     'The people of New Jersey (being generally of New England
     extraction, and therefore enthusiasts) would consider the number of
     planters, etc., as a repetition of the same sin as David committed
     in numbering the people.'

The History of Dorchester, Massachusetts, quotes a letter from the
Secretary of Georgia, in 1755, in relation to a colony from that town,
in which he says:

     'I really look upon these people moving here to be one of the most
     favorable circumstances that could befall the colony.'

It is added:

     'This settlement has furnished Georgia with two governors, two of
     its most distinguished judges, the theological seminary of South
     Carolina and Georgia with an able professor, the Methodist
     Episcopal Church with an influential and pious bishop, the
     Presbyterian and Baptist Churches of that State with many of their
     ablest and most useful ministers; and six of her sons have been
     called to professorial chairs in collegiate institutions.'

The first attempt at colonizing the Mississippi delta was made by the
Lymans, Dwights, and their associates from Connecticut. New York
received a constant accession from New England long before 1775.

Here, then, history and theory both agree. New England, colonized by
Englishmen, homogeneous in a remarkable degree, has been the only
thoroughly pure nationality within our territories. The few stray
Englishmen of education in the Southern colonies, the much greater
number of convicts, the increasing immigration of French, Irish, Scotch,
and German settlers, have not only failed to overwhelm this compact and
thoroughly alive minority, but have been formed and moulded into shape
by it. In protesting against New England, the Vallandighams and Coxes
are only proving the nullity of 'expunging resolutions.' 'Can they make
that not to be which has been?' Until they can recall the past,
annihilate the past inhabitants of these States, and from stones raise
up some other progenitors for the present generation, they cannot
destroy the influence of New England.

And yet we are called upon to believe that the race which has thus done
the greatest work of the past two centuries was the random aggregation
of opposite and mongrel races, the offspring of ignorance, poverty, and
crime. We are to believe that while the pure blood of English gentlemen
in Virginia has produced not only the gentlemanly vices of pride,
treachery, and falsehood in the leaders, but the ignoble faults of crime
and debasement in the 'poor trash'--that some occult influence of
climate has advanced an entire community at the North far above the
position of its progenitors--that while the gentle Cavalier has been
overcome by the seductive charms of luxury and repose, the ignoble
Puritan has thrown off his degrading antecedents, and has obtained the
control of the allied races. The servant has become the master, the scum
of all nations has overpowered the choicest offspring of that race which
Macaulay terms 'the hereditary rulers of mankind.'

These conclusions, so eminently logical and convincing, we must believe,
or we must doubt the pure blood of the aristocracy of the Slave States.

Is it not more reasonable to believe, as facts daily prove, that New
England was colonized from the hardiest and best portion of the English
stock? That our ancestors, accepting the state of English society as a
fact, neither invited nor repelled the accession of the gentry. That
many of that class did join in the enterprise, and that, where they were
worthy, they received the slight preference which is accorded to
personal advantages of any sort. That the bulk of the colonists were
separated from this class by slight barriers, that many of them were
excluded only by a want of the necessary property to maintain the
position, and that on this new territory these distinctions were
speedily forgotten--not because the higher class deteriorated, but
because the lower, having but a slight advance to make, soon stood on an
actual equality with them.

If the sympathy of England were now as desirable and as strongly
expected as it was two years ago, I might urge the matter further. As it
is, it seems sufficient to overthrow the claims of Southerners, based
upon false pretences, and supported only by unblushing effrontery, and
to refute the slanders which have been thrown upon an entire section of
the loyal States.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 13: Yet our author had already shown that Dennis, Cromwell's
captain, 'contrived a stratagem which betrayed the country. He had got a
considerable parcel of goods aboard, which belonged to two of the
Council, and found a method of informing them of it. By this means they
were reduced to the dilemma, either of submitting or losing their goods.
This caused factions amongst them, so that at last'--we blush to
add--'the colony surrendered--and saved the goods.' _En dat Virginia
quintam._ The fifth crown had its price, even for a 'usurper.']

[Footnote 14: Virginia was the other of which he was writing.]




THE EARLY ARBUTUS.


  Give me water, give air, give me light!
    Oh, as life in my heart ebbs away,
  I pine through the dim, chilly night,
    I long for the sun's kindly ray!
      Even I, a poor little Arbutus!

  I was plucked from my beautiful earth,
    And my soul it then quitted its form;
  What since has my life e'er been worth?
    Ah, would I had never been born!
      Thus I sigh, a poor little Arbutus!

  Now to man in my anguish I cry:
    Ah, but what for a sigh does he care?
  To heaven I now raise my eye,
    And mourn in my futile despair!
      Even I, a poor, dying Arbutus!

  Ah, a life for a life--it is just!
    But a life for a nothing, oh, cruel!
  Still low must I languish in dust?
    And is there for me no renewal?
      Ah, for me, poor, broken Arbutus!

  Into elements now I resolve,
    Yet to life I still cling with each breath;
  As slowly away I dissolve,
    Life's sweeter as closer to death!
      Unto me, but a little Arbutus!

  Too precocious the life which I bore,
    Which I drew sweetly in with each breath!
  The fulness of life did no more
    Than ripen a fruitage for death,
      Within me, a too early Arbutus!




THE THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR.


Few persons, at the beginning of this unhappy war, anticipated its
prolongation to the present day. The projected rebellion was so daring
and sudden in its appearance, so utterly causeless and reckless in its
pretexts and objects, that an astounded people could scarcely believe it
to be serious in its character and destined to give them any real and
protracted trouble. The rebels themselves fed the credulity of their
deluded victims with the promise of a peaceful separation, or, at the
worst, of a short and triumphant contest, to be speedily followed by a
career of boundless prosperity, expansion, greatness, and glory. And, on
our part, when we came at length to understand that war was inevitable,
we were scarcely less sanguine in our anticipation of easy victory and
of the instant restoration of that noble Government, which the domestic
enemy, with the most wicked ambition, sought to overthrow and utterly
destroy. Confidently and even boastingly, we contrasted our strength
with the weakness of the insurrection; we numbered our men in comparison
with those of the rebellious States, proud of the favorable result; and
we weighed the means of the adversary with our own, in such scales as
our sanguine hopes and extravagant ideas served only too well to impose
upon us.

The ultimate basis of our calculation was undoubtedly sound and solid,
and the anticipated result must eventually come according to our
original views, though not within the period then too hastily assigned
for the duration of the bloody and disastrous contest. The stupendous
force of our Government is amply sufficient to crush the rebellion in
all its vast proportions, however slowly the great work may be carried
on, and however wastefully and unskilfully the national means may be
applied to that indispensable end. Though occasionally baffled in our
projects, we are still advancing on the whole; and there is evidently no
possible escape for the leaders of the rebellion. They must already
begin to entertain fearful apprehensions of their certain ultimate doom.
Our great fleet hovers upon their coast and penetrates their bays and
rivers, cutting off most of their commerce with the outside world, and
isolating them within the narrow limits of the territory actually
occupied by them; while our immense armies are pressing them at all
important points, with a deliberation and steadiness which evidently
spring from the consciousness of superior strength and the certainty of
ultimate triumph. The Mississippi river is virtually open to our
commerce, or at least to the complete occupation of our gunboats and
armies, and the suffering enemy is thus cut off from his communication
with Texas, and from the only available resources on which he can
securely rely to sustain him much longer in his wicked and desperate
game of treason. His condition is in the last degree perilous; he seems
to be in the very agony of dissolution, or at least in that stage which
immediately precedes it. His extremities are already cold with the chill
of mortal congestion; but the fever rages all the more fiercely about
the vital parts, where the maddened energies of the whole system are
concentrated in the last desperate struggle for life. Possibly there may
be a little reaction here and there, or even a violent convulsive effort
of tremendous energy; an incursion may be made into Kentucky, or some
temporary success achieved in other quarters; but the revival will be
deceptive and evanescent, and the fitful return of life to the limbs
will only serve to complete the process of exhaustion and to hasten the
final catastrophe.

After two years of civil war, maintained under great embarrassments and
disadvantages--two memorable years, during which all the malignant
powers of treason and hate have been arrayed against the Union with the
determined purpose to destroy it--the condition of the Federal
Government is wonderfully good, presenting a vivid contrast to the
wretched poverty and prostration of the ambitious States which have so
rashly assailed it. It would be vain to deny the vast injury suffered by
the whole nation, from the inauguration and continuance of this most
unnatural strife. It is chiefly this widespread mischief which
constitutes the stupendous crime of the rebellion. Thousands upon
thousands of valuable lives have been sacrificed; the maimed victims of
the war appeal to our sympathies on every side; widows and orphans fill
the whole land with lamentation. These are calamities that cannot be
compensated by any material prosperity, however great and imposing.
Besides, it is impossible to conceal from ourselves, upon mature
reflection, that in the present marvellous activity of business and the
great abundance of money, we are drawing largely on the future, and
maintaining present prosperity at the cost of burdens which will weigh
heavily both on ourselves and on coming generations. Nevertheless, the
wonderful success of our financial measures and the evidently increasing
strength of the Government, in spite of its immense efforts, and with
all the alternations of triumph and defeat, of success and failure, of
good fortune and disaster, cannot fail to inspire every friend of the
Union with hope and confidence. That this great struggle for national
existence can be conducted with so little disturbance to the prosperity
of the loyal States, and, indeed, with actual increase of activity and
immediate success in almost all departments of business, affords the
best evidence of the solidity and greatness of our country, and of its
ability finally to maintain itself against the vast and powerful
conspiracy by which it has been so vigorously assailed. At this moment,
the domestic foe, notwithstanding his defiant attitude, is actually
writhing in the grasp of an outraged nation; and the foreign enemies of
our cause, so recently rejoicing in our misfortunes and elated with the
envious anticipation of our utter overthrow, are now looking on with
silent apprehension and ill-concealed chagrin at the growing strength we
exhibit with every day's experience in the mighty contest. They are
disappointed that we are not overwhelmed by every slight check we
suffer, and astounded that we are not at all discouraged even by serious
disasters to our arms. We derive renewed energy and courage from our
very reverses, which give us the inestimable advantage of experience,
and enable us finally to turn misfortune into good. Our determination
becomes more fixed and immovable with every demand upon our fortitude;
and thus the power of the nation advances steadily through all the
varying incidents of the struggle, so that now, after these two years of
sanguinary civil war, with the gigantic rebellion still wrestling and
warring in the bosom of the republic, we yet stand before the world an
object of respect and fear to those who hate us and wish us evil, while
the masses of men in all countries, who love liberty and desire to
escape from despotism, still seek our shores as the very Canaan of
promise and the asylum of freedom, even in the midst of our grand
struggle for existence as a nation.

It is the people, in their national capacity, as distinguished from the
mere agents of Government, who present this sublime spectacle to the
view of mankind. The Government for the time being may commit blunders
and follies innumerable; yet behind all these, there is the solid and
enduring judgment of the nation, which will eventually correct all
errors, and bring back the wandering statesman to the paths of common
sense and ultimate safety. Two years have not sufficed to teach us what
we require to know in order to bear ourselves altogether nobly and
calmly in so grand an emergency. We have not yet been sufficiently
schooled in war, and especially in the bitter experience of civil war,
to be able to resist the pressure of great dangers and difficulties,
and, at the same time, to maintain undisturbed all the ordinary
operations of civil life, and to secure due respect for personal rights
and liberties. The mighty and unexampled convulsion of the whole nation,
consequent on the rebellion of a wealthy and powerful section, which
constituted the bulk of one great political party in the country, and
which necessarily had connections of interest and sympathy with large
numbers in all the States, has tended to develop party political
animosities to the highest pitch. This terrible excitement, continued
without interruption for two years, has served at least to test the
patriotism of the people, and to determine whether faction was destined
so far to prevail as to paralyze the hand of Government and render
secession triumphant through our own dissensions. These fearful contests
of party have run their course up to the present time, without serious
trouble; and it is now apparent that the mass of the people are settled
in their devotion to the Union, and will sustain no man or party in
factious opposition to the Government, or even in ill-timed exertions to
obtain redress of acknowledged wrongs, when those exertions are
calculated to embarrass the nation in its mortal struggle for safety and
triumph. The existence of the nation, its unity and tranquillity, are
paramount to all personal or party rights and interests; and though we
may be justly indignant that many arbitrary and unnecessary things are
done, yet must they be borne patiently for the sake of the country. The
time for accountability will come at last. Under the pressure of vast
responsibilities and difficulties, the agents of the people may
plausibly, or even justly, excuse themselves for almost any
irregularity; and the most honest and devoted patriot may, with apparent
truth, be accused of sympathy with the adversary, if he take occasion,
in the midst of great perils, to urge his personal sufferings, to the
inconvenience and annoyance of the Government.

But while the last two years have subjected us to great difficulties,
which have been happily surmounted, if not with entire immunity from
evil, at least with substantial safety and great preponderance of good,
we have yet to undergo an ordeal such as every thoughtful man might well
wish to avoid. The greatest of all trials is to come upon us in the
course of another year, if, unhappily, the war should last so long.
Nothing could be more unfortunate than one of our presidential
elections, to be carried on in the midst of a horrible civil war. It is
impossible to anticipate the troubles which may ensue--the sympathies
which may be expressed for the rebellion--the intolerance which may seek
to suppress freedom of speech under pretext of preventing the
consequences of treason--and the fearful license of denunciation which
may be assumed and permitted, under that natural delicacy which would
hesitate to use even a necessary severity against a political enemy and
a rival. Deplorable and dangerous excitement is almost certain to
prevail in all quarters; and we may well congratulate ourselves and our
country, if we should pass through such a contest without having
numerous scenes of trouble and even bloodshed in the war of parties, as
episodes and accompaniments to the grand war of the sections. In its
effects on the national cause at home and abroad, the violence of that
proceeding will be something like one of those lamentable occurrences
which sometimes take place in the army, when portions of our own
forces, through misapprehension, turn their arms against each other in
the face of the enemy. If we shall not actually take each other's lives,
we shall weaken and distract the country by our dissensions and mutual
denunciations. Ambition on both sides--on the part of those in power
seeking to retain it and using their authority for that end, and on the
part of their opponents resisting perhaps beyond the bounds of
legitimate opposition--will shed its baleful influence through the land,
and intensify the animosities naturally arising upon the recurrence of
our great quadrennial struggle.

Yet would that grand emergency offer to a wise and patriotic
Administration an inestimable opportunity for the noblest exhibition of
unwavering firmness, justice, and self-denial. Should there be presented
an example of perfect singleness of purpose, with no room for suspicion
of sinister objects, or personal ambitions and enmities; should the
Administration in all its departments, devote itself exclusively to the
sacred work of preserving the nation, regardless of all consequences to
individuals or parties, then would the approbation of a grateful people
be its sure reward, and the patriotic masses would take care not only of
the Government, but of those, also, who had thus nobly and fearlessly
administered it in the critical hour of its mortal danger. A contrary
course would only lead to disaster in the momentous operations of the
war, and to distraction and weakness among the people, whose duty and
disposition it is to sustain the Government in all honest efforts to
conquer the rebellion. The temptation insensibly to depart from this
pure and patriotic policy is great and almost irresistible. It is so
easy and so natural for one in power to persuade himself that he ought
to retain it, that himself or his party is the only safe depositary of
public authority, and that the general interest requires him to be
sustained by all the means at his command, _per fas aut nefas_, that few
men in this country ever avoid the error of using official position and
patronage to promote personal and party ends. This is the very bane and
opprobrium of our institutions. It has already so perverted the
democratic system, that men of the highest ability and character no
longer seek political position, and seldom succeed if they do. Alas for
our country, if this pernicious practice should prevail in conducting
the tremendous operations of the present civil war!--if the coming
presidential election should be permitted to cast the ominous influence
of party intrigue and official mismanagement upon our struggling armies
and our heavily taxed people! Let us fervently pray that our suffering
country may escape this danger. It is in the power of the Administration
in a great measure to control the whole subject; and upon it will rest
the chief responsibility for any serious error that may be committed. It
will be responsible not merely for its own conduct, but also for that
which it necessitates or provokes on the part of opposing interests and
parties. There must be forbearance, united with firmness and infinite
discretion in the use of just authority. A more difficult position was
never occupied by any party since the organization of the Government.
But in proportion to the difficulty and responsibility will be the merit
of a wise and successful administration in this most perilous crisis.

If the progress of the war thus far, running through more than half of
one Administration, has brought us under the ominous shadow of a coming
presidential election, it has, on the other hand, effected a vast
modification of opinion and feeling on some questions from which the
greatest disturbances might well have been anticipated. From the
beginning it was felt to be inevitable that the long continuance of the
war would seriously affect the relation of master and slave directly in
the rebellious States, and indirectly in all others wherever that
relation existed. Far more rapidly than could well have been anticipated
has this result been effected; but what is of much greater interest and
importance, the violent prejudices of the people have melted away before
the inevitable fact, and even the celebrated proclamation no longer
excites the fierce animadversion with which it was at first greeted.
From the escaped slaves of the rebellious States and the free colored
men of the North, negro regiments have been organized and are still in
process of formation. There is no outcry against the policy, but there
seems to be a general acquiescence in the propriety of using the African
race to assist in putting down the traitors who are ready to overthrow
all free government in order to perpetuate the subjugation of that
unfortunate people. Had the fortunes of war resulted in a speedy
annihilation of the confederate authority, it would have been utterly
impossible to have made any serious inroad upon the institution of
slavery. Sympathy for the Southern people, and a natural indisposition
to inaugurate fundamental changes, always attended with immense
temporary disadvantages and inconveniences, would have prevented any
thorough policy of emancipation from being adopted. But the day of
moderation and compromise has now passed by, probably forever. The
persistence of the rebels in their mad scheme, although their efforts
were plainly destined to ultimate defeat, has secured for themselves the
greatest boon which even the highest wisdom in the calmest times could
have conferred. Their prodigious folly and wickedness have been
overruled by a higher power, and mercifully directed to the complete
regeneration of Southern society. The operation is severe, but in the
end it will be salutary. In a state of continued peace, this could not
have been done. Scores of years would have been required to prepare the
Southern mind for it; but now, by one huge convulsive effort, made by
themselves with far different views, all obstacles are swept away, and
slavery is likely to come to a sudden and final end. A feeble
insurrection, soon extinguished, would not have accomplished this work;
and even now, if the war should speedily end, there would be serious
embarrassment in disposing of the troublesome questions arising out of
the subject. The continuance of the war, on its present basis, will soon
settle the whole difficulty; and among the many tremendous evils and
calamities attending the progress of the war, this inevitable result is
one of the greatest compensations. Few men, perhaps, would have desired,
or, by deliberate action, have promoted this violent destruction even of
so pernicious a system as that which prevailed in the South; but, on the
other hand, with the experience of the last two years, still fewer men,
in the loyal States at least, can be found to deny that the judgment is
righteous, and that, in the actual circumstances, it is destined to be
in the end as beneficial to the Southern people themselves, as it is, in
its immediate consequences, just in its retribution for their enormous
crime. In the progress of so tremendous a war, in which, notwithstanding
its origin and cause, the insurrectionary States have strangely been
enabled to command foreign capital, together with the sympathy and even
the indirect assistance of foreign powers, it would have been
shortsighted in the extreme to have anticipated that slavery would
escape attack. Though made the pretext for violence, and prominently put
forward as the justification of rebellion, it was evidently the weakest
point in the rebel cause, and was, therefore, alike from the choice of
the rebels as from the necessity of the Government, destined to become
the central object and pivotal point of the whole contest. Having once
been placed in this position, and fixed in it by the inveterate
enmities of prolonged war, it must from that time abide the arbitrament
of arms. Two years of fierce and calamitous war seem to have brought the
South to this alternative: either to restore the Union with immediate
freedom to the slaves, or to accomplish its dissolution, with a doubtful
and troubled continuance of the system for an uncertain period in the
future.

If the continuance of the struggle thus far has done so much toward a
final settlement of the most troublesome of all questions growing out of
the contest between the North and the South; if it has probably prepared
the way for disposing of slavery in all the States where it now exists,
and even given the African a _status_ as a soldier of the republic; it
has also had an equal effect in other important aspects. It has tended
to develop and settle definitely the political objects and purposes of
the contending parties. With the South, these, to some degree, have
necessarily been changed. The original designs of the rebels, whatever
they may have been in the beginning, have been modified according to the
stringent exigencies of their condition. Their daring and ambitious
plans have been restrained by the public opinion of the civilized world,
and still more by the limitation of their own resources. So long as
their strength was untried, imagination ran riot, and there was no bound
to the magnificence of their bad schemes. But the experience of two
years has taught them that, in their realization, all such wild dreams
are destined to be curtailed within the inexorable limits of
possibility. They have only begun to discover how narrow these limits
are to them. Unexpected obstacles have arisen on every side, and the
soaring purposes of the rebellion have vainly beaten their bruised and
wearied wings against the solid walls which circumscribe them within the
humble limits of their present uncertain hopes and expectations. The
Federal Government, on the other hand, has not changed its purpose, as
avowed in the beginning, to restore the national authority, in its unity
and integrity, over the whole country. The prospect of accomplishing
this end has grown brighter from the beginning. We have passed through
almost all phases of party excitement; faction has tried its perilous
experiments upon the national temper; divisions have been industriously
fomented; and for a time discord has threatened seriously to weaken us.
But the patriotism of the people has finally prevailed, and the question
may now be considered settled. The people not less than the Government
are fully committed to the grand purpose of putting down the rebellion
and restoring the Union. Nor does this work, immense as it is, seem to
be disproportioned to the national means and energies. The people
believe themselves competent to the mighty task, and with this patriotic
confidence, the undertaking is already more than half accomplished. The
enemy has not the power to defeat our purpose. By our own unhappy
divisions, we might possibly defeat ourselves; but with a united and
determined people, there is not the slightest room for doubt.

The war continues to be carried on solely in the disaffected region.
Threats of transferring the seat of the contest to the loyal States have
constantly been made, and are now renewed with an energy of assertion
equal to the longing desires with which the straitened rebels look upon
the fat fields and the groaning storehouses of the Northern States.
Their futile threats do indeed express their wishes or their disordered
imaginations, rather than their actual intentions or their possible
achievements. If they could transfer the war to Pennsylvania and Ohio,
or even to Kentucky and Maryland, a new aspect would be given to the
controversy, and different results might well be anticipated. But the
time for such enterprises on the part of the rebels, if it ever
existed, has evidently passed by, and is not likely to return. One of
the strongest indications of the ultimate result of the war has been the
rigid uniformity with which the military operations have been
continually pushed back upon the soil of the seceded States, and
maintained there in spite of all their efforts to the contrary. In all
instances, their incursions into the States mentioned, though projected
upon the grandest scale and with the most hopeful results, have
eventually proved to be miserable failures; and if they have not always,
or even in any instance, met with the severe punishment that ought to
have followed them, it was only because the attempts were too
preposterous to have been anticipated by a vigilant foe, and we were too
confident in our strength to make the preparation necessary properly to
repel them. With such experience on our part, after two years of
constant efforts to invade our territories successfully met and more
than merely repelled, it would be evidence of gross inefficiency and
weakness in us, to permit the enemy to gain even a temporary foothold in
any one of the loyal States, or even to attempt it, without the complete
overthrow and destruction of the invading force. Our manifest policy is
to attack them in their own country, and to hold them there, until we
can annihilate their military power. We have successfully accomplished
one half this programme; but so far we have failed in the other. However
humiliating may be the admission, we are nevertheless compelled to make
it. We have not yet overthrown their main armies in any decisive
engagements; although we have achieved many important successes and made
some fatal encroachments on the territory of the enemy, crippling his
power and cutting off his resources. From the very inception of the
rebellion, its field of operations has been gradually contracting. One
after another the strongholds of the enemy have fallen into our hands,
and whole regions of his territory have been over run and occupied by
our forces, with every appearance of having been finally and forever
lost to them. Our standards, advancing steadily, though slowly, have not
receded anywhere, except temporarily, and then only, it would seem, to
make still further advance into the very heart of the confederacy. With
some few exceptions, such as the withdrawal of the army from the
Peninsula, this has been the history of the last two years; and there is
nothing in the present condition of affairs which would appear to
forebode a departure from this uniform progress of our arms. We may
complain, perhaps justly, of the slowness of this process. In the ardor
and impatience of our patriotism, we may demand more rapid and energetic
action, claiming that our immense resources shall be used with greater
vigor and concentration, and our vast armies hurled like a thunderbolt
upon the enemy, to crush him with one sudden and overwhelming blow.
Truly this would be a grand result--a consummation most devoutly to be
wished--making short work of the bloody war which has so terribly
afflicted our country. This done, there could not be any serious
difficulty in resuscitating the love of Union among the masses in the
South, and of reëstablishing the Union on its old foundations.

It may or may not be reasonable to demand such energy and speedy success
at the hands of the Government. At all events, it is natural that the
country, having confided unlimited means to the constituted authorities,
should become impatient under the delays and difficulties of the
contest, and that inexperienced men should expect the unequal forces of
the two sections to be brought into quick and decisive conflict, with a
result accordant to the relative strength of the opposing parties. A
true Napoleonic genius might well have accomplished this grand result
within the two years that have already passed. But such a mighty spirit
has not yet come forth at the call of our agonized country; or if,
perchance, he has made his appearance, he has certainly not been
recognized and received by the powers that be. We must, therefore, needs
be contented with the slow and gradual approach we are evidently making
toward a final solution of the bloody problem. And as, even in the
greatest misfortunes, there is often some hidden compensation for the
unhappiness they produce, so in this case, perhaps we may find, in the
great changes destined to be wrought in the condition of the Southern
people by their stubborn perseverance in the war, ground for consolation
in the midst of the calamities and bereavements which every day
continues to bring upon us. The Southern rulers and masters pride
themselves on their inveterate animosity. They glory in their own shame,
and imagine themselves successful, so long as they can protract the
struggle and renew the slaughter of great battles in which they are not
utterly overthrown, though thousands of innocent victims are sacrificed
to their mad and wicked ambition. But in truth, with every day of
continued war they are only the more effectually destroying themselves,
especially in that particular in which they are most anxious and
determined to succeed. For the security of their slave property and the
peaceful continuance of the institutions which sustain it, it would have
been far better for them had they been thoroughly beaten and effectually
put down at the very beginning of the war. There might then have been a
chance for slavery to escape, at least for a while. Now it must be
admitted there is hardly the vestige of such a chance. It is almost
alike certain that slavery has been shaken to its very foundations in
every State, whether the rebellion shall now either succeed or fail. The
rebels have been wrong in all their calculations. Exactly the reverse of
their aims and expectations will be the reward of their treason. They
sought to overthrow the Government in order to perpetuate slavery; they
have only succeeded in overthrowing slavery, to the certain
strengthening and probable perpetuation of the Government they hate.

The leading rebels, occupying the seats of usurped power in their
ephemeral confederacy, have succeeded in arousing and sustaining a
considerable feeling of nationality and independence among the masses of
their population. Grasping the sceptre of ill-gotten authority with
great boldness, they have wielded it with a corresponding energy. Their
early successes and their protracted resistance, sustained for more than
two years by means of large and formidable armies, organized,
disciplined, and led with great skill, have sufficed to give them credit
and support at home, and much consideration abroad. In the midst of
stirring events, carried away by the first impulse of excitement, the
Southern people have not been in a mood to calculate the consequences of
a long struggle. They have been elated and blinded by their apparent
triumphs; and they, whose crafty purpose all the time has been to make
use of them for the furtherance of their own ambitious projects, have
been careful to preoccupy the minds of the people, and to conceal from
them, by the plausible pretences and superficial successes of the hour,
the certainty of ultimate discomfiture which has awaited them from the
beginning. Occasionally, it is true, there have been indications that
light was beginning to dawn on the popular mind; and in spite of the
complete system of terror and compression which the leaders have
inaugurated and sustained with the utmost determination, and with the
most relentless rigor, we have seen every now and then, in different
parts of the confederacy, the vivid flashes of a still living sentiment
of love for the Union. As the hopes of the conspiracy become gradually
less bright, this sentiment of affection for the old and honored
Government of our fathers will grow stronger and more outspoken, and
will not be confined to mere individual expressions. When the people
begin to open their eyes and see the strength of the rebellion rapidly
wasting away, with the repetition of its fruitless endeavors; when
victories no longer compensate for the privations and horrible disasters
which follow in their track; when, finally, they understand, as they
soon must, that the whole movement is destined to end in utter failure,
and that this failure is to be only the more overwhelming the longer the
unhappy contest shall be continued, a complete revulsion of feeling may
well be expected to take place. Many things in the course of the
struggle have combined to delay the advent of this inevitable change.
The progress of our arms has been extremely slow, with many checks and
defeats in those campaigns and at those points which seemed to be the
most important. If we have been successful in the West, it has not been
without protracted efforts and immense expenditure of life and means--a
long and bloody struggle, the uncertainty of which has not tended to
strengthen us during its pendency. On the other hand, the brilliant
successes of the rebels on the Rappahannock and at Charleston have not
been fully counteracted by their actual and definitive discomfiture in
other quarters. When Vicksburg and Port Hudson fall, as fall they must,
the emptiness of all their triumphs will be felt and appreciated. Bull
Run, twice famous, Fredericksburg, Charleston, Chancellorsville--all
will then appear in their true light as magnificent phantoms of delusive
success, alluring the proud victors to further fruitless efforts and
barren victories, only to overwhelm them with more tremendous ruin, in
the end which is slowly but certainly approaching.

Thus the continuance of the war, with its exhausting expenditures and
its bloody sacrifices of life, is destined to be not altogether without
its advantages in other respects besides its influence on the great
question of slavery. It is preparing the public mind of the South for a
most vehement reaction against all the false ideas which have been the
animating spirit of the rebellion. In proportion to the greatness of the
conflict, the immensity of its disasters, its delusive promises and
barren victories, will be the thoroughness of the discomfiture, the
completeness of the overthrow, the utter disgrace of the confederate
cause, and of the men who have been its authors and leading
representatives. It will be impossible for the Southern people to say,
'We have been engaged in a noble cause; we have failed for the time
being; but there is a future for us in which we shall surely triumph.'
On the contrary, every Southern man will feel that there is no
resurrection for the bad designs which will thus have been forever
prostrated. They have in them none of the elements of resuscitation.
Failure in the present contest is annihilation forever. The very
foundation and active power of the fatal movement will have been swept
away, while at the same time the authors and the cause alike will be
stamped with eternal infamy, as having aimed at the subversion of human
liberty, and only succeeded in producing ruin and devastation to the
beautiful region which they have misled and betrayed into a wicked war.
The events of the mighty conflict will live in history, but only as an
example of just punishment for a great crime, and as a solemn warning
against the indulgence of selfish and unprincipled ambition in all
future ages.




WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

     'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Every one _lives_
     it--to not many is it _known_; and seize it where you will, it is
     interesting.'--GOETHE.

     'SUCCESSFUL.--Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or
     intended.'--WEBSTER'S _Dictionary_.


CHAPTER VI.

Before evening Hiram had informed himself fully (through Hill) of the
current rumors about the failure of Allwise, Tenant & Co. He was glad to
find a universal sympathy prevailing in all business circles for this
old and respectable house.

'That's well, at any rate,' quoth Hiram to himself. 'No one will think
of attacking the old gentleman, if he does secure a portion of his
property, or, rather, nobody will suspect him of attempting it. He is
bound in honor to me [oh, Hiram! _honor!_] to protect his daughter. Such
was really the agreement, that is, by implication, when we became
engaged. It won't be honest if he leaves me in the lurch. He need not
think that he can do that, though. Twelve thousand dollars! Why, it will
scarcely board the old folks in any decent place; and who does he think
is going to marry his daughter at that rate?' * * *

Hiram was at the house at his usual hour. It was a lovely evening, about
the first of June, and as he walked slowly along, he caught a glimpse of
Emma through the blinds. She was seated at a window, evidently watching
for his coming. He could perceive, before she knew it was he, that her
countenance was troubled. Hiram turned away his head. Evidently
something attracted him in another direction.

Mr. Tenant resided in a handsome house in one of the finest squares of
the city. As Hiram mounted the steps, he paused a moment to survey the
scene. The trees were in full leaf, and the odor of flowers filled with
their fragrance the evening air.

'No, he must not give this up,' he muttered.

He turned and rang the bell sharply. It was a habit of Emma to open the
door herself when she saw him coming, but this time the servant
responded to the summons.

Hiram passed into the front parlor without speaking. As he approached
Emma, she rose and threw herself into his arms, and burst into tears.
She did not attempt to speak, but kept sobbing as if heart-broken.

Hiram stood still, and, in consequence of his undecided state of mind, a
good deal embarrassed.

'Why, what is the matter, Emma?' he said at length. 'Has anything
happened to your father or mother?'

'You know what has happened,' she finally articulated.

'Well, my dear child, is that anything to be so distressed about?'

'Don't _you_ care?' she exclaimed, looking up joyfully.

'To be sure I care, but only on your account, and'--

'Oh, never think of me. I shall be the most light-hearted creature in
the world. I was only afraid--afraid'--

'Of what, pray?'

'I cannot tell. That--that--perhaps--perhaps--you would
not--that--papa's losing everything might make a difference in your
feelings. Now don't be angry. (Hiram was looking grave.) I did not
_really_ think it would; but--but the bare possibility has made me so
very unhappy--so very, very unhappy!' and she began to cry again.

'Come, Emma, you must not be so foolish. Sit down now with me, and let
me say a few words to you; for your father will want me in a few
minutes, and I shall have to be with him all the evening.'

'Oh, I am so glad; you will be such a comfort to him. I know you will.'

Hiram made no reply; both took their seats, and then he spoke.

'Emma,' he said, in a tone so solemn and important that it struck terror
to her soul, she knew not wherefore--'Emma, this is a momentous period
of your life, and everything depends on the steps you take'--

'Why, Hiram, what _do_ you mean--what _can_ you mean?'

'Nothing to alarm you, but everything to impress you with the fact that
no time is to be lost. Your father has made the foolish resolution to
give up all his private property to his creditors'--

'So he told mamma and me. Is that not right?'

'No, it is not right. It is wrong,' replied Hiram, in a harsh tone.
'More than wrong--sinful--wicked, very wicked. Do you know who it is the
Scripture says is worse than an infidel?'

'I do not,' she replied faintly.

Hiram intended to frighten her, and he had succeeded.

'You do not! Well, it is the man who fails to provide for his own
household. Why, we had the text in our Sunday-school lesson only three
weeks ago.'

Emma sat paralyzed.

'Now, Emma,' continued Hiram, 'I want you to see your mother, and tell
her what I say. Tell her your father is determined to ruin the whole of
you--going to give up this very house--just think of that.'

'Papa has already told us so,' said Emma in a low, timid tone; 'but he
says it is the only honorable course.'

'Honorable!' exclaimed Hiram, pettishly. 'Stuff--nonsense. I tell you
that you are all crazy. You don't think what you are about. Wait till
you are turned out of doors, bag and baggage, then see how you will
feel--but then it will be too late. Do you understand?'

Emma Tenant was not a brilliant girl, but she had good sense and an
honest nature. By degrees she recovered from the stupor into which
Hiram's onslaught threw her; she began to feel something of her lover's
purpose, and appreciate something of the position he might soon assume.
Loving and trustful, these faint glimmerings of the truth appalled her.
She did not cry any more. She became pale. She breathed short and quick.

'Hiram,' she gasped, 'you mean something--I fear you mean something.
Papa knows best what is honest, better than you--a young man. To lose
our property would make me unhappy. And I thought--yes, I conceived--oh,
Hiram--tell me--_am_ I going to lose you?' she cried, interrupting
herself. 'If it be so, say it--say it now. Do not keep me in suspense.'

'Why, Emma, how nervous you are! Ah, here comes your father. I see you
are waiting for me. I am quite ready, sir.'

'Good. Emma, can you spare him for one evening? You will soon have him
all to yourself--eh?' and, with a pleasant tap on her cheek, Mr. Tenant
turned and left the room.

Hiram followed without saying a word.

Emma sat by herself an hour--at least an hour. The servant came in to
light the gas, but she would not permit it. I won't attempt to describe
her thoughts.

At length she rose, and took her way to her mother's room. She told her
just what had passed. Mrs. Tenant was a superior woman. Her experience
taught her, despite her good opinion of Hiram, for he had spared no
pains to present himself favorably, that he might prove to be merely
mercenary. Yet, after all, she did not think it probable. She said all
she consistently could say to soothe her child, without absolutely
declaring that she believed her fears to be groundless. _That_ she
dared not utter. She finished by a very common and rational argument,
which, by the way, has very little comfort in it:

'I know, my darling, that you love him, but you cannot love a mean,
low-spirited creature; and if he prove to be such, let us be thankful
for your escape.'

She kissed and caressed her child--her only child. But her words were
poor consolation to Emma, whose heart was devoted to this man--very
meagre consolation. Mrs. Tenant knew it; but what could she say or do
more, just then? She could only watch and stand ready to protect her
daughter's happiness, when events should decide what course she was to
take.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hiram spent the entire evening looking over accounts and papers with Mr.
Tenant. His manner was quiet but assiduous. Very useful he made himself.
Frequently in the course of the evening he drew from that gentleman
well-merited encomiums on his clear head and methodical ideas.

As he was about leaving--it was fully twelve o'clock, and Mr. Tenant had
just thanked him for the twentieth time--Hiram ventured to speak again
about his property.

'Dear sir, I feel impelled to speak once more to you. Do listen to me.
Do not beggar yourself, and then turn yourself out of doors. Permit me
to tell you that you can save this house very easily.'

'I know it, Hiram. I know it. Don't think I have forgotten Emma and you.
I have thought it all over. Recollect, I don't blame you. I know it is
Emma you are thinking about. But, my dear boy, I can't do it--it would
not be _honest_. I can't do it. Never mind, we shall be all the happier
for doing right--all the happier, all the happier. I will see you
to-morrow. Good night. God bless you.'

They had gradually got to the door, and Hiram, echoing the good night,
stepped into the street.

''God bless you,' indeed,' he muttered. 'Soft words butter no parsnips.
'God bless you!' What idle profanity!'

He walked slowly down the street, unconscious that a young face from a
window of the second story watched his retreating steps--that a young
heart beat painfully as he passed out of sight.

A few moments later Emma's mother entered her room, and found her still
at the window.

'Not yet in bed?' she said tenderly. 'I thought you left me because you
were too much fatigued to sit up.' She came and put her arms about her
daughter's neck and kissed her.

'My dear, I have joyful news for you. Your papa says Hiram takes just
the right view of everything--that nothing can be more satisfactory than
his whole conversation. He explained all to Hiram, and he declares he
never passed a happier evening in his life. Is not that worth coming to
tell you of?'

'Indeed, it is, dear mamma.'

'Now you can sleep?'

'Oh yes.'

But she did not sleep, though. It is not so easy to recover from a heart
shock such as she had just experienced. No, she did not sleep a moment
during the night. Hiram's harsh, repulsive tone and manner haunted her.
Oh, _how_ they haunted her! Never before had he exhibited such traits.
Whatever the future had in store for her, here was a revelation, sudden,
unexpected, _true_.

       *       *       *       *       *

Honest, simple-minded Mr. Tenant! How he is chattering away to his wife,
repeating again and again his encomiums on Hiram, till she is really
convinced. Why should she not be?

Meanwhile Hiram has reached his lodgings. He goes through with his usual
devotions, and is soon sound asleep. From his composed manner it may
reasonably be inferred that he has made up his mind just what course to
take.


CHAPTER VII.

'Mr. Meeker!'

There was no answer.

'Mr. Meeker!'

The accent was one of sudden distress and alarm. There was a short
pause, when the call was renewed.

'Mr. Meeker!'

'What is it? What is the matter? Is anything the matter?'

A slight groan.

Mr. Meeker sprang from his bed as if he were a young man, and made haste
to light a candle.

'My dear, are you ill?'

'I don't know. It's something strange.'

Mrs. Meeker's voice sounded so unnatural that her husband hurried to the
other side of the bed. He found his wife helpless, unable to change her
position. Her articulation was very difficult, and her countenance
presented a ghastly appearance, for one half of her appeared to be
completely paralyzed.

It was the work of a few moments to alarm the house and despatch a
messenger for the doctor. But what could a physician avail when nature
refused longer to perform her office? The doctor could investigate, and
the result of his examination was most alarming. Voluntary action over
one half the frame quite suspended; what was worse, there was little or
no sensation. The poor woman essayed to speak from time to time, but
with repulsive contortions, so that her words sounded like idiotic
babble. As her husband bent over her, she seized his arm with the hand
still _live_, and with distinctness said:

'_Send for Hiram._'

This was in time for the mail which closed in twenty minutes.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hiram rose the morning after the long session at Mr. Tenant's house,
cool and refreshed by his undisturbed slumber. Arriving at his counting
room, he received, among his other correspondence, a letter, which read
as follows:

     MY DEAR SON: Your mother has been taken alarmingly ill. Come home
     at once. Your affectionate father,

                                                       F. MEEKER.

What a load off Hiram's mind by the receipt of this brief note! The idea
of a fond, devoted mother, struck down by a possibly fatal illness, did
not present itself for an instant, or if it did, it was without effect
on him.

He breathed a deep _relieved_ respiration, while he articulated, just
above a whisper, '_How very Providential!_'

The New Haven boat left at one o'clock. Hiram spent a most active
morning. Hill was summoned, and kept on the run all the time. No
explanations, though, except "a sudden call out of town." Arrangements
were made which looked to an absence prolonged into weeks. The bank was
visited with reference to what might be required, and the news of his
mother's dangerous illness turned to advantage in the most effective
way.

All was ready.

It was just half past twelve o'clock. Hiram sat down, and taking up a
torn piece of paper, scratched off a blurred and nearly unintelligible
scrawl as follows:

                                                         12-1/2 P.M.

     DEAR EMMA: I have this moment received the enclosed. I leave in
     fifteen minutes. Barely time to send this.

                                                                  H.

This note he despatched by a messenger, and went directly on board the
boat. There he found his brother, Dr. Frank, who had also been summoned
by his father, although not mentioned in Mrs. Meeker's request. The
brothers shook hands. The Doctor's heart was softened by the afflictive
intelligence, and Hiram felt in a very placable humor, in consequence of
the 'special interposition' that day made in his behalf. They did not
converse much, however. Hiram sat most of the time quietly in a corner
of the boat, looking over various commercial papers, while Dr. Frank
walked up and down the deck, enjoying the cool breeze and the pleasant
landscape presented on either side, despite the melancholy thoughts
which were from time to time forced on him, in view of the alarming
letter he had received. But he was familiar with disease and every
corporeal malady. His nature was buoyant and sanguine. He had the
confidence of a man of true genius in his own powers, and this did not
permit any very grave doubts about the result of his mother's illness.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Emma Tenant received Hiram's note, she expressed but one feeling,
one sensation: that of earnest and profound sympathy from the bottom of
a heart earnest and sympathetic.

'Poor Hiram,' she said to herself. 'Poor, dear Hiram. He has been
obliged to leave suddenly without a word of consolation and kindness
from me. And I was unkind to him last night. I know I was. Poor fellow;
but I will make up for it when he comes back. I will never distrust him
again. Never.'

       *       *       *       *       *

The stage reached Hampton at the usual time. The passengers had ridden
all night, and now descended glum and stiff to stretch their limbs for
breakfast. A nice double wagon stood waiting. It was driven by the
younger brother.

'How are you, Ned?' said the Doctor, first getting out. 'How is mother?'

'Oh, very bad, Frank; very bad. Past all hope, the doctors say.'

'What is it?'

'Paralysis.'

'Good God! you don't tell me so?'

The other nodded.

All this time Hiram stood calmly listening, but not saying a word. _He_
was greatly relieved. He felt sure that he could not return to New York
for two or three weeks, and--he was to be married in three weeks.

Dr. Frank was the first to enter the sick room. Though a physician,
accustomed to every form of disease, he was appalled at the change in
his mother's appearance. On this, however, we will not dwell. Mrs.
Meeker had been gradually sinking since the first attack. She was quite
sensible, however. Dr. Frank approached the bed and kneeled down and
addressed his mother tenderly.

The poor woman tried to articulate, and after many efforts, she
gasped--'_Hiram_.'

'He has come,' replied Dr. Frank, 'and will be with you in a moment.'

This seemed to relieve her, and the Doctor proceeded to investigate the
case as far as was necessary. There could be but one conclusion--Mrs.
Meeker was soon to pass away from this world. She was beyond the reach
of medical aid.

Dr. Frank stepped into the sitting room, and beckoned Hiram to go in.
Then came a very touching scene. When the mother became conscious of the
presence of her darling boy, she essayed to give exhibitions of her
feelings. It is impossible to describe these. To have him hold her
lifeless hand, to endeavor to press his own with the one which was still
in part vital, to pass her fingers over his face, and strive to put her
arm around his neck, seemed to render her perfectly happy. But her
strength was soon exhausted, and she was obliged to rest. What appeared
to afflict her most was that she could not articulate with distinctness.
She evidently wished to commune with her son, but it was impossible. She
did, however, give utterance to a few words, which were perhaps an index
to her thoughts:

'_Good--be good--good man_,' were plainly intelligible. '_Too
worldly--not_' * * * (the words were not audible). '_Treasure in
heaven--in heaven._'

By which disconnected sentences one might hope, and, I think, reasonably
infer that Mrs. Meeker, in view of that eternity for which she had been
so long, as she thought, preparing, suddenly saw things in a new and
different light, and desired effectually and lovingly, to impress the
same on her favorite child. Hiram, during the interview, behaved like a
model son--pliant, sorrowful, devoted, affectionate. But it would make
you shudder if you could have looked into his heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

When his mother became exhausted, so as no longer to be sensible of his
presence, he stole softly out of the room, and breathed long and freely,
as one safely through with some difficult performance or operation.

Meanwhile Dr. Frank was sitting with his father. Very affecting was the
interview. The old man had at no time been ready to believe the
attending physician, who could give him no hope. When 'Frank' came, _he_
would know all about it. And so he did, but his knowledge could bring no
comfort--only a confirmation of what had already been announced.

'She can't recover, father. She can't recover,' and the stout man began
to sob. In the presence of his parent he was again a child, and the
latter instinctively became consoler. Mr. Meeker, as we have intimated,
though old, was not infirm, and it was a curious sight to witness his
efforts to comfort his boy, while he himself so much more required
sympathy.

       *       *       *       *       *

So the day passed. The next morning Dr. Frank was obliged to return to
the city, for his patients demanded his presence. He first had a
consultation with the attending physician. Nothing remained for Mrs.
Meeker but wearisome days and nights till death should release her, and
all that a medical man could do was to make her as comfortable as
possible.

There was a small room adjoining the one where Mrs. Meeker lay, which
Hiram took possession of. It had a pleasant window looking out on the
garden, and it contained a small cot bedstead, besides a table and
chairs. Here Hiram spent most of his time busily occupied. By every mail
he received letters from New York, detailing with minuteness just what
took place in his affairs from day to day. In short, his private office
was moved from New York to Hampton, and the only apparent inconvenience
was that he did business at arm's length, as they say. Daily came a
letter from Hill, although Hill was not in Hiram's counting room. Daily
was an answer returned.

There was some one else who wrote Hiram just as regularly. Among the
business letters, written in various hands and on various kinds of
paper, could always be seen a small, neatly folded sheet, having a
refined and delicate superscription. It was from Emma Tenant. She had
forgotten all that was unpleasant and disagreeable in their last
interview, on receiving her lover's hurried-_looking_ scrawl, and, as if
by a sudden rebound, her sympathies were roused to an extraordinary
degree for 'poor Hiram--dear Hiram,' whom she 'treated so coldly' the
last time they met. I need not say her notes were full of the most
tender sympathy and condolence.

These letters bored Hiram exceedingly. The second day after reaching
Hampton he had written Emma another of his hastily got up epistles,
which contained just six lines, stating that he had found his mother in
a dying condition, and was watching at her bedside. He did not intend to
write again, but Emma's letters were so persistent that, despite his
resolution, he did despatch two other notes, each more hasty and
illegible and more distracted in tenor than the previous one. In fact
the last had no signature at all.

At length Emma was so completely carried away by Hiram's distress, that
she actually desired to proceed to Hampton, where she felt her presence
would act like a balm to his sorrowful and bruised heart. Her mother, of
course, would permit no such indiscreet step, so that Emma had to rest
satisfied with writing long, loving letters.

Hiram, meantime, was not without his harmless recreations.

[All the town seemed to have been informed how devoted Hiram was to his
sick mother. Nobody knew, however, of the secret of the little room
adjoining, and of our hero's busy hours there.]

In the cool of the afternoon he would take a walk into the village. He
called on his old master, Benjamin Jessup, who still maintained the
opposition store as against the Smiths. Jessup was the same
good-natured, jovial fellow as ever, but all token of familiarity died
away when Hiram, entering his place, saluted him with the quiet air and
manner of recognized superiority--yet, as you would say, pleasantly
enough. The rich New York shipping merchant inspired the country
storekeeper with awe.

Hiram enjoyed all this vastly, and talked amiably with Jessup about old
times. He walked complacently over the village, stopping every few steps
to have a word with his numerous acquaintances.

One afternoon, as he was taking his usual walk to the village, and had
nearly reached it, he met a lady whom at first he did not recognize, but
who appeared to know him from a distance.

It was Mary Jessup--now Mrs. Mary Williams--who stopped the way, and
whose face crimsoned as she approached. She had been married four or
five years--well married, as the phrase is. Her appearance had greatly
improved. Her form was finely developed. She had become stouter, and was
really more blooming than when she was a girl.

I have said she blushed, but not from any sense of mortification, such
as is not unfrequently experienced when one of the sex, feeling
conscious that time has not dealt kindly with her, meets an old friend
after a lapse of years, and dreads the first scrutinizing gaze. On the
contrary, Mary Williams was fully sensible of her improved good looks,
and this gave to her a certain self-possession of manner which prevented
the least awkwardness on her part.

Still she blushed--from old recollections, doubtless, and because Hiram
had not before greeted her as a married woman.

'Why, how do you do, Mr. Meeker? I am very glad to see you, even by
accident. I heard of you at father's, and I think you might, for old
acquaintance, sake, have stepped in to see me. Mr. Williams, too--you
used to know him--would be very glad to see you.'

Mrs. Williams was determined to have the first word, and she took
advantage of it. She looked very handsome, and acted more and more at
ease as she proceeded, especially after the reference to Mr. Williams.

[Women always like to allude to their husbands in presence of an old
admirer; as much as to say, 'Don't think I am without somebody to care
for and protect me;' or, 'Don't fancy I mean to forget my husband
because I choose to be chattering with you;' or--or--or--a dozen things
else.]

Hiram replied in his old artful way, very seriously, and with an air of
sadness (as he made allusion to his mother's situation), yet with a
touch of embarrassment (all assumed), while his voice assumed a
tenderness of feeling which it would seem impossible for him to restrain
in consequence of the suddenness of the meeting.

'Is she indeed so ill?' asked Mrs. Williams. 'We understood she was
greatly afflicted by a stroke of paralysis, but I had no thought of
immediate danger.'

'She cannot live,' replied Hiram, his lips quivering.

'Oh, Mr. Meeker, do not say that. I cannot bear to hear it. You know
how attached I always was to your mother.'

'Call me Hiram,' was the response. 'It will put me in mind of old
times.'

'Well, I don't know but it _is_ more natural, for I declare I have
hardly set eyes on you since you left our house.'

Hiram sighed.

'Well, I suppose I shall not see you again for another five years; so I
had best say, 'Good-by.''

They were standing at a point where a lane led off from the main street.

'Which way are you going?' asked Hiram.

'Just a few steps down the lane, and then home.'

'Shall you be detained long?'

'Only a minute. I have just to run in and leave a pattern, if you must
know.'

'Then I will walk along with you, if you have no objections. I am out
for a little necessary exercise.'

'Objections? why, I shall be delighted.' * * *


They sauntered down the lane to the place indicated by Mrs. Williams,
where a sign over the door, 'Fashionable Dressmaker,' explained the
feminine nature of her errand. Leaving there, the two walked on till
they reached a spot where they used to stroll together in old times.

'Now I think of it,' said Mrs. Williams, as she came out of the house
and rejoined her companion, 'I forgot to ask you if you are married,
because if you are, I need make no apology for marching you by a
dressmaker's establishment.

'Don't you know whether I am married or not?'

'Why, how should I? I certainly think you ought to be by this time. Why
don't you marry Miss Burns, or Louise Hawkins, or Charlotte, or--or'--

'Or whom?' asked Hiram.

'Oh, I dare say there are ever so many more, ever so many. So you are
not married?'

'Do you think I am, Mary?' * * *

As I was saying, the two sauntered on till they reached a spot that had
been favorite ground for their sentimental strolls. Both knew well
enough, when Hiram proposed to walk down the lane, where they would
land, for it was in both their minds. Mrs. Williams fancied it would
amuse her and furnish a little variety. She was very sure of herself,
and knew 'just what a flirt Hiram was.'

Hiram--but never mind what _he_ thought.

       *       *       *       *       *

Although the days were at their longest, it was quite dark before Mrs.
Williams reached her own door. She entered it--after a hurried 'good
evening' to Hiram--flushed, excited, and with feelings generally
disturbed. Contrary to her resolution, in opposition to her judgment,
and, I may say, against her will, she listened to the old familiar
accents breathed in more impassioned tones than ever before, while
relieved by a gloss of sentimental sadness.

What had she been doing, and where had the hours fled? To what was she
listening, whose arm did she hold, and whose hand ventured to enclose
hers?

[It was 'only in sisterly friendship.' That was Hiram's observation as
he took it.]

Before she was aware of it, twilight was disappearing in the darkness.

She started as if recovering herself, and commenced to walk hurriedly
toward home. Hiram by no means relished the pace, but he was forced to
keep up, and, as I have observed, with an abrupt 'good evening' he was
summarily dismissed.

But he had enjoyed himself exceedingly, and he walked slowly toward his
house, recalling every little word which, as he believed, disclosed the
true state of Mary Williams's affections. Scoundrel that he was, he gave
not a thought to what might be the consequence if he persevered in his
wicked attempt to interest her. In fact, he made up his mind that it
would make the time pass less heavily while he was detained in the
neighborhood.

Do not suppose the calculating wretch intended to push the 'flirtation'
beyond what he called brotherly and sisterly conduct. Not he. There
might arise some charge of criminality or wrong, which would endanger
his position, or weaken his claims to the 'kingdom.'

Hiram reached home and found his mother much worse. By signs and every
other manifestation in her power, she had intimated her wish to see him.
Now she was quite speechless.

When Mrs. Williams entered her house, the 'tea table' was still spread,
and her husband wondering what had become of her. Her little girl
shouted in a joyful tone as she came in, 'Here is mamma,' and Mr.
Williams's countenance was instantly relieved from an expression of
suspense.

'Why, Mary, where have you been?'

For an instant Mrs. Williams was on the point of fabricating an answer.
But her better angel was on guard just then. The evil spell was
dissolved, while she replied, with one of her pleasant laughs:

'You could never guess. I met Hiram Meeker on my way to the
dressmaker's. You know he is here attending on his mother. Well, we
undertook to stroll over some of our old walks, and, before I knew it,
talking about old times and old scenes, it was dark. More fool I for
wasting my time and keeping tea waiting.'

'Why did he not come in?'

'To tell you the truth, I never asked him. I was so frightened when I
saw how late it was, I hurried away home, and left him at the door to do
the same.'

Mary Williams was relieved. She went about the duties of her household
with a light heart. And Hiram Meeker, during his stay at Hampton, found
no further opportunity for 'brotherly conferences' with her.


CHAPTER VIII.

Mrs. Meeker died the next week.

The funeral took place on the day which had been fixed for Hiram's
marriage with Emma Tenant. After it was over, William Meeker removed
with his wife from the small house to live with his father, and we will
say here that both contributed much to make Mr. Meeker's latter days
happy.

Hiram did not wait an hour, but took the stage the same afternoon, while
Dr. Frank remained with his father over the next day.

One morning, two or three days after his return, Hiram presented himself
at the house and inquired for _Mrs._ Tenant. On this occasion he was
cased in a complete suit of the deepest black, with crape reaching to
the very top of his hat. He was the picture of despairing grief.

It happened that Emma was not at home, so that Mrs. Tenant was not
surprised that she should be sent for. She did not know Hiram had not
inquired for her daughter. She came in with the impression that he was
all that he should be; his failure to write often being thought quite
excusable under the circumstances.

She had not, however, advanced three steps into the room before
_feeling_ there was something wrong.

Hiram, regarded in a certain light, presented a most comical, though
most lugubrious appearance. He was so completely acting a part that his
very looks and gestures, and, in short, the minutest movements of his
body, were manifestly 'got up.' One would think an automaton had been
employed and set to work to do a certain amount of mourning, and furnish
the requisite quantity of family grief.

Nevertheless Mrs. Tenant advanced and greeted Hiram cordially.

He put out the tips of his fingers, produced his pocket handkerchief,
as if to be ready for an overflow, but uttered no word, no articulate
sound.

This continued for at least five minutes, Mrs. Tenant endeavoring to say
something the while by way of condolence.

'I shall never recover from the shock,' at last he ejaculated; 'never!'

He did not look Mrs. Tenant in the face, but kept his eyes fixed on
vacancy.

'I am very sorry Emma is not in, but you will not have to wait long,'
remarked Mrs. Tenant at last.

'I do not think I shall be able to see her,' said Hiram, with a groan.

'Not see her; not see Emma? Why, what do you mean?' exclaimed the
mother, now fully roused.

'This is no period to devote myself to things of time and sense. I feel
that all my thoughts should be centred on eternity.'

[You should have seen the activity Hiram had been displaying in his
counting room since his return.]

This was enough for Mrs. Tenant. She understood him now, and determined
to bring matters at once to a crisis.

'Mr. Meeker,' she said, 'will you be so kind as to step with me into the
library a few moments?'

Hiram acquiesced.

She rang the bell, and said to the servant:

'When Miss Tenant comes in, request her to go to my room, and wait for
me there.

'Now, Mr. Meeker,' she said, as soon as they were seated, 'let me ask
you a plain question: Is it your intention to break your engagement with
my daughter?'

'Really, ma'am, I do not wish to speak on the subject at present,'
whispered Hiram, looking at the crape on his hat.

'But you must, you _shall_ speak. Do you think you can trifle with me,
sir?'

Hiram was silent.

'SPEAK! I say. Do you intend to keep your engagement with my daughter?'

Thus invoked, Hiram murmured something about--'under the
circumstances'--his 'great affliction'--'change in your own
family'--'business troubles'--'not sure of his own situation'--'perhaps
it would be best not to consider it a positive engagement'--'that is,
for the present'--'after a season should'--

The street-door bell rang, and Mrs. Tenant heard not another word. Her
heart scarcely beat as she listened to the footsteps of the old servant
along the hall. Agitated by a rush of tumultuous emotions, she was
unable to breathe during the short parley between Emma and the domestic.

At length she heard the welcome sound of Emma's step up the staircase,
and she drew a long full breath of relief. Then she started up and rang
the bell sharply, yes, furiously, and remained standing till the
servant, with quickened pace, came in.

'William, show Mr. Meeker the door.'

Hiram sprang to his feet. He did not like the general _look_ matters
were assuming.

'Go,' said Mrs. Tenant, pointing to the entrance.

In less than a quarter of a minute Hiram was walking down the street.

'It is over with me, anyhow,' he muttered.

But for once in his life he felt very small. 'To be turned out of doors
by a woman; still, nobody will know it.' He was soon busy in his
counting room, examining one of Hill's invoices.

Mrs. Tenant threw herself on the sofa, and was apparently lost in
thought for several minutes. Then she rose and went to her daughter.




THE CHICAGO (ILLINOIS) AND OTHER CANALS.


                                 CORK, Ireland, _April 18, 1863_.
  HON. ISAAC N. ARNOLD, M.C.,
        _Chicago, Illinois_.

DEAR SIR:

Here I am in this beautiful city, in glorious old Ireland, so many of
whose gallant sons have fallen in our defence, and thousands more of
whom now fight the battles of our country. When I think of Shields, and
Meagher, and Corcoran, and their brave associates, shedding their blood
that the Union may live; when I feel myself surrounded here by friends
of my country, and realize how fervently all Ireland desires our
success, my heart swells with gratitude for this noble race, and my
prayers are, that Providence would crown them with every blessing.

When you received my promise to attend as a delegate the Chicago Canal
Convention, little was it then supposed by me, that duty would call me
before that time to Europe. So much of my promise, however, as embraced
the discussion of the question, will now be redeemed. The project of an
enlarged _thorough-cut_ canal, uniting Chicago and the lakes with the
Illinois river and Mississippi, has long attracted my attention. As a
Senator of the United States, for many years, from a Southwestern State,
then devoted to the Union, and elected to the Senate on that question, I
have often passed near or over the contemplated route, always
concluding, that this great work should be accomplished without delay.
Every material interest of our whole country demands the construction of
this canal, and the perpetuity of the Union is closely identified with
its completion. It is for the nation's benefit, and should be the
nation's work. It will give new outlets to the Mississippi, through the
lakes, to the ocean, and neutralize that too exclusive attraction of
Western commerce to the Gulf, which has so often menaced the integrity
of the Union. We must make the access from the Mississippi, through the
lakes, to the ocean, as cheap, and easy, and eventually as free from tar
or toll, as to the Gulf, and the flag of disunion will never float again
over an acre of the soil, or a drop of all the waters of the mighty
West.

It is clear that, centuries ago, the lakes and Mississippi were united,
through the Illinois and Wisconsin rivers, and we must remove the
obstructions, now divorcing their waters, and restore their union, by
thorough-cut canals. In a few years, the saving of transportation, in a
single year, would more than pay the cost of the work. The increase of
population, wealth, products, imports, exports, and revenue, which would
follow the completion of this work, can scarcely now be estimated, and
it should be accomplished if for no other reason, as a most profitable
investment of capital for the benefit of the nation.

But, great as is the importance of these enlarged canals, uniting the
Illinois and Wisconsin rivers with the lakes, other great works,
connecting with the East, are indispensable. But great as is the
importance of these are the enlarged locks of the Erie, Champlain, Black
River, Syracuse, and Oswego, Cayuga, Seneca, Chemung, and Elmira to the
Pennsylvania State line, Rochester, and Alleghany River. Nearly all of
these are 70 feet wide and 7 feet deep, and require only an enlargement
of the locks, whilst a few require to be widened and deepened. The
Chemung canal connects the Susquehanna with the Erie canal, at
Montezuma, and the Chenango is nearly completed to the north branch of
the Susquehanna at the Pennsylvania State line, whence, the Susquehanna
canal passes through Wilkesbarre, Northumberland, Middleton, and
Wrightsville, to Havre de Grace, in Maryland, on tide water, at the
head of Chesapeake Bay. The great canal, from the southern boundary of
New York, down the Susquehanna to tide water, is now five feet deep, and
from 40 to 50 feet wide, and can all be readily enlarged to the
dimensions of the Erie canal. With these works thus enlarged, the
connection of the lakes would not only be complete with the Hudson, and
by the Delaware and Raritan canal with the Delaware, and by the Delaware
and Chesapeake canal with the Chesapeake Bay, but also by the direct
route, down the Susquehanna, to Baltimore, Norfolk, and Albemarle Sound.
Is not this truly national, and is it not equally beneficial, to the
East and the West, to open all these routes for large steamers? The
system, however, would not be complete, without uniting Champlain with
the St. Lawrence, Ontario with Erie, and Huron and Michigan with
Superior.

The enlarged works should also be provided through Wisconsin, Indiana,
Ohio, and western Pennsylvania, to the lakes, to the extent that these
canals can be made of the dimensions of the Erie, and supplied with
water. Nor should we forget the widening of the canal at Louisville, the
removal of obstructions in the St. Clair flats and upper Mississippi,
and the deepening of the mouth of this great river. The construction of
these works would be costly, but as a mere investment of capital, for
the increase of our wealth and revenue, they would pay the nation
tenfold.

As the main object of these works is cheap transportation, the tolls
should be diminished, as the works were completed, to the full extent
that freight could be carried more cheaply in large boats, and provision
should be made for an adequate sinking fund, so as gradually to
liquidate the whole cost, and then to collect no more toll than would
pay to keep the works in repair. Such is the true interest of the States
and of the nation. If New York could collect a toll for navigating the
Hudson, it would be against her interest, for the diminution and
diversion of business, and tax on labor and products, would far exceed
the net proceeds of any such toll. The same principle will apply to
these canals. As some of them, unfortunately, are owned by private
companies, adequate provision should be made, to prevent these aids from
being perverted to purposes of individual speculation. The Erie and
Ontario canal, at the falls of Niagara, and the Superior, Huron, and
Michigan canal (less than a mile long), at the falls of St. Mary, should
be made ship canals, much larger than those of Canada.

The cost of all these works may exceed $100,000,000, but the admirable
financial system of Mr. Secretary Chase, would soon supply abundant
means for their construction. Already the price of gold has fallen
largely, our legal tenders are being funded, by millions, in the
Secretary's favorite 5-20 sixes, and we shall soon have, under his
system, a sound, uniform national currency, binding every State and
citizen to the Union, and fraught ultimately with advantages to the
nation, equal to the whole expense of the war.

In passing down the Susquehanna canal, at Middletown, commences the
canal which, by way of Reading and the Schuylkill, connects Philadelphia
with the Susquehanna and the lakes. Most of this work is already six
feet deep, but the whole route, if practicable, should be enlarged to
the dimensions of the Erie canal.

I have met in the British Museum some documents showing the original
project (absurdly abandoned) for a large canal from the Schuylkill to
the Susquehanna. A slight change will restore this work, and give to
Philadelphia a complete seven-foot canal, via the Schuylkill and
Susquehanna to the lakes, as short as from New York, and through a
richer country, both mineral and agricultural. It appears that
Washington and Franklin both favored this route.

1. Gunboats, and large commercial steamers, could then pass, without
interruption, through all the lakes, to the St. Lawrence, the Hudson,
the Delaware, Susquehanna, Chesapeake Bay, Albemarle Sound, the Ohio,
and Mississippi.

2. In case of war, foreign or domestic, the saving to the Government in
prices of articles they must buy, and in transportation of men,
munitions of war, supplies, and coal, would be enormous. It is believed
that the excess of cost in prices and transportation during this
rebellion, occasioned by the want of these works, WOULD MORE THAN PAY
FOR THEIR CONSTRUCTION. Nor is this the only loss, but victories no
doubt have often been turned into defeats, for the want of proper
facilities for the movement of gunboats, of supplies, and munitions, and
the rapid concentration of troops and reënforcements.

3. The ability to obtain supplies, and coals, and vessels, from so many
points, and especially gunboats, where the coal, iron, and fluxes are in
justaposition, would hasten construction, and cheapen prices to the
Government.

The enormous naval and military power, gained by such works, would tend
greatly to prevent wars, foreign or domestic; or, if they did occur,
would enable us to conduct them with more economy and success. It is
said such vessels can be built on the lakes, and so they can, for lake
defence, but they would be liable to capture or destruction there,
before completed, by the enemy, and iron vessels, and iron-clads, could
not be constructed so cheaply, where there is neither coal nor iron, as
in regions like the Delaware, Susquehanna, Alleghany, and Ohio, where
these great articles abound, and can be used on the spot, with so much
economy.

It must be remembered, also, that, if these iron steamers and iron-clads
are constructed on the seaboard or the lakes, still, the iron and coal
for building them, and the coal for running them, could be supplied much
more cheaply, if these enlarged canals were finished. Besides, events
are now occurring, and may again, in our history, requiring the
immediate construction of hundreds of iron vessels, rams, iron-clads,
and mortar boats, calling for all the works on the seaboard, the lakes,
the Western rivers, and enlarged canals, to furnish, in time, the
requisite number. Rapid concentration of forces, naval and military, and
prompt movements, are among the greatest elements of success in war. It
will be conceded, that the ability to run gunboats, iron-clads, rams,
and mortar boats, through all our lakes, to and from them to all our
great rivers, and to connect from both, through such enlarged canals,
with the seaboard, and the Gulf, would vastly increase our naval and
military power.

Is it not clear, then, that if such a movement, with such resources and
communications, had been made, in sufficient force, the first year of
the war, so as to seize, or effectully blockade, all the rebel ports, to
occupy, by an upward and downward movement, the whole Mississippi and
all its tributaries, isolating and cutting rebeldom in two, and thus
preventing supplies from Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, that the
contest must have been closed long ere this, and thus saved five or six
times the cost of these works. As indicating the consequence of our
occupation and command of the Mississippi and the Gulf, let us see its
effect on the supply of the single indispensable article of _beef_ to
the rebel army and people.

By the census of 1860, table 36, the number of cattle that year in the
loyal States was 7,674,000; in Texas alone, 2,733,267; in Louisiana,
329,855; and in Arkansas, 318,355;--in those parts of the rebel States
east of the Mississippi, not commanded by our troops and gunboats,
2,558,000, and in the parts of those States thus commanded by us,
1,087,000. Thus it will be seen, that the cattle in Texas alone (whence
the rebels, heretofore, have derived their main supplies), raised on
their boundless prairies, and rich perennial grass, have largely
exceeded all the cattle in those parts of the rebel States east of the
Mississippi, commanded by them. But that commanded by us, of the
Mississippi and its tributaries, and the Gulf, as is now the case, cuts
off the above supplies from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, west and north
Mississippi, north Alabama, and west and middle Tennessee. Hence the
cries of starvation from the South; hence, mainly, the rise there in the
price of beef, from a few cents to a dollar a pound. Controlled, as the
Gulf and Mississippi and its tributaries now are by us, so as to prevent
any Western supplies of beef, and the desolation and inundation which
have swept over so much of the rest of rebeldom since 1860, their army
and people cannot be supplied with beef throughout this year. Nor would
running the blockade help them in this respect, for Europe has no
supplies of beef to spare, requiring large amounts from us every year.
The revolt, then, is doomed this year by starvation, if not, as we
believe, by victories. Indeed, I imagine, if our Secretaries of War and
of the Navy were called on for official reports, they could clearly
show, that with ample appropriations in July, 1861, and all these works
_then_ completed, they could have crushed the revolt in the fall of 1861
and winter of 1862. All, then, that has been expended since of blood and
treasure, and all the risks to which the Union may have been exposed,
result from the want of these works. Surely, these are momentous
considerations, appealing, with irresistible force, to the heart and
judgment of every true American statesman, and patriot.

Great, however, as are the advantages in war to be derived from the
construction of these works, it is still more in peace, and as arteries
of trade, that the benefit would be greatest. If iron steamers are to
control the commerce of the world, the cheap construction and running of
such vessels may decide this great question in our favor. Now, whether
these steamers are to be built on the seaboard or interior, the coal,
and iron, and timber, with which to make them, and the coal and supplies
with which to run them, could be furnished much more cheaply by these
enlarged canals. And even if the vessels be of timber, the engines,
boilers, anchors, &c., must be of iron, and they must be run with coal,
all which would be furnished cheaper at our lakes and seaboard, by these
enlarged canals. Nor is it only for the construction of engines and
boilers for steamers, or coal to run them, that these works would be
important, but the cheapening of transportation of coal, iron, timber,
and supplies would be greatly beneficial in all industrial pursuits. It
is, however, in cheapening the transportation of our immense
agricultural products to the East, South, seaboard, and the return
cargoes, that these works would confer the greatest benefits. The value
of the freight transported on these canals, last year, was over
$500,000,000; but, when all should be enlarged, as herein proposed, the
value of their freight, in a few years, would exceed SEVERAL BILLIONS OF
DOLLARS. They would draw from a vastly extended area, from augmented
population and products, and with greater celerity and economy of
movements, from the increased distances that freight could be carried,
and additional articles. With these improvements, millions of bales of
cotton would be carried annually on these enlarged canals. All of
Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Kansas, and the Northwestern
Territories, up the Missouri and its tributaries, with large portions of
Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and even of Texas, on the Red
river, would be added to the region from which supplies would be sent,
and return cargoes proceed by these works. Our exports abroad would
soon reach a BILLION of dollars, of which at least one third would
consist of breadstuffs and provisions. Corn was consumed, last year, in
some of the Western States, as fuel, in consequence of high freights.
But this could never recur with these enlarged canals. Indeed, the
products to be carried on these canals would include the whole valley of
the lakes, the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri; and many articles, thus
reaching there, thence be carried, on our great imperial railway, to the
Pacific, bringing back return cargoes for the same routes. Breadstuffs
and provisions and cotton would be carried more cheaply through these
canals to the manufacturing States, and their fabrics return, the same
way, in vastly augmented amounts, to the West.

Last year, even during a war, breadstuffs and provisions, reaching
$109,676,875 in value, were exported abroad, from the loyal States
alone; but, with these enlarged canals, the amount could be more than
tripled, the augmented exports bringing in increased imports, and vast
additional revenue. Can we not realize the certainty of these great
results, and have we not the energy and patriotism to insure their
accomplishment? Assuredly we have.

Nor is it only our revenue from duties that would be increased to an
extent sufficient of itself, in a few years, to pay the principal and
interest of the debt incurred in the construction of these works, but
our internal revenue, also, would be prodigiously augmented.

The census of 1860 shows our increase of wealth, from 1850 to 1860, to
have been 126.45 per cent. (Table 35). Now, if we would increase our
wealth only one tenth, in the next ten years, by the construction of
these works, then (our wealth being now $16,159,616,068) such increase
would make our wealth, in 1870, instead of $36,593,450,585, more than
sixteen hundred millions _greater_, or more than _ten times_ the cost of
these works; and, in 1880, instead of $82,865,868,849, over three
billions six hundred millions more, or more than twenty times the cost
of those works. The same percentage, then, of our present internal tax,
on this augmented wealth, estimated at only one per cent., would be
$16,000,000 (annually) in 1870, and $36,000,000 (annually) in 1880, and
constantly increasing. Add this to the great increase of our revenue
from duties, as the result of these works, and the addition would not
only soon liquidate their cost, but yield a sum which, in a few years,
would pay the principal and interest of our public debt.

With such works, we would certainly soon be the first military, naval,
and commercial power of the world. The West, with these reduced
freights, would secure immense additional markets for her products, and
the East send a much larger amount of manufactures, in return cargoes,
to the West.

A new and great impulse would be given to the coal and iron interest. If
the Delaware, Susquehanna, and their tributaries, and the Ohio and its
tributaries, especially the Youghiogheny, Monongahela, and Alleghany had
the benefit of low freight, afforded by these canals, they could supply
not only the seaboard at reduced rates, but also central and western New
York, the Canadas, and the whole lake region, with coal and iron.
Indeed, the increased demand, thus caused for these great articles,
would soon bring our make of iron, and consumption of coal, up to that
of England, and ultimately much larger. Freight is a much greater
element in the cost of coal and iron, than of agricultural products, but
the increased exchange would be mutually advantageous.

With this system completed, the Mississippi might communicate by large
steamers with all the lakes, and eastward, by the enlarged canals, to
Chicago or Green Bay, or pass up the Ohio, by the Wabash or from
Lawrenceburg or Cincinnati to Toledo, or by Portsmouth or Bridgeport to
Cleveland or by Bridgeport to Erie city, or by Pittsburg, up the
Alleghany, to Olean and Rochester, on the Erie canal, or by ship canal,
from Buffalo to Ontario, thence, by the St. Lawrence, to Lake Champlain
and the Hudson, or by Oswego to Syracuse, or by the Erie canal from
Buffalo to the Hudson, or by the Chenango or Chemung route, down the
Susquehanna, to Philadelphia, or Baltimore, or down the Chesapeake to
Norfolk, and on through Albemarle Sound south. Or, going from the East,
or South, westward by these routes, the steamer could proceed west, and
up the Missouri, to the points where they would meet the great railway
leading to the Pacific. Indeed, if we do our duty now, the next
generation may carry similar canals from the head of Lake Superior to
the Mississippi and Missouri, and up the Kansas or Platte to the gold
mines of Colorado, or, from the great falls of the Missouri, to the base
of the Rocky mountains, with railroad connection thence to the mouth of
the Oregon and Puget's sound. There would be connected with this system,
the lakes, and all the Eastern waters, the Ohio and all its tributaries,
including the Youghiogheny, Monongahela, Alleghany, Kanawa, Guyandotte,
Big Sandy, Muskingum, Scioto, Miami, Wabash, Licking, Kentucky, Green
river, Barren, Cumberland, and Tennessee, the upper Mississippi and its
tributaries, especially the Illinois and Wisconsin, the Desmoines and
St. Peter's, the lower Mississippi and all its vast tributaries, the St.
Francis, White river, Arkansas, Red river, and Yazoo. These are no
dreams of an enthusiast, but advancing realities, if _now_, _now_ we
will only do our duty in crushing this rebellion, and exorcise the foul
fiend of slavery, that called it into being. We may best judge of what
we may do in the future, by what we have done in the past. We have
constructed 4,650 miles of canals (including slackwater), at a cost of
$132,000,000. We have constructed (including city roads) 31,898 miles of
railroad, at a cost of $1,203,285,569, making an aggregate, for
railroads and canals, of $1,335,285,569. Now, one tenth of this sum will
probably make all the works proposed now to be executed, for they are
all only enlargements of existing canals, except the ship canal round
the falls of Niagara, and a similar canal from Lake Champlain to the St.
Lawrence, a work of vast importance, but that can only be accomplished
with the aid and consent of Canada, and is not now estimated.

These improvements would be truly national, especially as provision
would be made for deepening the mouth of the Mississippi. We propose to
make or enlarge no mere local works, but only such as connect the
Atlantic and the Gulf with the lakes, Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri,
Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Chesapeake bay, and Albemarle sound.
There local routes must be constructed or enlarged by local or State
expenditures.

The canals in New York, constituting so large a portion of the system,
have already (mostly) the requisite width and depth, and only need an
enlargement of the locks. The great Delaware and Raritan canal,
connecting New York with Philadelphia, has a depth of 8 feet, and the
Delaware and Chesapeake, uniting them with the Susquehanna and the
lakes, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Albemarle sound, has a depth of ten feet.
No doubt the enlightened proprietors of the Delaware and Raritan canal
would, on fair terms to themselves and the Government, enlarge that
canal (if practicable) to the depth of the Delaware and Chesapeake,
which would be of incalculable benefit to the whole country, but
especially to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk.

The Pennsylvania canals proposed to be enlarged are the Schuylkill,
leading by the Union from Philadelphia, through Reading to Middleton on
the Susquehanna, and thence up that river to the Erie and the lakes. The
Schuylkill canal, 70 miles to Reading, has a depth of 6 feet, and from
Reading to Middleton, 4 feet. The Susquehanna canal, from Havre de
Grace, Maryland, at the head of tidewater, and the Chesapeake bay to the
New York line, and system, has a uniform depth of 5 feet, and is about
300 miles long. This canal, leading through Maryland and Pennsylvania
along the Susquehanna, can readily and cheaply be enlarged to the
dimensions of the Erie canal, and will then furnish Norfolk, Baltimore,
and Philadelphia a direct route to the lakes by the enlarged system,
fully equal to that of New York. Western Pennsylvania and Pittsburg
would have the route, by the enlarged system, up the Alleghany and Olean
to Rochester on the Erie canal, and thence to the Hudson or the lakes,
and from Bridgeport to Cleveland or Erie city. Ohio would have the
benefit of the routes (enlarged) to and from Cleveland to Bridgeport or
Portsmouth on the Ohio, and to and from Toledo to the mouth of the
Wabash or Miami or to Cincinnati. These canals are 40 feet wide and 4
feet deep. Indiana would have the benefit of the Wabash and Erie canal
to Evansville, on the Ohio, from Toledo, and to and from the same point
to the mouth of the Miami at Lawrenceburg and to Cincinnati, and would
also largely participate in the benefit of the Chicago and Illinois
canal of the whole system. Wisconsin would have the benefit of all these
canals, but especially of that connecting the Wisconsin river with Green
Bay, and the rest of the lakes with Lake Superior. Illinois would have
the benefit of the Wabash and Erie, the Chicago and Illinois, and of the
entire system. Indeed, with a thorough-cut canal from the Illinois river
to Chicago, fact will outstrip fancy as regards the progress of that
great city. And here a strong argument in favor of the whole of these
works is presented to every true American, by the fact that the vast and
increasing heavy and bulky products of the West demand the enlarged
works, and if she cannot have them by the Hudson, the Delaware, and
Susquehanna, she will have them by the Canada canals, and the St.
Lawrence to its outlet in the Gulf. Minnesota would have the benefit of
the improvement of the upper Mississippi, and of the canals uniting the
Wisconsin with Green Bay, and Superior with the other lakes. Iowa,
Missouri, Kansas, and the whole Western Territories would have the
benefit of the improvement of the Mississippi, of the routes by Chicago,
Green Bay, the Ohio, and the whole system. The glorious new free State
of Western Virginia would have the benefit of all the routes up and down
the Ohio and Mississippi to the lakes, the Hudson, Delaware,
Susquehanna, and the Gulf. So would Kentucky, and the enlargement of the
Louisville canal would be within her own limits. When we reflect that
Kentucky borders for nearly a thousand miles on the Ohio and
Mississippi, with her streams, the Big Sandy, Licking, Kentucky, Green
river, and Barren (which last four have 766 miles of slackwater
navigation), Cumberland, and Tennessee, all tributaries of the Ohio, the
benefits to her would be prodigious. The interest of the States of
Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Alabama, on the
Tennessee river, and Texas, on the Red river, would be greatly promoted.
They would all have improved routes to and from the mouth of the
Mississippi, and to and from the Ohio, the lakes, and the Atlantic.
Eastern Virginia and North Carolina would derive great advantages by the
enlarged routes, connecting Albemarle sound and the Chesapeake with New
York, Philadelphia, the Hudson, the Delaware, the Susquehanna, and the
lakes. Delaware and Maryland could avail themselves most beneficially of
all these routes, and Baltimore would derive immense advantages from
the enlarged route by the Susquehanna to the lakes, having then as good
a route there as New York, and the difference of distance being only 30
miles. New Jersey, by her route from the Delaware and Raritan to the
Hudson, and by her rising cities near or opposite Philadelphia and New
York, and by the enlarged system to the lakes, would find all her
interests greatly advanced, and the business on her canals and railroads
vastly increased. Michigan, with a larger lake shore than any other
State, fronting on Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, St. Clair, the
connecting straits and rivers, and Lake Erie, would derive immense
advantages. By her immediate connection with the whole New York and
Eastern system, and by Toledo, Cleveland or Erie city, to the Ohio
river, and by the Chicago or Green Bay routes to the Mississippi and the
Gulf, her vast agricultural products in the peninsula would find new and
augmented markets; while, with the ship canal to Lake Superior, her
magnificent iron and copper mines on that immense inland sea, as well as
those in Wisconsin, and the splendid pineries and fisheries of both
States, would receive an immense development. Pennsylvania has no large
available through route now from the Delaware and Susquehanna to the
lakes, nor from Pittsburg. The proposed system would give her those
routes, as well from the East as from the West. This would give to her
coal and iron, her vast agricultural products, her immense manufactures,
and all her industrial pursuits a new impulse, while her two great
cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburg, would be greatly advanced in wealth
and population. When we reflect that coal and iron have mainly
contributed to make England what she is, and how superior, in this
respect, are the natural advantages of Pennsylvania with her bituminous
and anthracite coal and iron and fluxes in juxtaposition, with a
_continent_ surrounding her to furnish a market, with her central
location, fronting on the deep tidewater of the Delaware, and upon the
lakes and the Ohio, with its two great confluents at Pittsburg, the
Alleghany and Monongahela, we cannot fully realize the immense
advantages which she would derive from these enlarged communications.
But what of New York? With all her routes, as well as that of the Erie
canal, enlarged as proposed, with her mighty system extending to the
lakes and St. Lawrence, from Lake Champlain to Superior, south by the
Delaware and Susquehanna, west by the Alleghany, Ohio, Missouri, and
Mississippi, and her great city with an unrivalled location, what an
imperial destiny lies before her, with the Union preserved? Oh! if she
would only fully realize these great truths, and spurn from her embrace
the wretched traitors who, while falsely professing peace, mean the
degradation of the North and the dissolution of this Union, who can
assign limits to her wealth and commerce?

Let us now examine the relations of New England to these proposed works.
Vermont, upon Lake Champlain, by the enlarged system, connecting her
with the Hudson, the St. Lawrence, and the lakes, would be greatly
advanced in wealth and population. But with cheapened transportation to
and from Lake Champlain or the Hudson, not only Vermont, but all New
England, in receiving her coal and iron, and her supplies from the West,
and in sending them her manufactures, will enjoy great advantages, and
the business of her railroads be vastly increased. So, also, New
England, on the Sound, and, in fact, the whole seaboard and all its
cities. Bridgeport, New Haven, New London, Providence, Fall River, New
Bedford, Boston, Portland, Bangor, Belfast, and Eastport will all
transact an immense increased business with New York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and the West. As the greatest American consumer of Western
breadstuffs and provisions, and of our iron and coal, and the principal
seat of domestic manufactures, the augmented reciprocal trade of New
England with the South and West will be enormous. Her shipping and
shipbuilding interests, her cotton, woollen, worsted, and textile
fabrics, her machinery, engines, and agricultural implements, boots and
shoes, hats and caps, her cabinet furniture, musical instruments, paper,
clothing, fisheries, soap, candles, and chandlery, in which she has
excelled since the days of Franklin, and, in fact, all her industrial
pursuits, will be greatly benefited. The products of New England in
1860, exclusive of agriculture and the earnings of commerce, were of the
value of $494,075,498. But, in a few years after the completion of these
works, this amount will be doubled. Such is the skilled and educated
industry of New England, and such the inventive genius of her people,
that there is no limit to her products, except markets and consumers. As
New York increases, the swelling tide of the great city will flow over
to a vast extent into the adjacent shores of Connecticut and New Jersey,
and Hoboken, West Hoboken, Weehawken, Hudson City, Jersey City, and
Newark will meet in one vast metropolis. Philadelphia will also flow
over in the same way into Camden and adjacent portions of New Jersey,
whose farms already greatly exceed in value those of any other State.
The farms of New Jersey in 1860 were of the average value of $60.38 per
acre, while those of South Carolina, the great leader of the rebellion,
with all her boasted cotton, rice, and tobacco, and her 402,406 slaves,
were then of the average value of $8.61 per acre. (Census Table 36.) And
yet there are those in New Jersey who would drag her into the rebel
confederacy, cover her with the dismal pall of slavery, and who cry
_Peace! peace!_ when there is no peace, except in crushing this wicked
rebellion. The States of the Pacific, as the enlarged canals reached the
Mississippi and Missouri, and ultimately the base of the Rocky
mountains, would be greatly advanced in all their interests.
Agricultural products and other bulky and heavy articles that could not
bear transportation all the way by the great Pacific railroad, could be
carried by such enlarged canals to the Mississippi and Missouri, and
ultimately to the base of the Rocky mountains, and thence, by railroad,
a comparatively short distance to the Pacific, and westward to China and
Japan. In order to make New York and San Francisco great depots of
interoceanic commerce for America, Europe, Asia, and the world, these
enlarged canals, navigated by large steamers, and ultimately toll free,
are indispensable.

We have named, then, all the Territories, and all the thirty-five
States, except three, as deriving great and special advantages from this
system. These three are Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, with a
white population, in 1860, of 843,338. These States, however, would not
only participate in the increased prosperity of the whole country, and
in augmented markets for their cotton, rice, sugar, tobacco, and timber,
and in cheaper supplies of Eastern manufactures, coal, iron, and Western
products, but they would derive, also, special advantages. They have a
large trade with New Orleans, which they would reach more cheaply by
deepening the mouth of the Mississippi. They could pass up Albemarle
sound, by the interior route, to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, or
the West, and take back return cargoes by the same route. Georgia, also,
by her location on the Tennessee river, together with South Carolina,
connected with that river at Chattanooga, would derive great benefits
from this connection with the enlarged canals and improved navigation of
the West, sending their own and receiving Western products more cheaply.

Thus, every State and every Territory in the Union would be advanced in
all their interests by these great weeks, and lands, farms, factories,
town and city property, all be improved in value.

But there is another topic, connected with this subject, of vast
importance, particularly at this juncture, to which I must now refer. It
is our public lands, the homestead bill, and immigration. On reference
to an article on this subject, published by me in the November number of
THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, it will be found that our unsold public lands
embraced 1,649,861 square miles, being 1,055,911,288 acres, extending to
fifteen States and all the Territories, and exceeding half the area of
the whole Union. The area of New York, being 47,000 square miles, is
less than a thirty-fifth of this public domain. England (proper), 50,922
square miles; France, 203,736; Prussia, 107,921; and Germany, 80,620
square miles. Our public domain, then, is more than eight times as large
as France, more than fifteen times as large as Prussia, more than twenty
times as large as Germany, more than thirty-two times as large as
England, and larger (excluding Russia) than all Europe, containing more
than 200,000,000 of people. As England proper contained, in 1861,
18,949,916 inhabitants, if our public domain were as densely settled,
its population would exceed 606,000,000, and it would be 260,497,561, if
numbering as many to the square mile as Massachusetts. These lands
embrace every variety of soil, products, and climate, from that of St.
Petersburg to the tropics.

After commenting on the provisions of our homestead bill, which gives to
every settler, American or European, 160 acres of this land for ten
dollars (the cost of survey, etc.), I then said:

     'The homestead privilege will largely increase immigration. Now,
     besides the money brought here by immigrants, the Census proves
     that the average annual value of the labor of Massachusetts _per
     capita_ was, in 1860, $220 for each man, woman, and child,
     independent of the gains of commerce--very large, but not given.
     Assuming that of the immigrants at an average annual value of only
     $100 each, or less than thirty-three cents a day, it would make, in
     ten years, at the rate of 100,000 each year, the following
     aggregate:

     1st year 100,000 = $10,000,000
     2d   "   200,000 =  20,000,000
     3d   "   300,000 =  30,000,000
     4th  "   400,000 =  40,000,000
     5th  "   500,000 =  50,000,000
     6th  "   600,000 =  60,000,000
     7th  "   700,000 =  70,000,000
     8th  "   800,000 =  80,000,000
     9th  "   900,000 =  90,000,000
     10th " 1,000,000 = 100,000,000
                       ------------
                Total, $550,000,000

     'In this table the labor of all immigrants each year is properly
     added to those arriving the succeeding year, so as to make the
     aggregate the last year 1,000,000. This would make the value of the
     labor of this million of immigrants in ten years, $550,000,000,
     independent of the annual accumulation of capital, and the labor of
     the children of the immigrants (born here) after the first ten
     years, which, with their descendants, would go on constantly
     increasing.

     'But, by the official returns (p. 14, Census), the number of alien
     immigrants to the United States, from December, 1850, to December,
     1860, was 2,598,216, or an annual average of 260,000.

     'The effect, then, of this immigration, on the basis of the last
     table, upon the increase of national wealth, was as follows:

     1st year 260,000 = $26,000,000
     2d   "   520,000 =  52,000,000
     3d   "   780,000 =  78,000,000
     4th  " 1,040,000 = 104,000,000
     5th  " 1,300,000 = 130,000,000
     6th  " 1,560,000 = 156,000,000
     7th  " 1,820,000 = 182,000,000
     8th  " 2,080,000 = 208,000,000
     9th  " 2,340,000 = 234,000,000
     10th " 2,600,000 = 260,000,000
                     --------------
              Total, $1,430,000,000

     'Thus, the value of the labor of the immigrants, from 1850 to 1860,
     was $1,430,000,000, making no allowance for the accumulation of
     capital, by annual reinvestment, nor for the natural increase of
     this population, amounting, by the Census, in ten years, to about
     twenty-four per cent. This addition to our wealth, by the labor of
     the children, in the first ten years, would be small; but in the
     second and each succeeding decade, when we count children, and
     their descendants, it would be large and constantly augmenting. But
     the Census shows that our wealth increases each ten years at the
     rate of 126.45 per cent. (Census Table 35.) Now, then, take our
     increase of wealth, in consequence of immigration, as before
     stated, and compound it at the rate of 126.45 per cent. every ten
     years, and the result is largely over $3,000,000,000 in 1870, and
     over $7,000,000,000 in 1880, independent of the effect of any
     immigration succeeding 1860. If these results are astonishing, we
     must remember that immigration here is augmented population, and
     that it is population and labor that create wealth. Capital,
     indeed, is but the accumulation of labor. Immigration, then, from
     1850 to 1860, added to our national products a sum more than double
     our whole debt on the 1st of July last, and augmenting in a ratio
     much more rapid than its increase, and thus enabling us to bear the
     war expenses.'

As the homestead privilege must largely increase immigration, and add
especially to the cultivation of our soil, it will contribute vastly to
increase our population, wealth, and power, and augment our revenues
from duties and taxes.

As this domain is extended over fifteen States and all the Territories,
the completion of these enlarged canals, embracing so large a portion of
them, would be most advantageous to all, and the inducement to
immigration would greatly increase, and immigration must soon flow in
from Europe in an augmented volume. Indeed, when these facts are
generally known in Europe, the desire of small renters, and of the
working classes, to own a farm, and cultivate their own lands here, must
bring thousands to our shores, even during the war. But it will be
mainly when the rebellion shall have been crushed, the power of the
Government vindicated, its authority fully reëstablished, and slavery
extinguished, so as to make labor honorable everywhere throughout our
country, and freedom universal, that this immigration will surge upon
our shores. When we shall have maintained the Union unbroken against
foreign and domestic enemies, and proved that a republic is as powerful
in war as it is benign in peace, and especially that the _people_ will
rush to the ranks to crush even the most gigantic rebellion, and that
they will not only bear arms, but taxes, for such a purpose, the
prophets of evil, who have so often proclaimed our Government an
_organised anarchy_, will lose their power to delude the people of
Europe. And when that people learn the truth, and the vast privileges
offered them by the Homestead Bill, there will be an exodus from Europe
to our country, unprecedented since the discovery of America. The wounds
inflicted by the war will then soon be healed, and European immigrants,
cultivating here their own farms, and truly loyal to this free and
paternal Government, from which they will have received this precious
gift of a farm for each, will take the place of the rebels, who shall
have fled the country. We have seen that the total cost of our railroads
and canals, up to this date, was $1,335,285,569, and I have estimated
the probable cost of these enlarged works as not exceeding one tenth of
this sum, or $133,528,556. Let us now examine that question. We have
seen that our 4,650 miles of canals cost $132,000,000, being $28,387 per
mile, or less, by $8,395 per mile, than our railroads. It will be
recollected that a large number of miles of these canals have already
the requisite depth of seven feet, and width of seventy, and need only
an enlargement of their locks. It appears, however, by the returns, that
the Erie canal, the Grand Junction, Champlain canal, and the Black
River, Chemung, Chenango, and Oswego, in all 528 miles, are all seven
feet deep, and seventy feet wide, and cost $83,494 per mile, while the
average cost of _all_ our canals, varying from forty to seventy-five
feet in width, and from four to ten in depth, was $28,387 per mile.
Assuming $28,000 per mile as the average cost of the canals requiring
enlargement, and $83,000 that of those per mile having already the
requisite dimensions, the difference would be $55,000 per mile, as the
average cost of those needing increased dimensions.

The estimated cost, then, would stand as follows:

  598 miles New York canals,
  enlargement of locks        $5,980,000

  Enlarging dimensions, etc.,
  of 1,696 miles, at $55,000
  per mile                    93,280,000
                             -----------

                    Total,   $99,260,000

The conjectural estimate heretofore made by me was $133,528,556, or one
tenth the cost of our existing railroads and canals, and exceeding, by
$1,528,556, the cost of all our present 4,650 miles of canal. Deduct
this from the above $133,528,556, leaves $34,268,556, to be applied to
improving the St. Clair flats, the Mississippi river, deepening its
mouth, and for the ship canal round the Falls of Niagara.

No estimate is now presented of the cost of the canal from Lake
Champlain to the St. Lawrence, because that requires the coöperation of
Canada.

The railroads of our country would increase their business, with our
augmented wealth and population, especially in the transportation of
passengers and merchandise. They would also obtain iron cheaper for
rails, boilers, and engines, timber for cars, breadstuffs and provisions
for supplies, and coal or wood for their locomotives.

Great, however, as would be the effect of these works in augmenting our
commerce, wealth, and population, their results in consolidating and
perpetuating our Union would be still more important. When the Ohio,
Mississippi, and Missouri, and all their tributaries, arterializing the
great valley, shall be united by the proposed routes with the lakes, the
St. Lawrence, the Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Chesapeake, and
Albemarle, what sacrilegious hand could be raised against such a Union?
We should have no more rebellions. We should hear no more of North,
South, East, and West, for all would be linked together by a unity of
commerce and interests. Our Union would become a social, moral,
geographical, political, and commercial necessity, and no State would
risk by secession the benefit of participating in its commerce. We
should be a homogeneous people, and slavery would disappear before the
march of civilization, and of free schools, free labor, free soil, free
lakes, rivers, and canals. It is the absence of such a system (aided by
slavery), _drawing the West and Southwest, by a supposed superior
attraction, to the Gulf_, that has led the Southwest into this
rebellion. But with slavery extinguished, with freedom strengthening
labor's hand, with education elevating the soul and enlightening the
understanding, and with such communications uniting all our great lakes
and rivers, East and West, all crowned with nourishing towns and mighty
cities, with cultured fields and smiling harvests, exchanging their own
products and fabrics, and those of the world, by flying cars and rushing
steamers, revolt or disunion would be impossible. Strike down every
barrier that separates the business of the North and East from that of
the South and West, and you render dissolution impossible. In commerce,
we would be a unit, drawing to us, by the irresistible attraction of
interest, intercourse, and trade, the whole valley of the lakes and St.
Lawrence. Whom God had united by geography, by race, by language,
commerce, and interest, political institutions could not long keep
asunder. Of all foreign nations, those which would derive the greatest
advantages from such an union would be England and France, the two
governments which a wicked pro-slavery rebellion invites to attempt our
destruction. With such a commerce, and with slavery extinguished, we
would have the Union, not as it was, but as our fathers intended it
should be, when they founded this great and free republic. We should
soon attain the highest civilization, and enjoy the greatest happiness
of which our race is capable. So long as slavery existed here, and we
were divided into States cherishing, and States abhorring the
institution, so long as free and forced labor were thus antagonized, we
could scarcely be said to have a real Union, or to exist truly as a
nation. Slavery loomed up like a black mountain, dividing us. Slavery
kept us always on the verge of civil war, with hostility to liberty,
education, and progress, and menacing for half a century the life of the
republic. The question then was not, Will any measure, or any
construction of the constitution, benefit the nation? but, Will it
weaken or strengthen slavery? All that was good, or great, or national,
was opposed by slavery--science, literature, the improvement of rivers
and harbors, homesteads for the West, defences and navies for the East.
American ocean steamers were sacrificed to foreign subsidies, and all
aid was refused to canals or railroads, including that to the Pacific,
although essential to the national unity. Slavery was attempted to be
forced on Kansas, first by violence and invasion, and then by fraud, and
the _forgery of a constitution_. Defeated in Kansas by the voice of the
people, slavery then took the question from the people, and promulgated
its last platform in 1860, by which all the Territories, nearly equal in
area to the States, were to be subjected forever _as Territories_ to
slavery, although opposed by the overwhelming voice of their people.
Slavery was nationalized, and freedom limited and circumscribed with the
evident intent soon to strangle it in all the States, and spread forced
labor over the continent, from the North to Cape Horn. Failing in the
election, slavery then assailed the vital principle of the republic, the
rule of the majority, and inaugurated the rebellion. Slavery kept
perjured traitors for months in the cabinet and the two Houses of
Congress, to aid in the overthrow of the Government. Then was formed a
constitution avowedly based on slavery, setting it up as an idol to be
worshipped, and upon whose barbaric altars is now being poured out the
sacrificial blood of freemen. But it will fail, for the curse of God and
man is upon it. And when the rebellion is crushed, and slavery
extinguished, we shall emerge from this contest strengthened, purified,
exalted. We shall march to the step and music of a redeemed humanity,
and a regenerated Union. We shall feel a new inspiration, and breathe an
air in which slavery and every form of oppression must perish.

Standing upon these friendly shores, in a land which abolished slavery
in the twelfth century, and surrounded by a people devoted to our
welfare, looking westward, along the path of empire, across the
Atlantic, to my own beloved country, these are my views of her glorious
destiny, when the twin hydras of slavery and rebellion are crushed
forever.

If our Irish adopted citizens could only hear, as I now do, the
condemnation of slavery and of this revolt, by the Irish people; if they
could hear them, as I do, quote the electric words of their renowned
Curran against slavery, and in favor of _universal emancipation_; if
they could listen, as they repeated the still bolder and scathing
denunciations of their great orator, O'Connell, as he trampled on the
dehumanizing system of chattel slavery, they would scorn the advice of
the traitor leaders, who, under the false guise of Democracy, but in
hostility to all its principles, would now lure them, by the syren cry
of peace, into the destruction of the Union, which guards their rights,
and protects their interests.

The convention now assembled at Chicago, can do much to inaugurate a new
era of civilization, freedom, and progress, by aiding in giving to the
nation these great interior routes of commerce and intercourse, in the
centre of which your great city will hold the urn, as the long-divorced
waters of the lakes and the Mississippi are again commingled, and the
Union linked together by the imperishable bonds of commerce, interest,
and affection.




WOMAN.


The ever-present phenomenon of revolution bears two forms. They may be
discrete or concrete, but they are two--ideas, movement,--cause,
result--force, effect. And progressive humanity marches upon its future
with ideas for its centre, movement its right and left wings. Not a step
is taken till the Great Field-Marshal has sent his orders along the
lines.

Revolutions go by periods. Are they possibly controlled or influenced in
these years by the stellar affinities of the north pole? Is that
capricious functionary leading up to Casseopeia, in this cycle, or
Andromeda, that we find ourselves turning from great Hercules, fiery
Bootes, and even neglecting the shining majesty of belted, sworded
Orion, to consider woman? I have not consulted the astronomers. The
stars of the heavens are in their places. Male and female, the groups
come to us in winter and retire in summer: their faint splendors fall
down upon our harvest nights, and then give way to the more august
retinue of the wintry solstice. The boreal pivot, whose journal is the
awful, compact blue, may, for aught I know, be hobnobbing at this moment
with the most masculine of starry masculinities. But if it be, it is in
little sympathy with the magnetic pole of human thought, whose fine
point turns unwaveringly in these days of many revolutions to woman as
the centre and leader of the grandest of them all.

A great storm overtook an ancient navigator of the Ægean. He called on
his gods, he importuned them, but the waves rolled and raged the more
angrily the more he prayed. 'Neptune, wilt thou not save me?' 'Go
below,' was the uncourteous answer, and, as with a great blow struck by
the hand of the busy deity, the vessel was suddenly suspended midway
between the surface and the depths of the waters. What a peaceful spot
she had reached! The astonished mariner looked around him in wonder more
than gratitude. 'Good deity,' said he, taking breath, 'I prayed not to
be saved thus _from_ the storm, but _in_ it. Return me to the upper
world, I beseech thee, and let me do my stroke in its battle.'

Storms have swept over the ages as winds over the blue Ægean, and woman,
shrinking from their blasts and the agitations that have followed them,
has prayed to her gods, and been suspended between the depths of man's
depravity and the heights of his achievements, around whose wintry peaks
winds of ambition have roared, storms of vaulting self-love have
gathered, tempests of passion have contended in angry and fierce strife.
To brighten the heights they assailed each one, to clear the lofty airs
embracing them. They shine now where clouds were wont to hover;
sunshine steeps the rugged declivities where mists of ages hung their
impenetrable folds, paths invite where unknown, forbidding fastnesses
repelled even daring feet, and thus the stormy career of conflict is
vindicated in its results. The dove testifies a certain divinity in the
Doing which has produced it.

But that still region where the more timid life has nestled undaring,
unadventured, shrinking from the struggle and the strife above,
recoiling from the seething foulness below--what have we in this
dreamland inhabited by woman? And wherefore the earnest turning
thitherward, in our day, of so many brave, so many earnest, so many sad,
so many yearning, aspiring eyes? Wherefore the restlessness, wherefore
the groans of imprisonment here, wherefore the passionate longings, the
resolute, deep, inextinguishable purpose of escape? Make way, O
propitious gods; I can no longer be saved _from_ this struggle of life,
but _through_ it. This mariner must be brought to the surface, or the
waters will be parted before her by the conquering power in her own
soul, and she will present herself there unaided. But not in the fierce
spirit of a combatant, not as a conqueror--only as one moved by divine
purpose to reach and _take_ her place, to touch and accomplish her work.

What are the qualities of this new soldier in the field of human
struggle? Whence comes and whither goes she?

These inquiries point us to the ideas of the Woman Revolution--its
Movements will be deductions from them.

Man knows neither woman nor her whence or whither. He acknowledges her a
Mystery from his earliest acquaintance with her to the present day.
Whatever his conquests over the hidden and the mysterious elsewhere in
nature, here is a mystery that confronts him whenever he turns
hither--nay, that grows by his attempts at mastering it. The permanently
mysterious is only that which exceeds us, and we study this but to learn
how widely its embracing horizon can spread as we advance. Thus the
woman of the nineteenth century is an incomparably greater mystery to
man than was her sister of the ninth. Scientific conquests do but touch
the periphery of her being; they explore her nature so far as it is of
common quality and powers with the nature of man and of the feminine
animals, and would perhaps do more wisely if they stopped dumb before
what lies beyond and above these levels. For beyond, man reads but to
misread--studies but to vex and confuse himself, and--shall I say
it?--learns to sneer at rather than to reverence what baffles his
inquiries. Does this statement seem harsh? Is it doubted? See its truth.
The only science (so called) which undertakes a study of woman does not
inspire its student with an increased respect for her. As a class,
medical men, above that of other men, are perhaps less chivalrous than
blacksmiths. Lucky is she and lucky are they if it be not diminished
instead. For, assuming man as the standard, the corporeal functions,
which absolutely elevate her in the scale of development, being added to
all that he possesses, and constituting her corporeal womanhood, are
seen by this student only as disabilities from which he is happily
exempt (as if a disability could come into any life but through the door
of an ability); and her larger measure of the divine attributes, faith,
hope, and love--love, as compassion and as maternity--are seen as simple
weaknesses to which he is happily superior.

The greatness of man's individuality lies in his power over the
external; that of woman's is interior, central, as the sun to our
planets, which roll through common fields of space, breathe a common
ether, share a common light and warmth, but know not that ether, that
light, that warmth, whence theirs flows out to them. Central, potent,
commanding, superior to laws which alternately move and still their
currents--nay, being in themselves those very laws--this hidden power is
never touched by them, is shared by them only in fixed measure, beyond
which drafts upon it are protested as inexorably as turn the wheels of
fate in producing a midge or a mastodon.

The greater includes the less, said the first Mathematician. It is no
more true of the geometer's space and the philosopher's matter than of
the physiologist's functional power. Apply the axiom to the functional
quantity of the feminine and masculine, and it will be seen which
includes which, and why man, in all the pride of his highest
achievements, is obliged to confess himself defeated, when, as an
investigator, he addresses himself to the solution of the problem of
womanhood. Her individualizing attributes make in her life a kingdom of
her own. Possessing every function and power which man possesses, either
in identity or equivalent--the faculties, capacities, and functions
common to both differing only comparatively in each from their degree in
the other, the masculine being confessedly the lighter side of the
balance, when the higher and finer attributes are in the scale--woman
has above them all her own unique life, which man can learn only as a
student and spectator, the depths of which all his penetration does not
enable him to explore, the secrets of which his consciousness can never
report. From and through the powers and attributes which centre herein,
come those experiences, perceptions--those faiths, hopes, trusts,
yearnings, aspirations, loves, which ray out to man that purer and
divine light without which he soon stumbles and falls--that warmth
without which his life becomes a wintry waste--that harmony without
which he is an instrument played at will by the cunning fiend of discord
and selfishness--that purity without whose sweet, cleansing current
flowing over and around him he is soon mired in the sloughs of appetite,
or swamped in the unclean sinks of sensualism--that steadfast holding to
things above, without which he soon drops down to grovel along the
earth--that unwavering faith and that utter trust in good which keeps
alive and warm in the heart of humanity its noblest ideals.

Thus the Cross of the feminine life embodies the idea of the revolution
in its favor: revolution, which, above all its wars, national or civil,
its struggles for or against freedom, above all its discoveries in the
world of matter and of force, above all its inventions, its new arts and
its improved old arts, its philanthropies, its religious agitations, is
destined to command for the nineteenth century the respect of the coming
ages. Dion's star upon its forehead, already the dim and distant future
diaphaned in its light, comes up to cheer our waiting, wandering eyes.

It is only woman who can state woman. The unknown quantity falls not
within the terms of any equation to which man can reduce her. Master,
teacher of all other lessons in nature, here he must be the taught.
Leader of all other movements, here he must be follower. Greater must
not only include, it must conduct less.

Whence?

Out of the peaceful, still waters below: no longer stay possible there.
The _vis vitæ_ overruling the _vis inertia_, we take up the line of
march. Fold the napkin away from your eyes, O daughter of the ages, and
behold, there lies your road--a throng already pressing their way where
you thought you were alone. Upward, as well by the universal as by the
special law of the case. Many a tearful eye turned backward to the land
we are leaving--land beloved by woman, though stained with oppression,
darkened by slavery, impoverished by lack of action, dwarfed in its
proportions, devious in many of its loveliest lines--some of its
sweetest paths leading those who set feet of innocent trust in them
down to hell at last; beloved despite all, because the heart of the
traveller is tender and loving; cherished, because her repressed soul is
timid and doubting. We have lacked light, freedom, space for action and
growth, yet are there pleasant places there. All these are now before
us. Dry your tears, O tender souls, suppress your sighs, stifle your
groans. Let us press forward in courage and hope. Forty years, it may
be, in the wilderness, but deliverance at last. The gentle cloud will be
over us by day, the path of duty will shine as a fire upon us by night.

Farewell, then, Africa, land of despot and victim; farewell, Asia, land
of satrap and slave; farewell, Europe, land of monarch and subject:
welcome, broad, varied, exhaustless New World, spreading inviting fields
before longing eyes that falter while they gaze.

Whither?

Two thoughts naturally result from this new attitude: first, to go
straight to the kingdom already laid out and well beaten into paths by
man; second, to be so polite when arrived there as to accept him, his
life, power, work, as standards to which it were wisest that we conform
ourselves with all expedient haste, and thus blot out as speedily as may
be the woman world--let its existence be remembered only as an evil
escaped, a humiliation left behind forever. Has not its narrowness
shamed us, its poverty of action cramped and starved the capacities we
begin to feel unfolding in us--has not its peace made us seem cowards
while we lingered in it, and will not its imperishable purity bear
transplantation, and bloom in perennial beauty on the wider fields to
which we are hastening?

We touch the borders of the promised land. Weary and spirit-sore, less
from the travel than the bitter experiences which prompted it, we yearn
for the hospitable welcome due to a stranger, a helper arrived in due
season. We are come, O potentate. Open wide the glad gates that shall
receive us. Is not this the Canaan which we but ask to divide with
thee?--a goodly land, and a prosperous, which it were joyful to go in
and possess. But the heathen inhabitant thereof turns his back upon us,
shuts his gates, closes his doors, ascends his throne, takes up his
sceptre, and waving it before our astonished eyes, says: 'This is my own
kingdom. I have created it from a wilderness to suit my own life, not
another. It cannot be shared; nobody, not you, my mother, my wife,
sister, daughter--not even you, most beloved, cherished, worshipped
woman, shall divide it with me. No admittance except on business.'

What to do in such an unexpected emergency!--such behavior, with all
sorts of personal and external power to back it, to say nothing of those
proverbial fractions of law, nine out of ten of which instantly convert
themselves into an adamantine cement, binding his to him, so that indeed
it were a critical piece of practice to essay their sundering, for
_Nature is in the union_, and she is high to be overreached, deep to be
undermined, strong to be defeated, compact and wary to be foiled.

Sit down, then, a beggar at the border of man's realm, craving
permission to enter and share it with him? Essay to conquer an entrance?
And when once within, whether by courtesy or conquest, what then?
Competition with that stronger physique, that ruggeder life, that loves
the wrestle with external hindrances which I love not, and am inferior
for, did I love them? An equal part in that career with one who is
exempt from the offices that absorb the half of my full lifetime, and
require the best powers of every sort that I possess?

Surely, here, with this body and this constitution rivalling that body
and that constitution, I am doomed to an inferiority more slavish and
scarcely less painful than that I have left behind. For identity of
career, identity of powers. Nature does nothing inductively; does not
fit the parts of her scheme to each other experimentally; works at the
centre, in the sublime repose of certainty, and lets facts, experiences,
possibilities at the circumference take care of themselves. She has made
man to dominate this kingdom which he calls his, else should I have had
my share in it from the first. Wherein she has differed me from him, she
has also differed my real kingdom from his. To stop him, I require as
much and no more than man possesses. What is over in kind would place me
in false relations with the objective; what is more in degree would
imperil my subjective peace--what is less would try me by the measure
another is made for, and leave me in the shadow projected by him. Nor
would the standards which prevail here harmonize with my spiritual more
happily than the activities with my corporeal nature. Could I work for
outward success only, or chiefly, subordinating aspiration to what
stifles aspiration? Would riches satisfy me? Would actual power over
men, ecclesiastical, civil, or social? Could I live for ambition, and
sit down unapproved of my better life to enjoy its achievements? Would
the acquisition of knowledge and its employment as a means of worldly
power, distinction, and advantage satisfy the inner hunger which longs
for the truth, the light, the harmony of highest heavens? In short,
would so much of the flesh as I could gratify, so much of the world as I
could conquer, so much devil's service as I could cover up with any
patched robe of decency, drawn tight, stretched to its utmost reach,
satisfy me? Truly not. Not here then is Beulah, and I must journey on.

Again, whither? This time whither my own nature leads. I have learned
this by experience, that leadership for me lies not without, but within
myself. So much is gained, and now once more for movement. Gather up the
effects--all that we have brought with us out of the past: it will find
use. For woman has been woman so far as she has been anything, and the
aromas of that high estate have hung and still hang about her. Bear them
along. The finest effluence of her life in the first century of our era,
as in this last, was love. Mary then bore the Christ; other Mary's loved
him. Woman was first in his life, and last in it. When the bearded magi
adored, she loved; she was the illustrator of his teachings, the
repository of his hopes for their future realization. Bring all those
memories, visions, yearnings, trusts, faiths--dreams of the good, never
yet seen but by the inner sight of the woman-soul,--along, and let us
set out for Beulah. Its blooming fields and fair mountains lie dim but
sweet on the distant horizon. We will go over and possess them--a
kingdom of our own. Why have we waited so long in bondage and darkness?
Why submitted to the heaped-up wrongs of the ages? Patience very
excellent: once admit the idea of a scheme, and some parts must
necessarily arrive in the afternoon. Development presupposes the delay
or withholding of things not yet developed. By the law of climax, these
are not the unimportant parts. Woman's sovereignty has been long
deferred, because of the preparation necessary for it. A John the
Baptist must precede the Christ in the wilderness. Fiends robed and
sceptred, once reigned over fiends clothed in skins and armed with
broadsword and battle axe. To-day a _gentle_man, or _gentle_woman can
sit secure on any throne of Christendom. While we congratulate
ourselves, let us not deny that the Tamerlanes, the Alarics, the
Napoleons have had their share in the intermediate work of preparation.

Not always, as it seems to us, do the swiftest and clearest methods find
favor with these hard-pressed worthies, but rather such methods as they
can employ; and in time, as we see, the work gets done.

Take our planet in the condition in which its first proprietor found it
on his arrival, and you will see that the improvements would be a heavy
item in transactions with a real-estate broker for it. Liberal
governments established--Canton, Paris, London, New York built--grain
fields, mills, patent offices, world's fairs, electric telegraphs, ocean
steamers, iron-clads, Central Park, show a long road travelled, and much
rough, terrible, fearful work done by the way--work which has developed
a condition for the exercise of the fine sovereignty of woman's pure,
gentle, loving, harmonious nature--road which leads by divine intention
to her empire. If the hand which has opened it has been red at times,
let us remember that no purer color could have been preserved in the
Thermopylæ--if the heart has been hard, that a softer one would have
been surely defeated and we disadvantaged. Well could we afford to abide
in the twilight-land when such struggle was going forward in our behalf,
when the sunshine was descending upon such seedtime of the ages--to
whose harvest we are drawing nigh.

The sceptre of Supreme Use on the earth is to the hand that is sovereign
for that use. In its day every other power is subordinate to that, for
it is the nature of sovereignty to be unitary, whether lodged in an idea
or a person. It is because of this that personal sovereignty has been
indispensable to human progress. Nothing could reign over the strong,
undeveloped, turbulent brute life of the early and middle ages but the
tremendous will and self-love of a man great according to his
time--Charlemagne, Peter of Russia, Henry of Navarre.

And shall we complain that a development is slow which began with a
Soudanese, a Papuan, and gives us now a Ruskin and an Emerson--that a
career is tedious which opened, if you please, on Ararat, and has
trailed its waxing splendors up to the Free American States--the
libraries, the art galleries, the penetrating humanities which
characterize the nineteenth century? For one, I cannot. Beulah has stood
adjourned from Eden till now--wisely, needfully adjourned; and woman
will enter its boundaries gratefully and gracefully, as a queen waited
for and desired: grateful for the gift to the One who gave it in the
Great Distribution--graceful in the reception of a right from him whose
ages of struggle have made smooth her road to it.

What will she be therein? What will her life be? I close my eyes to the
Actual around me, and I see her in that high land whose plains spread
above the mountain peaks that surround us here. I see a creature whom
the poets have sung, the artists have painted and chiselled, and the
common heart of mankind has longed for, prayed for, and, in its hours of
high communion, has trusted and believed in with the utter faith of a
child in its mother's love. I see a being whom the pure, divine
Imagination, the eye of God dimmed in man, has foreseen.

I see her not a dream--not an airy form haunting the unreal walks of
night, to vanish when cockcrow recalls us to the cares of household
life, the fields of labor, the paths of effort. No, but an enduring,
very real, very practical embodiment of the poet's ideal, with new
powers and relations illustrating its harmony in and fitness for the
world that is purified and sanctified by its presence. There to my eye

  'Her shape arises:
  She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever;
  The gross and soiled she moves among do not make her gross and soiled;
  She knows the thoughts as she passes--nothing is concealed from her;
  She is none the less considerate or friendly therefore;
  She is the best beloved--it is without exception--she has no reason to
     fear, and she does not fear;
  Oaths, quarrels, hiccupped songs, proposals, smutty expressions, are idle
     to her as she passes;
  She is silent--she is possessed of herself--they do not offend her;
  She receive them as the laws of nature receives them--she is strong;
  She, too, is a law of nature--there is no law stronger than she is.'

I look beneath, the ethereal drapery of qualities in which the prophetic
imagination has clothed her, and central to them all I find a new
phenomenon--the latest of the ages--TRUE WOMANHOOD. From this proceeds
the veiled glory hitherto seen but by poet's eye--not far hence to be
felt and known of all. For it is no longer the vision of a distant and
dim land, separated from this actual present by a fathomless abyss. Out
of the yawning chasm that has divided that from this there rise to-day,
clear, shining, visible to open eyes, the everlasting pillars of truth,
which will shortly bridge it and make broad the road thither, so that
neither he who walks straight with exact step between the pales of
science, nor he outside wending, heedless, with wide-wandering eyes and
feet who stumbles along, shall miss it.

A being planted above man, taking root where he blooms, in the pure
affections, flowering in the high airs which he dreams of but sees not,
or sees only in moments of inspiration from her--a being, who, more
complex on her physical side, is therefore more affluent on her
spiritual--who, from the established premises of science, demands not
new, but the very largest deductions to reach the borders of her life--a
being whose support with the earth-life is widened and strengthened by
each added organ, function, susceptibility--whose divine support is
opened, established, confirmed in increased degrees over man's by each
womanly inlet to the spiritual nature--I see such a being irradiating
the future years and paths of my race, and my soul grows strong and glad
at the sight. In her the self-love of man is replaced by love; ambition
pales its ineffectual fires in the light of that pure, undying flame of
aspiration which her soul feeds; patriotism, ashamed of its narrowness,
unfolds shining pinions over humanity, and becomes philanthropy;
pleasure retreats in her wornout, patched-up harlequin robes; and
happiness, pure, clean, bright from the sweet inner chambers of the
soul, takes her place.

Life acknowledges a higher fealty. With the new sovereign, new aims, new
standards, new methods for the improvement of humanity.

Under the masculine dynasty we have had force, organization,
investigation, discovery, experiment--methods violent, harsh, selfish,
slow, confused, chaotic: a magnanimous career at intervals spanning the
wide weltering strife, as a bow the stormy heavens; noble deeds, not a
few, shining out of the darkness here and there; real victory crowning
the crests of the rolling sea now and then, and casting where they have
shone long shadows over the waters darkened with selfish contention
around them. Power under this reign has been applied to the
multiplication of external resources, means, opportunities for the race.
It has clothed the earth with them in forms so numerous, so varied--so
good, so bad, so indifferent--so noble, so mean--so rich, so poor--so
high, so low, that the most active memory of the longest life fails to
furnish the catalogue of them. It professes human good; it cultivates
personal good, family good, community good, or, at the largest, national
good. But whatever the stature it attains, its methods are through
external appeals to the soul--influences from without. Its common
theology steadily refused for eighteen hundred years to credit the union
of the divine with the human in the soul of mankind. Its deductive
intellect is blind to truth till her presence is proved by facts--as if
we would hale an archangel, with the shining light of the upper world
yet flowing adown him, before the police magistrate, and swear the
butchers and the newsboys on the question of identity. Its Art is
timid, thin, and self-distrusting, because the Ideal is flouted as
worthy only of women, dreamers, and liberal ministers--the silver wing
of imagination is rarely loosed but to be soon folded in humiliation
before the reproof of the exacting senses. Its statesmanship is smart,
crafty, treacherous, because it cherishes a state, a nation, rather than
humanity. Its jurisprudence is a gigantic, vigilant detective, dealing
with a population of suspects. Its physical methods only are uniformly
clear, honorable, straight-forward though. Even these in times and
places might be nobler, more open; but it fights well, labors well,
cultivates well, invents well, manufactures well, because in these it is
dealing chiefly between its native elements, force and matter;--but
being characteristically inductive, it cannot deal liberally with human
nature, lacking the ideal of it, the faith in it, the reverence for it
which are the only sustaining root of such behavior toward it.

Under the new sovereignty, the methods, like the power employing them,
will have their nearest relations with the interior life. They will draw
helps from the outward; and here the glory of man as a creator of
conditions and opportunities, will be first measured and fully
appreciated, for it is the woman only who can penetrate his works, draw
thence their full significance and value, transmute their evils to
goods, and incorporate their best spirit in humanity. It is a great
thing to create that which helps any human soul to be diviner than
without such help it would be. It is greater to develop conditions which
establish and confirm true relations between the soul and its helps. It
is greatest to create the soul to be divine--with helps, or in spite of
hindrances. The first is eminently the office of the masculine. The
second is shared between it and the feminine, with a preponderance to
the latter; and the last belongs so exclusively to woman, that the day
of its doing is necessarily the day of her sovereignty.

The divine, artistic, harmonious creation of the human spirit in the
divine, artistic, harmonious human body, this is the grand function of
the feminine era. For this it is that woman has those special finer
endowments which in all ages have distinguished her from man, and
foreshown a higher life for her in some future--some Beulah, visible to
eyes that could o'ershoot the bounds of the passing age. Wanting this
power, preparing the day of its advent, John Baptist has toiled,
sweated, groaned, fumed, devastated in his wilderness, to touch its
hither border at last in this pregnant nineteenth century. Age of
revolution--age of wonders!--of which the very greatest are, I think,
the beginnings we already see of settlement here. As a question, that of
woman is not an old one. There can be no Woman Question among any people
till it is advanced enough to ask for better methods than man's. When
this stage is reached, life is ripe for the advent of woman--it appeals
to her to come forward. It prepares better conditions, that it may
invite her--opens fields, that it may engage her powers--seeks to clothe
her in a real dignity, of which she has before worn rather the semblance
than itself. Society, obeying the higher view of her, enacts new laws
for her enlargement, modifies or sets aside social canons which
restricted and warped and suppressed her, and begins with these
movements to find itself enriched by the presence of finer influences;
led upward to more exalted standards, penetrated with a subtler humane
sentiment than it before knew.

Yet with all these movements in her favor, woman, bone of man's bone,
remains a bone of contention to him, till nature, read truly and trusted
reverently, is allowed to lead him as a little child by the hand and
show him woman's real kingdom. He must not look on it with a timid or a
grudging eye. A Chinese mandarin in California, becoming acquainted
with the fact that American women could read and write and be trusted
with accounts, replied, with a warning shake of the head, 'If he readee,
writee, by and by he lickee all the men.' Does this apprehension
possibly extend beyond the Celestial Empire? It will not be expressed, I
know, but there is much unexpressed feeling which is none the less real
for its silence.

'Every woman is an embodied revolution, now-a-days,' said a lank,
grumbling dyspeptic, while the autumn leaves of '62 yet hung in bright
profusion on the bordering forests of the Hudson. 'If you had said every
woman is in these days an embodied revelation,' was the superb reply,
'you would have done both truth and my sex more even justice.' Man must
not fear woman, for whatever nature designed for her is not only
inevitable, but is his only means of salvation. He need not fear her,
for she is the daughter of nature, so full of loyalty and filial
devotion to her mother, that no wide or continued departure from her
designs is possible. He will not fear her when he is religious enough to
feel that each natural revolution is a step in the march upward, ordered
in its season as calmly and inexorably as were the secondary rocks laid
down when the primary had been prepared for receiving them, as the
nebulous vapor is consolidated into a planet or sun, or the
morning-glory brought forth of its sown seed. He will be comforted, too,
by remembering that natural revolution does never dethrone. It only
enthrones above the present ruler. Work out your kingdom. Define and
fill its bounds and metes, and never will usurper's foot print its soil.
No invasion of your sovereignty is possible. The magnetisms of the
universe hold you there, and every other being outside--an infallible
police, bent on the protection of your rights, charged to secure them to
you without so much as a flaw in their finest edges. Nature knows your
kingdom, and charges all yet unsettled parties to go aside. But in the
coming cycles she will develop others above it.

The wheel revolves. You can only remain at the summit by its standing
still. It is not your degradation, but another's glory, that is sought.
Open your eyes to the scheme: look adown its vistas of grandeur, and at
every step taken above you, you will sing, Hosanna! We also rise by your
ascent.




LITERARY NOTICES


MYSTERIES OF LIFE, DEATH, AND FUTURITY. By HORACE WELBY. New York: James
S. Gregory.

A very suggestive book, full of manifold and curious research. The
author, in his preface, says: 'It has been undertaken with the view of
concentrating within its focus the views and opinions of some of the
leading writers of the present day, and, by placing them before the
reader in a popular form and setting, adapt them for a larger class than
would be likely to consult the authorities themselves whence the
substance of this volume has been derived. In virtue of the Scriptural
character of the subjects, the rewards will be a special blessing on
those who read and understand them; the interpretations and inferences,
in many instances, being the deductions of men venerated for their piety
and learning in ministering the most precious of all knowledge--the
inestimable comfort of the hope that is in us.'

The work which the author proposed to himself has been well done. A
single glance at the index would be sufficient to assure the reader of
the great variety of subjects embraced in these carefully selected
extracts. Although from so many different sources, a unity of subject
gives them unity of interest. The book contains a valuable array of the
best thoughts, impressions, and beliefs of the most distinguished minds
on the phenomena of life, death, and futurity.


THE FAIRY BOOK. The best Popular Fairy Stories selected and rendered
anew. By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman,' &c. &c. New York:
Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square. 1863.

The name of Miss Mulock is sufficient guarantee that the little ones
will find abundance of entertainment, and no harmful matter in the
pretty 'Fairy Book' published by Harper & Brothers. The tales are well
selected and well told. Bits of quaint humor are interspersed through
the narratives, increasing their interest to both old and young, and
lightening the labor of the 'reader out' by many a pleasant smile.
Mothers cannot fail to find this judicious collection an assistance in
their labors, and an agreeable addition to the library of their young
people.


LETTERS FROM ITALY AND SWITZERLAND. By FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY.
Translated from the German by LADY WALLACE, with a Biographical Notice
by JULIE DE MARGUERITTES. Published by Frederick Leypoldt, Philadelphia.
1863. For sale by F. W. Christern, 763 Broadway, New York, and A. K.
Loring, 319 Washington Street, Boston.

Again are we indebted to Mr. Leypoldt for a delightful book, a truthful
record of feeling from the hand of a man noted for purity of life,
scholarship, and an enviable reputation in the world of music. The
letters are such as we should expect from the character of Mendelssohn's
compositions--pure, elegant, fanciful, flowing, serious, and dignified,
but without the passionate intensity, the soul-searching pathos and
energy characterizing spirits deeply acquainted with the bitterest
griefs incident to humanity, griefs arising either from without or
within. Rich, handsome, and happily married, he was not exposed to the
many privations and trials generally pertaining to artist life; his
amiable character drew round him many friends, and his wealth enabled
him to bring out his works during his own lifetime, and thus make them
known under the most favorable auspices. He was indeed, as Goethe said
of him, 'born on a lucky day.' The translation is beautifully executed,
and we hope the tasteful little volume may receive a substantial welcome
from our reading public.


LILIAN. Published by Ticknor & Fields, Boston. For sale by D. Appleton &
Co., New York.

This is a novel of considerable ability. The story is exciting and
interesting, the scenes varied, the descriptions vivid, and the
denouement well imagined and sustained. There are no dull pages in the
book. There is much to praise, but something also to regret. There is a
want of calm, of continuity in the style. The sentences are short and
closely cut, falling upon the ear more like the broken rattling of
hailstones than the full flowing music of a strong deep river. Such a
style, introduced at proper intervals and in appropriate positions, is
frequently very effective; but, when long continued, it grows wearisome
and monotonous. As our late writers are much given to it, they should be
on their guard lest it become a _national_ characteristic.


OUT-DOOR PAPERS. By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. Boston: Ticknor &
Fields. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

The articles contained in this book are: Saints and their Bodies;
Physical Courage; A Letter to a Dyspeptic; The Murder of the Innocents;
Barbarism and Civilization; Gymnastics; A New Counterblast; The Health
of Our Girls; April Days; My Out-Door Study; Water Lilies; The Life of
Birds; The Procession of the Flowers; Snow.

This work was received by us too late to give it, in our July number,
that meed of attention and praise so justly its due. Fortunately it
requires no words from us to introduce it to notice; some of its
articles, having been already published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, are
already known to and valued by some of the highest minds among us. The
book is written by an ardent admirer but close observer of nature, and
is full of tender traceries, of rainbow-hued fancies, and marked by the
keen insight of a glowing and far-reaching imagination. The chapter on
'Snow' is one of the most exquisite things ever written, pure, chaste,
and delicately cut as the starry crystals it so lovingly commemorates.
Nor is the 'Procession of the Flowers' less admirable. In all their
simple loveliness they rise from earth, and bloom before us as we read.
Writers of such high finish, such delicate perceptions of beauty as T.
W. Higginson, are seldom characterized by great originality--his
expletives and imagery are as original as tender and beautiful. His
illustrations are never morbid, but ever strong and healthful. If he be,
as we have been informed he is, the Colonel Higginson now acting in the
service of his country, Heaven preserve the life of the patriot, poet,
and scholar--for such men are jewels in our national crown of glory!

Mr. Higginson says: 'If, in the simple process of writing, one could
physically impart to his page the fragrance of this spray of azalea
beside me, what a wonder it would seem!--and yet one ought to be able,
by the mere use of language, to supply to every reader the total of that
white, honeyed, trailing sweetness which summer insects haunt and the
Spirit of the Universe loves. The defect is not in language, but in men.
There is no conceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as words--none so
graceful, none so perfumed. It is possible to dream of combinations of
syllables so delicious that all the dawning and decay of summer cannot
rival their perfection, nor winter's stainless white and azure match
their purity and their charm. To write them, were it possible, would be
to take rank with nature; nor is there any other method, even by music,
for human art to reach so high.'

To this very height of human art has Mr. Higginson, in the article from
which the above is a quotation, himself attained!


IN THE TROPICS. By a Settler in Santo Domingo. With an Introductory
Notice by RICHARD B. KIMBALL, Author of 'St. Leger,' 'Undercurrents,'
&c. Carleton, publisher. 1863.

A 'Settler in Santo Domingo' has given us a good book--a fresh,
wholesome, and evidently truthful narrative of his every-day experience
in the tropics. It is a book eminently _sui generis_, reminding one of
Robinson Crusoe or Dana's 'Two Years before the Mast.' There is a gentle
earnestness, a mild yet positive concentration of purpose about it, that
enlists our sympathies from the start. The young farmer's mind is on his
work. We suspect he has capacities outside of his cornfield and yuca
patch, but to this point in the record before us he gives no clue. He is
a farmer, and nothing else. The bright-winged birds flit and gleam and
twitter in the evergreen woods about him, but his hand is on the plough
and his ear drinks in only the music of his panting team. From his
window, looking eastward, he sees the advance beams of the sun flung
across the savanna: he takes the hint, and hurries out to look after his
young plantains. At night the sea keeps up its everlasting chant by the
side of his _palenca_, and the pure stars watch over his humble roof;
yet, unconscious of both, he sleeps on the calm deep sleep appointed as
the best recompense of honest toil.

The author of 'In the Tropics' is a young man born and reared on a farm
in the interior of the State of New York, who was afterward condemned to
what seemed to him the perpetual servitude of a clerk's life in the
city. Weary and heart-sick he yearns for a better existence. Not little
Nell beseeching her grandfather to leave the dark rooms and melancholy
houses of her abhorrence, and go out into the open country and sleep in
fields and under trees and have the sun and wind upon their faces, has a
more intense loathing of the dull, artificial routine of town life than
he. His escape is easily managed, and his transition to the cheerful
freedom of a widely different career is so speedy and so satisfying that
he is in no mood to dwell upon the monotonous past. We get an estimate
of the bondage from which he has fled by the tone of pleasant surprise
and buoyant gratitude with which he welcomes the commonest gifts of
mother nature. He is as impressible as a schoolboy let loose for the
long vacation.

There is a vein of loving trustfulness pervading his narrative that is
really touching. Our young, vigorous, and hearty settler, glorying in
his privilege to struggle, achieve, and conquer difficulties, is too
proud to be ashamed of his dependence on Him who appointed the planets
to their courses, and is not unmindful of a sparrow's fall. How fine and
delicately tender is this retrospective glance at the close of his
monthly record for April!

     'Four months have fled away like a busy though pleasant dream since
     I laid myself down to my first night's repose in my homestead. The
     Giver of all good gifts has crowned my poor efforts with his tender
     mercies, and as I look up from these pages through the arcade of
     fruit-bearing trees and onward to the gentle hill-slope now green
     with springing corn, and beautiful in the promise of future
     abundance, I feel a perfect and grateful trust--far, far too deep
     for my weak powers of utterance--that He will never forsake the
     humble laborer in this fair field of His creation.'

And he is instructive withal. His book is a perfect _vade mecum_ for
beginners in tropical farming. To such it is literally 'guide,
counsellor, and friend.' Colonists going out to Santo Domingo will do
well to include a copy in their outfit, and, as far as practicable,
follow in the footsteps of their sturdy and genial predecessor.

The reader need not expect to find in this work a sensation story. It is
anything but that. Neither, being exclusively descriptive of the
beneficent arts of peace, can it in any sense come under the head of
what is termed war literature. Yet it is safe to affirm that without the
great rebellion this book had never been written. It is full of novel,
picturesque, and widely suggestive ideas. Some of its statements tear
away old fallacies as by a cannon ball. For instance, where the young
settler states as matter of experience:

     'Those who say the treasures of the tropics are to be best won by
     the brute force of ignorant labor, cannot have studied with
     sufficient patience the march of invention. Intelligent laborers,
     men who know how to make wood and iron do their harvest work to the
     sparing of human sinews, men who can work steam in harness, these
     are what is wanted here. Those, too, are mistaken who fancy that no
     skin but a black one can cover the firm muscle and vigorous
     endurance of a perfect and hardy manhood. The most manly workers I
     have seen in this country are _white men_. They know how to obtain
     and use the best class of labor-saving machines, and they trust no
     one but themselves to manage them, for they know that superior
     implements and the recklessness of brute force don't work well
     together. Under the warm sun of the tropics white men and machinery
     will yet open the grandest field of civilization.'

This goes to confirm us in the opinion we have long entertained and
advanced in these pages, that the result of the great political change
we are now undergoing will be for the benefit of white men. It has been
so often asserted that only black men can work in the tropics, that
people have come to acquiesce in the statement without investigation.
The record of this work is to the point in helping to dispel so
widespread a delusion.

Whoever, at this delightful season, wishes to enjoy a book written in
pure, gushing English, attuned to the gentle harmonies of nature, and be
refreshed by sympathy with its kind and grateful spirit, will not fail
to read 'In the Tropics.'


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE GREAT REBELLION IN THE UNITED STATES.

This work is issued in semi-monthly numbers, at twenty-five cents per
number, appearing about the first and fifteenth of each month. The
introduction contains a succinct account of the formation of the
Confederacy of the States; the formation and adoption of the
Constitution of the United States, and the establishment of the National
Government; the origin, development, and progress of the doctrines of
nullification and secession, and the various phases which they assumed
until their final culmination in the Great Rebellion.

The illustrations comprise portraits of those who have borne a prominent
part in the struggle; maps of the different localities; plans of the
leading actions; views of scenes of interest and of the most important
battles.

The work is profusely and graphically illustrated, and we think this
serial cannot fail to become popular. We learn much and readily through
the eye, and the importance of faithfully executed pictures can scarcely
be overestimated. The portraits given in the work are _portraits_, and
not _caricatures_. It contains a careful, comprehensive, and minute
record of the progress of the war, and is written with ability and
spirit. It promises to be impartial, accurate, and artistic.


THE NORTH PACIFIC REVIEW. A Journal of Literature, History, Science,
Correspondence, and Fine Arts. San Francisco: Dalgleish & Co.,
publishers and proprietors.

The Continental extends a warm greeting to her sister of the West,
feeling not only the strong bonds of the literary amenities, but the far
stronger ties of patriotism and loyalty, so ably defined in the opening
article of the _North Pacific_. Loyalty is indeed something more than
fidelity to one's country and Government, based upon a sense of interest
or of obligation: it is _fidelity based upon love_.

Young and glorious West! May such loyalty ever distinguish you, and such
feelings link in close and ever closer union the children of the
Atlantic and Pacific shores! On the maintenance of such love hangs the
whole future of humanity!


SANDERS' UNION FOURTH READER; embracing a full Exposition of the
Principles of Rhetorical Reading, with numerous exercises for practice,
both in prose and poetry, various in style, and carefully adapted to the
purposes of teaching in schools of every grade. By CHARLES W. SANDERS,
A.M. New York: Ivison, Phinney & Co.

A valuable aid to scholar and teacher. The selections have been made
with great care, and give evidence of refined taste, and, while
perfectly adapted for practice in rhetorical reading, are admirably
calculated to quicken the moral perceptions and awaken the finer
sensibilities of the scholar.




RECEIVED.


A HISTORY OF THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE. By JOHN WILLIAM
DRAPER, M.D., LL.D., Prof. of Chemistry and Physiology in the University
of New York, author of a 'Treatise on Human Physiology,' &c., &c. Harper
and Brother, publishers, Franklin Square, New York.

A book apparently of great erudition and research. Being received too
late for reading, and reviewing in the July number of THE CONTINENTAL,
it is our intention to return to it in our August issue.




EDITOR'S TABLE.


MATTER AND SPIRIT.

We do not ordinarily feel disposed to criticize the articles of our
contributors; nor do we feel disposed now to do more than to offer a
brief suggestion in reference to a philosophical position assumed by the
author of an interesting article in our last number, entitled, 'TOUCHING
THE SOUL.' The writer assumes that matter and spirit are so utterly
opposite in their respective natures that they cannot be made to act
together in any way. For instance, he says: 'Here again the argument is
clinched by the mere distinction between matter and spirit, the one
being the very antipodes of, and incapable of acting upon the other.'
And again: 'To sum up the whole argument in a single sentence, the
physical senses are dependent for their perceptions upon the action of
matter, and hence spirit, which is not matter, can in no way affect
them.'

Unquestionably this statement is contradictory in itself, and, at all
events, cannot possibly be sustained to the extent of the assertion. The
actual existence of the soul in the body, and the perception of physical
objects and effects by the senses, are proofs undeniable that in this
instance, at least, there are mutual action and reaction between matter
and spirit. If it be said that this connection of the soul with the
organized frame is the only condition in which the material and
immaterial are known to be capable of acting upon each other, it is yet
wholly inaccurate and unphilosophical to say that this mutual action is
impossible.

But, in truth, the assertion is unphilosophical and incorrect in a far
wider sense, and in reference to a much more extensive range of
phenomena than those which concern the mysterious relations of the soul
with the human body. Throughout all nature are to be seen the plainest
indications of the influence and operation of spirit on the material
world. It is spirit only which animates, informs, and shapes the whole
universe. Wherever law prevails (and where does it not?) there is
intelligence, spirit, soul, acting to sustain it, during every moment of
its operation. Indeed it is doubtful whether any other than spiritual
power is to be found anywhere in nature. It seems to be too obvious a
truth to admit of any doubt or question, that matter, if it be of a
nature opposite to that of spirit, has been created as the instrument of
soul, having properties suited to the harmonious coöperation of the two,
in their respective purposes in nature. To represent matter as something
wholly antagonistic to spirit and incapable of any relations with it, is
to ignore all our own experience, and the significance of all the grand
phenomena of nature.

However great may be the distinction between matter and spirit, the
Creator has evidently established the closest relationship between them.
All that we can ever know of matter arises from its power to affect the
soul,--through the senses while we remain in the body, whatever may be
its relations to the spirit in another state of existence. If we take,
for instance, the inertia of matter, and consider it philosophically, we
can make of it nothing more than a power of resistance, or persistence,
residing in certain points, which we call particles of matter. The same
is true of attraction and repulsion. These are forces residing in the
same points; and these forces are all we know, or can know, about them.
So of the sensible qualities of matter; color, for instance. This is
merely the power of the same points, to cause vibrations in an elastic
medium; and these, acting on the sensorium, communicate sensations, and
become the basis of ideas in the soul. Who can say this subtile power,
residing in the points which we call particles of matter, is not
spiritual in its nature? Or, indeed, who can affirm, with absolute
certainty, that there is anything else known to us in the universe,
except that which is kindred to the soul by its power to communicate
with and inform it. From the very dawn of our existence we have been
encased in what we call matter, and have derived all our education from
it. It is the only medium by which we communicate with each other; nor
have we any other means of climbing up to a knowledge of GOD himself. We
do not mean to say that the spirit of man has no faculties for a direct
perception of divine influences; but simply that the material world is
the appointed instrument for educating the human soul, through the
senses, to the consciousness and intelligent use of its highest and
noblest faculties.

By human means, and, also, by all the tremendous operations of nature,
so far as they are known to man, matter is wholly indestructible. No
instance is known, from the beginning of creation, in which a single
particle of matter has been annihilated. Can anything more be said of
the soul? Or should we not rather feel relieved, and freed from much
doubt, if we had an equal assurance of the continued existence of the
soul after the great change which separates it from the body? May we
not, at least, without any humiliation, admit our kindred to the dust in
which we dwell, and recognize in it a creation, coeval with the soul and
intended for its use, with points of contact and mutual coöperation,
which render matter and spirit not wholly at war with each other, but
united in a common destiny, to be continued at least as long as the
duration of the human race on the surface of the earth?

As to the singular phenomena to which our author intends to apply his
argument, we can only say that they cannot be disproved in the mode
attempted. We have no such knowledge of the facts as would enable us to
form any opinion on the subject. But if many good men have not been
egregiously deceived, the phenomena in question indicate the speedy
discovery of relations not hitherto suspected to exist between matter
and spirit. We do not anticipate the development of any other than
natural laws. We are not credulous as to the interference of
supernatural agencies; but we are fully prepared for almost any
discoveries in the department of psychology, unveiling the
mysterious but unquestionable relations of harmony--of action and
reaction--existing between the soul of man and the universe of GOD.


ON HORSEBACK.

Those who have scanned with critical eye the cavalry regiments that have
lately trooped through our cities from various States of the Union, on
their way to the banks of the Potomac, must in candor, if with
reluctance, acknowledge that we are not just yet a nation of horsemen.
That our troopers have got a knack of 'sticking on' we will admit; but
there are ways of fulfilling that necessary condition with more ease to
the horse, more grace in the action, and more certainty of being able to
use the weapons with precision, than the present very unartistic method
common to horsemen generally in most parts of the country. Within a
quarter of a century much improvement has taken place in the system of
equestrianism under which the cavalry riders of Europe are instructed.
Years ago, the long stirrups, such as our dragoons for the most part
ride with, were taken up some inches by the riding masters of the
British and other foreign services. It was the superior horsemanship of
riders brought up in that best of all riding schools, the fox-hunting
field, that first drew the attention of cavalry teachers to the
necessity of affording a firmer _appui_ to the horseman than he can
obtain from stirrups, to keep his feet in contact with which he is
obliged to point his toes downward with painful perseverance. All the
good 'hunting horsemen,' as they are termed, of England and Ireland,
ride with short stirrups. So do the Cossack cavalry, the best troop
horsemen, perhaps, in the world. The Arab rides with very short
stirrups, which makes him look, when mounted, as if he were sitting on a
low chair. But the seat thus obtained by the Arab is not one for men who
have to gallop across a country intersected with fences and other
obstacles. In stirrups, as in most other things, there is a _juste
milieu_; and if the American dragoon is on one side of that, so is the
Arab of the Desert on the other. The late Capt. Nolan, who fell in the
famous charge of the Six Hundred at Balaklava, did much to introduce a
perfect system of horsemanship into cavalry regiments. He published a
work upon the subject, in which he advocates the short stirrup, and
bases his system, generally, upon the hunting style of horsemanship. We
have seen some very bad riders among British cavalry officers, brought
up in the old-school method of seat and band. Indeed, some satirical
writer or another has said there are two professional classes to whom it
is impossible to impart the art of horsemanship--sailors and cavalry
officers: but that was going a trifle too far, as we have seen specimens
of both the one and the other capable of acquitting themselves very well
'across country,' which is the test, _par excellence_, of good riding.
That was in later days, however, and since the reforms of the riding
master.

       *       *       *       *       *

In spite of some repulsive features, we insert the accompanying picture.
The subject chosen is not of that character which the highest genius
loves to depict; yet it is vigorously drawn, and doubtless true to
nature. At the present time it may be useful as a fair representation of
many specimens of the boasted Southern cavalier.--F. P. S.


THE SOUTHERN COLONEL.

Strolling, one morning in 1847, into a Virginia barroom, I accosted a
little, puffy-looking man with "Major, can you"--whereupon, drawing up
like a bantam, he snapped out, "You're mistaken; I am a colonel;" the
colonel being in those days as peculiar to Southern society as the cross
to southern constellations. I proceeded to anatomize this representative
specimen.

Where he obtained his title no one knew. Some thought it hereditary, his
grandfather having been a colonel in the Revolution; others supposed it
to have been won by conducting the Mexican campaign in the columns of
the _Warrior_, after the manner of modern editors; and a few ignorant
souls believed he had been born with it in his mouth, instead of a
silver spoon. As to the man himself, his great-great-grandmother was a
Huguenot; his grandissimo-grandfather came over with Lafayette, and when
he made affirmation on "my stars and garters," he was supposed to have
reference to certain insignia of nobility, heirlooms in the family from
the time of Charlemagne. He had not stature enough for tallness, nor
bulk enough for breadth, in his figure resembled the wooden soldiers in
the panorama of Bunker Hill, who ran down hill at every fire without
moving their legs, and, like a kangaroo, had small feet and head in
proportion. He made his front hair into a curl, hanging over his nose,
like an index finger, and signed his initials with astonishing flourish,
G. B. A., usually rendered by the boys "Great Big Ayres." He spent the
winter dormant, like a polar bear, and, in summer, like chaste Diana,
followed the hunt, took his morals from Tom Paine, and was, as he said
of himself, neither a good Christian nor a bad infidel. He entered
Government service in his youth, got drunk, and had been in that
condition ever since, varied by occasionally getting gloriously drunk.
The only difference between him and a sot was drinking his liquors
genteelly from his own cellar, and lying in bed when a sot lies in the
gutter. When he was beastliest, he made frequent allusions to the
cooling board, referring to a revel, in which, having covered himself
with glory, he awoke from a dead drunk to find himself arrayed in his
shroud, since which he has been in the habit of designating himself a
resurrectionist. He sported an immense diamond, represented to be one of
the honors awarded him by Government, and loaded himself with rings,
chains, and charms, which gave him resemblance to the show figure in a
jeweller's window. He had a passion for the drama, was forever posting
to the city to inspect debutantes and prima donnas, was a connoisseur of
women, and considered a young girl, who knew "the times that try men's
souls" to be a quotation from Tom Paine, the most astonishing specimen
that had ever come under his observation. He was the victim of scandal,
and usually finished his anathemas on the village gossips by wishing
that they were in "Father Abraham's bosom or some other old
gentleman's." He attended all the fashionable soirees, and might
generally be heard informing his friends that the next piece on the
programme "is brandy smash and cocktails." He had a habit of mistaking
his quotations, and had been known to declare, in his fits of drunken
aberration, that he could say with John Quincy Adams, "I still live." At
last accounts he had joined a rebel company, which mustered twelve guns
and an officer for every private. A. JACK STONE.




       *       *       *       *       *


  The
  Continental Monthly.

The readers of the CONTINENTAL are aware of the important
position it has assumed, of the influence which it exerts, and of the
brilliant array of political and literary talent of the highest order
which supports it. No publication of the kind has, in this country, so
successfully combined the energy and freedom of the daily newspaper with
the higher literary tone of the first-class monthly; and it is very
certain that no magazine has given wider range to its contributors, or
preserved itself so completely from the narrow influences of party or of
faction. In times like the present, such a journal is either a power in
the land or it is nothing. That the CONTINENTAL is not the
latter is abundantly evidenced _by what it has done_--by the reflection
of its counsels in many important public events, and in the character
and power of those who are its staunchest supporters.

Though but little more than a year has elapsed since the
CONTINENTAL was first established, it has during that time
acquired a strength and a political significance elevating it to a
position far above that previously occupied by any publication of the
kind in America. In proof of which assertion we call attention to the
following facts:

1. Of its POLITICAL articles republished in pamphlet form, a
single one has had, thus far, a circulation of _one hundred and six
thousand_ copies.

2. From its LITERARY department, a single serial novel, "Among
the Pines," has, within a very few months, sold nearly _thirty-five
thousand_ copies. Two other series of its literary articles have also
been republished in book form, while the first portion of a third is
already in press.

No more conclusive facts need be alleged to prove the excellence of the
contributions to the CONTINENTAL, or their _extraordinary
popularity;_ and its conductors are determined that it shall not fall
behind. Preserving all "the boldness, vigor, and ability" which a
thousand journals have attributed to it, it will greatly enlarge its
circle of action, and discuss, fearlessly and frankly, every principle
involved in the great questions of the day. The first minds of the
country, embracing the men most familiar with its diplomacy and most
distinguished for ability, are among its contributors; and it is no mere
"flattering promise of a prospectus" to say that this "magazine for the
times" will employ the first intellect in America, under auspices which
no publication ever enjoyed before in this country.

While the CONTINENTAL will express decided opinions on the
great questions of the day, it will not be a mere political journal:
much the larger portion of its columns will be enlivened, as heretofore,
by tales, poetry, and humor. In a word, the CONTINENTAL will be
found, under its new staff of Editors, occupying a position and
presenting attractions never before found in a magazine.


TERMS TO CLUBS.

  Two copies for one year,                    Five dollars.
  Three copies for one year,                   Six dollars.
  Six copies for one year,                  Eleven dollars.
  Eleven copies for one year,                Twenty dollars.
  Twenty copies for one year,            Thirty-six dollars.
                           PAID IN ADVANCE

_Postage, Thirty-six cents a year_, to be paid BY THE
SUBSCRIBER.

SINGLE COPIES.

Three dollars a year, IN ADVANCE. _Postage paid by the
Publisher_.

  JOHN F. TROW, 50 Greene St., N. Y.,
  PUBLISHER FOR THE PROPRIETORS.

[Illustration: pointing finger] As an Inducement to new subscribers, the
Publisher offers the following liberal premiums:

[Illustration: pointing finger] Any person remitting $3, in advance,
will receive the magazine from July, 1862, to January, 1864, thus
securing the whole of Mr. KIMBALL'S and Mr. KIRKE'S new serials, which
are alone worth the price of subscription. Or, if preferred, a
subscriber can take the magazine for 1863 and a copy of "Among the
Pines," or of "Undercurrents of Wall Street," by R. B. KIMBALL, bound in
cloth, or of "Sunshine in Thought," by CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (retail
price, $1. 25.) The book to be sent postage paid.

[Illustration: pointing finger] Any person remitting $4.50, will receive
the magazine from its commencement, January, 1862, to January, 1864,
thus securing Mr. KIMBALL'S "Was He Successful?" and Mr. KIRKE'S "Among
the Pines," and "Merchant's Story," and nearly 3,000 octavo pages of the
best literature in the world. Premium subscribers to pay their own
postage.


       *       *       *       *       *


[Illustration: THE FINEST FARMING LANDS WHEAT CORN COTTON FRUITS &
VEGETABLES]

~EQUAL TO ANY IN THE WORLD!!!~

MAY BE PROCURED

~At FROM $8 to $12 PER ACRE,~

Near Markets, Schools, Railroads, Churches, and all the blessings of
Civilization.

1,200,000 Acres, in Farms of 40, 80, 120, 160 Acres and upwards, in
ILLINOIS, the Garden State of America.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Illinois Central Railroad Company offer, ON LONG CREDIT, the
beautiful and fertile PRAIRIE LANDS lying along the whole line of their
Railroad. 700 MILES IN LENGTH, upon the most Favorable Terms for
enabling Farmers, Manufacturers, Mechanics and Workingmen to make for
themselves and their families a competency, and a HOME they can call
THEIR OWN, as will appear from the following statements:

ILLINOIS.

Is about equal in extent to England, with a population of 1,722,666, and
a soil capable of supporting 20,000,000. No State in the Valley of the
Mississippi offers so great an inducement to the settler as the State of
Illinois. There is no part of the world where all the conditions of
climate and soil so admirably combine to produce those two great
staples, CORN and WHEAT.

CLIMATE.

Nowhere can the Industrious farmer secure such immediate results from
his labor as on these deep, rich, loamy soils, cultivated with so much
ease. The climate from the extreme southern part of the State to the
Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, a distance of nearly 200
miles, is well adapted to Winter.

WHEAT, CORN, COTTON, TOBACCO.

Peaches, Pears, Tomatoes, and every variety of fruit and vegetables is
grown in great abundance, from which Chicago and other Northern markets
are furnished from four to six weeks earlier than their immediate
vicinity. Between the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railway and the
Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, (a distance of 115 miles on the Branch,
and 136 miles on the Main Trunk,) lies the great Corn and Stock raising
portion of the State.

THE ORDINARY YIELD

of Corn is from 60 to 80 bushels per acre. Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep
and Hogs are raised here at a small cost, and yield large profits. It is
believed that no section of country presents greater inducements for
Dairy Farming than the Prairies of Illinois, a branch of farming to
which but little attention has been paid, and which must yield sure
profitable results. Between the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and
Chicago and Dunleith, (a distance of 56 miles on the Branch and 147
miles by the Main Trunk,) Timothy Hay, Spring Wheat, Corn, &c., are
produced in great abundance.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.

The Agricultural products of Illinois are greater than those of any
other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 35,000,000 bushels,
while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the
crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes,
Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco,
Sorgheim, Grapes, Peaches, Apples, &c., which go to swell the vast
aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons
of produce were sent out the State of Illinois during the past year.

STOCK RAISING.

In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for
the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules,
Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large
fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to
enter with the fairest prospects of like results. Dairy Farming also
presents its inducements to many.

CULTIVATION OF COTTON.

The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing
in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption
on the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to
the perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young
children, can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in
the growth and perfection of this plant.

THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD

Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the
Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio. As its name imports, the
Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the
road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.

CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS, DEPOTS.

There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one
every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient
distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity
may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union, and where
buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.

EDUCATION.

Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by
the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the
schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the
church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the
Great Western Empire.

       *       *       *       *       *

PRICES AND TERMS OF PAYMENT--ON LONG CREDIT.

  80 acres at $10 per acre, with interest at 6 per ct. annually
  on the following terms:

  Cash payment                 $48 00

  Payment in one year           48 00
     "    in two years          48 00
     "    in three years        48 00
     "    in four years        236 00
     "    in five years        224 00
     "    in six years         212 00


  40 acres, at $10 00 per acre:

  Cash payment                 $24 00

  Payment in one year           24 00
     "    in two years          24 00
     "    in three years        24 00
     "    in four years        118 00
     "    in five years        112 00
     "    in six years         106 00


       *       *       *       *       *


Number 20. 25 Cents.


THE

CONTINENTAL

MONTHLY.


DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.


AUGUST, 1863.


  NEW YORK:
  JOHN F. TROW 50 GREENE STREET
  (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).

  HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY.
  WASHINGTON, D.-C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.




CONTENTS.--No. XX.

  Our Future. By Lieut. Egbert Phelps, U.S.A.,                          121
  Autumn Leaves. By Mrs. M. W. Cook,                                    136
  Across Maine in Mid-Winter,                                           138
  Diary of Frances Krasinska,                                           150
  The Sleeping Peri,                                                    159
  My Lost Darling,                                                      160
  Reason, Rhyme, and Rhythm. Compiled and written by Mrs. M. W. Cook,   168
  The Buccaneers of America. By W. L. Stone,                            175
  Under the Palmetto. By H. G. Spaulding,                               188
  The Spirit's Reproach. By Mrs. M. W. Cook,                            204
  Jefferson Davis and Repudiation. A Letter from Hon. Robert J. Walker, 207
  Evergreen Beauty. By Major Samuel H. Hurst,                           227
  Dying in the Hospital. By Mary E. Nealy, Louisville, Ky.,             229
  Literary Notices,                                                     231
  Editor's Table,                                                       237


CHARLES GODFREY LELAND and EDMUND KIRKE have withdrawn from the
editorial management of this Magazine.


All communications, whether concerning MSS. or on business, should be
addressed to

JOHN F. TROW, Publisher, 50 GREENE STREET, NEW YORK.


ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by JOHN F.
TROW, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.


JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER.






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1, July, 1863, by Various

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