GALA-DAYS

by

Gail Hamilton

(Mary Abigail Dodge)

1863

CONTENTS

 GALA DAYS A CALL TO MY COUNTRYWOMEN A SPASM OF SENSE CAMILLA'S CONCERT CHERI SIDE-GLANCES AT HARVARD CLASS-DAY SUCCESS IN LIFE HAPPIEST DAYS

GALA-DAYS

PART I

Once there was a great noise in our house, --a thumping and batteringand grating. It was my own self dragging my big trunk down from thegarret. I did it myself because I wanted it done. If I had said, "Halicarnassus, will you fetch my trunk down?" he would have asked mewhat trunk? and what did I want of it? and would not the other one bebetter? and couldn't I wait till after dinner?--and so the trunk wouldprobably have had a three-days journey from garret to basement. Now Iam strong in the wrists and weak in the temper; therefore I used theone and spared the other, and got the trunk downstairs myself. Halicarnassus heard the uproar. He must have been deaf not to hear it;for the old ark banged and bounced, and scraped the paint off thestairs, and pitched head-foremost into the wall, and gouged out theplastering, and dented the mop-board, and was the most stupid, awkward, uncompromising, unmanageable thing I ever got hold of in my life. 

By the time I had zigzagged it into the back chamber, Halicarnassusloomed up the back stairs. I stood hot and panting, with the inside ofmy fingers tortured into burning leather, the skin rubbed off threeknuckles, and a bruise on the back of my right hand, where the trunkhad crushed it against a sharp edge of the doorway. 

"Now, then?" said Halicarnassus interrogatively. 

"To be sure, " I replied affirmatively. 

He said no more, but went and looked up the garret-stairs. They boretraces of a severe encounter, that must be confessed. 

"Do you wish me to give you a bit of advice?" he asked. 

"No!" I answered promptly. 

"Well, then, here it is. The next time you design to bring a trunkdown-stairs, you would better cut away the underpinning, and knock outthe beams, and let the garret down into the cellar. It will make lessuproar, and not take so much to repair damages. "

He intended to be severe. His words passed by me as the idle wind. Iperched on my trunk, took a pasteboard box-cover and fanned myself. Iwas very warm. Halicarnassus sat down on the lowest stair and remainedsilent several minutes, expecting a meek explanation, but not gettingit, swallowed a bountiful piece of what is called in homely talk, "humble-pie, " and said, --

"I should like to know what's in the wind now. "

I make it a principle always to resent an insult and to welcomerepentance with equal alacrity. If people thrust out their horns at mewantonly, they very soon run against a stone-wall; but the moment theyshow signs of contrition, I soften. It is the best way. Don't insistthat people shall grovel at your feet before you accept their apology. That is not magnanimous. Let mercy temper justice. It is a hard thingat best for human nature to go down into the Valley of Humiliation; andalthough, when circumstances arise which make it the only fit place fora person, I insist upon his going, still no sooner does he actuallybegin the descent than my sense of justice is appeased, my naturalsweetness of disposition resumes sway, and I trip along by his sidechatting as gaily as if I did not perceive it was the Valley ofHumiliation at all, but fancied it the Delectable Mountains. So, uponthe first symptoms of placability, I answered cordially, --

"Halicarnassus, it has been the ambition of my life to write a book oftravels. But to write a book of travels, one must first havetravelled. "

"Not at all, " he responded. "With an atlas and an encyclopaedia onecan travel around the world in his arm-chair. "

"But one cannot have personal adventures, " I said. "You can, indeed, sit in your arm-chair and describe the crater of Vesuvius; but youcannot tumble into the crater of Vesuvius from your arm-chair. "

"I have never heard that it was necessary to tumble in, in order tohave a good view of the mountain. "

"But it s necessary to do it, if one would make a readable book. "

"Then I should let the book slide, --rather than slide myself. "

"If you would do me the honor to listen, " I said, scornful of hispaltry attempt at wit, "you would see that the book is the object of mytravelling. I travel to write. I do not write because I havetravelled. I am not going to subordinate my book to my adventures. Myadventures are going to be arranged beforehand with a view to my book. "

"A most original way of getting up a book!"

"Not in the least. It is the most common thing in the world. Look atour dear British cousins. "

"And see them make guys of themselves. They visit a magnificentcountry that is trying the experiment of the world, and write abouttheir shaving-soap and their babies' nurses. "

"Just where they are right. Just why I like the race, from Trollopedown. They give you something to take hold of. I tell you, Halicarnassus, it is the personality of the writer, and not the natureof the scenery or of the institutions, that makes the interest. Itstands to reason. If it were not so, one book would be all that everneed be written, and that book would be a census report. For arepublic is a republic, and Niagara is Niagara forever; but tell howyou stood on the chain-bridge at Niagara--if there is one there--andbought a cake of shaving-soap from a tribe of Indians at a fabulousprice, or how your baby jumped from the arms of the careless nurse intothe Falls, and immediately your own individuality is thrown around thescenery, and it acquires a human interest. It is always five miles fromone place to another, but that is mere almanac and statistics. Let apoet walk the five miles, and narrate his experience with birds andbees and flowers and grasses and water and sky, and it becomesliterature. And let me tell you further, sir, a book of travels isjust as interesting as the person who writes it is interesting. It isnot the countries, but the persons, that are 'shown up. ' You go toFrance and write a dull book. I go to France and write a lively book. But France is the same. The difference is in ourselves. "

Halicarnassus glowered at me. I think I am not using strained orextravagant language when I say that he glowered at me. Then he growledout, --

"So your book of travels is just to put yourself into pickle. "

"Say, rather, " I answered, with sweet humility, --"say, rather, it is toshrine myself in amber. As the insignificant fly, encompassed withmolten glory, passes into a crystallized immortality, his ownlittleness uplifted into loveliness by the beauty in which he isimprisoned, so I, wrapped around by the glory of my land, may findmyself niched into a fame which my unattended and naked merit couldnever have claimed. "

Halicarnassus was a little stunned, but presently recovering himself, suggested that I had travelled enough already to make out a quitesizable book. 

"Travelled!" I said, looking him steadily in the face, --"travelled! Iwent once up to Tudiz huckleberrying; and once, when there was afreshet, you took a superannuated broom and paddled me around theorchard in a leaky pig's-trough!"

He could not deny it; so he laughed, and said, --

"Ah, well!--ah, well! Suit yourself. Take your trunk and pitch intoVesuvius, if you like. I won't stand in your way. "

His acquiescence was ungraciously, and I believe I may say ambiguously, expressed; but it mattered little, for I gathered up my goods andchattels, strapped them into my trunk, and waited for the summer tosend us on our way rejoicing, --the gentle and gracious young summer, that had come by the calendar, but had lost her way on the thermometer. O these delaying Springs, that mock the merry-making of ancestralEngland! Is the world grown so old and stricken in years, that, likeKing David, it gets no heat? Why loiters, where lingers, thebeautiful, calm-breathing June? Rosebuds are bound in her trailinghair, and the sweet of her garments always used to waft a scented galeover the happy hills. 

 "Here she was wont to go! and here! and here! Just where the daisies, pinks, and violets grow; Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk! But like the soft west-wind she shot along; And where she went the flowers took thickest root, As she had sowed them with her odorous foot. "

So sang a rough-handed, silver-voiced, sturdy old fellow, harpingunconsciously the notes of my lament, and the tones of his sorrow wailthrough the green boughs today, though he has been lying now these twohundred years in England's Sleeping Palace, among silent kings andqueens. Fair and fresh and always young is my lost maiden, and"beautiful exceedingly. " Her habit was to wreathe her garland with theMay, and everywhere she found most hearty welcome; but May has come andgone, and June is still missing. I look longingly afar, but there isno flutter of her gossamer robes over the distant hills. No whitecloud floats down the blue heavens, a chariot of state, bringing herroyally from the court of the King. The earth is mourning her absence. A blight has fallen upon the roses, and the leaves are gone gray andmottled. The buds started up to meet and greet their queen, but hergolden sceptre was not held forth, and they are faint and stunned withterror. The censer which they would have swung on the breezes, togladden her heart, is hidden away out of sight, and their own heartsare smothered with the incense. The beans and the peas and thetasselled corn are struck with surprise, as if an eclipse had staggeredthem, and are waiting to see what will turn up, determined it shall notbe themselves, unless something happens pretty soon. The tomatoes arethinking, with homesick regret, of the smiling Italian gardens, wherethe sun ripened them to mellow beauty, with many a bold caress, andthey hug their ruddy fruit to their own bosoms, and Frost, thecormorant, will grab it all, since June disdains the proffered gift, and will not touch them with her tender lips. The money-plants aregrowing pale, and biting off their finger-tips with impatience. Themarigold whispers his suspicion over to the balsam-buds, and neitherventures to make a move, quite sure there is something wrong. Thescarlet tassel-flower utterly refuses to unfold his brave plumes. TheZinnias look up a moment, shuddering with cold chills, conclude thereis no good in hurrying, and then just pull their brown blankets aroundthem, turn over in their beds, and go to sleep again. Themorning-glories rub their eyes, and are but half awake, for all theirroyal name. The Canterbury-bells may be chiming velvet peals down intheir dark cathedrals, but no clash nor clangor nor faintest echoripples up into my Garden World. Not a bee drones his drowsy songamong the flowers, for there are no flowers there. One venturesomelittle phlox dared the cold winds, and popped up his audacious head, but his pale, puny face shows how near he is to being frozen to death. The poor birds are shivering in their nests. They sing a little, justto keep up their spirits, and hop about to preserve their circulation, and capture a bewildered bug or two, but I don't believe there is anegg anywhere round. Not only the owl, but the red-breast, and theoriole, and the blue-jay, for all his feathers, is a-cold. Nothingflourishes but witch-grass and canker-worms. Where is June?--thebright and beautiful, the warm and clear and balm-breathing June, withher matchless, deep, intense sky, and her sunshine, that cleaves intoyour heart, and breaks up all the winter there? What are these sleetyfogs about? Go back into the January thaw, where you belong! Whathave the chill rains, and the raw winds, and the dismal, leaden clouds, and all these flannels and furs to do with June, the perfect June ofhope and beauty and utter joy? Where is the June? Has she lost her wayamong the narrow, interminable defiles of your crooked old citystreets? Go out and find her! You do not want her there. No bladenor blossom will spring from your dingy brick, nor your dull, deadstone, though you prison her there for a thousand years of wandering. Take her by the hand tenderly, and bid her forth into the waitingcountry, which will give her a queenly reception, and laurels worth thewearing. Have you fallen in love with her--on the Potomac, O soldiers?Are you wooing her with honeyed words on the bloody soil of Virginia?Is she tranced by your glittering sword-shine in ransomed Tennessee?Is she floating on a lotus-leaf in Florida lagoons? Has she drunkNepenthe in the orange-groves? Is she chasing golden apples under themagnolias? Are you toying with the tangles of her hair in the brightsea-foam? O, rouse her from her trance, loose the fetters from herlovely limbs, and speed her to our Northern skies, that moan her longdelay. 

Or is she frightened by the thunders of the cannonade sounding fromshore to shore, and wakening the wild echoes? Does she fear to breastour bristling bayonets? Is she stifled by the smoke of powder? Is shecrouching down Caribbean shores, terror-stricken and pallid? SweetJune, fear not! The flash of loyal steel will only light you alongyour Northern road. Beauty and innocence have nothing to dread from thesword a patriot wields. The storm that rends the heavens will makeearth doubly fair. Your pathway shall lie over Delectable Mountains, and through vinelands of Beulah. Come quickly, tread softly, and fromyour bountiful bosom scatter seeds as you come, that daisies andviolets may softly shine, and sweetly twine with the amaranth andimmortelle that spring already from heroes' hearts buried in soldiers'graves. 

"But there is no use in placarding her, " said Halicarnassus. "We shallhave no warm weather till the eclipse is over. "

"So ho!" I said. "Having exhausted every other pretext for delay, youbring out an eclipse! and pray when is this famous affair to come off?"

"Tomorrow if the weather prove favorable, if not, on the first fairnight. "

Then indeed I set my house in order. Here was something definite andtrustworthy. First an eclipse, then a book, and yet I pitied the moonas I walked home that night. She came up the heavens so round andradiant, so glorious in her majesty, so confident in her strength, sosure of triumphal march across the shining sky; not knowing that agreat black shadow loomed right athwart her path to swallow her up. She never dreamed that all her royal beauty should pass behind a pall, that all her glory should be demeaned by pitiless eclipse, and her domeof delight become the valley of humiliation! Is there no help? I said. Can no hand lead her gently another way? Can no voice warn her of theblack shadow that lies in ambuscade? None. Just as the young girlleaves her tender home, and goes fearless to her future, --to the futurewhich brings sadness for her smiling, and patience for her hope, andpain for her bloom, and the cold requital of kindness, or theunrequital of coldness for her warmth of love, so goes the moon, unconscious and serene, to meet her fate. But at least I will watchwith her. Trundle up to the window here, old lounge! you are almost asgood as a grandmother. Steady there! broken-legged table. You havegone limping ever since I knew you; don't fail me tonight. Shinesoftly, Kerosena, next of kin to the sun, true monarch of mundanelights! calmly superior to the flickering of all the fluids, and theghastliness of all the gases, though it must be confessed you don'thold out half as long as you used when first your yellow banner wasunfurled. Shine softly tonight, and light my happy feet through theWalden woods, along the Walden shores, where a philosopher sits insolitary state. He shall keep me awake by the Walden shore till themoon and the shadow meet. How tranquil sits the philosopher, howgrandly rings the man! Here, in his homespun house, the squirrelsclick under his feet, the woodchucks devour his beans, and the loonlaughs on the lake. Here rich men come, and cannot hide their lanknessand their poverty. Here poor men come, and their gold shines throughtheir rags. Hither comes the poet, and the house is too narrow fortheir thoughts, and the rough walls ring with lusty laughter. O happyWalden wood and woodland lake, did you thrill through all your luminousaisles and all your listening shores for the man that wandered there?

Is it begun? Not yet. The kitchen clock has but just struck eleven, and my watch lacks ten minutes of that. What if the astronomers made amistake in their calculations, and the almanacs are wrong, and theeclipse shall not come off? Would it be strange? Would it not bestranger if it were not so? How can a being, standing on one littleball, spinning forever around and around among millions of other ballslarger and smaller, breathlessly the same endless waltz, --how can hetrace out their paths, and foretell their conjunctions? How can a punycreature fastened down to one world, able to lift himself but a fewpaltry feet above, to dig but a few paltry feet below its surface, utterly unable to divine what shall happen to himself in the nextmoment, --how can he thrust out his hand into inconceivable space, andanticipate the silent future? How can his feeble eye detect the quiverof a world? How can his slender strength weigh the mountains inscales, and the bills in a balance? And yet it is. Wonderful is thePower that framed all these spheres, and sent them on their greaterrands; but more wonderful still the Power that gave to finite mindits power, to stand on one little point, and sweep the whole circle ofthe skies. Almost as marvelous is it that man, being man, can divinethe universe, as that God, being God, could devise it. Cycles of yearsgo by. Suns and moons and stars tread their mysterious rounds, butsteady eyes are following them into the awful distances, steady handsare marking their eternal courses. Their multiplied motions shall yetbe resolved into harmony, and so the music of the spheres shall chimewith the angels' song, "Glory to God in the highest!"

Is it begun? Not yet. 

No wonder that eclipses were a terror to men before Science camequeening it through the universe, compelling all these fearful sightsand great signs into her triumphal train, and commanding us to be nolonger afraid of our own shadow. The sure and steadfast Moon, shuddering from the fullness of her splendor into wild and ghostlydarkness, might well wake strange apprehensions. She is reeling inconvulsive agony. She is sickening and swooning in the death-struggle. The principalities and powers of darkness, the eternal foes of men, areworking their baleful spell with success to cast the sweet Moon fromher path, and force her to work woe and disaster upon the earth. Somefell monster, roaming through the heavens, seeking whom he maydevour, --some dragon, "monstrous, horrible, and waste, " whom noRedcrosse Knight shall pierce with his trenchand blade, is swallowingwith giant gulps the writhing victim. Blow shrill and loud your bugleblasts! Beat with fierce clangor your brazen cymbals! Push up wildshrieks and groans, and horrid cries, "That all the woods may answer, and your echoes ring, "

and the foul fiend perchance be scared away by deafening din. 

O, sad for those who lived before the ghouls were disinherited; forwhom the woods and waters, and the deep places, were peopled withmighty, mysterious foes; who saw evil spirits in the earth forces, andturned her gold into consuming fire. For us, later born, Science hasdived into the caverns, and scaled the heights, and fathomed thedepths, forcing from coy yet willing Nature the solution of her ownproblems, and showing us everywhere, GOD. We are not children of fate, trembling at the frown of fairies and witches and gnomes, but thechildren of our Father. If we ascend up into heaven, he is there. Ifwe take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts ofthe sea, even there shall his hand lead, and his right hand hold. 

Is it begun? Not--well, I don't know, though. Something seems to behappening up in the northwest corner. Certainly, a bit of that rounddisk has been shaved off. I will wait five minutes. Yes, the battleis begun. The shadow advances. The moon yields. But there arewatchers in the heaven as well as in the earth. There is sympathy inthe skies. Up floats an argosy of compassionate clouds, and flingtheir fleecy veil around the pallid moon, and bear her softly on theirsnowy bosoms. But she moves on, impelled. She sweeps beyond the sadclouds. Deeper and deeper into the darkness. Closer and closer theShadow clutches her in his inexorable arms. Wan and weird becomes herface, wrathful and wild the astonished winds; and for all her scienceand her faith, the Earth trembles in the night, and a hush of awequivers through the angry, agitated air. On, still on, till the fairand smiling moon is but a dull and tawny orb, with no beauty to bedesired; on, still on, till even that cold, coppery light wanes intosullen darkness. Whether it is a cloud kindly hiding the humbledqueen, or whether the queen is indeed merged in the abyss of theShadow, I cannot tell, and it is dismal waiting to see. The wildness isgone with the moon, and there is nothing left but a dark night. Iwonder how long before she will reappear? Are the people in the moonstaring through an eclipse of the Sun? I should like to see her comeout again, and clothe herself in splendor. I think I will go back toWalden. Ah! even my philosopher, aping Homer, nods. It shimmers alittle, on the lake, among the mountains--of the moon. 

I declare! I believe I have been asleep. What of it? It is just aswell. I have no doubt the moon will come out again all right, --whichis more than I shall do if I go on in this way. I feel already as ifthe top of my head was coming off. Once I was very unhappy, and I satup all night to make the most of it. It was many hundred years ago, when I was younger than I am now, and did not know that misery was nota thing to be caressed and cosseted and coddled, but a thing to betaken, neck and heels, and turned out doors. So I sat up to revel inthe ecstasy of woe. I went along swimmingly into the little hours, butby two o'clock there was a great sameness about it, and I grewdesperately sleepy. I was not going to give it up, however, so Ishocked myself into a torpid animation with a cold bath, it beingmid-winter, and betwixt bath and bathos, managed to keep agoing tilldaylight. Once since then I was very happy, and could not keep my eyesshut. Those are the only two times I ever sat up all night, and, onthe whole, I think I will go to bed; wherefore, O people on the earth, marking eagerly the moon's eclipse, and O people on the moon, crowdingyour craggy hills to see an eclipse of the sun, Good night!

Then the lost June came back. Frost melted out of the air, summermelted in, and my book beckoned me onward with a commanding gesture. Consequently I took my trunk, Halicarnassus his cane, and we started onour travels. But the shadow of the eclipse hung over us still. Anevil omen came in the beginning. Just as I was stepping into the car, Iobserved a violent smoke issuing from under it. I started back inalarm. 

"They are only getting up steam, " said Halicarnassus. "Always do, whenthey start. "

"I know better!" I answered briskly, for there was no time to becircumlocutional. "They don't get up steam under the cars. "

"Why not? Bet a sixpence you couldn't get Uncle Cain's Dobbin out ofhis jog-trot without building a fire under him. "

"I know that wheel is on fire, " I said, not to be turned from thedirect and certain line of assertion into the winding ways of argument. 

"No matter, " replied Halicarnassus, conceding everything, "we areinsured. "

Upon the strength of which consolatory information I went in. By and bya man entered and took a seat in front of us. "The box is all afire, "chuckled he to his neighbor, as if it were a fine joke. By and byseveral people who had been looking out of the windows drew in theirheads, went into the next car. 

"What do you suppose they did that for?" I asked Halicarnassus. 

"More aristocratical. Belong to old families. This is a new car, don't you see? We are parvenus. "

"Nothing of the sort, " I rejoined. "This car is on fire, and they havegone into the next one so as not to be burned up. "

"They are not going to write books, and can afford to run away fromadventures. "

"But suppose I am burned up in my adventure?"

"Obviously, then, your book will end in smoke. "

I ceased to talk, for I was provoked at his indifference. I leaveevery impartial mind to judge for itself whether the circumstances weresuch as to warrant composure. To be sure, somebody said the car was tobe left at Jeru; but Jeru was eight miles away, and any quantity ofmischief might be done before we reached it, --if indeed we were notprevented from reaching it altogether. It was a mere question ofdynamics. Would dry wood be able to hold its own against a raging firefor half an hour? Of course the conductor thought it would; but evenconductors are not infallible; and you may imagine how comfortable itwas to sit and know that a fire was in full blast beneath you, and tolook down every few minutes expecting to see the flames forking upunder your feet. I confess I was not without something like a hopethat one tongue of the devouring element would flare up far enough togive Halicarnassus a start; but it did not. No casualty occurred. Wereached Jeru in safety; but that does not prove that there was nodanger, or that indifference was anything but the most foolishhardihood. If our burning car had been in mid-ocean, serenity wouldhave been sublimity, but to stay in the midst of peril when two stepswould take one out of it is idiocy. And that there was peril isconclusively shown by the fact that the very next day the EasternRailroad Depot took fire and was burned to the ground. I have in myown mind no doubt that it was a continuation of the same fire, and ifwe had stayed in the car much longer, we should have shared the samefate. 

We found Jeru to be a pleasant city, with only one fault: theinhabitants will crowd into a car before passengers can get out;consequently the heads of the two columns collide near the car-door, and there is a general choke. Otherwise Jeru is a delightful city. Itis famous for its beautiful women. Its railroad-station is amagnificent piece of architecture. Its men are retired East-Indiamerchants. Everybody in Jeru is rich and has real estate. The housesin Jeru are three stories high and face on the Common. People in Jeruare well-dressed and well-bred, and they all came over in the Mayflower. 

We stopped in Jeru five minutes. 

When we were ready to continue our travels, Halicarnassus seceded intothe smoking-car, and the engine was shrieking off its inertia, a smallboy, laboring under great agitation, hurried in, darted up to me, and, thrusting a pinchbeck ring with a pink glass in it into my face, exclaimed, in a hoarse whisper, --

"A beautiful ring, ma'am! I've just picked it up. Can't stop to findthe owner. Worth a dollar, ma'am; but if you'll give me fifty cents--"

"Boy!"

I rose fiercely, convulsively, in my seat, drew one long breath, butwhether he thought I was going to kill him, --I dare say I lookedit, --or whether he saw a sheriff behind, or a phantom gallows before, Iknow not; but without waiting for the thunderbolt to strike, he rushedfrom the car as precipitately as he had rushed in. I WAS angry, --notbecause I was to have been cheated, for I been repeatedly andatrociously cheated and only smiled, but because the rascal daredattempt on me such a threadbare, ragged, shoddy trick as that. Do ILOOK like a rough-hewn, unseasoned backwoodsman? Have I the air ofnever having read a newspaper? Is there a patent innocence ofeye-teeth in my demeanor? O Jeru! Jeru! Somewhere in your virtuousbosom you are nourishing a viper, for I have felt his fangs. Woe untoyou, if you do not strangle him before he develops into matureanacondaism! In point of natural history I am not sure that vipers dogrow up anacondas, but for the purposes of moral philosophy thedevelopment theory answers perfectly well. 

In Boston we had three hours to spare; so we sent our luggage--that is, my trunk--to the Worcester Depot, and walked leisurely ourselves. Ihad a little shopping to do, to complete my outfit for the journey, --avery little shopping, --only a nightcap or two. Ordinarily such a thingis a matter of small moment, but in my case the subject bad swolleninto unnatural dimensions. Nightcaps are not generally consideredhealthy, --at least not by physicians. Nature has given to the head itssufficient and appropriate covering, the hair. Anything more than thisinjures the head, by confining the heat, preventing the soothing, cooling contact of air, and so deranging the circulation of the blood. Therefore I have always heeded the dictates of Nature, which I havesupposed to be to brush out the hair thoroughly at night and let itfly. But there are serious disadvantages connected with this course. For Nature will be sure to whisk the hair away from your ears where youwant it, and into your eyes where you don't want it, besides crowningyou with magnificent disorder in the morning. But as I have alwaysbelieved that no evil exists without its remedy, I had long beenexercising my inventive genius in attempts to produce a head-gear whichshould at once protect the ears, confine the hair, and let the skullalone. I regret to say that my experiments were an utter failure, notwithstanding the amount of science and skill brought to bear uponthem. One idea lay at the basis of all my endeavors. Everycombination, however elaborate or intricate, resolved into its simplestelements, consisted of a pair of rosettes laterally to keep the earswarm, a bag posteriorly to put the hair into, and some kind of a stringsomewhere to hold the machine together. Every possible shape intowhich lace or muslin or sheeting could be cut or plaited or sewed ortwisted, into which crewel or cord could be crocheted or netted ortatted, I make bold to declare was essayed, until things came to such apass that every odd bit of dry good lying round the house was, in theabsence of any positive testimony on the subject, assumed to be one ofmy nightcaps; an utterly baseless assumption, because my achievementsnever went so far as concrete capuality, but stopped short in the laterstages of abstract idealism. However, prejudice is stronger thantruth; and, as I said, every fragment of every fabric that could notgive an account of itself was charged with being a nightcap till it wasproved to be a dish-cloth or a cart-rope. I at length surrendered atdiscretion, and remembered that somewhere in my reading I had met withexquisite lace caps, and I did not that from the combined fineness andstrength of their material they might answer the purpose, even if inform they should not be everything that was desirable, --and Idetermined to ascertain, if possible, whether such things existedanywhere out of poetry. 

As you perceive, therefore, my Boston shopping was not everydaytrading. It was to mark the abandonment of an old and the inaugurationof a new line of policy. Thus it was with no ordinary interest that Ilooked carefully at all the shops, and when I found one that seemed tohold out a possibility of nightcaps, I went in. Halicarnassus obeyedthe hint which I pricked into him with the point of my parasol, andstopped outside. The one place in the world where a man has nobusiness to be is the inside of a dry-goods shop. He never looks andnever is so big and bungling as there. A woman skips from silk tomuslin, from muslin to ribbons, from ribbons to table-cloths, with thegrace and agility of a bird. She glides in and out among crowds of hersex, steers sweepingly clear of all obstacles, and emerges triumphant. A man enters, and immediately becomes all boots and elbows. He needsas much room to turn round in as the English iron-clad Warrior, and ittakes him about as long. He treads on all the flounces, runs againstall the clerks, knocks over all the children, and is generallyunderfoot. If he gets an idea into his head, a Nims's battery cannotdislodge it. You thought of buying a shawl; but a thousandconsiderations, in the shape of raglans, cloaks, talmas, andpea-jackets, induce you to modify your views. He stands by you. Hehears all your inquiries and all the clerk's suggestions. The wholeprocess of your reasoning is visible to his naked eye. He sees thesack or visite or cape put upon your shoulders and you walking off init, and when you are half-way home, he will mutter, in stupidamazement, "I thought you were going to buy a shawl!" It is enough todrive one wild. 

No! Halicarnassus is absurd and mulish in many things, but he knows Iwill not be hampered with him when I am shopping, and he obeys thesmallest hint, and stops outside. 

To be sure he puts my temper on the rack by standing with his hands inhis pockets, or by looking meek, or likely as not peering into theshop-door after me with great staring eyes and parted lips; and this isthe most provoking of all. If there is anything vulgar, slipshod, andshiftless, it is a man lounging about with his hands in his pockets. If you have paws, stow them away; but if you are endowed with hands, learn to carry them properly, or else cut them off. Nor can I abide aman's looking as if he were under control. I wish him to BEsubmissive, but I don't wish him to LOOK so. He shall do just as he isbidden, but he shall carry himself like the man and monarch he was madeto be. Let him stay where he is put, yet not as if he were put there, but as if he had taken his position deliberately. But, of all things, to have a man act as if he were a clod just emerged for the first timefrom his own barnyard! Upon this occasion, however, I was too muchabsorbed in my errand to note anybody's demeanor, and I threadedstraightway the crowd of customers, went up to the counter, andinquired in a clear voice, --

"Have you lace nightcaps?"

The clerk looked at me with a troubled, bewildered glance, and made noreply. I supposed he had not understood me, and repeated the question. Then he answered, dubiously, --

"We have breakfast-caps. "

It was my turn to look bewildered. What had I to do withbreakfast-caps? What connection was there between my question and hisanswer? What field was there for any further inquiry? "Have youox-bows?" imagine a farmer to ask. "We have rainbows, " says theshopman. "Have you cameo-pins?" inquires the elegant Mrs. Jenkins. "We have linchpins. " "Have you young apple trees?" asks thenursery-man. "We have whiffletrees. " If I had wanted breakfast-caps, shouldn't I have asked for breakfast-caps? Or do the Boston peopletake their breakfast at one o'clock in the morning? I concluded thatthe man was demented, and marched out of the shop. When I laid thematter before Halicarnassus, the following interesting colloquy tookplace. 

I. "What do you suppose it meant?"

H. "He took you for a North American Indian. "

I. "What do you mean?"

H. "He did not understand your patois. "

I. "What patois?"

H. "Your squaw dialect. You should have asked for a bonnet de nuit. "

I. "Why?"

H. "People never talk about nightcaps in good society. "

I. "Oh!"

I was very warm, and Halicarnassus said he was tired; so he went into arestaurant and ordered strawberries, --that luscious fruit, quivering onthe border-land of ambrosia and nectar. 

"Doubtless, " says honest, quaint, delightful Isaac, --and he never spokea truer word, --"doubtless God might have made a better berry than astrawberry, but doubtless God never did. "

The bill of fare rated their excellence at fifteen cents. 

"Not unreasonable, " I pantomimed. 

"Not if I pay for them, " replied Halicarnassus. 

Then we sat and amused ourselves after the usual brilliant fashion ofpeople who are waiting in hotel parlors, railroad-stations, andrestaurants. We surveyed the gilding and the carpet and the mirrorsand the curtains. We hazarded profound conjectures touching the peopleassembled. We studied the bill of fare as if it contained the secretof our army's delay upon the Potomac, and had just concluded that thefirst crop of strawberries was exhausted, and they were waiting for thesecond crop to grow, when Hebe hove in sight with her nectared ambrosiain a pair of cracked, browny-white saucers, with browny-green silverspoons. I poured out what professed to be cream, but proved verylow-spirited milk, in which a few disheartened strawberries appearedrari nantes. I looked at them in dismay. Then curiosity smote me, andI counted them. Just fifteen. 

"Cent a piece, " said Halicarnassus. 

I was not thinking of the cent, but I had promised myself a feast; andwhat is a feast, susceptible of enumeration? Cleopatra was right. "That love"--and the same is true of strawberries--"is beggarly whichcan be reckoned. " Infinity alone is glory. 

"Perhaps the quality will atone for the quantity, " said Halicarnassus, scooping up at least half of his at one "arm-sweep. "

"How do they taste?" I asked. 

"Rather coppery, " he answered. 

"It is the spoons!" I exclaimed, in a fright. "They are German silver!You will be poisoned!" and knocked his out of his hand with suchinstinctive, sudden violence that it flew to the other side of theroom, where an old gentleman sat over his newspaper and dinner. 

He started, dropped his newspaper, and looked around in a maze. Halicarnassus behaved beautifully, --I will give him the credit of it. He went on with my spoon and his strawberries as unconcernedly as ifnothing had happened. I was conscious that I blushed, but my face wasin the shade, and nobody else knew it; and to this day I've no doubtthe old gentleman would have marvelled what sent that mysterious spoonrattling against his table and whizzing between his boots, had notHalicarnassus, when the uproar was over, conceived it his duty to goand pick up the spoon and apologize for the accident, lest thegentleman should fancy an intentional rudeness. Partly to reward himfor his good behavior, partly because I never did think it worth whileto make two bites of a cherry, and partly because I did not fancy beingpoisoned, I gave my fifteen berries to him. He devoured them withevident relish. 

"Does my spoon taste as badly as yours?" I asked. 

"My spoon?" inquired he, innocently. 

"Yes. You said before that they tasted coppery. "

"I don't think, " replied this unprincipled man, --"I don't think it wasthe flavor of the spoon so much as of the coin which each berryrepresented. "

If we could only have been at home!

I never made a more unsatisfactory investment in my life than the one Imade in that restaurant. I felt as if I had been swindled, and I saidso to Halicarnassus. He remarked that there was plenty of cream andsugar. I answered curtly, that the cream was chiefly water, and thesugar chiefly flour; but if they had been Simon Pure himself, was itanything but an aggravation of the offence to have them with nothing toeat them on?

"You might do as they do in France, --carry away what you don't eat, seeing you pay for it. "

"A pocketful of milk and water would be both delightful andserviceable; but I might take the sugar, " I added, with a suddenthought, upsetting the sugar-bowl into a "Boston Journal" which we hadbought in the train. "I can never use it, but it will be a consolationto reflect on. "

Halicarnassus, who, though fertile in evil conceptions, lacks nerve toput them into execution, was somewhat startled at this sudden change ofbase. He had no idea that I should really act upon his suggestion, butI did. I bundled the sugar into my pocket with a grim satisfaction;and Halicarnassus paid his thirty cents, looking--and feeling, as heafterwards told me--as if a policeman's grip were on his shoulders. Ifany restaurant in Boston recollects having been astonished at any timeduring the summer of 1862 by an unaccountably empty sugar-bowl, I takethis occasion to explain the phenomenon. I gave the sugar afterwards toa little beggar-girl, with a dime for a brace of lemons, and shook offthe dust of my feet against Boston at the "B. & W. R. R. D. "

Boston is a beautiful city, situated on a peninsula at the head ofMassachusetts Bay. It has three streets: Cornhill, Washington, andBeacon Streets. It has a Common and a Frog-pond, and many sprightlysquirrels. Its streets are straight, and cross each other like lineson a chess-board. It has a state-house, which is the finest edifice inthe world or out of it. It has one church, the Old South, which wasbuilt, as its name indicates, before the Proclamation of Emancipationwas issued. It has one bookstore, a lofty and imposing pile, of theEgyptian style (and date) of architecture, on the corner of Washingtonand School Streets. It has one magazine, the "Atlantic Monthly, " onedaily newspaper, the "Boston Journal, " one religious weekly, the"Congregationalist, " and one orator, whose name is Train, a model ofchaste, compact, and classic elegance. In politics, it was a WebsterWhig, till Whig and Webster both went down, when it fell apart waitedfor something to turn up, --which proved to be drafting. Boston iscalled the Athens of America. Its men are solid. Its women wear theirbonnets to bed, their nightcaps to breakfast, and talk Greek at dinner. I spent two hours and half in Boston, and I know. 

We had a royal progress from Boston to Fontdale. Summer lay on theshining hills, and scattered benedictions. Plenty smiled up from athousand fertile fields. Patient oxen, with their soft, deep eyes, trod heavily over mines of greater than Indian wealth. Kindly cowsstood in the grateful shade of cathedral elms, and gave thanks to Godin their dumb, fumbling way. Motherly, sleepy, stupid sheep lay on theplains, little lambs rollicked out their short-lived youth around them, and no premonition floated over from the adjoining pea-patch, nor anymisgiving of approaching mutton marred their happy heyday. Straightthrough the piny forests, straight past the vocal orchards, right inamong the robins and the jays and the startled thrushes, we dashedinexorable, and made harsh dissonance in the wild-wood orchestra; butnot for that was the music hushed, nor did one color fade. Brooksleaped in headlong chase down the furrowed sides of gray old rocks, andglided whispering beneath the sorrowful willows. Old trees renewedtheir youth in the slight, tenacious grasp of many a tremulous tendril, and, leaping lightly above their topmost heights, vine laughed to vine, swaying dreamily in the summer air; and not a vine nor brook nor hillnor forest but sent up a sweet-smelling incense to its Maker. Not anox or cow or lamb or bird living its own dim life but lent its charm ofunconscious grace to the great picture that unfolded itself mile aftermile, in ever fresher loveliness to ever unsated eyes. Well might themorning stars sing together, and all the sons of God shout for joy, when first this grand and perfect world swung free from its moorings, flung out its spotless banner, and sailed majestic down the throngingskies. Yet, though but once God spoke the world to life, the miracleof creation is still incomplete. New every spring-time, fresh everysummer, the earth comes forth as a bride adorned for her husband. Notonly in the dawn of our history, but now in the full brightness of itsnoonday, may we hear the voice of the Lord walking in the garden. Ilook out upon the gray degraded fields left naked of the snow, andinwardly ask, Can these dry bones live again? And while the questionis yet trembling on my lips, lo! a Spirit breathes upon the earth, andbeauty thrills into bloom. Who shall lack faith in man's redemption, when every year the earth is redeemed by unseen hands, and death islost in resurrection?

To Fontdale sitting among her beautiful meadows we are borne swiftlyon. There we must tarry for the night, for I will not travel in thedark when I can help it. I love it. There is no solitude in theworld, or at least I have never felt any, like standing alone in thedoorway of the rear car on a dark night, and rushing on through thedarkness, --darkness, darkness everywhere, and if one could be sure ofrushing on till daylight doth appear! But with the frightful and notremote possibility of bringing up in a crash and being buried under ageneral huddle, one prefers daylight. You may not be able to get outof the huddle even by daylight; but you will at least know where youare, if there is anything of you left. So at Fontdale, Halicarnassusbranches off temporarily on a business errand, and I stop for the nighta-cousining. 

You object to this? Some people do. For my part, I like it. You sayyou will not turn your own house or your friend's house into a hotel. If people wish to see you, let them come and make a visit; if you wishto see them, you will go and make them one; but this touch andgo, --what is it worth? O foolish Galatians! much every way. For don'tyou see, supposing the people are people you don't like, how muchbetter it is to have them come and sleep or dine and be gone than tohave them before your face and eyes for a week? An ill that istemporary is tolerable. You could entertain the Evil One himself, ifyou were sure he would go away after dinner. The trouble about him isnot so much that he comes as that he won't go. He hangs around. Ifyou once open your door to him, there is no getting rid of him; andsome of his followers, it must be confessed, are just like him. Youmust resist them both, or they will never flee. But if they do fleeafter a day's tarry, do not complain. You protest against turning yourhouse into a hotel. Why, the hotelry is the least irksome part of thewhole business, when your guests are uninteresting. It is not thesupper or the bed that costs, but keeping people going after supper isover and before bedtime is come. Never complain, if you have nothingworse to do than to feed or house your guests for a day or an hour. 

On the other hand, if they are people you like, how much better to havethem come so than not to at all! People cannot often make longvisits, --people that are worth anything, --people who use life; and theyare the only ones that are worth anything. And if you cannot get yourgood things in the lump, are you going to refuse them altogether? Byno means. You are going to take them by driblets, and if you will onlybe sensible and not pout, but keep your tin pan right side up, you willfind that golden showers will drizzle through all your life. So, withnever a nugget in your chest, you shall die rich. If you can stopover-night with your friend, you have no sand-grain, but a veryrespectable boulder. For a night is infinite. Daytime is well enoughfor business, but it is little worth for happiness. You sit down to abook, to a picture, to a friend, and the first you know it is time toget dinner, or time to eat it, or time for the train, or you must putout your dried apples, or set the bread to rising, or something breaksin impertinently and chokes you at flood-tide. But the night has noend. Everything is done but that which you would be forever doing. The curtains are drawn, the lamp is lighted and veiled into exquisitesoft shadowiness. All the world is far off. All its din and dolestrike into the bank of darkness that envelops you and are lost to yourtranced sense. In all the world are only your friend and you, and thenyou strike out your oars, silver-sounding, into the shoreless night. 

But the night comes to an end, you say. No, it does not. It is youthat come to an end. You grow sleepy, clod that you are. But as youdon't think, when you begin, that you ever shall grow sleepy, it isjust the same as if you never did. For you have no foreshadow of aninevitable termination to your rapture, and so practically your nighthas no limit. It is fastened at one end to the sunset, but the otherend floats off into eternity. And there really is no abrupttermination. You roll down the inclined plane of your social happinessinto the bosom of another happiness, --sleep. Sleep for the sleepy isbliss just as truly as society to the lonely. What in the distancewould have seemed Purgatory, once reached, is Paradise, and yourhappiness is continuous. Just as it is in mending. Short-sighted, superficial, unreflecting people have a way--which in time fossilizesinto a principle--of mending everything as soon as it comes up from thewash, --a very unthrifty, uneconomical habit, if you use the wordsthrift and economy in the only way in which they ought to be used, namely, as applied to what is worth economizing. Time, happiness, life, these are the only things to be thrifty about. But I see peopleworking and worrying over quince-marmalade and tucked petticoats andembroidered chair-covers, things that perish with the using and leavethe user worse than they found him. This I call waste and wickedprodigality. Life is too short to permit us to fret about matters ofno importance. Where these things can minister to the mind and heart, they are a part of the soul's furniture; but where they only pamper theappetite or the vanity, or any foolish and hurtful lust, they arefoolish and hurtful. Be thrifty of comfort. Never allow anopportunity for cheer, for pleasure, for intelligence, for benevolence, for kind of good, to go unimproved. Consider seriously whether thesyrup of your preserves or juices of your own soul will do the most toserve your race. It may be that they are compatible, --that theconcoction of the one shall provide the ascending sap of the other; butif it is not so, if one must be sacrificed, do not hesitate a moment asto which it shall be. If a peach does not become sweetmeat, it willbecome something, it will not stay a withered, unsightly peach; but forsouls there is no transmigration out of fables. Once a soul, forever asoul, --mean or mighty, shrivelled or full, it is for you to say. Money, land, luxury, so far as they are money, land, and luxury, areworthless. It is only as fast and as far as they are turned into lifethat they acquire value. 

So you are thriftless when you eagerly seize the first opportunity tofritter away your time over old clothes. You precipitate yourselfunnecessarily against a disagreeable thing. For you are not going toput your stockings on. Perhaps you will not need your buttons for aweek, and in a week you may have passed beyond the jurisdiction ofbuttons. But even if you should not, let the buttons and the holesalone all the same. For, first, the pleasant and profitable thingwhich you will do instead is a funded capital, which will roll you up aperpetual interest; and secondly, the disagreeable duty is foreverabolished. I say forever, because, when you have gone without thebutton awhile, the inconvenience it occasions will reconcile you to thenecessity of sewing it on, --will even go further, and make it apositive relief amounting to positive pleasure. Besides, every timeyou use it, for a long while after, you will have a delicious sense ofsatisfaction, such as accompanies the sudden complete cessation of adull, continuous pain. Thus what was at best characterless routine, and most likely an exasperation, is turned into actual delight, andadds to the sum of life. This is thrift. This is economy. But, alas!few people understand the art of living. They strive after system, wholeness, buttons, and neglect the weightier matters of the higher law. 

--I wonder how I got here, or how I am to get back again. I startedfor Fontdale, and I find myself in a mending-basket. As I know no goodin tracing the same road back, we may as well strike a bee-line andbegin new at Fontdale. 

We stopped at Fontdale a-cousining. I have a veil, a beautiful--HAVE, did I say? Alas! Troy WAS. But I must not anticipate--a beautifulveil of brown tissue, none of your woolleny, gruff fabrics, fit onlyfor penance, but a silken, gossamery cloud, soft as a baby's cheek. Yet everybody fleers at it. Everybody has a joke about it. Everybodylooks at it, and holds it out at arms' length, and shakes it, and makesgreat eyes at it, and says, "What in the world--" and ends with a huge, bouncing laugh. Why? One is ashamed of human nature at being forcedto confess. Because, to use a Gulliverism, it is longer by the breadthof my nail than any of its contemporaries. In fact, it is two yardslong. That is all. Halicarnassus fired the first gun at it by sayingthat its length was to enable one end of it to remain at home while theother end went with me, so that neither of us should get lost. This isan allusion to a habit which I and my property have of findingourselves individually and collectively left in the lurch. After thisinitial shot, everybody considered himself at liberty to let off hisrusty old blunderbuss, and there was a constant peppering. But my veilnever lowered its colors nor curtailed its resources. Alas! whatridicule and contumely failed to effect, destiny accomplished. Softness and plenitude are no shields against the shafts of fate. 

I went into the station waiting-room to write a note. I laid mybonnet, my veil, my packages upon the table. I wrote my note. I wentaway. The next morning, when I would have arrayed myself to resume myjourney, there was no veil. I remembered that I had taken it into thestation the night before, and that I had not taken it out. At thestation we inquired of the waiting-woman concerning it. It is as muchas your life is worth to ask these people about lost articles. Theytake it for granted at the first blush that you mean to accuse them ofstealing. "Have you seen a brown veil lying about anywhere?" askedCrene, her sweet bird-voice warbling out from her sweet rose-lips. "No, I 'a'n't seen nothin' of it, " says Gnome, with magnificentindifference. 

"It was lost here last night, " continues Crene, in a soliloquizingundertone, pushing investigating glances beneath the sofas. 

"I do' know nothin' about it. _I_ 'a'n't took it"; and the Gnometosses her head back defiantly. "I seen the lady when she wasa-writin' of her letter, and when she went out ther' wa'n't nothin'left on the table but a hangkerchuf, and that wa'n't hern. I do' knownothin' about it, nor I 'a'n't seen nothin' of it. "

O no, my Gnome, you knew nothing of it; you did not take it. But sinceno one accused or even suspected you, why could you not have been lessaggressive and more sympathetic in your assertions? But we will ploughno longer in that field. The ploughshare has struck against a rock andgrits, denting its edge in vain. My veil is gone, --my ample, historic, heroic veil. There is a woman in Fontdale who breathes air filteredthrough--I will not say STOLEN tissue, but certainly through tissuewhich was obtained without rendering its owner any fair equivalent. Does not every breeze that softly stirs its fluttering folds say toher, "O friend, this veil is not yours, not yours, " and stillsighingly, "not yours! Up among the northern hills, yonder towards thesunset, sits the owner, sorrowful, weeping, wailing"? I believe I amwading out into the Sally Waters of Mother Goosery; but, prose orpoetry, somewhere a woman, --and because nobody of taste couldsurreptitiously possess herself of my veil, I have no doubt that shecut it incontinently into two equal parts, and gave one to her sister, and there are two women, --nay, since niggardly souls have no sense ofgrandeur, and will shave down to microscopic dimensions, it is everyway probable that she divided it into three unequal parts, and tookthree quarters of a yard for herself, three quarters for her sister, and gave the remaining half-yard to her daughter, and that at verymoment there are two women and a little girl taking their walks abroadunder the silken shadows of my veil! And yet there are people whoprofess to disbelieve in total depravity. 

Nor did the veil walk away alone. My trunk became imbued with thespirit of adventure, and branched off on its own account up somewhereinto Vermont. I suppose it would have kept on and reached perhaps theNorth Pole by this time, had not Crene's dark eyes, --so pretty to lookat that one instinctively feels they ought not to be good for anything, if a just impartiality is to be maintained, but they are, --had notCrene's dark eyes seen it tilting into a baggage-crate, and trundlingoff towards the Green Mountains, but too late. Of course there was aformidable hitch in the programme. A court of justice was improvisedon the car-steps. I was the plaintiff, Crene chief evidence, baggage-master both defendant and examining-counsel. The case did notadmit of a doubt. There was the little insurmountable check, whosebrazen lips could speak no lie. 

"Keep hold of that, " whispered Crene, and a yoke of oxen could not havedrawn it from me. 

"You are sure you had it marked for Fontdale, " says Mr. Baggage-master. 

I hold the impracticable check before his eyes in silence. 

"Yes, well, it must have gone on to Albany. "

"But it went away on that track, " says Crene. 

"Couldn't have gone on that track. Of course they wouldn't havecarried it away over there just to make it go wrong. "

For me, I am easily persuaded and dissuaded. If he had told me that itmust have gone in such a direction, that it was a moral and mentalimpossibility should have gone in any other, and have it times enough, with a certain confidence and contempt of any other contingency, Ishould gradually have lost faith in my own eyes, and said, "Well, Isuppose it did. " But Crene is not to be asserted into yielding oneinch, and insists that the trunk went to Vermont and not to New York, and is thoroughly unmanageable. The baggage-master, in anguish ofsoul, trots out his subordinates, one after another, --

"Is this the man that wheeled the trunk away? Is this? Is this?"

The brawny-armed fellows hang back, and scowl, and muffle words in avery suspicious manner, and protest they won't be got into a scrape. But Crene has no scrape for them. She cannot swear to their identity. She had eyes only for the trunk. 

"Well, " says Baggage-man, at his wits' end, "you let me take yourcheck, and I'll send the trunk on by express, when it comes. "

I pity him, and relax my clutch. 

"No, " whispers Crene; "as long as you have your check, you as good ashave your trunk; but when you give that up, you have nothing. Keepthat till you see your trunk. "

My clutch re-tightens. 

"At any rate, you can wait till the next train, and see if it doesn'tcome back. You'll get to your journey's end just as soon. "

"Shall I? Well, I will, " compliant as usual. 

"No, " interposes my good genius again. "Men are always saying that awoman never goes when she engages to go. She is always a train lateror a train earlier, and you can't meet her. "

Pliant to the last touch, I say aloud, --

"No, I must go in this train"; and so I go, trunkless and crestfallen, to meet Halicarnassus. 

It is a dismal day, and Crene, to comfort me, puts into my hands twobooks as companions by the way. They are Coventry Patmore's "Angel inthe House, " "The Espousals and the Betrothal. " I do not approve ofreading in the cars; but without is a dense, white, unvarying fog, andwithin my heart it is not clear sunshine. So I turn to my books. 

Did any one ever read them before? Somebody wrote a vile review ofthem once, and gave the idea of a very puerile, ridiculous, apron-stringy attempt at poetry. Whoever wrote that notice ought to beshot, for the books are charming, --pure and homely and householdy, yetnot effeminate. Critics may sneer as much as they choose: it is suchlove as Vaughan's that Honorias value. Because a woman's nature is notproof against deterioration, because a large and long-continuedinfusion of gross blood, and perhaps even the monotonous pressure ofrough, pitiless, degrading circumstances, may displace, eat out, ruboff the delicacy of a soul, may change its texture to unnaturalcoarseness and scatter ashes for beauty, women do exist, victims ratherthan culprits, coarse against their nature, hard, material, grasping, the saddest sight humanity can see. Such a woman can accept coarsemen. They may come courting on all fours, and she will not be shocked. But women in the natural state wish men to stand godlike erect, totread majestically, and live delicately. Women do not often make an adoabout this. They talk it over among themselves, and take men as theyare. They quietly soften them down, and smooth them out, and polishthem up, and make the best of them, and simply and sedulously shuttheir eyes and make believe there isn't any worst, or reason itaway, --a great deal more than I should think they would. But if yousee the qualities that a woman spontaneously loves, the expression, thetone, the bearing that thoroughly satisfies her self-respect, that notonly secures her acquiescence, but arouses her enthusiasm and commandsher abdication, crucify the flesh, and read Coventry Patmore. Not thathe is the world's great poet, nor Arthur Vaughan the ideal man; butthis I do mean: that the delicacy, the spirituality of his love, thescrupulous respectfulness of his demeanor, his unfeigned inwardhumility, as far removed from servility on the one side as fromassumption on the other, and less the opponent than the offspring ofself-respect, his thorough gentleness, guilelessness, deference, hismanly, unselfish homage, are such qualities, and such alone, as leadwomanhood captive. Listen to me, you rattling, roaring, rollickingRalph Roister Doisters, you calm, inevitable Gradgrinds, as smooth, assharp, as bright as steel, and as soulless, and you men, whoever, whatever, and wherever you are, with fibres of rope and nerves of wire, there is many and many a woman who tolerates you because she finds you, but there is nothing in her that ever goes out to seek you. Be notdeceived by her placability. "Here he is, " she says to herself, "andsomething must be done about it. Buried under Ossa and Pelionsomewhere he must be supposed to have a soul, and the sooner he is duginto the sooner it will be exhumed. " So she digs. She would neverhave made you, nor of her own free-will elected you; but being made, such as you are, and on her hands in one way or another, she carves andchisels, and strives to evoke from the block a breathing statue. Shemay succeed so far as that you shall become her Frankenstein, a great, sad, monstrous, incessant, inevitable caricature of her ideal, themonument at once of her success and her failure, the object of hercompassion, the intimate sorrow of her soul, a vast and dreadful forminto which her creative power can breathe the breath of life, but notof sympathy. Perhaps she loves you with a remorseful, pitying, protesting love, and carries you on her shuddering shoulders to thegrave. Probably, as she is good and wise, you will never find it out. A limpid brook ripples in beauty and bloom by the side of muddy, stagnant self-complacence, and you discern no essential difference. "Water's water, " you say, with your broad, stupid generalization, andgo oozing along contentedly through peat-bogs and meadow-ditches, mounting, perhaps, in moments of inspiration, to the moderate sublimityof a cranberry-meadow, but subsiding with entire satisfaction into amuck-puddle: and all the while the little brook that you patronizewhen you are full-fed, and snub when you are hungry, and look uponalways, --the little brook is singing its own melody through grove andorchard and sweet wild-wood, --singing with the birds and the bloomssongs that you cannot hear; but they are heard by the silent stars, singing on and on into a broader and deeper destiny, till it pours, oneday, its last earthly note, and becomes forevermore the unutterable sea. 

And you are nothing but a ditch. 

No, my friend, Lucy will drive with you, and to talk to you, and singyour songs; she will take care of you, and pray for you, and cry whenyou go to the war; if she is not your daughter or your sister, shewill, perhaps, in a moment of weakness or insanity, marry you; she willbe a faithful wife, and float you to the end; but if you wish to be herlove, her hero, her ideal, her delight, her spontaneity, her utter restand ultimatum, you must attune your soul to fine issues, --you mustbring out the angel in you, and keep the brute under. It is not thatyou shall stop making shoes, and begin to write poetry. That is justas much discrimination as you have. Tell you to be gentle, and youthink we will have you dissolve into milk-and-water; tell you to bepolite, and you infer hypocrisy; to be neat, and you leap over intodandyism, fancying all the while that bluster is manliness. No, sir. You may make shoes, you may run engines, you may carry coals; you mayblow the huntsman's horn, hurl the base-ball, follow the plough, smitethe anvil; your face may be brown, your veins knotted, your handsgrimed; and yet you may be a hero. And, on the other hand, you maywrite verses and be a clown. It is not necessary to feed on ambrosiain order to become divine; nor shall one be accursed, though he drinkof the ninefold Styx. The Israelites ate angels' food in thewilderness, and remained stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart andears. The white water-lily feeds on slime, and unfolds a heavenlyglory. Come as the June morning comes. It has not picked its waydaintily, passing only among the roses. It has breathed up the wholeearth. It has blown through the fields and barnyards and all thecommon places of the land. It has shrunk from nothing. Its purity hasbreasted and overborne all things, and so mingled and harmonized allthat it sweeps around your forehead and sinks into your heart as softand sweet and pure as the fragrancy of Paradise. So come you, roughfrom the world's rough work, all out-door airs blowing around you, andall your earth-smells clinging to you, but with a fine inward grace, sostrong, so sweet, so salubrious that it meets and masters all things, blending every faintest or foulest odor of earthliness into thegrateful incense of a pure and lofty life. 

Thus I read and mused in the soft summer fog, and the first I knew thecars had stopped, I was standing on the platform, and Coventry and hisknight were--where? Wandering up and down somewhere among theBerkshire hills. At some junction of roads, I suppose, I left them onthe cushion, for I have never beheld them since. Tell me, O yedaughters of Berkshire! have you seen them, --a princely pair, soreweary in your mountain-land, but regal still, through all theirtravel-stain? I pray you, entreat them hospitably, for their missionis "not of an age, but for all time. "

PART II. 

The descent from Patmore and poetry to New York is somewhat abrupt, notto say precipitous, but we made it in safety; and so shall you, if youwill be agile. 

New York is a pleasant little Dutch city, on a dot of island a fewmiles southwest of Massachusetts. For a city entirely unobtrusive andunpretending, it has really great attractions and solid merit; but thesuperior importance of other places will not permit me to tarry longwithin its hospitable walls. In fact, we only arrived late at night, and departed early the next morning; but even a six-hours sojourn gaveme a solemn and "realizing sense" of its marked worth, --for, when, tired and listless, I asked for a servant to assist me, the waiter saidhe would send the housekeeper. Accordingly, when, a few moments after, it knocked at the door with light, light finger, (see De la MotteFouque, ) I drawled, "Come in, " and the Queen of Sheba stood before me, clad in purple and fine linen, with rings on her fingers and bells onher toes. I stared in dismay, and perceived myself rapidlytransmigrating into a ridiculus mus. My gray and dingytravelling-dress grew abject, and burned into my soul like tunic ofNessus. I should as soon have thought of asking Queen Victoria tobrush out my hair as that fine lady in brocade silk and Mechlin lace. But she was good and gracious, and did not annihilate me on the spot, as she easily have done, for which I shall thank her as long as I live. 

"You sent for me?" she inquired, with the blandest accents imaginable. I can't tell a lie, pa, --you know I can't tell a lie; besides, I hadnot time to make up one, and I said, "Yes, " and then, of all stupiddevices that could filter into my brain, I must needs stammer out thatI should like a few matches! A pretty thing to bring a dowager duchessup nine pairs of stairs for!

"I will ring the bell, " she said, with a tender, reproachful sweetnessand dignity, which conveyed without unkindness the severest rebuketempered by womanly pity, and proceeded to instruct me in the natureand uses of the bell-rope, as she would any little dairy-maid who hadheard only the chime of cow-bells all the days of her life. Then shesailed out of the room, serene and majestic, like a seventy-fourman-of-war, while I, a squalid, salt-hay gunlow, (Venetian blind-edinto gondola, ) first sank down in confusion, and then rose up in furyand brushed all the hair out of my head. 

"I declare, " I said to Halicarnassus, when we were fairly beyondear-shot of the city next morning, "I don't approve of sumptuary laws, and I like America to be the El Dorado of the poor man, and I go forthe largest liberty of the individual; but I do think there ought to bea clause in the Constitution providing that servants shall not bedressed and educated and accomplished up to the point of making peopleuncomfortable. "

"No, " said Halicarnassus, sleepily; "perhaps it wasn't a servant. "

"Well, " I said, having looked at it in that light silently for half anhour, and coming to the surface in another place, "if I could dress andcarry myself like that, I would not keep tavern. "

"Oh! eh?" yawning; "who does?"

"Mrs. Astor. Of course nobody less rich than Mrs. Astor could goup-stairs and down-stairs and in my lady's chamber in Shiraz silk andgold of Ophir. Why, Cleopatra was nothing to her. I make no doubt sheuses gold-dust for sugar in her coffee every morning; and as for thethree miserable little wherries that Isabella furnished Columbus, andhistorians have towed through their tomes ever since, if you know ofanybody that has a continent he wishes to discover, send him to thishousekeeper, and she can fit out a fleet of transports and Monitors forconvoy with one of her bracelets. "

"I don't, " said Halicarnassus, rubbing his eyes. 

"I only wish, " I added, "that she would turn Rebel so that governmentmight confiscate her. Paper currency would go up at once from thesudden influx of gold, and the credit of the country receive a newlease of life. She must be a lineal descendant of Sir Roger deCoverley, for sure her finger sparkles with a hundred of his richestacres. "

Before bidding a final farewell to New York, I venture to make a singleremark. I regret to be forced to confess that I greatly fear even thisvirtuous little city has not escaped quite free, the generaldeterioration of morals and manners. The New York hackmen, forinstance, are very obliging and attentive; but if it would not seemungrateful, I would hazard the statement that their attentions areunremitting to the degree being almost embarrassing, and proffered tothe verge of obtrusiveness. I think, in short, that they are hardlyquite delicate in their politeness. They press their hospitality onyou till you sigh for a little marked neglect. They are not contentwith simple statement. They offer you their hack, for instance. Youdecline with thanks. They say that they will carry you to any part ofthe city. Where is the pertinence of that, if you do not wish to go?But they not only say it, they repeat it, they dwell upon it as if itwere a cardinal virtue. Now you have never expressed or entertainedthe remotest suspicion that they would not carry you to any part of thecity. You have not the slightest intention or desire to discredittheir assertion. The only trouble is, as I said before, you do notwish to go to any part of the city. Very few people have time to driveabout in that general way; and surely, when you have once distinctlyinformed them that you do not design to inspect New York, they ought tosee plainly that you cannot change your whole plan of operations out ofgratitude to them, and that the part of true politeness is to withdraw. But they even go beyond a censurable urgency; for an old gentleman andlady, evidently unaccustomed to travelling, had given themselves incharge of a driver, who placed them in his coach, leaving the door openwhile he went back seeking whom he might devour. Presently a rivalcoachman came up and said to the aged and respectable couple, --

"Here's a carriage all ready to start. "

"But, " replied the lady, "we have already told the gentleman who drivesthis coach that we would go with him. "

"Catch me to go in that coach, if I was you!" responded the wickedcoachman. "Why, that coach has had the small-pox in it. "

The lady started up in horror. At that moment the first driverappeared again; and Satan entered into me, and I felt in my heart thatI should like to see a fight; and then conscience stepped up and drovehim away, but consoled me by the assurance that I should see the fightall the same, for such duplicity deserved the severest punishment, andit was my duty to make an expose and vindicate helpless innocenceimposed upon in the persons of that worthy pair. Accordingly I said tothe driver, as he passed me, --

"Driver, that man in the gray coat is trying to frighten the old ladyand gentleman away from your coach, by telling them it has had thesmall-pox. "

Oh! but did not the fire flash into his honest eyes, and leap into hisswarthy cheek, and nerve his brawny arm, and clinch his horny fist, ashe marched straightway up to the doomed offender, fiercely denouncedhis dishonesty, and violently demanded redress? Ah! then and there washurrying to and fro, and eagerness and delight on every countenance, and a ring formed, and the prospect of a lovely "row, "--and I did it;but a police-officer sprang up, full-armed, from somewhere underground, and undid it all, and enforced a reluctant peace. 

And so we are at Saratoga. Now, of all places to stay at in thesummer-time, Saratoga is the very last one to choose. It may haveattractions in winter; but, if one wishes to rest and change and rootdown and shoot up and branch out, he might as well take lodgings in thewater-wheel of a saw-mill. The uniformity and variety will be much thesame. It is all a noiseless kind of din, narrow and intense. There isnothing in Saratoga nor of Saratoga to see or to hear or to feel. Theytell you of a lake. You jam into an omnibus and ride four miles. Thenyou step into a cockle-shell and circumnavigate a pond, so small thatit almost makes you dizzy to sail around it. This is the lake, --a verynice thing as far as it goes; but when it has to be constantly on dutyas the natural scenery of the whole surrounding country, it is puttingaltogether too fine a point on it. The picturesque people will informyou of an Indian encampment. You go to see it, thinking of the forestprimeval, and expecting to be transported back to tomahawks, scalps, and forefathers but you return without them, and that is all. I neverheard of anybody's going anywhere. In fact there did not seem to beanywhere to go. Any suggestion of mine to strike out into thechampaign was frowned down in the severest manner. As far as I couldsee, nobody ever did anything. There never was any plan on foot. Nothing was ever stirring. People sat on the piazza and sewed. Theywent to the springs, and the springs are dreadful. They bubble upsalts and senna. I never knew anything that pretended to be water thatwas half as bad. It has no one redeeming quality. It is bitter. It isgreasy. Every spring is worse than the last, whichever end you beginat. They told apocryphal stories of people's drinking sixteen glassesbefore breakfast; and yet it may have been true; for, if one couldbring himself to the point of drinking one glass of it, I shouldsuppose it would have taken such a force to enable him to do it that hemight go on drinking indefinitely, from the mere action of the originalimpulse. I should think one dose of it would render a personpermanently indifferent to savors, and make him, like Mithridates, poison-proof. Nevertheless, people go to the springs and drink. Thenthey go to the bowling-alleys and bowl. In the evening, if you arehilariously inclined, you can make the tour of the hotels. In one yousee a large and brilliantly lighted parlor, along the four sides ofwhich are women sitting, solemn and stately, in rows three deep, a mandropped in here and there, about as thick as periods on a page, veryyoung or very old or in white cravats. A piano or a band or somethingthat can make a noise makes it at intervals at one end of the room. They all look as if they waiting for something, but nothing inparticular happens. Sometimes, after the mountain has labored awhile, some little mouse of a boy and girl will get up, execute an antic ortwo and sit down again, when everything relapses into its originalsolemnity. At very long intervals somebody walks across the floor. There is a moderate fluttering of fans and an occasional whisper. Expectation interspersed with gimcracks seems to be the programme. Thegreater part of the dancing that I saw was done by boys and girls. Itwas pretty and painful. Nobody dances so well as children; no grace isequal to their grace; but to go into a hotel at ten o'clock at night, and see little things, eight, ten, twelve years old, who ought to be inbed and asleep, tricked out in flounces and ribbons and all theparaphernalia of ballet-girls, and dancing in the centre of a hollowsquare of strangers, --I call it murder in the first degree. What canmothers be thinking of to abuse their children so? Children arenaturally healthy and simple; why should they be spoiled? They willhave to plunge into the world full soon enough; why should the world beplunged into them? Physically, mentally, and morally, the innocentsare massacred. Night after night I saw the same children led out tothe slaughter, and as I looked I saw their round, red cheeks grow thinand white, their delicate nerves lose tone and tension, their brainsbecome feeble and flabby, their minds flutter out weakly in muslin andribbons, their vanity kindled by injudicious admiration, the sweetchild-unconsciousness withering away in the glare of indiscriminategazing, the innocence and simplicity and naturalness and childlikenessswallowed up in a seething whirlpool of artificialness, all the fine, golden butterfly-dust of modesty and delicacy and retiring girlhoodruthlessly rubbed off forever before girlhood had even reddened fromthe dim dawn of infancy. Oh! it is cruel to sacrifice children so. What can atone for a lost childhood? What can be given in recompensefor the ethereal, spontaneous, sharply defined, new, delicioussensations of a sheltered, untainted, opening life?

Thoroughly worked into a white heat of indignation, we leave the babesin the wood to be despatched by their ruffian relatives, and go toother hotel. A larger parlor, larger rows, but still three deep andsolemn. A tall man, with a face in which melancholy seems to be givingway to despair, a man most proper for an undertaker, but palpably outof place in a drawing-room, walks up and down incessantly, butnoiselessly, in a persistent endeavor to bring out a dance. Now hefastens upon a newly arrived man. Now he plants himself before a benchof misses. You can hear the low rumble of his exhortation and thetittering replies. After a persevering course of entreaty andpersuasion, a set is drafted, the music galvanizes, and the dancebegins. 

I like to see people do with their might whatsoever their hands ortheir tongues or their feet find to do. A half-and-half performance ofthe right is just about as mischievous as the perpetration of thewrong. It is vacillation, hesitation, lack of will, feebleness ofpurpose, imperfect execution, that works ill in all life. Be monarchof all you survey. If a woman decides to do her own housework, let hergo in royally among her pots and kettles, and set everything a-stewingand baking and broiling and boiling, as a queen might. If she decidesnot to do housework, but to superintend its doing, let her say to herservant, "Go, " and he goeth, to another, "Come, " and he cometh, to athird, "Do this, " and he doeth it, and not potter about. So, whengirls get themselves up and go to Saratoga for a regular campaign, lettheir bearing be soldierly. Let them be gay with abandonment. Letthem take hold of it as if they liked it. I do not affect the wordflirtation, but the thing itself is not half so criminal as one wouldthink from the animadversions visited upon it. Of course, a deliberatesetting yourself to work to make some one fall in love with you, forthe mere purpose of showing your power, is abominable, --or would be, ifanybody ever did it; but I do not suppose it ever was done, except infifth-rate novels. What I mean is, that it is entertaining, harmless, and beneficial for young people to amuse themselves with each other tothe top of their bent, if their bent is a natural and right one. A fewhearts may suffer accidental, transient injury; but hearts are likelimbs, all the stronger for being broken. Besides, where one man orwoman is injured by loving too much, nine hundred and ninety-nine diethe death from not loving enough. But these Saratoga girls did neitherone thing nor another. They dressed themselves in their best, making apoint of it, and failed. They assembled themselves together of setpurpose to be lively, and they were infectiously dismal. They did notdress well: one looked rustic; another was dowdyish; a third wasover-fine; a fourth was insignificant. Their bearing was not good, inthe main. They danced, and whispered, and laughed, and looked likemilkmaids. They had no style, no figure. Their shoulders were high, and their chests were flat, and they were one-sided, and theystooped, --all of which would have been no account, if they had onlybeen unconsciously enjoying themselves: but they consciously were not. It is possible that they thought they were happy, but I knew better. You are never happy, unless you are master of the situation; and theywere not. They endeavored to appear at ease, --a thing which people whoare at ease never do. They looked as if they had all their lives beenmeaning to go to Saratoga, and now they had got there and weredetermined not to betray any unwontedness. It was not the timid, eager, delighted, fascinating, graceful awkwardness of a new young girl; itwas not the careless, hearty, whole-souled enjoyment of an experiencedgirl; it was not the natural, indifferent, imperial queening it of anacknowledged monarch: but something that caught hold of the hem of thegarment of them all. It was they with the sheen damped off. So it wasnot imposing. I could pick you up a dozen girls straight along, rightout of the pantries and the butteries, right up from the washing-tubsand the sewing-machines, who should be abundantly able to "hoe theirrow" with them anywhere. In short, I was extremely disappointed. Iexpected to see the high fashion, the very birth and breeding, thecream cheese of the country, and it was skim-milk. If that is birth, one can do quite as well without being born at all. Occasionally youwould see a girl with gentle blood in her veins, whether it werebutcher-blood or banker-blood, but she only made the prevailingplebsiness more striking. Now I maintain that a woman ought to be veryhandsome or very clever, or else she ought to go to work and dosomething. Beauty is of itself a divine gift and adequate. "Beauty isits own excuse for being" anywhere. It ought not to be fenced in ormonopolized, any more than a statue or a mountain. It ought to be freeand common, a benediction to all weary wayfarers. It can never beprofaned; for it veils itself from the unappreciative eye, and shinesonly upon its worshippers. So a clever woman, whether she be a painteror a teacher or a dress-maker, --if she really has an object in life, acareer, she is safe. She is a power. She commands a realm. She ownsa world. She is bringing things to bear. Let her alone. But it is avery dangerous and a very melancholy thing common women to be "lying ontheir oars" long at a time. Some of these were, I suppose, whatWinthrop calls "business-women, fighting their way out of vulgarityinto style. " The process is rather uninteresting, but the result maybe glorious. Yet a good many of them were good honest, kind, commongirls, only demoralized by long lying around in a waiting posture. Ithad taken the fire and sparkle out of them. They were not in a healthystate. They were degraded, contracted, flaccid. They did not holdthemselves high. They knew that in a market-point of view there was afrightful glut of women. The usually small ratio of men was unusuallydiminished by the absence of those who gone to the war, and of thosewho, as was currently reported, were ashamed that they had not gone. Afew available men had it all their own way; the women were on thelookout for them, instead of being themselves looked out for. Theytalked about "gentlemen, " and being "companionable to GEN-tlemen, " andwho was "fascinating to GEN-tlemen, " till the "grand old name became anuisance. There was an under-current of unsated coquetry. I don'tsuppose they were any sillier than the rest of us; but when oursilliness is mixed in with housekeeping and sewing and teaching andreturning visits, it passes off harmless. When it is stripped of allthese modifiers, however, and goes off exposed to Saratoga, and meltsin with a hundred other sillinesses, it makes a great show. 

No, I don't like Saratoga. I don't think it is wholesome. No placecan be healthy that keeps up such an unmitigated dressing. 

"Where do you walk?" I asked an artless little lady. 

"O, almost always on the long piazza. It is so clean there, and wedon't like to soil our dresses. "

Now I ask if girls could ever get into that state in the natural courseof things! It is the result of bad habits. They cease to care forthings which they ought to like to do, and they devote themselves towhat ought to be only an incident. People dress in their best withoutbreak. They go to the springs before breakfast in shining raiment, andthey go into the parlor after supper in shining raiment, and it isshine, shine, shine, all the way between, and a different shine eachtime. You may well suppose that I was like an owl among birds ofParadise, for what little finery I had was in my (eminently)travelling-trunk: yet, though it was but a dory, compared with theNoah's arks that drove up every day, I felt that, if I could only onceget inside of it, I could make things fly to some purpose. Like poorRabette, I would show the city that the country too could wear clothes!I never walked down Broadway without seeing a dozen white trunks, andevery white trunk that I saw I was fully convinced was mine, if I couldonly get at it. By and by mine came, and I blossomed. I arrayedmyself for morning, noon, and night, and everything else that came up, and was, as the poet says, --

 "Prodigious in change, And endless in range, "--

for I would have scorned not to be as good as the best. The resultwas, that in three days I touched bottom. But then we went away, andmy reputation was saved. I don't believe anybody ever did a largerbusiness on a smaller capital; but I put a bold face on it. I cherishthe hope that nobody suspected I could not go on in that ruinous wayall summer, --I, who in three days had mustered into service every dressand sash and ribbon and that I had had in three years or expected tohave in three more. But I never will, if I can help it, hold my headdown where other people are holding their heads up. 

I would not be understood as decrying or depreciating dress. It is aduty as well as a delight. Mrs. Madison is reported to have said thatshe would never forgive a young lady who did not dress to please, orone who seemed pleased with her dress. And not only young ladies, butold ladies and old gentlemen, and everybody, ought to make their dressa concord and not a discord. But Saratoga is pitched on a perpetualfalsetto, and stuns you. One becomes sated with an interminable piecede resistance of full dress. At the seaside you bathe; at themountains you put on stout boots and coarse frocks and go a-fishing;but Saratoga never "lets up, "--if I may be pardoned the phrase. Consequently, you see much of crinoline and little of character. Youhave to get at the human nature just as Thoreau used to get atbird-nature and fish-nature and turtle-nature, by sitting perfectlystill in one place and waiting patiently till it comes out. You seemore of the reality of people in a single day's tramp than in twentydays of guarded monotone. Now I cannot conceive of any reason whypeople should go to Saratoga, except to see people. True, as a generalthing, they are the last objects you desire to see, when you aresummering. But if one has been cooped up in the house or blocked up inthe country during the nine months of our Northern winter, he may havea mighty hunger and thirst, when he is thawed out, to see human facesand hear human voices; but even then Saratoga is not the place to goto, on account of this very artificialness. By artificial I do notmean deceitful. I saw nobody but nice people there, smooth, kind, andpolite. By artificial I mean wrought up. You don't get at the heartof things. Artificialness spreads and spans all with a crystalbarrier, --invisible, but palpable. Nothing was left to grow and go atits own sweet will. The very springs were paved and pavilioned. Forgreen fields and welling fountains and a possibility of brooks, whichone expects from the name, you found a Greek temple, and apleasure-ground, graded and grassed and pathed like a cemetery, whereinnymphs trod daintily in elaborate morning-costume. Everything tookpattern and was elaborate. Nothing was left to the imagination, thetaste, the curiosity. A bland, smooth, smiling surface baffled andblinded you, and threatened profanity. Now profanity is wicked andvulgar; but if you listen to the reeds next summer, I am not sure thatyou will not hear them whispering, under, "Thunder!"

For the restorative qualities of Saratoga I have nothing to say. I waswell when I went there; nor did my experience ever furnish me with anydisease that I should consider worse than an intermittent attack of herspring waters. But whatever it may do for the body, I do not believeit is for the soul. I do not believe that such places, such scenes, such a fashion of life ever nourishes a vigorous womanhood or manhood. Taken homeopathically, it may be harmless; but become a habit, anecessity, it must vitiate, enervate, destroy. Men can stand it, forthe sea-breezes and the mountain-breezes may have full sweep throughtheir life; but women cannot, for they just go home and live air-tight. 

If the railroad-men at Saratoga tell you that you can go straight fromthere to the foot of Lake George, don't you believe a word of it. Perhaps you can, and perhaps you cannot; but you are not any morelikely to "can" for their saying so. We left Saratoga forFort-William-Henry Hotel in full faith of an afternoon ride and asunset arrival, based on repeated and unhesitating assurances to thateffect. Instead of which, we went a few miles, and were then dumpedinto a blackberry-patch, where we were informed that we must wait sevenhours. So much for the afternoon ride through summer fields and"Sunset on Lake George, " from the top of a coach. But I made nounmanly laments, for we were out of Saratoga, and that was happiness. We were among cows and barns and homely rail-fences, and that wascomfort; so we strolled contentedly through the pasture, found ariver, --I believe it was the Hudson; at any rate, Halicarnassus saidso, though I don't imagine he knew; but he would take oath it wasAcheron rather than own up to ignorance on any point whatever, --watchedthe canal-boats and boatmen go down, marvelled at the arbor-vitae treesgrowing wild along the river-banks, green, hale, stately, andsymmetrical, against the dismal mental background of two littleconsumptive shoots bolstered up in our front yard at home, and dyingdaily, notwithstanding persistent and affectionate nursing with"flannels and rum, " and then we went back to the blackberry-station andinquired whether there was nothing celebrated in the vicinity to whichvisitors of received Orthodox creed should dutifully pay theirrespects, and were gratified to learn that we were but a few miles fromJane McCrea and her Indian murderers. Was a carriage procurable?Well, yes, if the ladies would be willing to go in that. It wasn'tvery smart, but it would take 'em safe, --as if "the ladies" would haveraised any objections to going in a wheelbarrow, had it been necessary, and so we bundled in. The hills were steep, and our horse, theproperty of an adventitious by-stander, was of the Rosinante breed; wewere in no hurry, seeing that the only thing awaiting us this side thesunset was a blackberry-patch without any blackberries, and we walkedup hill and scraped down, till we got into a lane which somebody toldus led to the Fort, from which the village, Fort Edward, takes itsname. But, instead of a fort, the lane ran full tilt against a pair ofbars. 

"Now we are lost, " I said, sententiously. 

"A gem of countless price, " pursued Halicarnassus, who never quotespoetry except to destroy my equilibrium. 

"How long will it be profitable to remain here?" asked Grande, when wehad sat immovable and speechless for the space of five minutes. 

"There seems to be nowhere else to go. We have got to the end, " saidHalicarnassus, roaming as to his eyes over into the wheat-field beyond. 

"We might turn, " suggested the Anakim, looking bright. 

"How can you turn a horse in this knitting-needle of a lane?" Idemanded. 

"I don't know, " replied Halicarnassus, dubiously, "unless I take him upin my arms, and set him down with his head the other way, "--andimmediately turned him deftly in a corner about half as large as thewagon. 

The next lane we came to was the right one, and being narrow, rocky, and rough, we left our carriage and walked. 

A whole volume of the peaceful and prosperous history of our belovedcountry could be read in the fact that the once belligerent, life-saving, death-dealing fort was represented by a hen-coop; yet Iwas disappointed. I was hungry for a ruin, --some visible hint of thepast. Such is human nature, --ever prone to be more impressed by adisappointment of its own momentary gratification than by the mostobvious well-being of a nation but, glad or sorry, of Fort Edward wasnot left one stone upon another. Several single stones lay about, promiscuous rather than belligerent. Flag-staff and palisades livedonly in a few straggling bean-poles. For the heavy booming of cannonrose the "quauk!" of ducks and the cackling of hens. We went to thespot which tradition points out as the place where Jane McCrea met herdeath. River flowed, and raftsmen sang below; women stood at theirwashing-tubs, and white-headed children stared at us from above; norfrom the unheeding river or the forgetful weeds came or cry or faintestwail of pain. 

When we were little, and geography and history were but printed wordson white paper, not places and events, Jane McCrea was to us nosuffering woman, but a picture of a low-necked, long-skirted, scantydress, long hair grasped by a naked Indian, and two unnatural-lookinghands raised in entreaty. It was interesting as a picture, but itexcited no pity, no horror, because it was only a picture. We neversaw women dressed in that style. We knew that women did not takejourneys through woods without bonnet or shawl, and we spread a veil ofignorant, indifferent incredulity over the whole. But as we grow up, printed words take on new life. The latent fire in them lights up andglows. The mystic words throb with vital heat, and burn down into oursouls to an answering fire. As we stand, on this soft summer day, bythe old tree which tradition declares to have witnessed that fatefulscene, we go back into a summer long ago, but fair, and just like this. Jane McCrea is no longer a myth, but a young girl, blooming andbeautiful with the roses of her seventeen years. Farther back still, we see an old man's darling, little Jenny of the Manse, a light-heartedchild, with sturdy Scotch blood leaping in her young veins, --then atender orphan, sheltered by a brother's care, --then a gentle maiden, light-hearted no longer, heavy-freighted, rather, but with a pricelessburden, --a happy girl, to whom love calls with stronger voice thanbrother's blood, stronger even than life. Yonder in the woods lurkwily and wary foes. Death with unspeakable horrors lies in ambushthere; but yonder also stands the soldier lover, and possible greeting, after long, weary absence, is there. What fear can master thatoverpowering hope? Estrangement of families, political disagreement, aseparated loyalty, all melt away, are fused together in the warmth ofgirlish love. Taxes, representation, what things are these to comebetween two hearts? No Tory, no traitor is her lover, but her ownbrave hero and true knight. Woe! woe! the eager dream is broken by madwar-whoops! alas! to those fierce wild men, what is love, orloveliness? Pride, and passion, and the old accursed hunger for goldflame up in their savage breasts. Wrathful, loathsome fingers clutchthe long, fair hair that even the fingers of love have caressed butwith reverent half-touch, --and love and hope and life go out in onedread moment of horror and despair. Now, through the reverberations ofmore than fourscore years, through all the tempest-rage of a war moreawful than that, and fraught, we hope, with a grander joy, a clear, young voice, made sharp with agony, rings through the shuddering woods, cleaves up through the summer sky, and wakens in every heart a thrillof speechless pain. Along these peaceful banks I see a bowed formwalking, youth in his years, but deeper furrows in his face than canplough, stricken down from the heights of ambition and desire, all thevigor and fire of manhood crushed and quenched beneath the horror ofone fearful memory. 

Sweet summer sky, bending above us soft and saintly, beyond your bluedepths is there not Heaven?

"We may as well give Dobbin his oats here, " said Halicarnassus. 

We had brought a few in a bag for luncheon, thinking it might help himover the hills. So the wagon was rummaged, the bag brought to light, and I was sent to one of the nearest houses to get something for him toeat out of. I did not think to ask what particular vessel to inquirefor; but after I had knocked, I decided upon a meat-platter or apudding-dish, and with the good woman's permission finally took both, that Halicarnassus might have his choice. 

"Which is the best?" I asked, holding them up. 

He surveyed them carefully, and then said, --

"Now run right back and get a tumbler for him to drink out of, and ateaspoon to feed him with. "

I started in good faith, from a mere habit of unquestioning obedience, but with the fourth step my reason returned to me, and I returned toHalicarnassus and--kicked him. That sounds very dreadful and horrible, and it is, if you are thinking of a great, brutal, brogan kick, such asa stupid farmer gives to his patient oxen; but not, if you mean only adelicate, compact, penetrative nudge with the toe of a tight-fittinggaiter, --addressed rather to the conscience than the sole, to thesensibilities rather than the senses. The kick masculine is coarse, boorish, unmitigated, predicable only of Calibans. The kick feminine isexpressive, suggestive, terse, electric, --an indispensable instrumentin domestic discipline, as women will bear me witness, and not at allincompatible with beauty, grace, and amiability. But, right or wrong, after all this interval of rest and reflection, in full view of all thecircumstances, my only regret is that I did not kick him harder. 

"Now go and fetch your own tools!" I cried, shaking off the yoke ofservitude. "I won't be your stable-boy any longer!"

Then, perforce, he gathered up the crockery, marched off in disgrace, and came back with a molasses-hogshead, or a wash-tub, or some suchovergrown mastodon, to turn his sixpenny-worth of oats into. 

Having fed our mettlesome steed, the next thing was to water him. TheAnakim remembered to have seen a pump with a trough somewhere, and theyproposed to reconnoitre while we should "wait BY the wagon" theirreturn. No, I said we would drive on to the pump, while they walked. 

"You drive!" ejaculated Halicarnassus, contemptuously. 

Now I do not, as a general thing, have an overweening respect forfemale teamsters. There is but one woman in the world to whose hands Iconfide the reins and my bones with entire equanimity; and she says, that, when she is driving, she dreads of all things to meet a drivingwoman. If a man said this, it might be set down to prejudice. I don'tmake any account of Halicarnassus's assertion, that, if two womenwalking in the road on a muddy day meet a carriage, they never keeptogether, but invariably one runs to the right and one to the left, sothat the driver cannot favor them at all, but has to crowd betweenthem, and drive both into the mud. That is palpably interested falsewitness. He thinks it is fine fun to push women into the mud, andframes such flimsy excuses. But as a woman's thoughts about women, this woman's utterances are deserving of attention; and she says thatwomen are not to be depended upon. She is never sure that they willnot turn out on the wrong side. They are nervous; they are timid; theyare unreasoning; they are reckless. They will give a horse adisconnected, an utterly inconsequent "cut, " making him spring, to thejeopardy of their own and others' safety. They are not concentrative, and they are not infallibly courteous, as men are. I remember I wasdriving with her once between Newburyport and Boston. It was gettinglate, and we were very desirous to reach our destination beforenightfall. Ahead of us a woman and a girl were jogging along in acountry wagon. As we wished to go much faster than they, we turnedaside to pass them; but just as we were well abreast, the woman startedup her horse, and he skimmed over the ground like a bird. We laughed, and followed, well content. But after he had gone perhaps an eighth ofa mile, his speed slackened down to the former jog-trot. Three timeswe attempted to pass before we really comprehended the fact that thatinfamous woman was deliberately detaining and annoying us. The thirdtime, when we had so nearly passed them that our horse was turning intothe road again, she struck hers up so suddenly and unexpectedly thather wheels almost grazed ours. Of course, understanding her game, weceased the attempt, having no taste for horse-racing; and nearly allthe way from Newburyport to Rowley, she kept up that brigandry, joggingon, and forcing us to jog on, neither going ahead herself nor sufferingus to do so, --a perfect and most provoking dog in a manger. Hergirl-associate would look behind every now and then to takeobservations, and I mentally hoped that the frisky Bucephalus wouldfrisk his mistress out of the cart and break her ne--arm, or at leastput her shoulder out of joint. If he did, I had fully determined in myown mind to hasten to her assistance, and shame her to death withdelicate and assiduous kindness. But fate lingered like all the restof us. She reached Rowley in safety, and there our roads separated. Whether she stopped there, or drove into Ethiopian wastes beyond, Icannot say; but have no doubt that the milk which she carried intoNewburyport to market was blue, the butter frowy, and the potatoesexceedingly small. 

Now do you mean to tell me that any man would have been guilty of sucha thing? I don't mean, would have committed such discourtesy to awoman? Of course not; but would a man ever do it to a man? Never. Hemight try it once or twice, just for fun, just to show off his horse, but he never would have persisted in it till a joke became an insult, not to say a possible injury. 

Still, as I was about to say, when that Rowley jade interrupted me, though I have small faith in Di-Vernonism generally, and no large faithin my own personal prowess, I did feel myself equal to the task ofholding the reins while our Rosinante walked along an open road to apump. I therefore resented Halicarnassus's contemptuous tones, mountedthe wagon with as much dignity as wagons allow, sat straight as anarrow on the driver's seat, took the reins in both hands, --as they usedto tell me I must not, when I was a little girl, because that waswomen's way, but I find now that men have adopted it, so I suppose itis all right, --and proceeded to show, like Sam Patch, that some thingscan be done as well as others. Halicarnassus and the Anakim took uptheir position in line on the other side of the road, hat in hand, watching. 

"Go fast, and shame them, " whispered Grande, from the back-seat, andthe suggestion jumped with my own mood. It was a moment of intenseexcitement. To be or not to be. I jerked the lines. Pegasus did notstart. 

"C-l-k-l-k!" No forward movement. 

"Huddup!" Still waiting for reinforcements. 

"H-w-e. " (Attempt at a whistle. Dead failure. )

(Sotto voce. ) "O you beast!" (Pianiassimo. ) "Gee! Haw! haw! haw!"with a terrible jerking of the reins. 

A voice over the way, distinctly audible, utters the cabalistic words, "Two forty. " Another voice, as audible, asks, "Which'll you bet on?"It was not soothing. It did seem as if the imp of the perverse hadtaken possession of that terrible nag to go and make such a display atsuch a moment. But as his will rose, so did mine, and my will went up, my whip went with it; but before it came down, Halicarnassus made shiftto drone out, "Wouldn't Flora go faster, if she was untied?"

To be sure, I had forgotten to unfasten him, and there those two menhad stood and known it all the time! I was in the wagon, so they weresecure from personal violence, but I have a vague impression of some"pet names" flying wildly about in the air in that vicinity. Then wetrundled safely down the lane. We were to go in the direction leadingaway from home, --the horse's. I don't think he perceived it at first, but as soon he did snuff the fact, which happened when he had goneperhaps three rods, he quietly turned around and headed the other way, paying no more attention to my reins or my terrific "whoas!" than if Iwere a sleeping babe. A horse is none of your woman's-rights men. Heis Pauline. He suffers not the woman to usurp authority over him. Henever says anything nor votes anything, but declares himselfunequivocally by taking things into his own hands, whenever he knowsthere is nobody but a woman behind him, --and somehow he always doesknow. After Halicarnassus had turned him back and set him going theright way, I took on a gruff, manny voice, to deceive. Nonsense! Icould almost see him snap his fingers at me. He minded my whip no morethan he did a fly, --not so much as he did some flies. Grande said shesupposed his back was all callous. I acted upon the suggestion, kneltdown in the bottom of the wagon, and leaned over the dasher to whip himon his belly, then climbed out on the shafts and snapped about hisears; but he stood it much better than I. Finally I found that bytaking the small end of the wooden whip-handle, and sticking it intohim, I could elicit a faint flash of light; so I did it with assiduity, but the moderate trot which even that produced was not enough toaccomplish my design, which was to outstrip the two men and make themrun or beg. The opposing forces arrived at the pump about the sametime. 

Halicarnassus took the handle, and gave about five jerks. Then theAnakim took it and gave five more. Then they both stopped and wipedtheir faces. 

"What do you suppose this pump was put here for?" asked Halicarnassus. 

"A milestone, probably, " replied the Anakim. 

Then they resumed their Herculean efforts till the water came, and thenthey got into the wagon, and we drove into the blackberries once more, where we arrived just in season to escape a thunder-shower, and pilemerrily into one of several coaches waiting to convey passengers invarious directions as soon as the train should come. 

It is very selfish, but fine fun, to have secured your own chosen seatand bestowed your own luggage, and have nothing to do but witness theanxieties and efforts of other people. The exquisite pleasure weenjoyed for fifteen minutes, edified at the last by hearing one of ourcoachmen call out, "Here, Rosey, this way!"--whereupon a manly voice, in the darkness, near us, soliloquized, "Respectful way of addressing ajudge of the Supreme Court!" and, being interrogated, the voiceinformed us that "Rosey" was the vulgate for Judge Rosecranz; whereuponHalicarnassus over the rampant democracy by remarking that thediminutive was probably a term of endearment rather than familiarity;whereupon the manly voice--if I might say it--snickered audibly in thedarkness, and we all relapsed into silence. But could anything be morecharacteristic of a certain phase of the manners of our great andglorious country? Where are the Trollopes? Where is Dickens? Where isBasil Hall?

It is but a dreary ride to Lake George on a dark and rainy evening, unless people like riding for its own sake, as I do. If there are sunsand stars and skies, very well. If there are not, very well too: Ilike to ride all the same. I like everything in this world butSaratoga. Once or twice our monotony was broken up by short haltsbefore country inns. At one an excitement was going on. "Had acasualty here this afternoon, " remarked a fresh passenger, as soon ashe was fairly seated. A casualty is a windfall to a country village. It is really worth while to have a head broken occasionally, for thewholesome stirring-up it gives to the heads that are not broken. Onthe whole, I question whether collisions and collusions do not cause asmuch good as harm. Certainly, people seem to take the most livelysatisfaction in receiving and imparting all the details concerningthem. Our passenger-friend opened his budget with as much complacenceas ever did Mr. Gladstone or Disraeli, and with a confident air ofknowing that he was going not only to enjoy a piece of good-fortunehimself, but to administer a great gratification to us. Our "casualty"turned out to be the affair of a Catholic priest, of which our informerspoke only in dark hints and with significant shoulder-shrugs andeyebrow-elevations, because it was "not exactly the thing to get out, you know"; but if it wasn't to get out, why did he let it out? and sofrom my dark corner I watched him as a cat does a mouse, and thelamp-light shone full upon him, and I understood every word and shrug, and I am going to tell it all to the world. I translated that the holyfather had been "skylarking" in a boat, and in gay society hadforgotten his vows of frugality and abstinence and generalmortification of the flesh, and had become, not very drunk, but drunkenough to be dangerous, when he came ashore and took a horse in hishands, and so upset his carriage, and gashed his temporal artery, andcame to grief, which is such a casualty as does not happen every day, and I don't blame people for making the most of it. Then the moral waspointed, the tale adorned, and the impression deepened, solemnized, andstruck home by the fact that the very horse concerned in the "casualty"was to be fastened behind our coach, and the whole population came outwith interns and umbrellas to tie him on, --all but one man, who wasdeaf, and stood on the piazza, anxious and eager to know everythingthat had been and was still occurring, and yet sorry to give trouble, and so compromising the matter and making it worse, as compromisersgenerally do, by questioning everybody with a deprecating, fawning air. 

Item. We shall all, if we live long enough, be deaf, but we need notbe meek about it. I for one am determined to walk up to people anddemand what they are saying at the point of the bayonet. Deafness, ifit must be so, but independence at any rate. 

And when the fulness of time is come, we alight at Fort-William-HenryHotel, and all night long through the sentient woods I hear the boomingof Johnson's cannon, the rattle of Dieskan's guns, and that wildwar-whoop, more terrible than all. Again old Monro watches from hisfortress-walls the steadily approaching foe, and looks in vain forhelp, save to his own brave heart. I see the light of conquest shiningin his foeman's eye, darkened by the shadow of the fate that waits hiscoming on a bleak Northern hill but, generous in the hour of victory, he shall not be less noble in defeat, --for to generous hearts allgenerous hearts are friendly, whether they stand face to face or sideby side. 

Over the woods and the waves, when the morning breaks, like abridegroom coming forth from his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man torun a race, comes up the sun in his might and crowns himself king. Allthe summer day, from morn to dewy eve, we sail over the lakes ofParadise. Blue waters, and blue sky, soft clouds and green islands, and fair, fruitful shores, sharp-pointed hills, long, gentle slopes andswells, and the lights and shadows of far-stretching woods; and overall the potence of the unseen past, the grand, historic past, --softover all the invisible mantle which our fathers flung at theirdeparting, --the mystic effluence of the spirits that trod these wildsand sailed these waters, --the courage and the fortitude, the hope thatbattled against hope, the comprehensive outlook, the sagacious purpose, the resolute will, the unhesitating self-sacrifice, the undaunteddevotion which has made this heroic ground; cast these into your ownglowing crucible, O gracious friend, and crystallize for yourself sucha gem of days as shall worthily be set forever in your crown of thebeatitudes. 

PART III. 

Sometimes I become disgusted with myself. Not very often, it is true, for I don't understand the self-abhorrence that I occasionally see longdrawn out in the strictly private printed diaries of good dead people. A man's self-knowledge, as regards his Maker, is a matter that liesonly between his Maker and himself, of which no printed or written(scarcely even spoken) words can give, or ought to give, a truetranscript; but in respect of our relations to other people I supposewe may take tolerably accurate views, and state them withoutwickedness, if it comes in the way; and since the general trend ofopinion seems to be towards excessive modesty, I will sacrifice myselfto the good of society, and say that, in the main, I think I am arather "nice" sort of person. Of course I do a great many things, andsay a great many things, and think a great many things, that I oughtnot; but when I think of the sins that I don't commit, --the many timeswhen I feel cross enough to "bite a ten-penny nail in two, " and onlybite my lips, --the sacrifices I make for other people, and don'tmention it, and they themselves never know it, --the quiet cheerfulnessI maintain when the fire goes out, or unexpected guests arrive andthere is no bread in the house, or my manuscript is respectfullydeclined by that infatuated editor, --when I reflect upon these things, and a thousand others like unto them, I must say, I am lost inadmiration of my own virtues. You may not like me, but that is a meredifference of taste. At any rate, I like myself very well, and findmyself very good company. Many a laugh, and "lots" or "heaps"(according as you are a Northern or a Southern provincial) ofconversation we have all alone, and are usually on exceeding goodterms, which is a pleasure, even when other people like me, and animmense consolation when they don't. But as I was saying, I dosometimes fall out with myself, and with human nature in general (and, in fact, I rather think the secret of self-complacence lurks somewherehereabouts, --in a mental assumption that our virtues are our own, butour faults belong to the race). But to think that we were so puny andpuerile that we could not stand the beauty that breathed around us! Ido not mean that it killed us, but it drained us. It did not cease tobe beautiful, but we ceased to be overpowered. When the day began, eyeand soul were filled with the light that never was on sea or shore. Wespoke low and little, gazing with throbbing hearts, breathless, receptive, solemn, and before twelve o'clock we flatted out and madejests. This is humiliation, --that our dullard souls cannot keep up tothe pitch of sublimity for two hours; that we could sail through Gloryand Beauty, through Past and Present, and laugh. Low as I sank withthe rest, though, I do believe I held out the longest: but what canone frail pebble do against a river? "How pretty cows look in alandscape, " I said; for you know, even if you must come down, it isbetter to roll down an inclined plane than to drop over a precipice;and I thought, since I saw that descent was inevitable, I would atleast engineer the party gently through aesthetics to puns. So I said, "How pretty cows look in a landscape, so calm and reflective, and sheepharmoniously happy in the summer-tide. "

"Yes, " said the Anakim, who is New Hampshire born; "but you ought tosee the New Hampshire sheep, if you want the real article. "

"I don't, " I responded. "I only want the picture. "

"Ever notice the difference between Vermont and New Hampshire sheep?"struck up Halicarnassus, who must always put in his oar. 

"No, " I said, "and I don't believe there is any. "

"Pooh! Tell New Hampshire sheep as far off as you can see 'em, " hepersisted, "by their short legs and long noses. Short legs to bring'em near the grass, and long noses to poke under the rocks and get it. "

"Yes, my boy, yes, " said the Anakim pleasantly. "I O U 1"

"He hath made everything beautiful in his time, " murmured Grande, partly because, gazing at the distant prospect, she thought so, andpartly as a praiseworthy attempt, in her turn, to pluck us out of theslough into which we had fallen. 

"I have heard, " said Halicarnassus, who is always lugging in littlescraps of information apropos to everything, --"I have been told thatDr. Alexander was so great an admirer of the Proverbs of Solomon, thathe used to read them over every three months. "

"I beg your pardon, " I interposed, glad of the opportunity to correctand humiliate him, "but that was not one of the Proverbs of Solomon. "

"Who said it was?" asked the Grand Mogul, savagely. 

"Nobody; but you thought it was when she said it, " answered hisantagonist, coolly. 

"And whose proverb is it, my Lady Superior?"

"It is in Ecclesiastes, " I said. 

"Well, Ecclesiastes is next door to Solomon. It's all one. "Halicarnassus can creep through the smallest knot-hole of any man ofhis size it has ever been my lot to meet, provided there is anything onthe other side he wishes to get at. If there is not, and especially ifanything is there which he wishes to shun, a four hundred and fiftypounder cannot crash a hole large enough for you to push him through. By such a pitiful chink as that did his Infallible Highness wrigglehimself out of the range of my guns, and pursue his line of remark. 

"But I really cannot say that I have been able to detect the excessivesuperiority of Solomon's proverbs. If it were not for the name of it, I think Sancho Panza's much better. "

"Taisez-vous. Hold your tongue, " I said, without mitigation. If thereis anything I cannot away with, it is trivial apostasy. I toleratelatitudinarianism when it is hereditary. Where people's fathers andmothers before them have been Pagans, and Catholics, and Mohammedans, you don't blame THEM for being so. You regret their error, and striveto lead them back into the right path; only they are not inflammatory. But to have people go out from the faith of their fathers with maliceaforethought and their eyes open--well, that is not exactly what I meaneither. That is a sorrowful, but not necessarily an exasperatingthing. What I mean is this: I see people Orthodox from their cradles, (and probably only from their cradles, certainly not from theirbrains, ) who think it is something pretty to become Unitarianistic. They don't become Unitarians, as they never were Orthodox, because theyhave not thought enough or sense enough to become or to be anything;but they like to make a stir and attract attention. They seem to thinkit indicates great liberality of character, and great breadth of view, to be continually flinging out against their own faith, ridiculingthis, that, and the other point held by their Church, and shockingdevout and simple-minded Orthodox by their quasi-profanity. Now forgood Orthodox Christians I have a great respect; and for good UnitarianChristians I have a great respect; and for sincere, sad seekers, whocan find no rest for the sole of their foot, I have a great respect;but for these Border State men, who are neither here nor there, on whomyou never can lay your hand, because they are twittering everywhere, Ihave a profound contempt. I wish people to be either one thing oranother. I desire them to believe something, and know what it is, andstick to it. I have no patience with this modern outcry againstcreeds. You hear people inveigh against them, without for a momentthinking what they are. They talk as if creeds were the head and frontof human offending, the infallible sign of bigotry and hypocrisy, incompatible alike with piety and wisdom. Do not these wise men knowthat the thinkers and doers of the earth, in overwhelming majority, have been creed men? Creeds may exist without religion, but neitherreligion, nor philosophy, nor politics, nor society, can exist withoutcreeds. There must be a creed in the head, or there cannot be religionin the heart. You must believe that Deity exists, before you canreverence Deity. You must believe in the fact of humanity, or youcannot love your fellows. A creed is but the concentration, thecrystallization, of belief. Truth is of but little worth till it is socrystallized. Truth lying dissolved in oceans of error and nonsenseand ignorance makes but a feeble diluent. It swashes everywhere, butto deluge, not to benefit. Precipitate it, and you have the salt ofthe earth. Political opposition, inorganic, is but a blind, cumbrous, awkward, inefficient thing; but construct a platform, and immediatelyit becomes lithe, efficient, powerful. Even before they set foot onthese rude shores, our forefathers made a compact, and a nation wasborn in that day. It is on creeds that strong men are nourished, andthat which nourishes the leaders into eminence is necessary to keep themasses from sinking. A man who really thinks, will think his way intolight. He may turn many a somersault, but he will come right side upat last. But people in general do not think, and if they refuse to bewalled in by other people's thoughts, they inevitably flop and flounderinto pitiable prostration. So important is it, that a poor creed isbetter than none at all. Truth, even adulterated as we get it, is atonic. Bring forward something tangible, something positive, somethingthat means something, and it will do. But this flowery, misty, dreamyhumanitarianism, --I say humanitarianism, because I don't know what thatis, and I don't know what the thing I am driving at is, so I put thetwo unknown quantities together in a mathematical hope that minus intominus may give plus, --this milk-and-watery muddle of dreary negations, that remits the world to its original fluidic state of chaos, I spew itout of my mouth. It was not on such pap our Caesars fed that made themgrow so great. I believe that the common people of early New Englandwere such lusty men, because they strengthened themselves by gnawing attheir tough old creeds. Give one something to believe, and he can getat it and believe it; but set out butting your head against nothing, and the chances are that you will break your neck. Take a good stoutChristian, or a good sturdy Pagan, and you find something to bring upagainst; but with nebulous vapidists you are always slumping throughand sprawling everywhere. 

Of course, I do not mean that sincere and sensible people never changenor modify their faith. I wish to say, for its emphasis, if you willallow me, that they never do anything else; but generally the change isa gradual and natural one, --a growth, not a convulsion, --a reformation, not a revolution. When it is otherwise, it is a serious matter, not tobe lightly done or flippantly discussed. If you really had a religiousbelief, it threw out roots and rootlets through all your life. Itsucked in strength from every source. It intertwined itself throughlove and labor, through suffering and song, about every fibre of yoursoul. You cannot pull it up or dig it up, or in any way displace it, without setting the very foundations of your life a-quivering. True, it may be best that you should do this. If it was but a cumberer ofthe ground, tear it up, root and branch, and plant in its stead theseeds of that tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. But such things are done with circumspection, --not as unto man. If youare gay and jovial about it, if you feel no darts of torture flashingthrough be fastnesses of your life, do not flatter yourself that youare making radical changes. You are only pulling up pig-weed to setout smart-weed, and the less you say about it the better. 

Now Halicarnassus is really just as Orthodox as I. He would not lie orsteal any quicker than I. He would not willingly sacrifice one jot ortittle of his faith, and yet he is always startling you with smallheresies. He is like a calf tied to a tree in the orchard by a longrope. In the exuberance of his glee Bossy starts from the post, tailup, in a hand gallop. You would think, from the way he sets out, thathe was going to race around the whole orchard, and probably he thinkshe is himself. But by the time he is fairly under full headway, hisrope tightens up with a jerk, and away he goes heels over head. Theonly difference is, that Halicarnassus knows the length of his tether, and always fetches up in time to escape an overturn; but other peopledo not know it, and they imagine he is going pell-mell into infidelity. Now I was determined to have none of this trash in a steamboat. Onehas no desire to encounter superfluous risks in a country where lifeand limb are held on so uncertain a tenure as in this. There are quitechances enough of shipwreck without having any Jonahs aboard. Besides, in point of the fine arts, heterodoxy is worse than puns. So I headedhim off at the first onset. But I should not have been so entirelysuccessful in the attempt had I not been assisted by a pair of birdswho came to distract his and our attention from a neighboring thicket. They wheeled--the gentle, graceful, sly, tantalizing things--in circlesand ellipses, now skimming along the surface of the water, now swoopingaway in great smooth curves, then darting off in headlong flight andpursuit. "My kingdom for a gun!" exclaimed Halicarnassus with amateurardor. 

"I am glad you have no gun, " said compassionate Grande. "Why shouldyou kill them?"

"Do not be alarmed, " I said, soothingly, "a distaff would be as deadlyin his hands. "

"Do you speak by the book, Omphale?" asked the Anakim, who stillcarried those New Hampshire sheep on his back. 

"We went a-ducking once down in Swampshire, " I answered. 

"Did you catch any?" queried Grande. 

"Duckings? no, " said Halicarnassus. 

"Nor ducks either, " I added. "He made great ado with his guns, and hispouches, and his fanfaronade, and knocking me with his elbows andtelling me to keep still, when no mouse could be more still than I, andafter all he did not catch one. "

"Only fired once or twice, " said Halicarnassus, "just for fun, and toshow her how to do it. "

"How not to do it, you mean, " said the Anakim. 

"You fired forty times, " I said quietly, but firmly, "and the duckswould come out and look at you as interested as could be. You know youdidn't scare a little meadow-hen. They knew you couldn't hit. "

"Trade off your ducks against my sheep, and call it even?" chuckled theAnakim; and so, chatting and happy, we glided along, enjoying, notentranced, comfortable, but not sublime, content to drink in the sunnysweetness of the summer day, happy only from the pleasant sense ofbeing, tangling each other in silly talk out of mere wantonness, purling up bubbles of airy nothings in sheer effervescence of animaldelight; falling into periodic fits of useful knowledge, under theinfluence of which we consulted our maps and our watches in a conjointand clamorous endeavor to locate ourselves, which would no sooner besatisfactorily accomplished than something would turn up and set ourcalculations and islands adrift, and we would have to begin new. DomeIsland we made out by its shape, unquestionably; Whortleberry wehazarded on the strength of its bushes; "Hen and Chicks, " by a biggishisland brooding half a dozen little ones; Flea Island, from a certainsnappishness of aspect; Half-Way Island, by our distance from dinner;Anthony's Nose, by its unlikeness to anything else, certainly not fromits resemblance to noses in general, let alone the individual nose ofMark Antony, or Mad Anthony, or any Anthony between. And then wedisembarked and posted ourselves on the coach-top for a six-mile rideto Champlain; and Grande said, her face still buried in the map, "Hereon the left is 'Trout Brook' running into the lake, and a cross on it, and 'Lt. Howe fell, 1758. ' That is worth seeing. "

"Yes, " I said, "America loved his brother. "

"America loved HIM, " howled Halicarnassus, thinking to correct me andavenge himself. Now I knew quite well that America loved him, and didnot love his brother, but with the mention of his name came into mymind the tender, grieved surprise of that pathetic little appeal, and Ijust said thought it aloud, --assuming historic knowledge enough in mylisteners to prevent misconception. But to this day Halicarnassuspersists in thinking or at least in asserting, that I tripped over LordHowe. As he does not often get such a chance, I let him comforthimself with it as much as he can; but that is the way with yourwhippersnapper critics. They put on their "specs, " and pounce downupon some microscopic mote, which they think to be ignorance, but whichis really the diamond-dust of imagination. "But let us see the place, "said Grande. "We must drive within sight of it. "

"Yes, " I said. "Halicarnassus, ask the driver to be sure to tell uswhere Lord Howe fell. "

"Fell into the brook, " said that Oracle, and sat as stiff as a post. 

Ticonderoga, --up-hill and down-hill for six miles, white houses anddark, churches and shops, and playing children and loungers, and mills, and rough banks and haggard woods, just like any other somewhatstraggling country village. O no! O no! There are few like this. _I_ have seen no other. Churches and shops and all the paraphernalia ofbusy, bustling common life there may be, but we have no eyes for such. Yonder on the green high plain which we have already entered is asimple guide-post, guiding you, not on to Canada, to New York, toBoston, but back into the dead century that lived so fiercely and liesso still. We stand on ground over-fought by hosts of heroes. Hererise still the breastworks, grass-grown and harmless now, behind whichmen awaited bravely the shock of furious onset, before which men rushedas bravely to duty and to death. Slowly we wind among the littlesquares of intrenchments, whose deadliest occupants now are peacefulcows and sheep, slowly among tall trees, --ghouls that thrust out theirslimy, cold fingers everywhere, battening on horrid banquets, --nay, sorrowful trees, not so. Your gentle, verdant vigor nourishes no lustof blood. Rather you sprang in pity from the cold ashes at your feet, that every breeze quivering through your mournful leaves may harp arequiem for Polydorus. Alighting at the landing-place we stroll up thehill and among the ruins of the old forts, and breast ourselves thesurging battle-tide. For war is not to this generation what it hasbeen. The rust of long disuse has been rubbed off by the iron hand offate, --shall we not say, rather, by the good hand of our God uponus?--and the awful word stands forth once more, red-lettered and real. Marathon, Waterloo, Lexington, are no longer the conflict of numbersagainst numbers, nor merely of principles against principles, but ofmen against men. And as we stand on this silent hill, the prize of somany struggles, our own hearts swell with the hopes and sink with thefears that its green old bluffs have roused. Up from yon water-sidecame stealing the Green-Mountain Boys, with their grand andgrandiloquent leader, and, at the very gateway where we stand, astradition says, (et potius Dii numine firment, ) he thundered out, withbrave, barbaric voice, the imperious summons, "In the name of the greatJehovah and the Continental Congress. " No wonder the startled, half-dressed commander is confounded, and "the pretty face of his wifepeering over his shoulder" is filled with terror. Well may such amotley crew frighten the fair Europeanne. "Frenchmen I know, andIndians I know, but who are ye?" Ah! Sir Commander, so bravelybedight, these are the men whom your parliamentary knights are to sweepwith their brooms into the Atlantic Ocean. Bring on your besoms, fairgentlemen; yonder is Champlain, and a lake is as good to drown in as anocean. Look at them, my lords, and look many times before you leap. They are a rough set, roughly clad, a stout-limbed, stout-hearted race, insubordinate, independent, irrepressible, almost as troublesome totheir friends as to their foes; but there is good stock in them, --brainand brawn, and brain and brawn will yet carry the day over court andcrown, in the name of the right, which shall overpower all things. Weclamber down into arched passages, choked with debris, over floorstangled with briers, and join in the wild wassail of the bold outlaw, fired by his victorious career. We clamber up the rugged sides and windaround to the headland. Brilliant in the "morning-shine, " exultant inthe pride and pomp of splendid preparation, ardent for conquest andglory, Abercrombie sails down the lovely inland sea, to sail backdismantled and disgraced. The retrieving fleet of Amherst follows, asbrilliant and as eager, --to gain the victory of numbers over valor, butto lose its fruit, as many a blood-bought prize has since been lost, snatched from the conqueror's hand by the traitor, doubt. But this isonly the prologue of our great drama. Allen leaps first upon thescene, bucklered as no warrior ever was since the days of Homer orbefore. Then Arnold comes flying in, wresting laurels fromdefeat, --Arnold, who died too late. Here Schuyler walks up at night, his military soul vexed within him by the sleeping guards and theintermittent sentinels, his gentle soul harried by the rusticill-breeding of his hinds, his magnanimous soul cruelly tortured by themachinations of jealousy and envy and evil-browed ambition. Yonder onthe hill Burgoyne's battery threatens death, and Lincoln avenges us ofBurgoyne. Let the curtain fall; a bloodier scene shall follow. 

 * * * * *

And then we re-embark on Lake Champlain, and all the summer afternoonsail down through phantom fleets, under the frowning ramparts ofphantom forts, past grim rows of deathful-throated cannon, throughserried hosts of warriors, with bright swords gleaming and strong armslifted and stern lips parted; but from lips of man or throat of cannoncomes no sound. A thousand oars strike through the leaping waves, butnot a plash breaks on the listening ear. A thousand white sails swellto the coming breeze, that brings glad greeting from the inland hills, but nothing breaks the silences of time. 

And of all beautiful things that could have been thought of or hopedfor, what should come to crown our queen of days but a thunder-storm, amost real and vivid thunder-storm, marshalling up from the west itsgrand, cumulose clouds; black, jagged, bulging with impatient, prisonedthunder biding their time, sharp and fierce against the brilliant sky, spreading swiftly over the heavens, fusing into one great gray pall, dropping a dim curtain of rain between us and the land, closing downupon us a hollow hemisphere pierced with shafts of fire and deafeningwith unseen thunders, wresting us off from the friendly skies andshores, wrapping us into an awful solitude. O Princess Rohan, come tome! come from the hidden caves, where you revel in magical glories, come up from your coralline caves in the mysterious sea, come fromthose Eastern lands of nightingale, roses, and bulbuls, where yourtropical soul was born and rocked in the lap of the lotus! O sunnySouthern beauty, lost amongst Northern snows, flush forth in yourmystical splendor from the ruby wine of Hafiz, float down from yourclouds of the sunset with shining garments of light, open the goldendoor of your palace domed in a lily, glide over these inky waves, O myqueen of all waters, come to me wherever you are, with your pencildipped in darkness, starry with diamond dews and spanned with thesoftness of rainbows, and set on this land-locked Neptune your cross ofthe Legion of Honor, assure to the angry god his bowl in Valhalla, thatthe thunder-vexed lake may be soothed with its immortality!

But the storm passes on, the clouds sweep magnificently away, and theglowing sky flings up its arch of promise. The lucent waters catch itsgleam and spread in their depths a second arch as beautiful and bright. So, haloed with magnificence, an earth-born bark on fairy waters, completely circled by this glory of the skies and seas, we pass throughour triumphal gateway "deep into the dying day, " and are presentlydoused in the mud at Rouse's Point. Rouse's Point is undoubtedly avery good place, and they were good women there, and took good care ofus; but Rouse's Point is a dreadful place to wake up in when you havebeen in Dream-Land, --especially when a circus is there, singing andshouting under your windows all night long. I wonder when circus-peoplesleep, or do they not sleep at all, but keep up a perpetual ground andlofty tumbling? From Rouse's Point through Northern New York, throughendless woods and leagues of brilliant fire-weed, the spirit of thedead flames that raved through the woods, past corn-fields that lookedrather "skimpy, " certainly not to be compared to a corn-field I wot of, whose owner has a mono-mania on the subject of corn and potatoes, andfertilizes his fields with his own blood and brain, --a snort, a rush, ashriek, and the hundred miles is accomplished, and we are atOgdensburg, a smart little town, like all American towns, with handsomeresidences up, and handsomer ones going up, with haberdashers' shops, and lawyers' offices, and judges' robes, and most hospitablecitizens, --one at least, --and all the implements and machinery ofgovernment and self-direction, not excepting a huge tent for politicalspeaking and many political speeches, and everybody alert, public-spirited, and keyed up to the highest pitch. All this isinteresting, but we have seen it ever since we were born, and we lookaway with wistful eyes to the north; for this broad, majestic riverstretching sky-ward like the ocean, is the Lawrence. Up this river, onthe day of St. Lawrence, three hundred years ago, came the mariner ofSt. Malo, --turning in from the sea till his straining eyes beheld onboth sides land, and planted the lilies of France. Now it is theboundary line of empires. Those green banks on the other side are aforeign country, and for the first time I am not monarch of all Isurvey. That fine little city, with stately trees towering from themidst of its steeples and gray roofs, is Prescott. At the right risethe ramparts of Fort Wellington, whence cannon-balls came hissing overto Ogdensburg some fifty years ago. We stand within a pretty range, suppose they should try it again! Farther on still is a plain, graytower, where a handful of "patriots" intrenched and destroyedthemselves with perverse martyrophobia in a foolish and fruitlessendeavor. The afternoon is before us; suppose we row over; here is aboat, and doubtless a boatman, or the ferry-steamer will be heredirectly. By no means; a ferry-steamer is thoroughly commonplace; youcan ferry-steam anywhere. Row, brothers, row, perhaps you will neverhave the chance again. Lightly, lightly row through the green waters ofthe great St. Lawrence, through the sedge and rank grass that wavestill in his middle depths, over the mile and a half of great rushingbillows that rock our little boat somewhat roughly: but I am notafraid, --for I can swim. 

"You can, can you?" says the Anakim, incredulously. 

"Indeed I can, can't I, Halicarnassus?" appealingly. 

"Like a brick!" ejaculates that worthy, pulling away at the oars, andon we shoot, steadily nearing the rustic stone city that looks soattractive, so different from our hasty, brittle, shingly Americanhalf-minute houses, --massive, permanent, full of character and solidworth. And now our tiny craft butts against the pier, and we ascendfrom the Jesuit river and stand on British soil. No stars and stripeshere, but Saint George and his dragon fight out their never-endingbrawl. No war, no volunteering, no Congress here; but peace and aParliament and a Queen, God bless her! and this is her realm, akingdom. Now if it had been a year ago I do not know that I shouldnot, like Columbus, have knelt to kiss these dingy stones, so much didI love and reverence England, and whatever bore the dear English name. But we--they, rather--have changed all that. Among the great gains ofthis memorable year, --among the devotions, the sacrifices, theheroisms, --all the mighty, noble, and ennobling deeds by which we standenriched forevermore, --there broods the shadow of one irreparableloss, --the loss of England. Success or failure can make no differencethere. English gold, English steel, English pluck, stand today asalways; but English integrity, English staunchness, English love, whereare they? Just where Prescott is, now that we have come to it; for thesubstantial stone city a mile and a half away turns out to be amiserable little dirty, butty, smutty, stagnant owl-cote when you getinto it. What we took for stone is stolidity. It is old, but its ageis squalid, not picturesque. We stumble through the alleys that answerfor streets, and come to the "Dog and Duck, " a dark, dingy ale-room, famous for its fine ale, we are told, or perhaps it was beer: I don'tremember. It is not in male nature to go by on the other side of such athing, and we enter, --they to test the beverage, Grande and I to makeobservation of the surroundings. We take position in the passagebetween the bar-room and parlor. A yellow-haired Saxon child, withbare legs and fair face, crawls out from some inner hollow to the door, and impends dangerous on the sill, throwing numerous scared backwardglances over his shoulder. The parlor is taken bodily out of oldEnglish novels, a direct descendant, slightly furbished up andmodernized, of the Village inn parlor of Goldsmith, --homely, clean, andcomfortless. A cotton tidy over the rocking-chair bewrays, wroughtinto its crocheted gorgeousness, the name of Uncle Tom. This I cannotstand. Time may bring healing, but now the wound is still fresh. "O, you did Uncle-Tom it famously, " I hurl out, doubling my fist at theBritish lion which glares at me from that cotton tidy. "I rememberthose days. O yes! you were rampant on Uncle Tom. You are a famousfriend of Uncle Tom, with your Exeter Halls, and your LordShaftesburys, and your Duchess of Sutherlands! Cry your pretty eyes outover Uncle Tom, dear, tender-hearted British women. Write appealingletters to your sisters over the waters, affectionate, conscientiouskindred; canonize your saint, our sin, in tidies, and chair-covers, andChristmas slippers, --we know how to take you now; we have found outwhat all that is worth we can appraise your tears by the bottle--inpounds, shillings, and pence. " But the beer-men curtail my harangue, so I shake my departing fist at the cowering lion, and, leaving thisBritish institution, proceed to investigate another Britishinstitution, --the undaunted English army, in its development in FortWellington. A wall shuts the world out from those sacred premises; astile lets the world in, --over which stile we step and stand on thefort grounds. A party of soldiers are making good cheer in a corner ofthe pasture, --perhaps I ought to say parade-ground. As no sentinelaccosts us, we hunt up one, and inquire if the fort is accessible. Hedoes not know, but inclines to the opinion that it is. We go up thehill, walk round the wall, and mark well her bulwarks, till we come toa great gate, but it refuses to turn. The walls are too high to scale, besides possible pickets on the other side. I have no doubt in theworld that we could creep under, for the gate has shrunk since it wasmade, and needs to have a tuck let down; but what would become ofdignity? Grande and the Anakim make a reconnaissance in force, to seeif some unwary postern-gate may not permit entrance. Halicarnassusfumbles in his pockets for edge-tools, as if Queen Victoria, who rulesthe waves, on whose dominions the sun never sets, whose morningdrum-beat encircles the world, would leave the main gate of her mainfort on one of the frontiers of her empire so insecurely defended thata single American can carry it with his fruit-knife. Such ideas Ienergetically enforce, till I am cut short by the slow retrogression ofthe massive gate on ponderous hinges turning. 

"What about the fruit-knife?" inquires Halicarnassus as I pass in. Thereconnoitering party return to report a bootless search, and areelectrified to find the victory already gained. 

"See the good of having been through college, " exults Halicarnassus. 

"How did you do it?" asks Grande, admiringly. 

"By genius and assiduity, " answers Halicarnassus. 

"And lifting the latch, " I append, for I have been examining themechanism of the gate since I came in, and have made a discovery whichdislodges my savant from his pinnacle; namely, that the only fasteningon the gate is a huge wooden latch, which not one of us had senseenough to lift; but then who thinks of taking a fort by assault andbattery on the latch? Halicarnassus hit upon it by mere accident, and Itherefore remorselessly expose him. Then we saunter about the place, and, seeing a woman eying us suspiciously from an elevated window, weshow the white feather and ask her if we may come in, which, seeing wehave been in for some ten minutes, we undoubtedly may; and then wemount the ramparts and peer into Labrador and Hudson's Bay and theNorth Pole, and, turning to a softer sky, gaze from a "foreign clime"upon our own dear land, home of freedom, hope of the nations, eye-soreof the Devil, rent by one set of his minions, and ridiculed by another, but coming out of her furnace-fires, if God please and man will, heartier and holier, because freer and truer, than ever before. O mycountry, beautiful and beloved, my hope, my desire, my joy, and mycrown of rejoicing, immeasurably dearer in the agony of your bloodysweat than in the high noon of your proud prosperity! standing for thefirst time beyond your borders, and looking upon you from afar, now andforevermore out of a full heart I breathe to you benedictions. 

PART IV. 

Down the St. Lawrence in a steamer, up the St. Lawrence on the maps, wesail through another day full of eager interest. Everything is fresh, new, novel. Is it because we are in high latitudes that the river andthe country look so high? I could fancy that we are on a plateau, overlooking a continent. Now the water expands on all sides like anocean meeting the sky, and now we are sailing through hay-fields andcountry orchards, as if the St. Lawrence had taken a turn into ourback-yard. We hug the Canada shore, and thick woods come down the banksdipping their summer tresses in the cool Northern river, --broadpasture-lands stretch away, away from river to sky, --brown, dubiousvillages sail by at long intervals. On the distant southern shoreAmerica has stationed her outposts, and unfrequent spires attest acivilized, if remote life. In the sunny day all things are sunny, savewhen a Claude Lorraine glass lends a dark, rich mystery to every hilland cloud. The Claude Lorraine glass is a rara avus, and not onlygives new lights to the scenery, but brings out the human nature onboard in great force. The Anakim tells us of one man who asked him ina confidential aside, if it was a show, whereat we all laugh. Even Ilaugh at the man's ignorance, --I, a thief, an assassin, a traitor, whosix weeks ago had never heard of a Claude Lorraine glass; but nobodycan tell who has not tried it how much credit one gets for extensiveknowledge, if only he holds his tongue. In all my life I am afraid Ishall never learn as much as I have been inferred to know simplybecause I kept still. 

Down the St. Lawrence in an English steamer, where everything is not somuch English as John Bull-y. The servants at the table are thoroughlyand amusingly yellow-plush, --if that is the word I want, and if it isnot that, it is another; for I am quite sure of my idea, though not ofthe name that belongs to it. The servants are smooth and sleek andintense. They serve as if it was their business, and a weightybusiness at that, demanding all the energies of a created being. Accordingly they give their minds to it. The chieftain yonder, inwhite choker and locks profusely oiled and brushed into a resplendentexpanse, bears Atlas on his shoulders. His lips are compressed, hisbrow contracted, his eyes alert, his whole manner as absorbed as if itwere a nation, and not a plum-pudding, that he is engineering through acrisis. Lord Palmerston is nothing to him, I venture to say. I knowthe only way to accomplish anything is to devote yourself to it; stillI cannot conceive how anybody can give himself up so completely to adinner, even if it is his business and duty. However, I have nothing tocomplain of in the results, for we are well served, only for a trifletoo much obviousness. Order and system are undoubtedly good things, but I don't like to see an ado made about them. Our waiters standbehind, at given stations, with prophetic dishes in uplifted hands, and, at a certain signal from the arch-waiter, down they come like theclash of fate. Now I suppose this is all very well, but for me I neverwas fond of military life. Under my housekeeping we browseindiscriminately. When we have nothing else to do, we have a meal. Ifit is nearer noon than morning, we call it dinner. If it is nearernight than noon, we call it supper, unless we have fashionable friendswith us, and then we call it dinner, and the other thing lunch; and tento one it is so scattered about that it has no name at all. Atbreakfast you will be likely to find me on the door-step with a bowl ofbread and milk, while Halicarnassus sits on the bench opposite andbrandishes a chicken-bone with the cat mewing furiously for it at hisfeet. A surreptitious doughnut is sweet and dyspeptic over the morningpaper, and gingerbread is always to be had by systematic andintelligent foraging. Consequently this British drill and disciplineare thoroughly alarming to me, and I am surprised and grateful to findthat we are not individually regulated by a time-table. I expect adrum-beat;--one, incision; two, mastication; three, deglutition;--butwhat tyranny does one not expect to find under monarchicalinstitutions? Put that into your next volume, intelligent Britishtourist. 

Down the St. Lawrence with millionaires, and artists, and gay younggirls, and sallow-faced invalids, and weary clergymen and men ofbusiness who do not know what to do with their unwonted leisure andfind pleasuring a most unmitigated bore, and mothers with sickchildren, dear little unnatural pale faces and heavy eyes, --may yourangels bring you health, tiny ones!--and, most interesting of all tome, a party of priests and nuns on their travels. They sit near me, and I can see them without turning my head, and hear them withoutmarked listening. The priests are sleekheaded men, and such as sleepo' nights, ruddy, rotund, robust, with black hair and white bands, well-dressed, well-fed, well-to-do, jolly, gentlemanly, clique-y, sensible, shrewd, au fait. The nuns--now I am vexed to look at them. Are nuns expected to be any more dead to the world than priests? ThenI should like to know why they must make such frights of themselves, while priests go about like Christians? Why shall a nun walk black, and gaunt, and lank, with a white towel wrapped around her face, allpossible beauty and almost all attractiveness despoiled by herhideously unbecoming dress, while priests wear their hair and theirhats and their coats and their collars like any other gentleman? Whyare the women to be set up as targets, while the men may pass unnoticedand unknown? If the woman's head must be shorn and shaven, why not theman's? It is not fair. I can think of no reason, pretext, or excuse, unless it is to be found in the fact that women are more beautiful thanmen, and need greater disfigurement to make them ugly. That is a factwhich I have long suspected, and observations made on this journeyconfirm my suspicions, --intensify them into certainty. An ugly womanis handsomer than a handsome man, --if you examine them closely. She isfiner-grained, more soft, more delicate. Men are animals more thanwomen. I do not now mean the generic sense in which we are allanimals, but specifically and superficially. Men look more like horsesand cows. See our brave soldiers returning from the wars--Heaven'sblessing rest upon them!--grand, but are they not gruff? A woman'sface may be browned, roughened, and reddened by exposure, yet her skinis always skin; but often when a man's face has been sheltered fromstorm and shine, his skin is hide. His mane is not generally so longand flowing as a horse's, but there it is. Once, in a car, a man infront of me put his arm on the back of his seat and fell asleep. Presently his hand dropped over, and I looked at it, --a mass of broad, brawny vitality, great pipes of veins, great crescents of nails, greatfurrows at the joints, and you might cut a fine sirloin of beef off theball of the thumb; and this is a hand! _I_ call it an ox. A woman'shand, by hard labor, spreads and cracks, and sprouts bunches at thejoints, and becomes tuberous at the ends of the fingers, but you cansee that it is a deformity and not nature. It tells a sad story ofneglect, of labor, perhaps of heartlessness, cruelty, suffering. Butthis man's hand was born so. You would not think of pitying him anymore than you would pity an elephant for being an elephant instead ofan antelope. A woman's hair is silky and soft, and, if not alwayssmooth, susceptible of smoothness. A man's hair is shag. If he triesto make it anything else, he does not mend the matter. Ceasing to beshag, it does not become beauty, but foppishness, effeminacy, MissNancy-ism. A man is a brute by the law of his nature. Let him ape awoman, and he does not cease to be brutal, though he does becomeridiculous. The only thing for him to do is to be the best kind of abrute. 

In all of which remarks there is nothing derogatory to a man, --nothingat which any one need take offence. I do not say that manhood is not avery excellent kind of creation. Everything is good in its line. Iwould just as soon have been a beetle as a woman, if I had never been awoman, and did not know what it was. I don't suppose a horse is at allcrestfallen because he is a horse. On the contrary, if he is athorough-bred, blood horse, he is a proud and happy fellow, prancing, spirited, magnificent. So a man may be so magnificently manly that oneshall say, Surely this is the monarch of the universe; and hide andshag and mane shall be vitalized with a matchless glory. Let a manmake himself grand in his own sphere, and not sit down and moan becausehe is only a connecting link between a horse and a woman. 

I suppose Mother Church is fully cognizant of the true state ofaffairs, and thinks men already sufficiently Satyric, but woman must beground down as much as possible, or the world will not be fended off. And ground down they are in body and soul. O Mother Church! as I lookupon these nuns, I do not love you. You have done many wise and rightdeeds. You have been the ark of the testimony, the refuge of theweary, the dispenser of alms, the consoler of the sorrowful, the hopeof the dying, the blessing of the dead. You are convenient now, wieldyin an election, effective when a gold ring is missing from the toilettecushion, admirable in your machinery, and astonishing in yourpersistency and power. But what have you done with these women? Inwhat secret place, in what dungeon of darkness and despair, in whatchains of torpidity and oblivion, have you hidden away their souls?They are twenty-five and thirty years old, but they are not women. Theyare nothing in the world but grown-up children. Their expression, their observation, their interests, are infantile. There is nocharacter in their faces. There are marks of pettishness, but not ofpassion. Nothing deep, tender, beneficent, maternal, is there. Timehas done his part, but life has left no marks. Their smiles andlaughter are the merriment of children, beautiful in children, butpainful here. Mother Church, you have dwarfed these women, helplessly, hopelessly. You accomplish results, but you deteriorate humanity. 

Down the St. Lawrence, the great, melancholy river, grand only in itsgrandeur, solitary, unapproachable, cut off from the companionship, theactivities, and the interests of life by its rocks and rapids; yet calmand conscious, working its work in silent state. 

The rapids are bad for traffic, but charming for travellers; and whatis a little revenue more or less, to a sensation? There is not dangerenough to awaken terror, but there is enough to require vigilance; justenough to exhilarate, to flush the cheek, to brighten the eye, toquicken the breath; just enough for spice and sauce and salt; justenough for you to play at storm and shipwreck, and heroism in danger. The rocking and splashing of the early rapids is mere fun; but when youget on, when the steamer slackens speed, and a skiff puts off fromshore, and an Indian pilot comes on board, and mounts to thepilot-house, you begin to feel that matters are getting serious. Butthe pilot is chatting carelessly with two or three bystanders, so itcannot be much. Ah! this sudden cessation of something! Thisunnatural quiet. The machinery has stopped. What! the boat is rushingstraight on to the banks. H-w-k! A whole shower of spray is dashedinto our faces. Little shrieks and laughter, and a sudden hopping upfrom stools, and a sudden retreat from the railing to the centre of thedeck. Staggering, quivering, aghast, the boat reels and careens. Seethe and plunge the angry waters, whirling, foaming, furious. Lookat the pilot. No chatting now, no bystanders, but fixed eyes and firmlips, every muscle set, every nerve tense. Yes, it is serious. Serious! close by us, seeming scarcely a yard away, frowns a blackrock. The maddened waves dash up its sullen back, the white, passionate surf surges into its wrathful jaws. Here, there, before, behind, black rocks and a wild uproar of waters, through all whichProvidence and our pilot lead us safely into the still deep beyond, andwe look into each other's faces and smile. 

And now the sunset reddens on the water, reddens on the bending sky andthe beautiful clouds, and men begin to come around with cards andconverse of the different hotels in the Montreal that is to be; onetells us that the Prince of Wales beamed royal light upon the St. Lawrence Hall, and we immediately decide to make the balance true bypatronizing its rival Donegana, whereupon a man--a mere disinterestedspectator of course--informs us in confidence that the Donegana isnothing but ruins; he should not think we would go there; burnt down afew years ago, --a shabby place, kept by a grass widow; but when wasAmerican ever scared off by the sound of a ruin? So Donegana it is, the house with the softly flowing Italian name; and then we pass underthe arch of the famous Victoria Bridge, whose corner-stone, orcap-stone, or whatever it is that bridges have, was laid by the Princeof Wales. (And to this day I do not know how the flag-staff of ourboat cleared the arch. It was ten feet above it, I should think, and Ilooked at it all the time, and yet it shrivelled under in the mostlaughable yet baffling manner. ) In the mild twilight we disembarked, and were quickly omnibused to the relics of Donegana, which turned outto be very well, very well indeed for ruins, with a smart stone front, and I don't know but stone all the way through, with the usualallowance of lace curtains, and carpets, and gilding in the parlors, notwithstanding flames and conjugal desolation; also a hand welcomed usin the gas-lit square adjoining, and we were hospitably entreated andtransmitted to the breakfast-table next morning in perfect sight-seeingtrim; only the Anakim was cross, and muttered that they had sent himout in the village to sleep among the hens, and there was a cacklingand screaming and chopping off of heads all night long. But thebreakfast-table assured us that many a cackle must have been theswan-song of death. Halicarnassus wondered if something might not beinvented to consume superfluous noise, as great factories consume theirown smoke, but the Anakim said there was no call for any new inventionin that line so long as Halicarnassus continued in his presentappetite, --with a significant glance at the plump chicken which thelatter was vigorously converting into mammalia, and which probably wasthe very one that disturbed the Anakim's repose. And then we discussedthe day's plan of operations. Halicarnassus said he had beendiplomatizing for a carriage. The man in the office told him he couldhave one for five dollars. He thought that was rather high. Man saidit was the regular price; couldn't get one for any less in the city. Halicarnassus went out and saw one standing idle in the market-place. Asked the price. Three dollars. For how long? Drive you all round thecity, Sir; see all the sights. Then he went back and told the man atthe office. 

"Well, " I said, after he had swallowed a wassail-bowl of coffee, andshowed no disposition to go on, "what did you do then?"

"Came in to breakfast. "

"Didn't you tell the clerk you would not take his carriage?"

"No. "

"Didn't you tell the other man you would take his?"

"No. "

"What DID you do?"

"Let it work. Don't be in a hurry. Give a thing time to work. "

"And suppose it should work you out of any carriage at all?"

"No danger. " And to be sure, when we had finished breakfast, thethree-dollar hack was there awaiting our pleasure. Our pleasure was todrive out into the British possessions, first around the mountain, which is quite a mountain for a villa, though nothing to speak of as amountain, with several handsome residences on its sides, and a goodmany not so handsome; but the mountain is a pet of Montreal, and, as Isaid, quite the thing for a cockney mountain. Then we went to theFrench Cathedral, which is, I believe, the great gun of ecclesiasticalNorth America, but it hung fire with me. It was large, but not great. There was no unity. It was not impressive. It was running over withfrippery, --olla podrida cropping out everywhere. It confused you. Itdistracted you. It wearied you. You sighed for somewhat simple, quiet, restful. The pictures were pronounced poor. I don't knowwhether they were or not. I never can tell a picture as a cook tellsher mince-pie meat, by tasting it. One picture is a revealer and oneis a daub; but they are alike to me at first glance. For a picture hasan individuality all its own. You must woo it with tender ardor, or itwill not yield up its heart. The chance look sees only color andcontour; but as you gaze the color glows, the contour throbs, thehidden soul heaves the inert canvas with the solemn palpitations oflife. Art is dead no longer, but informed with divine vitality. Thereis no picture but Hope crowned and radiant, or pale and patient Sorrow, or the tender sanctity of Love. The landscape of the artist is neitherpainting nor nature, but summer fields and rosy sunsets over-floodedwith his own inward light. Only from her Heaven-anointed monarch, man, can Nature receive her knightly accolade. And shall one detect thefalse or recognize the true by the minute-hand? I suppose so, sincesome do. But I cannot. People who live among the divinities may knowthe goddess, for all her Spartan arms, her naked knee, and knottedrobe; but I, earth-born among earth-born, must needs behold the auroralblush, the gliding gait, the flowing vestment, and the divine odor ofher purple hair. 

In the vestibule of the French Cathedral, I believe it is, you willbehold a heart-rending sight in a glass case, namely, a group ofchildren, babies in long clothes and upwards, in a dreadful state ofbeing devoured by cotton-flannel pigs. Their poor little white frocksare stained with blood, and they are knocked about piteously in variousstages of mutilation. A label in front informs you that certaininnocents in certain localities are subject to this shocking treatment;and you are earnestly conjured to drop your penny or your pound intothe box, to rescue them from a fate so terrible. You must be acannibal if you can withstand this appeal. Suffering that you onlyhear of, you can forget, but suffering going on right under your eyesis not so easily disposed of. 

Leaving the pigs and papooses, we will go to--which of the nunneries?The Gray? Yes. But when you come home, everybody will tell you thatyou ought to have visited the Black Nunnery. The Gray is not to bementioned in the same year. Do not, however, flatter yourself that inchoosing the Black you will be any more enviable; there will not bewanting myriads who will assure you, that, not having seen the Gray, you might as well have seen nothing at all. To the Gray Nunnery wentwe, and saw pictures and altars and saints and candlesticks, and littledove-cot floors of galleries jutting out, where a few women crossed, genuflected, and mumbled, and an old woman came out of a door above oneof them, and asked the people below not to talk so loud, because theydisturbed the worshippers; but the people kept talking, and presentlyshe came out again, and repeated her request, with a little of theInquisition in her tones and gestures, --no more than was justifiableunder the circumstances: but she looked straight at me; and O oldwoman! it was not I that talked, nor my party. We were noiseless asmice. It was that woman over there in a Gothic bonnet, with a bunch ofroses under the roof as big as a cabbage. Presently the great doorsopened, and a procession of nuns marched in chanting their gibberish. Of course they wore the disguise of those abominable caps, with gray, uncouth dresses, the skirts taken up in front and pinned behind, afterthe manner of washerwomen. Yet there were faces among them on whichthe eye loved to linger, --some not too young for their years, somefurtive glances, some demure looks from the yet undeadened youth underthose ugly robes, --some faces of struggle and some of victory. OMother Church, here I do not believe in you! These natures are gnarled, not nurtured. These elaborately reposeful faces are not natural. These downcast eyes and droning voices are not natural. Not one thinghere is natural. Whisk off these clinging gray washing-gowns, put thesegirls into crinoline and Gothic bonnets, and the innocent finery thatbelongs to them, and send them out into the wholesome daylight to talkand laugh and make merry, --the birthright of their young years. Areligion that deprives young girls or old girls of this boon is not thereligion of Jesus Christ. Don't tell me!

The nuns pass out, and we wander through the silent yard, cut off byall the gloom of the medieval times from the din, activity, and goodcheer of the street beyond, and are conducted into the Old Men'sDepartment. The floors and furniture are faultlessly and fragrantlyclean. The kitchen is neat and susceptible of warmth and comfort, evenwhen the sun's short wooing is over. The beds are ranged along thewalls plump and nice; yet I hope that, when I am an old man, I shallnot have to sleep on blue calico pillow-cases. Here and there, withinand without, old men are basking in the rare sweet warmth of summer, and with their canes and their sunshine seem very well bestowed. Now Ilike you, Mother Church. You do better by your old men than you do byyour young women, --simply because you know more about them. How canyou, Papa and Messrs. Cardinals, be expected to understand what is goodfor a girl? If only you would confine yourself to what you docomprehend, --if only you would apply your admirable organizations tolegitimate purposes, and not run mad on machinery, you would do angels'work. 

From the old men's quarters we go upstairs where sewing and knittingand all manner of fancy-work, especially in beads, are taught to longand lank little girls by longer and lanker large girls, companioned bya few old women, with commonplace knitting-work. Everything everywhereis thoroughly neat and comfortable; but I have a desperate pang ofhome-sickness; for if there is one condition of life more intolerablethan any other, it is a state of unvarying, hopeless comfort. 

From the Gray Nunnery to the English Church, which I like much betterthan the French Cathedral. There is a general tone of oakiness, solid, substantial, sincere, like the England of tradition, --set off by abrilliant memorial window and a memorial altar, and other memorialthings which I have forgotten, but which I make no doubt the people whoput them there have not forgotten. Here also we find, as all along inCanada, vestiges of his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. We areshown the Bible which he presented to the Church, and we gaze withbecoming reverence upon the august handwriting, --the pew in which heworshipped; and the loyal beadle sees nothing but reverence in ourmomentary occupation of that consecrated seat. Evidently there is buta very faint line of demarcation in the old man's mind between hisheavenly and earthly king; but an old man may have a worse weaknessthan this, --an unreasoning, blind, faithful fondness and reverence fora blameless prince. God bless the young man, in that he is the son ofhis father and mother. God help him, in that he is to be King ofEngland. 

Chancel and window, altar, and arches and aisles and treasures, --isthere anything else? Yes, the apple that Eve ate, transfixed tooak, --hard to understood, but seeing is believing. And then pastNelson's monument, somewhat battered, like the hero whom itcommemorates; past the Champ de Mars, a fine parade-ground, hard andsmooth as a floor; past the barracks and the reservoir, to the newCourt-House, massive and plain. Then home to dinner and lounging; thentravelling-dresses, and the steamer, and a most lovely sunset on theriver; and then a night of tranquillity running to fog, and a morningapproach to the unique city of North America, --the first and the onlywalled city _I_ ever saw, or you either, I dare say, if you would onlybe willing to confess it. The aspect of the city, as one firstapproaches it, is utterly strange and foreign, --a high promontoryjutting into the river, with a shelf of squalid, crowded, tall andshaky, or low and squatty tenements at its base, almost standing on thewater and rising behind them, for the back of the shelf, a rough, steepprecipice abutted with the solid masonry of wall and citadel. A boardfastened somehow about half-way up the rocky cliff, inscribed with thename of Montgomery, marks the spot where a hero, a patriot, agentleman, met his death. Disembarking, we wind along a stair of aroad, up steep ascents, and enter in through the gates into thecity, --the walled, upper city, --walls thick, impregnable, gatesponderous, inert, burly. You did well enough in your day, old foes;but with Armstrongs and iron-clads, and Ericsson still living, wherewould you be?--answer me that. Quaint, odd, alien old city, --a faintphantasmagoria of past conflicts and forgotten plans, a dingy fragmentof la belle France, a clinging reminiscence of England, a dim, stonedream of Edinburgh, a little flutter of modern fashion, planted upon asturdy rampart of antiquity, a little cobweb of commerce andenterprise, netting over a great deal of church and priest and kingwith an immovable basis of stolid existence, --that is the Quebec Iinferred from the Quebec I saw. Nothing in it was so interesting to meas itself. But passing by itself for the nonce, we prudently tookadvantage of the fine morning, and drove out to the Falls ofMontmorency with staring eyes that wanted to take in all views, before, behind, on this side and that, at once; and because we could not, thejoints of my neck at least became so dry with incessant action thatthey almost creaked. Low stone cottages lined the road-sides, withwindows that opened like doors, with an inevitable big black stovewhenever your eye got far enough in, with a pleasant stoop in front, with women perpetually washing the floors and the windows, withbeautiful and brilliant flowers blooming profusely in every window, andoften trailing and climbing about its whole area. Here, I take it, isthe home of a real peasantry, a contented class, comfortable andlooking for no higher lot. These houses seem durable and ultimate. Theroofs of both houses and piazzas are broken, projected, picturesque, and often ornamented. They shelter, they protect, they brood, theyembrace. There are little trellises and cornices and fancifuladornments. The solid homeliness is fringed with elegance. The peopleand the houses do not own each other, but they are married. There islove between them, and pride, and a hearty understanding. I can thinkof a country where you see little brown or red clapboarded houses thatare neither solid nor elegant, that are both slight andawkward, --angular and shingly and dismal. The roofs are intended justto cover the houses, and are scanty at that. The sides are straight, the windows inexorable; and for flowers you have a hollyhock or two, and perhaps an uncomfortably tall sunflower, sovereign for hens. Thereis no home-look and no home-atmosphere. I love that country betterthan I like this; but, if you kill me for it, this drive ispicturesque. These dumpy little smooth, white, flounced and floweredcottages look like wicker-gates to a happy valley, --born, not built. The cottages of the country, in my thoughts, yes, and in my heart, areneither born nor built, but "put up, "--just for convenience, just tolodge in while waiting for something better, or till the corn is grown. Coming man, benefactor of our race, you who shall show us how to becontented without being sluggish, --how to be restful, and yetaspiring, --how to take the goods the gods provide us, without losingout of manly hearts the sweet sense of providing, --how to plant happyfeet firmly on the present, and not miss from eager eyes theinspiriting outlook of the future, --how to make a wife of today, andnot a mistress of tomorrow, --come quickly to a world that sorely needsyou, and bring a fresh evangel. 

The current of our thoughts is broken in upon by a new and peculiarinstitution. Every single child, and every group of children on theroad, leaves its play as we pass by, and all dart upon us on both sidesof the carriage, almost under the wheels, almost under the horses'feet, with out-stretched blackened hands, and intense bright blackeyes, running, panting, shouting, "Un sou! un sou! un sou!" I do notthink I am quite in love with this as an institution, but it is verylively as a spectacle; and the little fleet-footed, long-winded beggarsshow a touching confidence in human nature. There is no servility intheir beggary; and when it is glossed over with a thin mercantileveneering, by the brown little paws holding out to you a gorgeousbouquet of one clover-blossom, two dandelions, and a quartette ofsorrel-leaves, why, it ceases to be beggarly, and becomes trafficoverlaid with grace, the acanthus capital surmounting the fluted shaft. We meet also continual dog-carts, something like the nondescript which"blind Carwell" used to drag. Did you never see it? Well, then, likethe cart in which the ark went up to Kirjath-jearim. Now you must know. Stubborn two-wheeled vehicles, with the whole farm loaded into thebody, and the whole family on the seat. Here comes one drawn by a cow, not unnatural. Unnatural! It is the key-note of the tune. Everythingis cow-y, --slow and sure, firm, but not fast, kindly, sunny, ruminant, heavy, lumbering, basking, content. Calashes also we meet, --acumbrous, old-fashioned "one-hoss shay, " with a yellow body, asuspicion of springlessness, wheels with huge spokes and broad rims, and the driver sitting on the dash-board. Now we are at the Falls ofMontmorency. If you would know how they look, go and see them. If youhave seen them, you don't need a description; and if you have not seenthem, a description would do no good. From the Falls, if you areunsophisticated, you will resume your carriage and return to the city;but if you are au fait, you will cross the high-road, cross thepastures, and wind down a damp, mossy wood-path to the steps ofMontmorency, --a natural phenomenon, quite as interesting as, and moreremarkable than, the Falls, --especially if you go away without seeingit. Any river can fall when it comes to a dam. In fact, there isnothing for it to do but fall; but it is not every river that can carveout in its rage such wonderful stairways as this, --seething and foamingand roaring and leaping through its narrow and narrowing channel, withall the turbulence of its fiery soul unquelled, though the grasp ofTime is on its throat, silent, mighty, irresistible. 

Montmorency, --Montmorenci, --sweet and storied name! You, too, havereceived the awful baptism. Blood has mingled with your sacrifices. The song of your wild waves has been lost in the louder thunders ofartillery, and the breezes sweeping through these green woods havesoothed the agonies of dying men. Into one heart this ancient name, heavy with a weight of disaster and fancied disgrace, sank down likelead, --a burden which only death could cast off, only victory destroy;and death came hand in hand with victory. 

Driving home, we take more special note of what interested usaggressively before, --Lord Elgin's residence, --the house occupied bythe Duke of Kent when a young man in the army here, long I supposebefore the throne of England placed itself at the end of his vista. Did the Prince of Wales, I wonder, visit this place, and, sending awayhis retinue, walk slowly alone under the shadows of these sombre trees, striving to bring back that far-off past, and some vague outline of thethoughts, the feelings, the fears and fancies of his grandfather, then, like himself, a young man, but, not like himself, a fourth son, poorand an exile, with no foresight probably of the exaltation that awaitedhis line, --his only child to be not only the lady of his land, but ourlady of the world, --a warm-hearted woman worthily seated on the proudthrone of Britain, --a noble and great-souled woman, in whose sorrownations mourn, for whose happiness nations pray, --whose name is neverspoken in this far-off Western world but with a silent blessing. Another low-roofed, many-roomed, rambling old house I stand up in thecarriage to gaze at lingeringly with longing, misty eyes, --the sometimehome of Field Marshal the Marquis de Montcalm. Writing now of this inthe felt darkness that pours up from abandoned Fredericksburg, fearingnot what the South may do in its exultation, but what the North may doin its despondency, I understand, as I understood not then, nor everbefore, what comfort came to the dying hero in the certain thought, "Ishall not live to see the surrender of Quebec. "

Now again we draw near the city whose thousands of silver (or perhapstin) roofs dazzle our eyes with their resplendence, and I have anindistinct impression of having been several times packed out and in tosee sundry churches, of which I remember nothing except that I lookedin vain to see the trophies of captured colors that once hung there, commemorating the exploits of the ancients, --and on the whole, I don'tthink I care much about churches except on Sundays. Somewhere inCanada--perhaps near Lorette--is some kind of a church, perhaps theoldest, or the first Indian church in Canada, --or may be it wasinteresting because it was burnt down just before we got there. Thatis the only definite reminiscence I have of any church in Quebec andits suburbs, and that is not so definite as it might be. I am sure Iinspected the church of St. Roque and the church of St. John, because Ihave entered it in my "Diary"; but if they were all set down on thetable before me at this moment, I am sure I could not tell which waswhich, or that they had not been transported each and all from Boston. 

But we ascend the cliff, we enter the citadel, we walk upon the Plainsof Abraham, and they overpower you with the intensity of life. Theheart beats in labored and painful pulsations with the pressure of thecrowding past. Yonder shines the lovely isle of vines that gladdenedthe eyes of treacherous Cartier, the evil requiter of hospitality. Yonder from Point Levi the laden ships go gayly up the sparkling river, a festive foe. Night drops her mantle, and silently the unsuspectedsquadron floats down the stealthy waters, and debarks its fatefulfreight. Silently in the darkness, the long line of armed men writheup the rugged path. The rising sun reveals a startling sight. Theimpossible has been attained. Now, too late, the hurried summonssounds. Too late the deadly fire pours in. Too late the thicketsflash with murderous rifles. Valor is no substitute for vigilance. Short and sharp the grapple, and victor and vanquished alike lie downin the arms of all-conquering death. Where this little tree venturesforth its tender leaves, Wolfe felt the bullet speeding to his heart. Where this monument stands, his soldier-soul fled, all anguish soothedaway by the exultant shout of victory, --fled from passion and pain, from strife and madness, into the eternal calm. 

Again and again has this rock under my feet echoed to the tramp ofmarching men. Again and again has this green and pleasant plain beendrenched with blood, this blue, serene sky hung with the black pall ofdeath. This broad level of pasture-land, high up above the rushingwaters of the river, but coldly wooed by the faint northern sun, andfiercely swept by the wrathful northern wind, has been the golden boughto many an eager seeker. Against these pitiless cliffs full many ahope has hurtled, full many a heart has broken. Oh the eyes that havelooked longingly hither from far Southern homes! Oh the thoughts thathave vaguely wandered over these bluffs, searching among the shoutinghosts, perhaps breathlessly among the silent sleepers, for householdgods! Oh the cold forms that have lain upon these unnoting rocks! Ohthe white cheeks that have pressed this springing turf! Oh the deadfaces mutely upturned to God!

Struggle, conflict, agony, --how many of earth's Meccas have receivedtheir chrism of blood! Thrice and four times hopeless for humanity, ifbattle is indeed only murder, violence, lust of blood, or power, orrevenge, --if in that wild storm of assault and defence and deathly hurtonly the fiend and the beast meet incarnate in man. But it cannot be. Battle is the Devil's work, but God is there. When Montgomery cheeredhis men up their toilsome ascent along this scarcely visible path overthe rough rocks, and the treacherous, rugged ice, was he not upborne byan inward power, stronger than brute's, holier than fiend's, higherthan man's? When Arnold flung himself against this fortress, when heled his forlorn hope up to these sullen, deadly walls, when, afterrepulse and loss and bodily suffering and weakness, he could stillstand stanch against the foe and exclaim, "I am in the way of my duty, and I know no fear!" was it not the glorious moment of that dishonoredlife? Battle is of the Devil, but surely God is there. Theintoxication of excitement, the sordid thirst for fame and power, thesordid fear of defeat, may have its place; but there, too, stand highresolve, and stern determination, --pure love of country, the immortallonging for glory, ideal aspiration, god-like self-sacrifice, loyaltyto soul, to man, to the Highest. The meanest passions of the brute mayraven on the battle-field, but the sublimest exaltations of man havefound there fit arena. 

From the moment of our passing into the citadel enclosure, a youngsoldier has accompanied us, --whether from caution or courtesy, --andgives us various interesting, and sometimes startling information. Heassures us that these guns will fire a ball eight miles, --a long range, but not so long as his bow, I fear. I perceive several gashes or slitsin the stone wall of the buildings, and I ask him what they are. "Themare for the soldiers' wives hin the garrison, " he replies promptly. Isay nothing, but I do not believe they are for the soldiers' wives. Asoldier's wife could not get through them. "How many soldiers in aregiment are allowed to have wives?" asks Halicarnassus. "Heighty, sir, " is the ready response. I am a little horror-struck, when weleave, to see Halicarnassus hold out his hand as if about to give moneyto this brave and British soldier, and scarcely less so to see oursoldier receive it quietly. But I need not be, for my observationshould have taught me that small change--fees I believe it iscalled--circulates universally in Canada. Out doors and in, it is allone. Everybody takes a fee, and is not ashamed. You fee at the falls, and you fee at the steps. You fee the church, and here we have feedthe army; and if we should call on the Governor-General, I suppose onewould drop a coin into his outstretched palm, and he would raise hishat and say, "Thank you, sir. " I do not know whether there is anyconnection between this fact and another which I noticed; but if theobservation be superficial, and the connection imaginary, I shall be noworse off than other voyageurs, so I will hazard the remark, that I sawvery few intellectual or elegant looking men and women in Quebec, or, for that matter, in Canada. Everybody looked peasant-y or shoppy, except the soldiers, and they were noticeably healthy, hale, robust, well kept; yet I could not help thinking that it is a poor use to putmen to. These soldiers seem simply well-conditioned animals, fat andfull-fed; but not nervous, intellectual, sensitive, spiritual. However, if the people of Canada are not intellectual, they are pious. "Great on saints here, " says Halicarnassus. "They call their streetsSt. Genevieve, St. Jean, and so on; and when they have run through thelist, and are hard up, they club them and have a Street of All Saints. "

Canada seemed to be a kind of Valley of Jehoshaphat for Secessionists. We scented the aroma somewhat at Saratoga; nothing to speak of, nothingto lay hold of; but you were conscious of a chill on your warm loyalty. There were petty smirks and sneers and quips that you could feel, andnot see or hear. You SENSED, to use a rustic expression, the presenceof a class that was not palpably treasonable, but rather half cotton. But at Canada it comes out all wool. The hot South opens like a doublerose, red and full. The English article is cooler and supercilious. Isay nothing, for my role is to see; but Halicarnassus and the Anakimexchange views with the greatest nonchalance, in spite of pokes andscowls and various subtabular hints. 

"What is the news?" says one to the other, who is reading the morningpaper. 

"Prospect of English intervention, " says the other to one. 

"Then we are just in season to see Canada for the last time as aBritish province, " says the first. 

"And must hurry over to England, if we design to see St. George and thedragon tutelizing Windsor Castle, " says the second; whereupon a JohnBull yonder looks up from his 'am and heggs, and the very old dragonhimself steps down from the banner-folds, and glares out of those irateeyes, and the ubiquitous British tourist, I have no doubt, took out hisnotebook, and put on his glasses and wrote down for home consumptionanother instance of the insufferable assurance of these Yankees. 

"Where have you been?" I ask Halicarnassus, coming in late to breakfast. 

"Only planning the invasion of Canada, " says he, coolly, as if it werea mere pre-prandial diversion, all of which was not only rude, butquite gratuitous, since, apart from the fact that we might not be ableto get Canada, I am sure we don't want it. I am disappointed. Isuppose I had no right to be. Doubtless it was sheer ignorance, but Ihad the idea that it was a great country, rich in promise if immaturein fact, --a nation to be added to a nation when the clock should strikethe hour, --a golden apple to fall into our hands when the fulness oftime should come. Such inspection as a few days' observation can give, such inspection as British tourists find sufficient to settle the factsand fate of nations, leads me to infer that it is not golden at all, and not much of an apple; and I cannot think what we should want of it, nor what we should do with it if we had it. The people are radicallydifferent from ours. Fancy those dark-eyed beggars and thosecalm-mouthed, cowy-men in this eager, self-involved republic. Theymight be annexed to the United States a thousand times and never beunited, for I do not believe any process in the world would turn aFrench peasant into a Yankee farmer. Besides, I cannot see that thereis anything of Canada except a broad strip along the St. LawrenceRiver. It makes a great show on the map, but when you ferret it out, it is nothing but show--and snow and ice and woods and barrenness; andI, for one, hope we shall let Canada alone. 

"I think we shall be obliged to leave Quebec tomorrow evening, " saysHalicarnassus, coming into the hotel parlor on Saturday evening. 

"Not at all, " I exclaim, promptly laying an embargo on that iniquity. 

"Otherwise we shall be compelled to remain till Monday afternoon atfour o'clock. "

"Which we can very contentedly do. "

"But lose a day. "

"Keeping the Sabbath holy is never losing a day, " replies his guide, philosopher, and friend, sententiously and severely, partly because shethinks so, and partly because she is well content to remain another dayin Quebec. 

"But as we shall not start till five o'clock, " he lamely pleads, "wecan go to church twice like saints. "

"And begin at five and travel like sinners. "

"It will only be clipping off the little end of Sunday. "

Now that is a principle the beginning of which is as when one lettethout water, and I will no tolerate it. Short weights are an abominationto the Lord. I would rather steal outright than be mean. A highwayrobber has some claims upon respect; but a petty, pilfering, trickyChristian is a damning spot on our civilization. Lord Chesterfieldasserts that a man's reputation for generosity does not depend so muchon what he spends, as on his giving handsomely when it is proper togive at all; and the gay lord builded higher and struck deeper than heknew, or at least said. If a man thinks the Gospel does not requirethe Sabbath to be strictly kept, I have nothing to say; but if hepretends to keep it, let him keep the whole of it. It takes twenty-fourhours to make a day, whether it be the first or the last of the week. I utterly reject the idea of setting off a little nucleus of Sunday, just a few hours of sermon, and then evaporating into any common day. I want the good of Sunday from beginning to end. I want nothing butSunday between Saturday and Monday. Week-days filtering in spoil thewhole. What is the use of having a Sabbath-day, a rest-day, if Mondaysand Tuesdays are to be making continual raids upon it? What good dodinner-party Sundays and travelling Sundays and novel-reading Sundaysdo? You want your Sunday for a rest, --a change, --a breakwater. It isa day yielded to the poetry, to the aspirations, to the best andhighest and holiest part of man. I believe eminently in this world. Ihave no kind of faith in a system that would push men on to heavenwithout passing through a novitiate on earth. What may be for us in thefuture is but vaguely revealed, --just enough to put hope at the bottomof our Pandora's box; but our business is in this world. Right throughthe thick and thin of this world our path lies. Our strength, ourworth, our happiness, our glory, are to be attained through theoccupations and advantages of this world. Yet through discipline, andnot happiness, is the main staple here, it is not the only product. Sixdays we must labor and do all work, but the seventh is a holiday. Thenwe may drop the absorbing now, and revel in anticipated joys, --liftourselves above the dusty duties, the common pleasures that weary andensoil, even while they ennoble us, and live for a little while in thebright clear atmosphere of another life, --soothed, comforted, stimulated by the sweetness of celestial harmonies. 

 "O day most calm, most bright, The fruit of this, the next world's bud, The indorsement of Supreme delight, Writ by a Friend, and with his blood, -- The couch of time, care's balm and bay, -- The week were dark but for thy light, Thy torch doth show the way. "

He is no friend to man who would abate one jot or tittle of ourprecious legacy. 

Afloat in literature may be found much objurgation concerning theenforced strictures of the old Puritan Sabbath. Perhaps there was amistake in that direction; but I was brought up on them, and they neverhurt me any. At least I was never conscious of any harm, certainly ofno suffering. As I look back, I see no awful prisons and chains andgloom, but a pleasant jumble of best clothes, --I remember now theirsmell when the drawer was opened, --and Sunday-school lessons, and bakedbeans, and a big red Bible with the tower of Babel in it full of littlebells, and a walk to church two miles through the lane, over the bars, through ten-acres, over another pair of bars, through a meadow, overanother pair of bars, by Lubber Hill, over a wall, through anothermeadow, through the woods, over the ridge, by Black Pond, over a fence, across a railroad, over another fence, through a pasture, through thelong woods, through a gate, through the low woods, through anothergate, out upon the high-road at last. And then there was the longservice, during which a child could think her own thoughts, generallyranging no higher than the fine bonnets around her, but never tired, never willing to stay at home; and then Sunday school, andlibrary-books, and gingerbread, and afternoon service, and the longwalk home or the longer drive, and catechism in the evening and thenever-failing Bible. O Puritan Sabbaths! doubtless you were sometimesstormy without and stormy within; but looking back upon you from afar, I see no clouds, no snow, but perpetual sunshine and blue sky, and evereager interest and delight, --wild roses blooming under the old stonewall, wild bees humming among the blackberry-bushes, tremulous sweetcolumbines skirting the vocal woods, wild geraniums startling theirshadowy depths; and I hear now the rustle of dry leaves, bravelystirred by childish feet, just as they used to rustle in the Octoberafternoons of long ago. Sweet Puritan Sabbaths! breathe upon a restlessworld your calm, still breath, and keep us from the evil!

Somewhat after this fashion I harangued Halicarnassus, who was shamedinto silence, but not turned from his purpose; but the next morning hecame up from below after breakfast, and informed me, with an airmingled of the condescension of the monarch and the resignation of themartyr, that, as I was so scrupulous about travelling on the Sabbath, he had concluded not to go till Monday afternoon. No, I said, I didnot wish to assume the conduct of affairs. I had given my protest, andsatisfied my own conscience; but I was not head of the party, and didnot choose to assume the responsibility of its movements. I did notthink it right to travel on Sunday, but neither do I think it right forone person to compel a whole party to change its plans out of deferenceto his scruples. So I insisted that I would not cause detention. ButHalicarnassus insisted that he would not have my conscience forced. Now it would seem natural that so tender and profound a regard for myscruples would have moved me to a tender and profound gratitude; butnobody understands Halicarnassus except myself. He is a dark lane, full of crooks and turns, --a labyrinth which nobody can thread withoutthe clew. That clew I hold. I know him. I can walk right through himin the darkest night without any lantern. He is fully aware of it. Heknows that it is utterly futile for him to attempt to deceive me, andyet, with the infatuation of a lunatic, he is continually producing hisflimsy little fictions for me as continually to blow away. Forinstance, when we were walking down the path to the steps ofMontmorency, Grande called out in delight at some new and beautifulwhite flowers beside the path. What were they? I did not know. Whatare they, Halicarnassus? "Ah! wax-flowers, " says he, coming up, andGrande passed on content, as would ninety-nine out of a hundred; but anindescribable something in his air convinced me that he was not drawingon his botany for his facts. I determined to get at the root of thematter. 

"Do you mean, " I asked, "that the name of those flowers is wax-flowers?"

"Of course, " he replied. "Why not?"

"Do you mean, " I persisted, confirmed in my suspicions by hisremarkable question, "that you know that they are wax-flowers, or thatyou do not know that they are not wax-flowers?"

"Why, look at 'em for yourself. Can't you see with your own eyes?" heejaculated, attempting to walk on. 

I planted myself full in front of him. "Halicarnassus, one stepfurther except over my lifeless body you do not go, until you tell mewhether those are or are not wax-flowers?"

"Well, " he said, brought to bay at last, and sheepishly enough whiskingoff the heads of a dozen or two with his cane, "if they are not that, they are something else. " There!

So when he showed his delicate consideration for my conscience, I wasnot grateful, but watchful. I detected under the glitter somethingthat was not gold. I made very indifferent and guardedacknowledgments, and silently detached a corps of observation. In fiveminutes it came out that no train left Quebec on Sunday!

PART V. 

So we remained over Sunday in Quebec, and in the morning attendedservice at the French Cathedral; and as we all had the Americanaccomplishments of the "Nonne, a Prioresse, " who spoke French

 "ful fayre and fetisly After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, The Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe, "

it may be inferred that we were greatly edified by the service. Fromthe French, as one cannot have too much of a good thing, we proceededwithout pause to the English Cathedral, --cathedral by courtesy?--andheard a sermon by a Connecticut bishop, which, however good, was adisappointment, because we wanted the flavor of the soil. And afterdinner we walked on the high and sightly Durham terrace, and then wentto the Scotch church, joined in Scotch singing, and heard a broadScotch sermon. So we tried to worship as well as we could; but it isimpossible not to be sight-seeing where there are sights to see, andfor that matter I don't suppose there is any harm in it. You don't goto a show; but if the church and the people and the minister are all ashow, what can you do about it?

As I sat listening in the French Cathedral to a service I but a quartercomprehended, the residual three fourths of me went wandering at itsown sweet will, and queried why it is that a battle-ground should sostir the blood, while a church suffers one to pass calmly and coldlyout through its portals. I do not believe it is total depravity; forthough the church stands for what is good, the battle-field does notstand for all that is bad. The church does indeed represent man'shighest aspirations, his longings for holiness and heaven. But thebattle-field speaks not, I think, of retrogression. It is in the sameline as the church. It stands in the upward path. The church and itsinfluences are the dew and sunshine and spring rains that nourish agentle, wholesome growth. Battle is the mighty convulsion that marks ageologic era. The fierce throes of battle upheave a continent. Thechurch clothes it with soft alluvium, adorns it with velvet verdure, enriches it with fruits and grains, glorifies it with the beauty ofblooms. In the struggle all seems to be chaos and destruction; butafter each shock the elevation is greater. Perhaps it is that alwaysthe concussion of the shock impresses, while the soft, slow, silentconstancy accustoms us and is unheeded; but I think there is anothercause. In any church you are not sure of sincerity, of earnestness. Church building and church organization are the outgrowth of man'swants, and mark his upward path; but you do not know of a certaintywhether this individual edifice represents life, or vanity, ostentation, custom, thrift. You look around upon the worshippers in achurch, and you are not usually thrilled. You do not see the presenceand prevalence of an absorbing, exclusive idea. Devotion does not fixthem. They are diffusive, observant, often apparently indifferent, sometimes positively EXHIBITIVE. They adjust their draperies, whisperto their neighbors, took vacant about the mouth. The beat of a drum orthe bleat of a calf outside disturbs and distracts them. An untimelycomer dissipates their attention. They are floating, loose, incoherent, at the mercy of trifles. The most inward, vital part ofreligion does not often show itself in church, though it be nursed andnurtured there. So when we go into an empty church, it is--empty. Hopes, fears, purposes, ambitions, the eager hours of men, do notpervade and penetrate those courts. The walls do not flame with thefire of burning hearts. The white intensity of life may never haveglowed within them. No fragrance of intimate, elemental passionlingers still. No fine aroma of being clings through the years andsuffuses you with its impalpable sweetness, its subtile strength. Youare not awed, because the Awful is not there. But on the battle-fieldyou have no doubt. Imagination roams at will, but in the domains offaith. Realities have been there, and their ghosts walk up and downforever. There men met men in deadly earnest. Right or wrong, theystood face to face with the unseen, the inevitable. The great problemawaited them, and they bent fiery souls to its solution. But one ideamoved them all and wholly. They threw themselves body and soul intothe raging furnace. All minor distractions were burned out. Everyself was fused and lost in one single molten flood, dashing madlyagainst its barrier to whelm in rapturous victory or be broken in soredefeat. 

And it is earnestness that utilizes the good. It is sincerity thatmakes the bad not infernal. 

Monday gave us the Indian village, more Indian-y than village-y, --andthe Falls of Lorette. For a description, see the Falls of Montmorency. Lorette is more beautiful, I think, more wild, more varied, moresympathetic, --not so precipitous, not so concentrated, not so forceful, but more picturesque, poetic, sylvan, lovely. The descent is long, broad, and broken. The waters flash and foam over the black rocks likea white lace veil over an Ethiop belle, and then rush on to otherwoodland scenes. 

We left Quebec ignobly, crossing the river in a steamer to which theeminently English adjective nasty can fitly apply, --a wheezy, sputtering, black, crazy old craft, muddy enough throughout to havebeen at the bottom of the river and sucked up again half a dozen times. With care of the luggage, shawls, hackmen, and tickets, we allcontrived to become separated, and I found myself crushed into onecorner of a little Black Hole of Calcutta, with no chair to sit in, nospace to stand in, and no air to breathe, on the sultriest day thatCanada had known for years. What windows there were opened by swinginginwards and upwards, which they could not do for the press, and afteryou had got them up, there was no way to keep them there except tostand and hold them at arm's length. So we waddled across the river. Now we have all read of shipwrecks, and the moral grandeur ofresignation and calmness which they have developed. We have read ofdrowning, and the gorgeous intoxication of the process. But there isneither grandeur nor gorgeousness in drowning in a tub. If you mustsink, you at least would like to go down gracefully, in a stately ship, in mid-ocean, in a storm and uproar, bravely, decorously, sublimely, asthe soldiers in Ravenshoe, drawn up in line, with their officers attheir head, waving to each other calm farewells. I defy anybody to begraceful or heroic in plumping down to the bottom of a city river amida jam of heated, hurried, panting, angry passengers, mountains oftrunks, carpet-bags, and indescribable plunder, and countlessstratifications of coagulated, glutinous, or pulverized mud. To thecredit of human nature it must be said, that the sufferers kept thepeace with each other, though vigorously denouncing the unknown authorof all their woes. After an age of suffocation and fusion, there camea stir which was a relief because it was a stir. Nobody seemed to knowthe cause or consequence, but everybody moved; so I moved, and bobbing, fumbling, groping through Egyptian darkness, stumbling over the beams, crawling under the boilers, creeping through the steam-pipes, scalpingourselves against the funnels, we finally came out gasping into theblessed daylight. "Here you are!" exclaimed cheerily the voice ofHalicarnassus, as I went winking and blinking in the unaccustomedlight. "I began to think I had lost my cane, "--he had given it to mewhen he went to look up the trunks. "Why?" I asked faintly, not yetfully recovered from my long incarceration. "It is so long since I sawyou, that I thought you must have fallen overboard, " was his gratifyingreply. I was still weak, but I gathered up my remaining strength andplunged the head of the cane, a dog's head it was, into his heart. Hiswatch, or his Bible, or something interposed, and rescued him from thefate he merited; and then we rode over the miserable, rickety fartherend of the Grand Trunk Railway, and reached Island Pond atmidnight, --in time to see the magnificent Northern Lights flashing, flickering, wavering, streaming, and darting over the summer sky; andas the people in the Pond were many and the rooms few, we had plenty oftime to enjoy the sight. It was exciting, fascinating, almostbewildering; and feeling the mystic mood, I proposed to write a poem onit, to which Halicarnassus said he had not the smallest objection, provided he should not be held liable to read it, adding, as he offeredme his pencil, that it was just the thing, --he wanted some narcotic tocounteract the stimulus of the fresh cold air after the long and heatedride, or he should get no sleep for the night. 

I do not believe there is in our beautiful but distracted country asingle person who is the subject of so cold-blooded, unprovoked, systematic, malignant neglect and abuse on any one point as the writerof these short and simple annals on this. If there is one thing in thewhole range of human possibilities on which I pride myself, it is mypoetry. I cannot do much at prose. That requires a depth, anequilibrium, a comprehension, a sagacity, a culture, which I do notpossess and cannot command. Nor in the domestic drudgery line, nor theparlor ornament line, nor the social philanthropic line, nor theministering angel line, can I be said to have a determinate value. Asan investment, as an economic institution, as an available force, Isuppose I must be reckoned a failure; but I do write lovely poetry. That I insist on: and yet, incredible as it may seem, of that onelittle ewe lamb have I been repeatedly and remorselessly robbed by anunscrupulous public, and a still more unscrupulous private. Whenever Icome into the room with a sheet of manuscript in my hand, Halicarnassusglances at it, and if the lines are not all of the same length, hefinds at once that he has to go and shovel a path, or bank up thecellar, or get in the wood, unless I have taken the precaution to lockthe door and put the key in my pocket. When, by force or fraud, I havecompelled a reluctant audience, he is sure to strike in by the time Ihave got to the second stanza, breaking right into the middle of afigure or a rapture, and asking how much more there is of it. I know offew things better calculated to extinguish the poetic fire than this. I regret to be obliged to say that Halicarnassus, by his persistenthostility, --I believe I may say, persecution, --has disseminated hisplebeian prejudices over a very large portion of our joint community, and my muse consequently is held in the smallest esteem. Not but thatwhenever there is a church to be dedicated, or a centennial to becelebrated, or a picnic to be sung, or a fair to be closed, I am calledon to furnish the poetry, which, with that sweetness of dispositionwhich forms a rare but fitting background to poetic genius, Iinvariably do, to be praised and thanked for a week, and then to beagain as before told, upon the slightest provocation, "You better notmeddle with verses. " "You stick to prose. " "Verses are not yourforte. " "You can't begin to come up with ----, and ----, and ----. " Onthat auroral night, crowned with the splendors of the wild mystery ofthe North, I am sure that the muse awoke and stirred in the depths ofmy soul, and needed but a word of recognition and encouragement to puton her garland and singing robes, and pour forth a strain which theworld would not have willingly let die, and which I would havetransferred to these pages. But that word was not spoken. Scorn andsarcasm usurped the throne of gentle cherishing, and the golden momentpassed away forever. It is as well. Perhaps it is better; for onsecond thought, I recollect that the absurd prejudice I have mentionedhas extended itself to the editor of this Magazine, [*] who jerks medown with a pitiless pull whenever I would soar into theempyrean, --ruling out with a rod of iron every shred of poetry from mypages, till I am reduced to the necessity of smuggling it in by writingit in the same form as the rest when, as he tells poetry only by thecapitals and exclamation-points, he thinks it is prose, and lets it go. 

[* The Atlantic Monthly]

Here, if I may be allowed, I should like to make a digression. In anearly stage of my journeying, I spoke of the pleasure I had taken inreading "The Betrothal" and "The Espousals. " I cannot suppose that itis of any consequence to the world whether I think well or ill of apoem, but the only way in which the world will ever come out right isby everyone's putting himself right; and I don't wish even my influenceto seem to be thrown in favor of so objectionable a book as "FaithfulForever, " a continuation of the former poems by the same author. Coventry Patmore's books generally are made up of poetry and prattle, but the poetry makes you forgive the prattle. The tender, strong, wholesome truths they contain steady the frail bark through dangerouswaters; but "Faithful Forever" is wrong, false, and pernicious, rootand branch, and a thorough misnomer besides. Frederic loves Honoria, who loves and marries Arthur, leaving Frederic out in the cold;whereupon Frederic turns round and marries Jane, knowing all the whilethat he does not love her and does love Honoria. What kind of aFaithful Forever is this? A man cannot love two women simultaneously, whatever he may do consecutively. If he ceases to love the first, heis surely not faithful forever. If he does not cease to love her, heis false forever to the second, --and worse than false. Marrying frompique or indifference or disappointment is one of the greatest crimesthat can be committed, as well as one of the greatest blunders that canbe made. The man who can do such a thing is a liar and a perjurer. Ican understand that people should give up the people they love, butthere is no possible shadow of excuse for their taking people whom theydon't love. It is no matter how inferior Jane may be to Frederic. Awoman can feel a good many things that she cannot analyze orunderstand, and there never yet was a woman so stupid that she did notknow whether or not her husband loved her, and was not either strickenor savage to find that he did not. No woman ever was born with a heartso small that anything less than the whole of her husband's heart couldfill it. 

Moreover, apart from unhappy consequences, there is a right and a wrongabout it. How dare a man stand up solemnly before God and his fellowswith a lie in his right hand? and if he does do it, how dare a poet ora novelist step up and glorify him in it? The man who commits a crimedoes not do so much mischief as the man who turns the criminal into ahero. Frederic Graham did a weak, wicked, mean, and cowardly deed, notbeing in his general nature weak, wicked, mean, or cowardly, and wasallowed to blunder on to a tolerable sort of something like happinessin the end. No one has a right to complain, for all of us get a greatdeal more and better than we deserve. We have no right to complain ofProvidence, but we have a right to complain of the poet who comes upand says not a word in reprobation of the meanness and cowardice, not aword of the cruelty inflicted upon Jane, nor the wrong done to his ownsoul; but veils the wickedness, excites our sympathy and pity, and infact makes Frederic out to be a sort of sublime and suffering martyr. He was no martyr at all. Nobody is a martyr, if he cannot helphimself. If Frederic had the least spirit of martyrdom, he would havebreasted his sorrow manfully and alone. Instead of which, he shuffledhimself and his misery upon poor simple Jane, getting all the solace hecould from her, and leading her a wretched, almost hopeless life foryears. This is what we are to admire! This is the knight withoutreproach! This is to be Faithful Forever! I suppose Coventry Patmorethinks Frederic is to be commended because he did not break intoHonoria's house and run away with her. That is the only thing he couldhave done worse than he did do, and that I have no doubt he would havedone if he could. I have no faith in the honor or the virtue of men orwomen who will marry where they do not love. I think it is just assinful--and a thousand times as vile--to marry unlovingly, as to loveunlawfully. [*]

[*] Some one just here suggests that it was Jane who was faithfulforever, not Frederic. That indeed makes the title appropriate, butdoes not relieve the atrocity of the plot. 

There is this about mountains, --you cannot get away from them. Lowcountry may be beautiful, yet you may be preoccupied and pass throughit or by it without consciousness; but the mountains rise, and there isno escape. Representatives of an unseen force, voices from an infinitepast, benefactors of the valleys, themselves unblest, almoners of acharity which leaves them in the heights indeed, but the heights ofeternal desolation, raised above all sympathies, all tenderness, shining but repellent, grand and cold, mighty and motionless, --we standbefore them hushed. They fix us with their immutability. They shroudus with their Egyptian gloom. They sadden. They awe. They overpower. Yet far off how different is the impression! Bright and beautiful, evanescent yet unchanging, lovely as a spirit with their clear, softoutlines and misty resplendence! Exquisitely says Winthrop: "There isnothing so refined as the outline of a distant mountain; even arose-leaf is stiff-edged and harsh in comparison. Nothing else hasthat definite indefiniteness, that melting permanence, that evanescingchangelessness. [I did not know that I was using his terms. ] Cloudsin vain strive to imitate it; they are made of slighter stuff; they canbe blunt or ragged, but they cannot have that solid positiveness. Evenin its cloudy, distant fairness, there is a concise, emphatic realityaltogether uncloudlike. "

Seeing them from afar, lovely rather than terrible, we feel that thoughbetween the mountain and its valley, with much friendly service andcontinual intercourse, there can be no real communion, still themountain is not utterly lonely, but has yonder in the east its solace, and in the north a companion, and over toward the west its coterie. Solitary but to the lowly-living, in its own sphere there is immortalcompanionship, and this vast hall of the heavens, and many a draught ofnectar borne by young Ganymede. 

The Alpine House seems to be the natural caravansary for Grand Trunktravellers, being accessible from the station without the interventionof so much as an omnibus, and being also within easy reach of manyobjects of interest. Here, therefore, we lay over awhile to strike outacross the mountains and into the valleys, and to gather health andserenity for the weeks that were to come, with their urgent claims forall of both that could be commanded. 

Eastern Massachusetts is a very pretty place to live in, and the mutualadmiration society is universally agreed by its members to be the verybest society on this continent. Nevertheless, by too long and closeadherence to that quarter of the globe, one comes to forget how theworld was made, and, in fact, that it ever was made. We silently takeit for granted. It was always there. Smooth, smiling plains, gentlehills, verdurous slopes, blue, calm streams, and softly woodedbanks, --a courteous, well-bred earth it is, and we forget that it hasnot been so from the beginning. But here among the mountains, Genesisfinds exegesis. We stand amid the primeval convulsions of matter, --thefirst fierce throes of life. Marks of the struggle still linger; nay, the struggle itself is not soothed quite away. No more unexceptionablesurfaces, but yawns and fissures, chasms and precipices, deep gashes inthe hills, hills bursting up from the plains, rocks torn from theirgranite beds and tossed hither and thither in some grand storm of Titanwrath, rivers with no equal majesty, but narrow, deep, elfish, risingand falling in wild caprice, playing mad pranks with their uncertainshores, treacherous, reckless, obstreperous. Here we see the changesactually going on. The earth is still a-making. More than one river, scorning its channel, has, within the memory of man, hewn out foritself another, and taken undisputed, if not undisturbed possession. The Peabody River, which rolls modestly enough now, seeming, indeed, amere thread of brook dancing through a rocky bed by far too large forit, will by and by, when the rains come, rise and roar and rush withsuch impetuosity that these great water-worn stones, now bleachingquietly in the sun, shall be wrenched up from their resting-places, andwhirled down the river with such fury and uproar that the noise oftheir crashing and rolling shall break in upon your dreams at night. Wild River, a little farther down, you may ford almost dry-shod, and infour hours it shall reach such heights and depths as might upbear ourmightiest man-of-war. Many and many a gully, half choked with stonesand briers, lurks under the base of an overtopping hill, and showswhere a forgotten Undine lived and loved. The hills still bear thescars of their wounds. No soft-springing greenness veils the tortuousprocesses. Uncompromising and terrible, the marks of their awfulrending, the agony of their fiery birth, shall remain. Time, thedestroyer of man's works, is the perfecter of God's. These ravages arenot Time's; they are the doings of an early force, beneficent, butdreadful. It is Time's to soothe and adorn. 

We connect the idea of fixity with the mountains, but they seem to meto be continually pirouetting with each other, --exchanging or entirelylosing their identity. You are in the Alpine Valley. Around you standMount Hayes, so named in honor of a worthy housekeeper; the Imp, sobriquet of a winsome and roguish little girl, who once made the housegay; the Pilot range, --because they pilot the Androscoggin down to thesea, says one to whom I never appeal in vain for facts or reasons;Mount Madison, lifting his shining head beyond an opening niched forhim in the woods of a high hill-top by Mr. Hamilton Willis of Boston, whom let all men thank. I thanked him in my heart every morning, noon, and night, looking up from my seat at table to that distant peak, whereotherwise I should have seen only a monotonous forest line. Overagainst the sunset is Mount Moriah, and Carter, and Surprise. You knowthem well. You can call them all by name. But you have no soonerturned a corner than--where are they? Gone, --all changed. Every lineis altered, every contour new. Spurs have become knobs. Peaks areridges; summits, terraces. Madison probably has disappeared, and someAdams or Jefferson rises before you in unabashed grandeur. Carter andthe Imp have hopped around to another point of the compass. All thelesser landmarks, as the old song says, "First upon the heel-tap, then upon the toe, Wheel about, and turn about, and do just so. "

Your topography is entirely dislocated. You must begin youracquaintance anew. Fresh lines and curves, new forms and faces andchameleon tints, thrust you off from the secrets of the Storm-Kings. While you fancy yourself to be battering down the citadel, you are butknocking feebly at the out-works. You have caught a single phase, andtheir name is legion. Infinite as light, infinite as form, infinite asmotion, so infinite are the mountains. Purple and intense against theglowing sunset sky, the Pilot range curves its strong outlines, orshimmers steely-blue in the noonday haze. Day unto day utterethspeech, and night unto night showeth knowledge of their ever-vanishingand ever-returning splendors. New every morning, fresh every evening, we fancy each pageant fairer and finer than the last. Every summerhour, a messenger from heaven, is charged with the waiting landscape, and drapes it with its own garment of woven light, celestial broidery. Sunshine crowns the crests, and stamps their kinship to the skies. Shadows nestle in the dells, flit over the ridges, hide under theoverhanging cliffs, to be chased out in gleeful frolic by the slantsunbeams of the mellow afternoon. Clouds and vapors and unseen handsof heaven flood the hills with beauty. They have drunk in the warmthand life of the sun, they quiver beneath his burning glance, they liesteeped in color, gorgeous, tremulous, passionate, rosy red droppingaway into pale gold, emeralds dim and sullen where they ripple downtowards the darkness, dusky browns and broad reaches of blue-blackmassiveness, till the silent starlight wraps the scene with blessing, and the earth sitteth still and at rest. 

On such an evening, never to be forgotten, we stood alone with thenight. Day had gone softly, evening came slowly. There was no speechnor language, only hope and passion and purpose died gently out. Individualities were not, and we stood at one with the universe, handin hand with the immortals, silent, listening. It was as if theheavens should give up their secret, and smite us with the music of thespheres. Suddenly, unheralded, up over the summit of Mount Moriah camethe full moan, a silver disc, a lucent, steady orb, globular and grand, filling the valleys with light, touching all things into a hushed anddarkling splendor. To us, standing alone, far from sight of human faceor sound of human voice, it seemed the censer of God, swung out toreceive the incense of the world. 

Multifold mists join hands with the light to play fantastic tricks uponthese mighty monarchs. The closing day is tender, bringing sacrificeand oblation; but the day of flitting clouds and frequent showers riotsin changing joys. Every subordinate eminence that has arrogated toitself the sublimity of the distant mountain, against whose rocky sidesit lay lost, is unmasked by the vapors that gather behind it and revealits low-lying outlines. Every little dimple of the hills has itschalice of mountain wine. The mist stretches above the ridge, a long, low, level causeway, solid as the mountains themselves, which buttressits farther side, a via triumpha, meet highway for the returningchariot of an emperor. It rears itself from the valleys, a dragonrampant and with horrid jaws. It flings itself with smotheringcaresses about the burly mountains, and stifles them in its closeembrace. It trails along the hills, floating in filmy, parting gauze, scattering little flecks of pearl, fringing itself over the hollows, and hustling against a rocky breastwork that bars its onward going. Itwreathes upward, curling around the peaks and veiling summits, whoseslopes shine white in the unclouded sun. It shuts down gray, dense, sombre, with moody monotone. It opens roguishly one little loop-hole, through which--cloud above, cloud below, cloud on this side and onthat--you see a sweet, violet-hued mountain-dome, lying against abackground of brilliant blue sky, --just for one heart-beat, and itcloses again, gray, sheeted, monotonous. 

Leaving the valley, and driving along the Jefferson road, you have themountains under an entirely new aspect. Before, they stood, as itwere, endwise. Now you have them at broadside. Mile after mile youpass under their solid ramparts, but far enough to receive the idea oftheir height and breadth, their vast material greatness, --far enough tolet the broad green levels of the intervale slide between, with hereand there a graceful elm, towering and protective, and here and there abrown farm-house. But man's works show puny and mean beside nature, which seems spontaneous as a thought. Man's work is a toil; nature'sis a relief. Man labors to attain abundance; nature, to throw offsuperabundance. The mountain-sides bristle with forests; man dragshimself from his valley, and slowly and painfully levels an inch or twofor his use; just a little way here and there a green field has creptup into the forest. The mountain-chin has one or two shaven spots; butfor the greater part his beard is still unshorn. All along he sendsdown his boon to men. Everywhere you hear the scurrying feet of littlebrooks, tumbling pell-mell down the rocks in their frantic haste toreach a goal;--often a pleasant cottage-door, to lighten the burden andcool the brow of toil; often to pour through a hollow log by thewayside, --a never-failing beneficence and joy to the wearied, trustyhorses. From the piazza of the Waumbeck House--a quiet, pleasant, home-like little hotel in Jefferson, and the only one, so far as Iknow, that has had the grace to take to itself one of the old Indiannames in which the region abounds, Waumbeck, Waumbeck-Methna, Mountainsof Snowy-Foreheads--a very panorama of magnificence unfolds itself. The whole horizon is rimmed with mountain-ranges. The White Mountainchain stands out bold and firm, sending greeting to his peers afar. Franconia answers clear and bright from the south-west; and from beyondthe Connecticut the Green hills make response. Loth to leave, we turnaway from these grand out-lying bulwarks to front on our returnbulwarks as grand and massive, behind whose impregnable walls we seemshut in from the world forever. 

A little lyric in the epos may be found in a side-journey to Bethel, --avillage which no one ever heard of, at least I never did, till now; butwhen we did hear, we heard so much and so well that we at once startedon a tour of exploration, and found--as Halicarnassus quotes the Queenof Sheba--there was more of it than we expected. The ride down in thetrain, if you are willing and able to stand on the rear platform of therear car, is of surpassing beauty. The mountains seem to rise andapproach in dumb, reluctant farewell. The river bends and insinuates, spreading out to you all its islands of delight. Molten in its depths, golden in its shallows, it meanders through its meadows, a joy forever. Bethel sits on its banks, loveliest of rural villages, and gentlyunfolds its beauties to your longing eyes. The Bethel House, --a largeold-fashioned country-house, with one of those broad, socialsecond-story piazzas, and a well bubbling up in the middle of thedining-room--think of that, Master Brooke!--a hotel whose landlordwelcomes you with lemonade and roses (perhaps he wouldn't YOU!), --ahotel terrible to evil-doers, but a praise to them that do well, inasmuch as it is conducted on the millennial principle of quietlyfrightening away disagreeable people with high rates, and fascinatingamiable people with reasonable ones, so that, of course, you have thewheat without the chaff, --a hotel where people go to rest and enjoy, and wear morning-dresses all day, and are fine only when theychoose--indeed, you can do that anywhere, if you only think so. Theidea that you must lug all your best clothes through the wilderness isabsurd. A good travelling-dress, admissible of bisection, a muslinspencer for warm evenings, and a velvet bodice when you design to begorgeous, will take you through with all the honors of war. Besides, there are always sure to be plenty of people in every drawing-room whowill be sumptuously attired, and you can feast your eyes luxuriously onthem, and gratefully feel that the work is so well done as to need noco-operation of yours, and that you can be comfortable with an easyconscience. Where was I? O, on the top, of Paradise Hill, I believe, surveying Paradise, a little indistinct and quavering in the sheen of asummer noon, but clear enough to reveal its Pison, its Gilton, itsHiddekel, and Euphrates, compassing the whole land of Havilah; orperhaps I was on Sparrowhawk, beholding Paradise from another point, dotted with homes and church-spires, rich and fertile, fair still, withcompassing river and tranquil lake; or, more probable than either, Iwas driving along the highland that skirts the golden meadows throughwhich the river purls, ruddy in the setting sun, and rejoicing in thebeauty amid which he lives and moves and has his being. Lovely Bethel, fairest ornament of the sturdy mountain-land, tender and smiling as ifno storm had ever swept, no sin ever marred, --in Arcadia that no onewould ever leave but for the magic of the drive back to Gorham throughpiny woods, under frowning mountains, circled with all the glories ofsky and river, --a drive so enticing, that, when you reach Gorham, straight back again you will go to Bethel, and so forever oscillate, unless some stronger magnet interpose. 

A rainy day among the mountains is generally considered rather dismal, but I find that I like it. Apart from the fact that you wish, or oughtto wish, to see Nature in all her aspects, it is a very beneficentarrangement of Providence, that, when eyes and brain and heart areweary with looking and receiving, an impenetrable barrier isnoiselessly let down, and you are forced to rest. Besides, there aremany things which it is not absolutely essential to see, but which, nevertheless, are very interesting in the sight. You would not thinkof turning away from a mountain or a waterfall to visit them, but whenyou are forcibly shut out from both, you condescend to homelier sights. For instance, I wonder how many frequenters of the Alpine house eversaw or know that there is a dairy in its Plutonian regions. A rainy daydiscovered it to us, and, with many an injunction touching possibledust, we were bidden into those mysterious precincts. A carpet, laidloose over the steps, forestalled every atom of defilement, and, descending cautiously and fearfully through portals and outer courts, we trod presently the adytum. It was a dark, cool, silent place. Thefloors were white, spotless, and actually fragrant with cleanliness. The sides of the room were lined with shelves, the shelves begemmedwith bright pans, and the bright pans filled with milk, --I don't knowhow many pans there were, but I should think about a million, --andthere was a mound of pails piled up to be washed, and cosy littlecolonies of butter, pleasant to eyes, nose, and mouth, and a curiousmachine to work butter over, consisting of something like a table inthe shape of the letter V, the flat part a trough, with a wooden handleto push back and forth, and the buttermilk running out at the apex ofthe V. If the principle on which it is constructed is a secret, Idon't believe I have divulged it; but I do not aim to let you knowprecisely what it is, only that there is such a thing. I hope now thatevery one will not flock down cellar the moment he alights from theGorham train. I should be very sorry to divert the stream of travelinto Mr. Hitchcock's dairy, for I am sure any great influx of visitorswould sorely disconcert the good genius who presides there, and wouldbe an ill requital for her kindness to us; but it was so novel andpleasant a sight that I am sure she will pardon me for speaking of itjust this once. 

Another mild entertainment during an intermittent rain is a run ofabout a mile up to the "hennery, " which buds and blossoms with thedearest little ducks of ducks, broad-billed, downy, toddling, tumblingin and out of a trough of water, and getting continually lost on thebluff outside; little chickens and turkeys, and great turkeys, notpleasant to the eye, but good for food, and turkey-gobblers, stiffest-mannered of all the feathered creation; and geese, sailing inthe creek majestic, or waddling on the grass dumpy; and two or threewild geese, tolled down from the sky, and clipped away from it forever;and guinea-hens, speckled and spheral; and, most magnificent of all, apea cock, who stands in a corner and unfolds the magnificence of histail. Watching his movements, I could not but reflect upon thesuperior advantages which a peacock has over a woman. The gorgeousnessof his apparel is such that even Solomon in all his glory was notarrayed in the like; yet so admirable is the contrivance for itsmanagement that no suspicion of mud or moisture stains its brilliancy. A woman must have recourse to clumsy contrivances of india-rubber andgutta-percha if her silken skirts shall not trail ignobly in the dust. The peacock at will rears his train in a graceful curve, and defiesdefilement. 

Besides abundance of food and parade-ground, these happy fowls have avery agreeable prospect. Their abrupt knoll commands a respectablesection of the Androscoggin Valley, --rich meadow-lands, the humanitiesof church-spire and cottage, the low green sweep of the intervalethrough which the river croons its quiet way under shadows of rock andtree, answering softly to the hum of bee and song of bird, --answeringjust as softly to the snort and shriek of its hot-breathed rival, therailroad. Doubtless the railroad, swift, energetic, prompt, givesitself many an air over the slow-going, calm-souled water-way, but letMonsieur Chemin de Fer look to his laurels, --a thing of yesterday andtomorrow, --a thing of iron and oil and accidents. I, the River, descend from the everlasting mountains. I was born of the perpetualhills. I fear no more the heat o' the sun, nor the furious winter'srages; no obstacle daunts me. Time cannot terrify. My power shallnever faint, my foundations never shrink, my fountains never fail. 

 "Men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever. "

And the railroad, pertinacious, intrusive, aggressive, is, after all, the dependent follower, the abject copyist of the river. Toss andscorn as it may, the river is its leader and engineer. Fortunes andages almost would have been necessary to tunnel those mountains, ifindeed tunnelling had been possible, but the river winds at its ownsweet will. Without sound of hammer or axe, by force of its ownheaven-born instincts, it has levelled its lovely way unerring, andwherever it goes, thither goes the railroad, to its own infinite gain. Railroads are not generally considered picturesque, but from thestandpoint of that hennery, and from several other standpoints, I hadno fault to find. Unable to go straight on, as the manner of railroadsis, it bends to all the wayward little fancies of the river, piercingthe wild wood, curling around the base of the granite hills, now letloose a space to shoot across the glade, joyful of the permission toindulge its railroad instinct of straightness; and, amid so muchirregularity and headlong wilfulness, a straight line is reallyrefreshing. Up the sides of its embankment wild vines have twisted andclimbed, and wild-flowers have budded into bloom. 

Berlin Falls is hardly a wet-day resource, but the day on which we sawit changed its mind after we left the hotel, and from clouds andpromise of sunshine turned into clouds and certainty of rain. For allthat, the drive along the river, within sound of its roaring andgurgling and rippling and laughing overflow of joy, with occasionalglimpses of it through the trees, with gray cloud-curtains constantlydropping, then suddenly lifting, and gray sheets of rain fringing downbefore us, and the thirsty, parched leaves, intoxicated with their muchmead of the mountains, slapping us saucily on the check, or in madrevel flinging into our faces their goblets of honey-dew, --ah! it was acarnival of tricksy delight, making the blood glow like wine. Thefalls, which chanced to be indeed no falls, but shower-swollen intorapids, are one of the most wonderful presentations of Nature's masonrythat I have ever seen. It is not the water, but the rock, that amazes. The whole Androscoggin River gathers up its strength and plungesthrough a gorge, --a gateway in the solid rock is regular, as upright, as if man had brought in the whole force of his geometry and gunpowderto the admeasurement and excavation, --plunges, conscious ofimprisonment and the insult to its slighted majesty, --plunges withfierce protest and frenzy of rage, breaks against a grim, unyieldingrock to dash itself into a thousand whirling waves; then rushes on tobe again imprisoned between the pillars of another gorge, only lessregular, not less inexorable, than the first; then, leaping andsurging, it beats against its banks, and is hurled wrathfully back injets of spray and wreaths of foam; or, soothed into gentler mood by thesoft touch of mosses on the brown old rocks, it leaps lightly up theirdripping sides, and trickles back from the green, wet, overhangingspray, and so, all passion sobbed away, it babbles down to its bed ofLincoln green, where Robin Hood and Maid Marian wait under the oakenboughs. 

In the leaden, heavy air the scene was sombre, --tragic. In sunshineand shadows it must have other moods, perhaps a different character; Idid not see the sunshine play upon it. 

But the day of days you shall give to the mountain. The mountain, Washington, king of all this Atlantic coast, --at least till but justnow, when some designing Warwick comes forward to press the claims ofan ignoble Carolinian upstart, with, of course, a due and formidablearray of feet and figures: but if they have such a mountain, where, Ishould like to know, has he been all these years? A mountain is not athing that you can put away in your pocket, or hide under the eavestill an accident reveals its whereabouts. Verily our misguidedbrethren have much to do to make out a case; and, in the firm beliefthat I am climbing up the highest point of land this side the RockyMountains, I begin my journey. 

Time was when the ascent of Mount Washington could be justly considereda difficult and dangerous feat; but the Spirit of the Age who has manyworse things than this to answer for, has struck in and felled andgraded and curbed, till now one can ascend the mountain as safely as hegoes to market. I consider this road one of the greatest triumphs ofthat heavily responsible spirit. Loquacious lovers of the "romantic"lament the absence of danger and its excitements, and the road doesindeed lie open to that objection. He who in these latter days wouldearn a reputation for enterprise--and I fancy the love of adventure tobe far less common than the love of being thought adventurous--musthave recourse to some such forlorn hope as going up the mountain on theice in midwinter, or coasting down on a hand-sled. But I have noinclination in that direction. I am willing to encounter risks, ifthere is no other way of attaining objects. But risks in and ofthemselves are a nuisance. If there is no more excellent way, ofcourse you must clamber along steep, rugged stairways of bridle-paths, where a single misstep will send you plunging upon a cruel and bloodydeath; but so far as choice goes, one would much more wisely ride overa civilized road, where he can have his whole mind for the mountain, and not be continually hampered with fears and watchfulness for his ownpersonal safety. It is a great mistake to suppose that discomfort isnecessarily heroism. Besides, to have opened a carriage-way up themountain is to have brought the mountain with all its possessions downto the cradle of the young and the crutch of the old, --almost to thecouch of the invalid. I saw recorded against one name in the books ofthe Tip-top House the significant item, "aged eight months. " Probablythe youngster was not directly much benefited by his excursion, but youare to remember that perhaps his mother could not have come withouthim, and therein lay the benefit. The day before our ascent, a ladyover seventy years old ascended without extreme fatigue or any injury. Several days after, a lady with apparently but a few weeks of earthbefore her, made the ascent to satisfy the longings of her heart, andgaze upon the expanses of this, before the radiance of another worldshould burst upon her view. If people insist upon encountering danger, they can find a swift river and ford it, or pile up a heap of stonesand climb them, or volunteer to serve their country in the army:meanwhile, let us rejoice that thousands who have been shut away fromthe feast may now sit down to the table of the Lord. 

This road, we were told, was begun about eight years ago, but bydisastrous circumstances its completion was delayed until within a yearor two. Looking at the country through which it lies, the only wonderis that it ever reached completion. As it is, I believe itsproprietors do not consider it quite finished, and are continuallyworking upon its improvement. Good or bad, it seems to me to be muchthe best road anywhere in the region. The pitches and holes that wouldfain make coaching on the common roads so precarious are entirely leftout here. The ascent is continuous. Not a step but leads upward. Therise was directed never to exceed one foot in six, and it does not; theaverage is one foot in eight. Of course, to accomplish this there mustbe a great deal of winding and turning. In one place you can look downupon what seem to be three roads running nearly parallel along a ridge, but what is really the one road twisting to its ascent. Some idea ofthe skill and science required to engineer it may be gathered bylooking into the tangled wilderness and rocky roughness that lie stilleach side the way. Through such a gnarled, knotted, interlaced jungleof big trees and little trees, and all manner of tangled twiningundergrowths, lining the sides of precipices, or hanging with bareroots over them, concealing dangers till the shuddering soul almostplunges into them, the road-men carefully and painfully sought andfought their way. Up on rocky heights it was comparatively easy, for, as one very expressively phrased it, every stone which they pried upleft a hole and made a hole. The stone wrenched from above rolledbelow, and go lowered the height and raised the depth, and constantlytended to levelness. Besides, there were no huge tree-trunks to beextracted from the unwilling jaws of the mountain by forest-dentists, with much sweat and toil and pain of dentist if not of jaws. Since, also, the rise of one foot in six was considered as great as wascompatible with the well-being and well-doing of horses, whenever theway came upon a knob or a breastwork that refused to be brought downwithin the orthodox dimensions, it must turn. If the knob would notyield, the way must, and, in consequence, its lengthened bitterness islong drawn out. A line that continually doubles on itself is naturallylonger than one which goes straight to the mark. Mount Washington islittle more than a mile high; the road that creeps up its surly sidesis eight miles long. Frost and freshet are constant foes; the oneheaves and cracks, and the other tears down through the cracks toundermine and destroy. Twenty-seven new culverts, we were told, hadbeen made, within the space of a mile and a half, since last year; andthese culverts are no child's play, but durable works, --aqueducts linedwith stone and bridged with plank, large enough for a man to passthrough with a wheelbarrow, and laid diagonally across the road, sothat the torrents pouring down the gutter shall not have to turn aright angle, which they would gladly evade doing, but a very obtuseone, which they cannot in conscience refuse; and, as the road all theway is built a little higher on the precipice side than on the mountainside, the water naturally runs into the gutter on that side, and so iseasily beguiled into leaving the road, which it would delight todestroy, and, roaring through the culvert, tumbles unwarily down theprecipice before it knows what it is about. 

I have heard it said, that the man who originated this road has sincebecome insane. More likely he was insane at the time. Surely, no manin his senses would ever have projected a scheme so wild andchimerical, so evidently impossible of fulfilment. Projected it was, however, not only in fancy, but in fact, to our great content; and so, tamely but comfortably, an untiring cavalcade, we leave the peacefulglen set at the mountain's base, and wind through the lovely, livelywoods, tremulous with sunshine and shadows, musical with the manifoldsongs of its pregnant solitudes, out from the woods, up from the woods, into the wild, cold, shrieking winds among the blenched rocks and thepale ghosts of dead forests stiff and stark, up and up among thecaverns, and the gorges, and the dreadful chasms, piny ravines blackand bottomless, steeps bare and rocky leading down to awful depths; onand on, fighting with maddened winds and the startled, wrathfulwraiths, onward and upward till we stand on the bleak and shivering, the stony and soulless summit. 

Desolation of desolations! Desolation of desolations! How terrible isthis place! The shining mountain that flashed back to the sun hisradiance is become a bald and frowning desert that appalls us with itsbarrenness. The sweet and sylvan approach gave no sign of such a goal, but the war between life and death was even then begun. The slantsunlight glinted through the jungle and bathed us with its glory ofgolden-green. The shining boles of the silvery gray birch shot upstraight, and the white birch unrolled its patches of dead pallor inthe sombre, untrodden depths. The spruces quivered like pure jelliestipped with light, sunshine prisoned in every green crystal. Myrtle-vines ran along the ground, the bunch-berry hung out its whitebanner, and you scarcely saw the trees that lay faint and fallen in thearms of their mates. The damp, soft earth nourished its numerous brood, Terrae omni parentis alumnos, its own thirsty soul continuallyrefreshed from springs whose sparkle we could not see, though thegurgle and ripple of their march sung out from so many hiding-placesthat we seemed to be

 "Seated in hearing of a hundred streams. "

Whole settlements of the slender, stately brakes filled the openings, and the mountain-ash drooped in graceful curves over our heads, butgradually the fine tall trees dwindled into dwarfs, chilled to theheart by the silent, pitiless cold. Others battled bravely with thebowling winds, which have stripped them bare on one side, while theyseem to toss out their arms wildly on the other, imploring protectionand aid from the valley-dwellers below. Up and up, and you comesuddenly upon the "Silver Forest, " a grove of dead white trees, nakedof leaf and fruit and bud, bare of color, dry of sap and juice andlife, retaining only their form, --cold set outline of their hale andhearty vigor; a skeleton plantation, bleaching in the frosty sun, yetmindful of its past existence, sturdy, and defiant of the woodman'saxe; a frostwork mimicry of nature, a phantom forest. On and on, turning to overlook the path you have trodden, at every retrospect thestruggle between life and death becomes more and more palpable. TheDestroyer has hurled his winds, his frosts, his fires; and gray wastes, broken wastes, black wastes, attest with what signal power. But lifefollows closely, planting his seeds in the very footprints of death. Where blankness and bleakness seem to reign, a tiny life springs inmosses, rich with promise of better things. Long forked tongues ofgreen are lapping up the dreary wastes, and will presently overpowerthem with its vivid tints. Even amid the blanched petrifaction of theSilver Grove fresh growths are creeping, and the day is not far distantthat shall see those pale statues overtopped, submerged, lost in anemerald sea. Even among the rocks, the strife rages. Some mysteriousprinciple inheres in the insensate rock, whose loss makes thiscrumbling, discolored, inert debris. Up you go, up and up, and lifedies out. Chaos and ruin reign supreme. Headlong steeps yawn besideyour path, losing their depths in darkness. Great fragments of rockcover all the ground, lie heaped, pile upon pile, jagged, gray, tiltedinto a thousand sharp angles, refusing a foothold, or offering ittreacherously. Wild work has been here; and these gigantic wrecks bearsilent witness of the uproar. It seems but a pause, not a peace. Agiocochook, Great Mountain of Spirits, rendezvous of departed souls, clothed with the strength and fired with the passions of the gods, --inwhat caverns under the cliffs do the wearied Titans rest? From whatdungeons of gloom emerging shall they renew their elemental strife?What shall be the sign of their awaking to darken the earth with theirmissiles and deafen the skies with their thunder? And what daring ofman is this to scorn his smiling valleys and adventure up into theserealms of storm? No Titan he, yet the truest Titan of all, for hewrestled and overcame. No giant he, yet grander than the giants, sincewithout Pelion or Ossa he has scaled heaven. Through uncounted aeonsthe mountain has been gathering its forces. Frost and snow and ice andthe willing winds have been its sworn retainers. Cold and famine anddeath it flaunted in the face of the besieger. Man is of a day, and theelements are but slippery allies. A spade and a compass are his meagreweapons; yet man has conquered. The struggle was long, with many areconnaissance and partial triumph, but at length the victory iscomplete. Man has placed his hand on the monarch's mane. He haspierced leviathan with a hook. The secrets of the mountain areuncovered. His fastnesses conceal no treasures that shall not bespread out to the day. His bolts and bars of ice can no longer pressback the foot of the invader. Yon gray and slender ribbon, that floatsdown his defiles, disappearing now over his ledges to reappear on somelower range, and he lightly across the plateau, --that is his bridle ofsubmission, his badge of servitude. Obedient to that, he yields up hishoarded wealth and pays tribute, a vassal to his lord. Men and womenand little children climb up his rugged sides, and the crown upon hisbeetling brows is set in the circle of humanity. 

In the first depression of abandonment one loses heart, and sees onlythe abomination of desolation; but gradually the soul lifts itself fromthe barren earth, and floats out upon the ocean, in which one standsislanded on a gray rock, fixed in seas of sunshine. 

Whether you shall have a fair day or a foul is as may be. At themountain's base they discreetly promise you nothing. It may be sunnyand sultry down there, while storms and floods have at it on the peak. But mine was a day of days, --clear, alternating with cloudy. When youhad looked long enough to dazzle and weary your eyes, a cloud wouldcome and fold you about with opaqueness, and while you waited in thecloud, lo here! lo there! it flashed apart and shimmered yonder a bluesky, a brilliant landscape, and the distant level of the sea; or slowlyits whiteness cleaved and rolled away, revealing a glorified mountain, a lake lying in the shadows, or the simple glen far down from which wecame. It was constant change and ever-new delight. 

But this going up mountains is a bad thing for the clouds. All theirfleecy softness, all their pink and purple and pearly beauty, all themystery of their unattainableness, is weighed in the balance and foundto be fog, and by no means unapproachable. They will never impose uponus again. Never more will they ride through the serene blue, white-stoled cherubs of the sky. Henceforth there is very little skyabout them. Sail away, little cloud, little swell, little humbug. Makebelieve you are away up in the curves of the sky. Not one person infifty will climb a mountain and find you out. But I have been there, and you are nothing but fog, of the earth, earthy. And when I sat inthe cleft of a rock on the side of Mount Washington, every fibre dulledthrough with your icy moisture, I could with a good will have sent asheriff to arrest you for obtaining love under false pretences. O youinnocent, child-like cloud heaving with warmth and passion as we saw, but a gray little imp, cold at the heart, and malignant, and malignant, as we felt. 

Felt it only when we did feel it, after all; for no sooner did it rollslowly away, and, ceasing to be a discomfort, turn into scenery, thanall its olden witchery came back. I have had no more than a glimpse ofthe world from a mountain. The evening and the morning were the firstday; and, till time shall be no more, the evening and the morning willbe all that there is of the day, aesthetically considered. Yet atnoon, --the most unfascinating hour, --and in the early afternoon, thoughyou must needs fail of the twilight and its forerunners, there is anintensity of brilliance and an immensity of breadth, that, it seems tome, must be greater than if the view were broken up by light and shade. You are blinded with a flood of radiance, disturbed, or ratherincreased, by the flitting cloud-shadows. The mountains deepen in thedistance, burning red in the glare of the sun, bristling with pines, mottled with the various tints of oak and maple relieving the sobererevergreens purpling on the slopes through a spiritual hazy glow, delicatest lavender, and pearl, where they lie scarcely pencillingdistant horizon. The clouds come sailing over, flinging their shadowsto the plains, --shadows wavering down the mountain-sides with anindescribable sweet tremulousness, scudding over the lower summits, pursued by some frolicsome gale which we do not see, or resting softlyin the dells, whose throbbing soothes itself to stillness in thegrateful shade. And still, midway between heaven and earth, snatched upfrom the turmoil of the one into the unspeakable calm of the other, agreat peace and rest sink into our souls. All around lies the earth, shining and silent as the sky, rippling in little swells of light, breaking into luminous points, rising into shapely shafts, spreading inlimpid, molten silver, and all bathed, transmuted, glorified, withineffable light, and sacred with eternal silence. 

A bubble of home-life adheres to this stern peak. Determination andperseverance have built two stone cottages, rough and squat, where youmay, if you have no mercy, eat a fine dinner that has been wearilydragged over eight miles of hillocky, rutty roads, and up eight milesof mountain; and drink without any compunction clear, cold water thatthe clouds have distilled without any trouble, and the rocks havebottled up in excellent refrigerators and furnish at the shortestnotice and on the most reasonable terms, except in very dry weather. Or if a drought drinks up the supply in the natural wells, there is theLake of the Clouds, humid and dark below, where you may see--I do notknow--the angels ascending and descending. The angels of the summitare generally armed with a huge hoop, which supports their brace ofbuckets as they step cautiously over the cragged rock fragments. Ifyou are ambitious to scale the very highest height, you can easilymount the roof of the most frivolously named Tip-top House, and changeyour horizon a fraction. If you are gregarious and crave society, youcan generally find it in multifarious developments. Hither comeartists with sketch-books and greedy eyes. Hither come photographerswith instruments, and photograph us all, men, mountains, and rocks. Young ladies come, and find, after all their trouble, that "there isnothing but scenery, " and sit and read novels. Haud ignota loquor. Young men come, alight from their carriages, enter the house, balancethemselves on two legs of their chairs, smoke a cigar, eat a dinner, and record against their names, "Mount Washington is a humbug, "--whichis quite conclusive as concerning the man, if not concerning themountain. There is one man in whose fate I feel a lively curiosity. As we were completing our descent, twisted, frowzy, blown to shreds, burnt faces, parched lips, and stringy hair, a solitary horseman mighthave been seen just commencing his ascent, --the nicest young man thatever was, --daintily gloved, patently booted, oily curled, snowilywristbanded, with a lovely cambric (prima facie) handkerchief boundabout his hyacinthine locks and polished hat. What I wish to know is, how did he get along? How did his toilette stand the ascent? Did he, a second Ulysses, tie up all opposing winds in that cambricpocket-handkerchief? or did Auster and Eurus and Notus and Africus vexhis fastidious soul?

They say--I do not know who, but somebody--that Mount Washington inpast ages towered hundreds of feet above its present summit. Constantwear and tear of frost and heat have brought it down, and its crumblingrock testifies to the still progress of decay. The mountain willtherefore one day flat out, and if we live long enough, Halicarnassusremarks, we may yet see the Tip-top and Summit Houses slowly let downand standing on a rolling prairie. Those, therefore, who prefermountain to meadow should take warning and make their pilgrimagebetimes. 

It is likely that you will be the least in the world tired and a gooddeal sunburnt when you reach the Glen House; and, in defiance of allthe physiologies, you will eat a hearty supper and go right to bed, andit won't hurt you in the least. Nothing ever does among the mountains. The first you will know, you open your eyes and it is morning, andthere is Mount Washington coming right in at your window, bearing downupon you with his seamed and shadowy massiveness, and you will forgetbow rough and rocky he was yesterday, and will pay homage once more tohis dignity of imperial purple and his solemn royalty. 

The moment you are well awake, you find you are twice as good as new, and after breakfast, if you are sagacious, no one belonging to you willhave any peace until you are striking out into the woods again, --thegreen, murmurous woods, tenanted by innumerable hosts of butterflies intheir sunny outskirts, light-winged Psyches hovering in the warm, richair, stained and spotted and splashed with every bright hue of yellowand scarlet and russet, set off against brilliant blacks and whites;dark, cool woods carpeted with mosses thick, soft, voluptuous with thesilent tribute of ages, and in their luxurious depths your willing feetare cushioned, --more blessed than feet of Persian princess crushing herwoven lilies and roses; the tender, sweet-scented woods lighted withbright wood-sorrel, and fragrant with dews and damps;--to the Garnetpool, perhaps, first, where the water has rounded out a basin in therock, and with incessant whirls and eddies has hollowed numerous littlesockets, smooth and regular, till you could fancy yourself looking uponthe remains of a petrified, sprawling, and half-submerged monster. Where the water is still, it is beautifully colored and shadowed withthe surrounding verdancy and flickering light and motion. If you havecourage and a firm foothold, if you will not slip on wet rock, and donot mind you hands and knees in climbing up a dry one, if you can coilyourself around a tree that juts out over a path you wish to follow, you can reach points where the action of the water, violent andriotous, can be seen in all its reckless force. But, "Don't hold on bythe trees, " says Halicarnassus; "you will get your gloves pitchy. "This to me, when I was in imminent danger of pitching myselfincontinently over the rocks, and down into the whirlpools!

Glen Ellis Falls we found in a random saunter, --a wild, whitewater-leap, lithe, intent, determined, rousing you far off by theincessant roar of its battle-flood, only to burst upon you asaggressive, as unexpected and momentary, as if no bugle-peal hadheralded its onset. Leaning against a tree that juts out over theprecipice, clinging by its roots to the earth behind, and affording youonly a problematical support, you look down upon a green, translucentpool, lying below rocks thickset with hardy shrubs and trees, up to thenarrow fall that hurls itself down the cleft which it has grooved, concentrated and alert at first, then wavering out with little tremorsinto the scant sunshine, and meeting the waters beneath to rebound withmany a spring of surge and spray. A strange freak of the water-nymphsit is that has fashioned this wild gulf and gorge, softened it with thewaving of verdure, and inspirited it with the energy of eager waters. 

Unsated we turn in again, thridding the resinous woods to track the shyNaiads hiding in their coverts. Over the brown spines of the pines, soft and perfumed, we loiter, following leisurely the faint warble ofwaters, till we come to the boiling rapids, where the stream comeshurrying down, and with sudden pique flies apart, on one side going toform the Ellis, on the other the Peabody River, and where in fiveminutes a stalwart arm could drain the one and double the other. Indeed, the existence of these two rivers seems to be a question ofbalance and coincidence and hairbreadth escapes. Our driver pointedout to us a tree whose root divides their currents. We pause but amoment on the crazy little bridge, and then climb along to the foot ofthe "Silver Cascade, " farther and higher still, till we call see thelittle brook murmuring on its mountain way in the cliff above, and lookover against it, and down upon it, as it streams through the rock, leaps adown the height, widening and thinning, spreading out over theface of the declivity, transmuting it into crystal, and veiling it withfoam, leaping over in a hundred little arcs, lightly bounding to itsbasin below, then sweeping finely around the base of the projectingrock, and going on its way singing song of triumph and content. Agentle and beautiful Undine, the worshipping boughs bend to receive itsbenediction. Venturesome mosses make perpetual little incursions intoits lapping tide, and divert numberless little streams to tricklearound their darkness, and leap up again in silver jets, clapping theirhands for joy. 

 "Now thanks to Heaven that of its grace Hath led me to this lonely place; Joy have I had, and going hence I bear away my recompense. "

All good and holy thoughts come to these solitudes. Here selfishnessdies away, and purity and magnanimity expand, the essence and germ oflife. Sitting here in these cool recesses, screened from the sun, moist and musical with the waters, crusts of worldliness and vanitycleave off from the soul. The din dies away, and, with ears attuned tothe harmonies of nature, we are soothed to summer quiet. The passionand truth of life flame up into serene but steadfast glow. Everyattainment becomes possible. Inflated ambitions shrivel, and we reachafter the Infinite. Weak desire is welded into noble purpose. Patience teaches her perfect work, and vindicates her divinity. Theunchangeable rocks that face the unstable waters typify to us ourstruggle and our victory. Day by day the conflict goes on. Day by daythe fixed battlements recede and decay before their volatile opponent. Imperceptibly weakness becomes strength, and persistence channels itsway. God's work is accomplished slowly, but it is accomplished. Timeis not to Him who commands eternity; and man, earth-born, earth-bound, is bosomed in eternity. 

One and another has a preference, choosing rather this than that, andclaiming the palm for a third; but with you there is no comparison. Each is perfect in his kind. Each bodies his own character andbreathes his own expression. 

O to be here through long, long summer days, drenched with coolness andshadow and solitude, cool, cool, cool to the innermost drop of my hotheart's-blood!

Never!

Why do I linger among the mountains? You have seen them all. Nay, verily, I could believe that eyes had never looked upon them before. They were new created for me this summer-day. I plucked the flower oftheir promise. I touched the vigor of their immortal youth. 

But mountains must be read in the original, not in translation. Onlytheir own rugged language, speaking directly to eye and heart, canfully interpret their meaning. What have adjectives, in their wildestoutburst, to do with rocks upheaved, furrows ploughed, featureschiselled, thousands and thousands of years back in the conjecturedpast? What is a pen-scratch to a ravine?

For speed and ease cars are, of course, unsurpassed; but for romance, observation, interest, there is nothing like the old-fashioned coach. Cars are city; coaches are country. Cars are the luxurious life ofwell-born and long-purses people; coaches are the stirring, eventfulcareer of people who have their own way to make in the world. Carsshoot on independent, thrusting off your sympathy with a snort; coachesadmit you to all the little humanities, every jolt harmonizes andadjusts you, till you become a locomotive world, tunefully rolling onin your orbit, independent of the larger world beneath. This iscoaching in general. Coaching among the White Mountains is a career byitself, --I mean, of course, if you take it on the outside. How lifemay look from the inside I am unable to say, having steadfastly avoidedthat stand-point. When we set out it rained, and I had a battle tofight. First, it was attempted to bestow me inside, to which, if I hadbeen a bale of goods, susceptible of injury by water, I might haveassented. But for a living person, with an internal furnace well fedwith fuel, in constant operation, to pack himself in a box on accountof a shower, is absurd. What if it did rain? I desired to see howthings looked in the rain. Besides, it was not incessant; there werecontinual liftings of cloud and vapor, glimpses of clear sky, and aconstant changing of tints, from flashing, dewy splendor, through thesoftness of shining mists, to the glooms of gray clouds, and theblinding, uncompromising rain, --so that I would have ridden in acistern rather than have failed to see it. Well, when the outside wasseen to be a fixed fact, then I must sit in the middle of thecoachman's seat. Why? That by boot, umbrellas, and a man on eachside, I might be protected in flank, and rear, and van. I said audibly, that I would rather be set quick i' the earth, and bowled to death withturnips. If my object had been protection, I should have gone inside. This was worse than inside, for it was inside contracted. If I lookedin front, there was an umbrella with rare glimpses of a steaming horseon each side, the exhilarating view of a great coat behind, a pair ofboots. I might as well have been buried alive. No, the upper seat wasthe only one for a civilized and enlightened being to occupy. Thereyou could be free and look about, and not be crowded; and I am happy tobe able to say, that I am not so unused to water as to be afraid of alittle more or less of it. So I ceased to argue, planted myself on theupper seat, grasped tho railing, and smiled on the angry remonstrantsbelow, --smiled, but STUCK! "Let her go, " said the driver in a savage, whispered growl, --not to me, but a little bird told me, --"let her go. Can't never do nothin' with women. They never know what's good for'em. When she's well wet, then she'll want to be dried. " True, Odriver! and thrice that morning you stopped to change horses, andthrice with knightly grace you helped me down from the coach-top, gentle-handed and smooth of brow and tongue, as if no storm had everlowered on that brow or muttered on that tongue, and thrice I went intothe village inns and brooded over the hospitable stoves, and dried mydripping garments; and when once your voice rang through the hostelrie, while yet I was enveloped in clouds of steam, did not the good youngwoman seize her sizzling flat-iron from the stove, and iron me out onher big table, so that I went not only dry and comfortable, but smooth, uncreased, and respectable, forth into the outer world again?

PART VI. 

Thus I rode, amphibious and happy, on the top of the coach, with onlyone person sharing the seat with me, and he fortunately a stranger, andtherefore sweet tempered, and a very agreeable and intelligent man, talking sensibly when he talked at all, and talking at all only now andthen. Very agreeable and polite; but presently he asked me incourteous phrase if he might smoke, and of course I said yes, and thefragrant white smoke-wreaths mingled with the valley vapors, and as Isat narcotized and rapt, looking, looking, looking into the lovelylandscape, and looking it into me, twisting the jagged finger-ends ofmy gloves around the protruding ends of my fingers, --dreadfully jaggedand forlorn the poor gloves looked with their long travel. I don'tknow how it is, but in all the novels that I ever read, the heroinesalways have delicate, spotless, exquisite gloves, which are continuallylying about in the garden-paths, and which their lovers are constantlypicking up and pressing to their hearts and lips, and treasuring inlittle golden boxes or something, and saying how like the soft glove, pure and sweet, is to the beloved owner; and it is all very pretty, butI cannot think how they manage it. I am sure I should be very sorry tohave my lovers go about picking up my gloves. I don't have them a weekbefore they change color; the thumb gapes at its base, the littlefinger rips away from the next one, and they all burst out at the ends;a stitch drops in the back and slides down to the wrist before you knowit has started. You can mend, to be sure, but for every darn yawntwenty holes. I admire a dainty glove as much any one. I look withenthusiasm not unmingled with despair at these gloves of romance; butsuch things do not depend entirely upon taste, as male writers seem tothink. A pair of gloves cost a dollar and a half, and when you havethem, your lovers do not find them in the summer-house. Why not?Because they are lying snugly wrapped in oiled-silk in the upperbureau-drawer, only to be taken out on great occasions. You would assoon think of wearing Victoria's crown for a head-dress, as thosegloves on a picnic. So it happens that the gloves your lovers findwill be sure to be Lisle-thread, and dingy and battered at that; forhow can you pluck flowers and pull vines and tear away mosses withoutgetting them dingy and battered?--and the most fastidious lover in theworld cannot expect you to buy a new pair every time. For me, I keepmy gloves as long as the backs hold together, and go around forforty-five weeks of the fifty-two with my hands clenched into fists tocover omissions. 

Let us not, however, dismiss the subject with this apologetic notice, for there is another side. There is a basis of attack, as well asdefence. I not only apologize, but stand up for this much-abusedarticle. Though worn gloves are indeed less beautiful than fresh ones, they have more character. Take one just from the shop, how lank andwan it is, --a perfect monotony of insipidity; but in a day or two itplumps out, it curls over, it wabs up, it wrinkles and bulges andstands alone. All the joints and hollows and curves and motions ofyour hands speak through its outlines. Twists and rips and scratchesand stains bear silent witness of your agitation, your activity, yourmerry-making. Here breaks through the irrepressible energy of yournature. Let harmless negatives rejoice in their stupid integrity. Genius is expansive and iconoclastic. Enterprise cannot be confined bykid or thread or silk. The life that is in you must have full swing, even if snap go the buttons and gray go the gloves. Truly, ifhistorians had but eyes to see, the record of one's experience might bewritten out from the bureau-drawer. Happy a thousand times thathistorians have not eyes to see. 

As to mending gloves, after the first attack it is time lost. Let oneor two pairs, kept for show and state, be irreproachable; but the restare for service, and everybody knows that little serving can be donewith bandaged hands. You must take hold of things without gloves, or, which amounts to the same thing, with gloves that let your fingersthrough, or you cannot reasonably expect to take hold of things withany degree of efficiency. 

So, as I was saying, I sat on the coach-top twisting my gloves, and Iwished in my heart that men would not do such things as that veryagreeable gentleman was doing. I do not design to enter on a crusadeagainst tobacco. It is a mooted point in minor morals, in which everyone must judge for himself; but I do wish men would not smoke so much. In fact, I should be pleased if they did not smoke at all. I do notbelieve there is any necessity for it. I believe it is a mere habit ofself-indulgence. Women connive at it, because--well, because, in away, they must. Men are childish, and, as I have said before, animal. I don't think they have nearly the self-restraint, self-denial, highdignity and purity and conscience that women have, --take them in themass. They give over to habits and pleasures like great boys. Peopletalk about the extravagance of women. But men are equally so, onlytheir extravagance takes a different turn. A woman's is aesthetic; aman's is gross. She buys fine clothes and furniture. He panders tohis bodily appetites. Which is worse? Women love men, and wish to beloved by them, and are miserable if they are not. So the wife lets herhusband do twenty things which he ought not to do, which it is rude andselfish and wicked for him to do, rather than run the risk of looseningthe cords which bind him to her. One can see every day how womenmanage, --the very word tells the whole story, --MANAGE men, by cunningstrategy, cajolery, and all manner of indirections, just as if theywere elephants. But if men were what they ought to be, there would beno such humiliating necessity. They ought to be so upright, so candid, so just, that it is only necessary to show this is right, this isreasonable, this is wrong, for them to do it, or to refrain from thedoing. As it is, men smoke by the hour together, and their wives arethankful it is nothing worse. They would not dare to make a seriousattempt to annihilate the pipe. They feel that they hold their own bya tenure so uncertain, that they are forced to ignore minortransgressions for the sake of retaining their throne. I do not saythat women are entirely just and upright, but I do think that thewomanly nature is GOOD-er than the manly nature; I think a very largeproportion of female faults are the result of the indirect, buteffective wrong training they receive from men; and I think, thirdly, that, take women just as they are, wrong training and all, there is notone in ten thousand million who, if she had a faithful and lovinghusband, would not be a faithful and loving wife. Men know this, andact upon it. They know that they can commit minor immoralities, andmajor ones too, and be forgiven. They know it is not necessary for themto keep themselves pure in body and soul lest they alienate theirwives. So they yield to their fleshly lusts. What an ado would bemade if a woman should form the habit of smoking, or any habit whosedeleterious effects extend through her husband's or her father's rooms, cling to his wardrobe, books, and all his especial belongings! Supposeshe should even demand an innocent ice-cream as frequently as herhusband demands a cigar, --suppose she should spend as much time andmoney on candy as he spends on tobacco, --would she not be considered anextravagant, selfish, and somewhat vulgar woman? But is it really anyworse? Is it less extravagant for a man to tickle his nose, than for awoman to tickle her palate? If a cigar would enfoul the purity of awoman, does it not of a man? Why is it more noble for a man to be theslave of an appetite or a habit, than for a woman? Why is it lessimpure for a man to saturate his hair, his breath and clothing, withvile, stale odors, than for a woman? What right have men to supposethat they can perfume themselves with stenches, --for whatever may bethe fragrance of a burning cigar, the after smell is a stench, --and beany less offensive to a cleanly woman than a woman similarly perfumedis to them? I have never heard that the female sense of smell is lessacute than the male. How dare men so presume on womanly sufferance?They dare, because they know they are safe. I can think of a dozen ofmy own friends who will read this and bring out a fresh box of cigars, and smoke them under my very own face and eyes, and know all the timethat I shall keep liking them; and the worst of it is, I know I shall, too. All the same, I do not thoroughly respect a man who has a habitof smoking. 

But if men will smoke, as they certainly will, because they are animaland stubborn and self-indulgent and self-willed, let them at leastconfine their fireworks to their own apartments. If a wife would ratheradmit her fuliginous husband to her sitting-room than forego hissociety altogether, --as undoubtedly most women would, for you see it isnot a question between a smoky husband and a clear husband, but betweena smoky one and none at all, because between his wife and his cigar theman will almost invariably choose the cigar, --I have nothing to say. But don't let a man go into other people's houses and smoke, or, aboveall things, walk smoking by the side of women. No matter if she doesgive you permission when you ask it. You should not have asked it. Wedon't wish you to do it, you may be sure. It is a disrespectful thing. It partakes of the nature of an insult. No matter how grand or learnedor distinguished you may be, don't do it. I saw once one of ourCabinet Ministers walking, with his cigar in his mouth, by the side ofthe wife of the British Minister, and it lowered them both in myopinion, though I don't suppose either of them would take it much toheart if they knew it. If you are walking in the woods or fields, itmay be pardonable; but in the public streets no private compact can beof any avail. It is a public mark of disrespect. If you don't regardus enough to throw away or keep away your cigar when you join us, justdon't join us. Keep your own side of the street. Nobody wants you; atleast I don't. Walk alone if you like, or with whomsoever you can, butif you walk with me, you shall "behave yourself. "

But how frightfully hungry these long coach stages make one! especiallyamong the mountains. Famine lurks in that wild air, and is everspringing upon the unwary traveller. The fact was, however, that I hadthe most dreadful appetite all the way through. "Really, "Halicarnassus would say, "it is quite charming to see you in such finehealth, " being at the same time reduced to a state of extreme disgustat my rapacity. He made an estimate, one day, that I had eaten sincewe started thirty-one and a half chickens, and I have no doubt I had;for chickens were my piece de resistance as well as entrees; and thenthey WERE chickens, not old hens, --little specks of darlings, justgiving one hop from the egg-shell to the gridiron, and each time thewaiter only brought you one bisegment of the speck, all of whose ediblepossibilities could easily be salted down in a thimble. I don't saythis by way of complaint. A thimbleful of delicacy is better than a"mountain of mummy"; and here let me put in a word in favor of thatmuch-abused institution, hotels. I cannot see why people should goabout complaining of them as they do, both in literature and in life. My experience has been almost always favorable. In New York, inSaratoga, in Canada, all through the mountain district, we found ampleand adequate entertainment for man and beast. Trollope brings hissledge-hammer down unequivocally. Of course there will be certainviands not cooked precisely according to one's favorite method, and atthese prolonged dining-tables you miss the home-feeling of quiet andseclusion; but I should like to know if one does not travel on purposeto miss the home-feeling? If that is what he seeks, it would be soeasy to stay at home. One loses half the pleasure and profit oftravelling if he must box himself up with his own party. It is a goodthing to triturate against other people occasionally. For eating, there are, to be sure, the little oval dishes that have so arousedTrollopian and other ire; and your mutton, it is true, is brought toyou slice-wise, on your plate, instead of the whole sheep set bodily onthe table, --the sole presentation appreciated by your true Briton, who, with the traditions of his island home still clinging to him, conceiveshimself able, I suppose, in no other way to make sure that his meat andmaccaroni are not the remnants of somebody else's feast. But letBritannia's son not flatter himself that so he shall escapecontamination. His precautions are entirely fruitless. Suppose hedoes see the whole beast before him, and the very bean-vines, proofpositive of first-fruits; cannot the economical landlord gather upheave-shoulder and wave-breast and serve them out to him in next day'smince-pie? Matter revolves, but is never annihilated. Ultimate andpenultimate meals mingle in the colors of shot-silk. Where there is awill, there is a way. If the cook is of a frugal mind, and wills you toeat driblets, driblets you shall eat, under one shape or another. Theonly way to preserve your peace, is to be content with appearances. Take what is set before you, asking no questions for conscience' sake. If it looks nice, that is enough. Eat and be thankful. 

Trollope says he never made a single comfortable meal at an Americanhotel. The meat was swimming in grease, and the female servantsuncivil, impudent, dirty, slow, and provoking. Occasionally they are alittle slow, it must be confessed; but I never met with one, male orfemale, who was uncivil, impudent, or provoking. If I supposed itpossible that my voice should ever reach our late critic, whose goodsense and good spirit Americans appreciate, and whose name they wouldbe glad to honor if everything English had not become suspicious to us, the possible synonyme of Pharisaism or stupidity, I should recommend tohim Lord Chesterfield's assertion, that a man's own good breeding isthe best security against other people's bad manners. For the greasymeats, let him forego meats altogether and take chickens, and he willnot find grease enough to soil his best coat, if he should carry thechick away in his pocket. We always found a sufficient variety toenable us to choose a wholesome and a toothsome dinner, with manytempting dainties, and scores of dishes that I never heard of before, and ordered dubiously by way of experiment, and tasted timorously inpursuit of knowledge. As for the corn-cake of the White Hills, if Ilive a thousand years, I never expect anything in the line of biscuit, loaf, or cakes more utterly satisfactory. It is the very ultimatecrystallization of cereals, the poetry and rhythm of bread, brown andgolden to the eye, like the lush loveliness of October, crumbling tothe touch, un-utterable to the taste. It has all the ethereal, evanishing fascination of a spirit. Eve might have set it beforeRaphael. You scarcely dare touch it lest it disappear and leave youdisappointed and desolate. It is melting, insinuating, --a halo, hovering on the border-land of dream and reality, beautiful butuncertain vision, a dissolving view. I said something of the sort toHalicarnassus one morning, and he said, Yes, it was--on my plate. Andyet I have never had as much as I wanted of it, --never. The otherswere perpetually finishing their breakfast and compelling me, by a kindof moral violence, to finish mine. I made an attempt one morning, thelast of my sojourn among the Delectable Mountains, when the opposingelements had left the table prematurely to make arrangements fordeparture, and startled the waiter by ordering an unlimited supply ofcorn-cake. Like a thunder-bolt fell on my ear the terrible answer:"There isn't any this morning. It is brown bread. " Me miserable!

As we went to dinner, in a large dining-room, upon our arrival at theGlen House, it seemed to me that the guests were the most refined andelegant in their general appearance of any company I had seen since mydeparture, and I had a pleasant New-English feeling ofself-gratulation. But we were drawn up into line directly opposite arow of young girls, who really made me very uncomfortable. They wereat an advanced stage of their dinner when we entered, and they devotedthemselves to making observations. It was not curiosity, oradmiration, or astonishment, or horror. It was simply fixedness. Theydisplayed no emotion whatever, but every time your glance reachedwithin forty-five degrees of them, there they were "staring right onwith calm, eternal eyes, " and kept at it till the servants created adiversion with the dessert. Now, if there is any thing that annoys anddisconcerts me, it is to be looked at. Some women would have put themdown, but I never can put anybody down. It is as much as I can do tohold my own, --and more, unless I am with well-bred people who alwayskeep their equilibriums. One of these girls was the companion of avenerable and courtly gentleman; and the thought arose, how is itpossible for this girl to have possibly that man's blood in her veins, certainly the aroma of his life floating around her, and the faultlessmodel of his demeanor before her, and not be the mirror of every grace?Of how little avail is birth or breeding, if the instinct of politenessbe not in the heart. That last remark, however, must "right aboutface" in order to be just. If the instincts be true, birth andbreeding are comparatively of no account, for the heart will dictate tothe quick eye and hand and voice the proper course; but where theinstincts are wanting, breeding is indispensable to supply thedeficiency. What one cannot do by nature he must do by drill. Sometimes it seems to me that young girlhood is intolerable. There ismuch delightful writing about it, --rose-buds and peach-blossoms andtimid fawns; but the timid fawns are scarce in streets and hotels andschools, --or perhaps it is that the fawns who are not timid draw alleyes upon themselves, and make an impression entirely disproportionateto their numbers. I am thinking now, I regret to say, of New Englandyoung girls. Where they are charming, they are irresistible; they needyield to nobody in the known world. But I do think that anuninteresting Yankee girl is the most uninteresting of all createdobjects. Southern girls have almost always tender voices and softmanners. Arrant nonsense comes from their lips with such sweetsyllabic flow, such little ripples of pronunciation and musicalinterludes, that you are attracted and held without the smallest regardto what they are saying. I could sit for hours and hear two of themchattering over a checker-board for the pleasure of the silvery, tinkling music of their voices. But woe is me for the voices, male andfemale, that you so often hear in New England, --the harsh, stridentvoices, the monotonous, cranky, yanky, filing, rasping voices, withoutmodulation, all rise and no fall, a monotonous discord, no soul, nofeeling, and no counterfeit of it, loud, positive, angular, and awful. Indeed, I do not see how we New-Englanders are ever to rid ourselves ofthe reproach of our voices. The number of people who speak well is notlarge enough materially to influence the rest. Teachers do not teachspeaking in school, --they certainly did not in my day, and I have noreason to suppose from results that they do now, --and parents do notteach it at home, for the simple reason, I suppose, that they do notknow it themselves. We can all perceive the discord; but how to produceconcord, that is the question. This one thing, however, is practicableif sweetness cannot be increased, volume can be diminished. If youcannot make the right kind of noise, you can at least make as little aspossible of the wrong kind. Often the discord extends to manners. Public conveyances and public places produce so many girls who are notgentle, retiring, shady, attractive. They are flingy and sharp andsaucy, without being piquant. They take on airs without having thebeauty or the brilliancy which alone makes airs delightful. Theyagonize to make an impression, and they make it, but not always in theline of their intent. Setting out to be picturesque, they becomeuncouth. They are ridiculous when they mean to be interesting, andsilly when they try to be playful. If they would only leave offattitudinizing, one would be appeased. It may not be possible toacquire agreeable manners, any more than a pleasant voice; but it ispossible to be quiet. But no suspicion of defect seems ever to havepenetrated the bosoms of such girls. They act as if they thoughtattention was admiration. Levity they mistake for vivacity. Peevishness is elegance. Boldness is dignity. Rudeness is savoir faireBoisterousness is their vulgate for youthful high spirits. 

And what, let me ask just here, is the meaning of the small waists thatgirls are cramming their lives into? I thought tight-lacing was aneffete superstition clean gone forever. But again and again, lastsummer, I saw this wretched disease, this cacoethes pectus vinciendi, breaking out with renewed and increasing virulence; and I heardwomen--yes, grown-up women, old women--talking about the "Grecianbend, " and the tapering line of the slender, willowy waist. Now, girls, when you have laced yourselves into a wand, do not be soinfatuated as to suppose that any sensible man looks at you and thinksof willows. Not in the least. Probably he is wondering how you manageto breathe. As for the Grecian bend, you have been told over and overagain that no Grecian woman, whether in the flesh or in the stone, everbent such a figure, --spoiled if it was originally good, made worse ifit was originally bad. You wish to be beautiful, and it is a laudablewish; but nothing is beautiful which is not loyal, truthful, natural. You need not take my simple word for it; I do not believe a doctor cananywhere be found who will say that compression is healthful, or asculptor who will say that it is beautiful. Which now is the higherart, the sculptor's or the mantua-maker's? Which is most likely to beright, the man (or the woman) who devotes his life to the study ofbeauty and strength, both in essence and expression, or the woman whois concerned only with clipping and trimming? Which do you think takesthe more correct view, he who looks upon the human body as God'shandiwork, a thing to be reverenced, to be studied, to be obeyed, orone who admires it according as it varies more or less from thestandard of a fashion-plate, who considers it as entirely subordinateto the prevailing mode, and who hesitates at no devices to bring itdown to the desired and utterly arbitrary dimensions? This is what youdo; you give yourselves up into the hands, or you yield submissively tothe opinions, of people who make no account whatever of the form or thefunctions of nature; who have never made their profession a liberalone; who never seem to suspect that God had anything to do with thehuman frame; who, whatever station in life they occupy, have notpossessed themselves of the first principles of beauty and grace, whileyou ignore the opinions, and lay yourself open to the contempt, ofthose whose natural endowments and whose large and varied culture givethem the strongest claim upon your deference. The woman who binds thehuman frame into such shapes as haunted the hotels last summer, whethershe be a dressmaker or a Queen of Fashion, is a woman ignorant alike ofthe laws of health and beauty; and every woman who submits to suchdistortion is either ignorant or weak. The body is fearfully andwonderfully and beautifully made, a glorious possession, a fair andnoble edifice, the Temple of the Holy Ghost, beautiful its symmetry, for its adaptations, for its uses; and they who deform and degrade itby a fashion founded in ignorance, fostered by folly, and fruitful ofwoe, are working a work which can be forgiven them only when they knownot what they do. 

If this is not true, then I know not what truth is. If it is not aperfectly plain and patent truth, on the very face of it, then I amutterly incapable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood. Yet, if it is true, how account for the tight-lacing among women who are ina position to be just as intelligent as the doctor and the sculptor are?

Girls, I find a great deal of fault with you, do I not? But I cannothelp it. You have been so written and talked and sung and flatteredinto absurdity and falsehood, that there is nothing left but to stabyou with short, sharp words. If I chide you without cause, if Icensure that which is censurable, if I attribute to a class that whichbelongs only to individuals, if I intimate that ungentle voices, uncultivated language, and unpleasing manners are common when they arereally uncommon, if I assume to demand more than every person who loveshis country and believes his countrywomen has a right to demand, on mebe all the blame. But for ten persons who give you flattery andsneers, you will not find one who will tell you wholesome truths. Iwill tell you what seems to me true and wholesome. Poetasters andcheap sentimentalists will berhyme and beguile you: I cannot help it;but I will at least attempt to administer the corrective of what shouldbe common sense. The Magister was forced to let Von Falterle have ahand in Albano's education, but he "swore to weed as much out of himevery day as that other fellow raked in. Dilettanteism prattlespleasant things to you: I want you to BE everything that is pleasant. Where a fulsome if not a false adulation praises your slender grace, Ishall not hesitate to tell you that I see neither slenderness norgrace, but ribs crushed in, a diaphragm flattened down, liver andstomach and spleen and pancreas jammed out of place, out of shape, outof use; and that, if you were born so, humanity would dictate that youshould pad liberally, to save beholders from suffering; but of maliceaforethought so to contract yourselves is barbarism in the firstdegree. And all the while I am saying these homely things, I shallhave ten thousand times more real regard and veneration for you thanyour venders of dainty compliments. Regard? Jenny, Lilly, Carry, Hetty, Fanny, and the rest of you, dearly beloved and longedfor, --Mary, my queen my singing-bird, a royal captive, but she shallcome to her crown one day, --my two Ellens, graceful and brilliant, andyou, my sweet-mouthed, soft-eyed islander, with your life deep andboundless like the sea that lulled you to baby-slumbers, --knowing you, shall I talk of regard? Knowing you, and from you, all, do I not knowwhat girls can be? Sometimes it seems as if no one knows girls EXCEPTme. If the world did but know you, if it knew what deeps are in you, what strength and salvation for the race lie dormant in your dormantpowers, surely it would throw off the deference that masks contempt andgive you the right hand of royal fellowship. 

And if, in the world just as it is, girls did but know themselves! Ifthey did but know how delightful, how noble and ennobling, how graciousand consoling and helpful, they might be, how wearied eyes might loveto rest upon them, how sore hearts might be healed, and weak heartsstrengthened, by the fragrance of their unfolding youth! There is notone girl in a thousand, North or South, who might not be lovely andbeloved. I do not reckon on a difference of race in North and South, as the manner of some is. The great mass of girls whom one meets inschools and public places are the ones who in the South would be thelistless, ragged daughters of poverty. The great mass of Southerngirls that we see are the cherished and cultivated upper classes, andanswer only to our very best. Like should always be compared with like. And I am not afraid to compare our best, high-born or lowly, with thebest of any class or country. They have, besides all that isbeautiful, a substantial substratum of sound sense, high principle, practical benevolence, and hidden resources. To behold them, theysparkle like diamonds. To know them, they are beneficent as iron. Letall the others emulate these. Let none be content with beingintelligent. Let them determine also to be full of grace. 

Among the girls that I saw on my journey who did not please me, therewere several who did, --several of whom occasional glimpses promisedpleasant things, if only there were opportunity to grasp them, --and twoin particular who have left an abiding picture in my gallery. Let mefrom pure delight linger over the portraiture. 

Two sisters taken a-pleasuring by their father, --the younger anywherefrom fourteen to eighteen years old, the elder anywhere from sixteen totwenty;--this tall and slender, with a modest, sensitive, quiet, womanly dignity; that animated, unconscious, and entirely girlish;--theone with voice low and soft, the other low and clear. The father wasan educated and accomplished Christian gentleman. The relationsbetween the two were most interesting. His demeanor towards them was acharming combination of love and courtesy. Theirs to him was at onceconfiding and polite. The best rooms, the best seats, the bestpositions, were not assumed by them or yielded to them with the rudetyranny on one side and mean servility on the other which one too oftensees, but pressed upon them with true knightly chivalry, and received, not carelessly as due and usual, but with affectionate deprecation andreluctance. Yet there was not the slightest affectation of affection, than which no affectation is more nauseous. True affection, undoubtedly, does often exist where its expression is caricatured, butthe caricature is not less despicable. The pride of the father in hisdaughters was charming, --it was so natural, so fatherly, so frank, soirresistible, and never offensively exhibited. There was not a taintof show or selfishness in their mutual regard. They had eyes and earsand ready hands for everybody. 

And they were admirable travellers. They never had any discomforts. They never found the food bad, or the beds hard, or the servantsstupid. They never were tired when anything was to be done, or crosswhen it had been done, or under any circumstances peevish, or pouty or"offish. " They were ready for everything and content with anything. It was a pleasure to give them a pleasure, because their pleasure wasso manifest. They looked eagerly at everything and into everything. The younger one, indeed, was so interested, that she often forgot herfeet in her bright, observant eyes, which would lead her right on andon, regardless of the course of others, till she was discovered to bemissing, a search instituted, and the wanderer returned smiling, butnot disconcerted. They were never restless, uneasy, discontented, wanting to go somewhere else, or stay longer when every one was readyto go, or annoying their friends by rushing into needless danger. Theynever brought their personal tastes into conflict with the generalconvenience. They were thoroughly free from affectation. They neverseemed to say or do anything with a view to the impression it wouldmake, or even to suspect that they should make an impression. Theywere just fond enough of dress to array themselves with neatness, freshness, a pretty little touch of youthful ornament, and a very nicesense of fitness. But they were never occupied with their dress, andthey had only as much as was necessary, --though that may have been amother's care, --and what of them was not the result of wise parentalcare? They did not talk about GENTLEMEN. They had evidently beenbrought up in familiar contact with the thing, so that no glamour hungabout the word. They talked of places, people, books, flowers, allsimple things, in a simple way. They were interested in music, inpictures, in what they saw and what they did. They sang and playedwith fresh, natural grace, to the delight and applause of all, andstopped soon enough to make us wish for more, but not soon enough toseem capricious or disobliging or pert. 

But my pen fails to picture them to you as I saw them, --the one withher grave, sweet, artless dignity, a perfect Honoria, crowned with thesoft glory of a dawning womanhood; but the other docile and sprightly, careless, but not thoughtless. The beauty of their characters lay inthe perfect balance. Their qualities were set off against each other, and symmetry was the result. They combined opposites into afascinating harmony. They had all the ease and unconcern of refinedassociation, without the smallest admixture of forwardness. They wereneither bold nor bashful. They neither pampered nor neglectedthemselves, --neither fawned upon nor insulted others. They wereeverything that they ought to be, and nothing that they ought not tobe, and I wished I could put them in a cage, and carry them through thecountry, and say: "Look, girls, this is what I mean. This is what Iwish you to be. "

We wound around the mountains, and wandered back and forth through thedefiles like the Israelites in the wilderness, seeing everything thatwas to be seen, and a good deal more. We alighted incessantly, andstruck into little wood-paths after cascades and falls, and got themto, sometimes. Of course we penetrated into the dripping Flume, andpaddled on the Pool, or the Basin, --I have forgotten which they callit, --for a pool is but a big basin, and a basin a small pool. Ofcourse we sailed and shouted on Echo Lake, and did obeisance to the OldMan of the Mountains and his numerous and nondescript progeny; for hehas played pranks up there, and infected the whole surrounding countrywith a furor of personality. The Old Man himself I acknowledged. Thatgreat stone face is clearly and calmly profiled against the sky. Hisknee, too, is susceptible of proof, for I climbed it. A white horse inthe vicinity of Conway is visible to the imaginative eye, and, by alittle forcing of vision and conscience, one can make out a turtle, allbut the head and legs. But there is a limit to all things, and whenHalicarnassus held up both hands in astonishment and admiration, anddeclared that he saw a kangaroo, and then, in short and rapidsuccession, a rhinoceros, an armadillo, and a crocodile, I felt, in thewords of General Banks, "We have now reached that limit, " and shut downthe gates upon credulity. 

At a little village among the mountains we met our friends, and stoppeda week or two, loath to leave the charmed spot. "Where?" Never mind. A place where the sun shines, and lavender-hued clouds whirl in craggy, defiant, thunderous masses around imperturbable mountain-tops; andvapors, pearly and amber-tinted, have not forgotten to float softlyamong the valleys; and evening skies fling out their pink and purplebanner; and stars throb, and glow, and flash, with a radiant life thatis not of the earth;--where great rivers have not yet put on themajesty of manhood, but trill over pebbles, curl around rocks, rippleagainst banks, waltz little eddies, spread dainty pools for gay littletrout, dash up saucy spray into the eyes of bending ferns, mock thefrantic struggles of lost flowers and twigs, tantalizing them with hopeof a rest that never comes, leap headlong, swirling and singing with athousand silver tongues, down cranny and ravine in all the wildwinsomeness of unchecked youth;--a land flowing with maple-molasses andsugar, and cider applesauce, and cheese new and old, and baked beans, and three sermons on Sundays, besides Sabbath school at noon, and notime to go home; and wagons with three seats, [Mem. Always choose theback seat, if you wish to secure a reputation for amiability, ] three ona seat, two and a colt trotting gravely beside his mother; roads allsand in the hollows and all ruts on the hills, blocked up by snow inthe winter, and washed away by thunder-showers in the summer;--a landwhere carpets are disdained, latches are of wood, thieves unknown, wainscots and wells au naturel, women are as busy as bees all day andknit in the chinks, men are invisible till evening, girls braid hatsand have beaux, and everybody goes to bed and to sleep at nine o'clock, and gets up nobody knows when, and cooks, eats, and "clears away"breakfast before other people have fairly rubbed their eyes open; whereall the town are neighbors for ten miles round, and know your outgoingsand incomings without impertinence, gossip without a sting, areintelligent without pretension, sturdy without rudeness, honest withouteffort, and cherish an orthodoxy true as steel, straight as a pine, unimpeachable in quality, and unlimited in quantity. God bless them!Late may they return to heaven, and never want a man to stand beforethe Lord forever!

Some people have conscientious scruples about fishing. I respect them. I had them once myself. Wantonly to destroy, for mere sport, theinnocent life, in lake and river, seemed to me a cruelty and a shame. But people must fish. Now, then, how shall your theory and practice beharmonized? Practice can't yield. Plainly, theory must. A year ago, I went out on a rock in the Atlantic Ocean, held a line--just to seehow it seemed, --and caught eight fishes; and every time a fish came up, a scruple went down. They weren't very large, --the fishes, I mean, notthe scruples, though the same adjective might, perhaps, not unjustly beapplied to both, --and I don't know that the enormity of the sin dependsat all upon the size of the fish; but if it did, so entirely had mysuccess convinced me of man's lawful dominion over the fish of the sea, that I verily believe, if a whale had hooked himself on the end of myline, I should have hauled him up without a pang. 

I do not insist that you shall accept my system of ethics. Deplorableresults might follow its practical application in every imaginablecase. I simply state facts, leaving the "thoughtful reader" togeneralize from them whatever code he pleases. 

Which facts will partially account for the eagerness with which I, onemorning, seconded a proposal to go a-fishing in a river about fourteenmiles away. One wanted the scenery, another the drive, a third achowder, and so on; but I--I may as well confess--wanted theexcitement, the fishes, the opportunity of displaying my piscatoryprowess. I enjoyed in anticipation the masculine admiration andfeminine chagrin that would accompany the beautiful, fat, shining, speckled, prismatic trout into my basket, while other rods waited invain for a "nibble. " I resolved to be magnanimous. Modesty shouldlend to genius a heightened charm. I would win hearts by my humility, as well as laurels by my dexterity. I would disclaim superior skill, attribute success to fortune, and offer to distribute my spoil amongthe discomfited. Glory, not pelf, was my object. You imagine mydisgust on finding, at the end of our journey, that there was only onerod for the party. Plenty of lines, but no rods. What was to be done?It was proposed to improvise rods from the trees. "No, " said thefemale element. "We don't care. We shouldn't catch any fish. We'djust as soon stroll about. " I bubbled up, if I didn't boil over. "WEshouldn't, should WE? Pray, speak for yourselves! Didn't I catcheight cod-fishes in the Atlantic Ocean, last summer? Answer me that!"I was indignant that they should so easily be turned away, by thetrivial circumstance of there being no rods, from the noble art offishing. My spirits rose to the height of the emergency. The story ofmy exploits makes an impression. There is a marked respect in the toneof their reply. "Let there be no division among us. Go you to thestream, O Nimrod of the waters, since you alone have the prestige ofsuccess. We will wander quietly in the woods, build a fire, fry thepotatoes, and await your return with the fish. " They go to the woods. I hang my prospective trout on my retrospective cod, and marchriver-ward. Halicarnassus, according to the old saw, "leaves thisworld, and climbs a tree, " and, with jackknife, cord, and perseverance, manufactures a fishing-rod, which he courteously offers to me, which Isuccinctly decline, informing him in no ambiguous phrase that Iconsider nothing beneath the best as good enough for me. Halicarnassusis convinced by my logic, overpowered by my rhetoric, and meekly yieldsup the best rod, though the natural man rebels. The bank of the riveris rocky, steep, shrubby, and difficult of ascent or descent. Halicarnassus bids me tarry on the bridge, while he descends toreconnoitre. I am acquiescent, and lean over the railing awaiting theresult of investigation. Halicarnassus picks his way over the rocks, sidewise and zigzaggy along the bank, and down the river, in search offish. I grow tired of playing Casabianca, and steal behind the bridge, and pick my way over the rocks, sidewise and zigzaggy along the bank, and up the river, in search of "fun"; practise irregular andindescribable gymnastics with variable success for half an hour or so. Shout from the bridge. I look up. Too far off to hear the words, butsee Halicarnassus gesticulating furiously, and evidently laboring undergreat excitement. Retrograde as rapidly as circumstances will permit. Halicarnassus makes a speaking-trumpet of his hands, and roars, "I'veFOUND--a FISH! LEFT--him for--YOU--to CATCH! Come QUICK!"--and, plunging headlong down the bank, disappears. I am touched to the heartby this sublime instance of self-denial and devotion, and scramble upto the bridge, and plunge down after him. Heel of boot gets entangledin dress every third step, --fishing-line in tree-top every second;progress consequently not so rapid as could be desired. Reach thewater at last. Step cautiously from rock to rock to the middle of thestream, --balance on a pebble just large enough to plant both feet on, and just firm enough to make it worth while to run the risk, --drop myline into the spot designated, --a quiet, black little pool in therushing river, --see no fish, but have faith in Halicarnassus. 

"Bite?" asks Halicarnassus, eagerly. 

"Not yet, " I answer, sweetly. Breathless expectation. Lipscompressed. Eyes fixed. Five minutes gone. 

"Bite?" calls Halicarnassus, from down the river. 

"Not yet, " hopefully. 

"Lower your line a little. I'll come in a minute. " Line is lowered. Arms begin to ache. Rod suddenly bobs down. Snatch it up. Only anold stick. Splash it off contemptuously. 

"Bite?" calls Halicarnassus from afar. 

"No, " faintly responds Marius, amid the ruins of Carthage. 

"Perhaps he will by and by, " suggests Halicarnassus, encouragingly. Five minutes more. Arms breaking. Knees trembling. Pebble shaky. Brain dizzy. Everything seems to be sailing down the stream. Temptedto give up, but look at the empty basket, think of the expectant partyand the eight cod-fish, and possess my soul in patience. 

"Bite?" comes the distant voice of Halicarnassus, disappearing by abend in the river. 

"No!" I moan, trying to stand on one foot to rest the other, and endingby standing on neither for the pebble quivers, convulses, and finallyrolls over and expires; and only a vigorous leap and a suddenconversion of the fishing-rod into a balancing-pole save me from anignominious bath. Weary of the world, and lost to shame, I gather allmy remaining strength, wind the line about the rod, poise it on high, hurl it out into the deepest and most unobstructed part of the stream, climb up pugnis et calcibus on the back of an old boulder; coax, threaten, cajole, and intimidate my wet boots to come off; dip myhandkerchief in the water, and fold it on my head, to keep from beingsunstruck; lie down on the rock, pull my hat over my face, and dream, to the purling of the river, the singing of the birds, and the music ofthe wind in the trees, (whether in the body I cannot tell, or whetherout of the body I cannot tell, ) of another river, far, faraway, --broad, and deep, and seaward rushing, --now in shadow, now inshine, --now lashed by storm, now calm as a baby's sleep, --bearing onits vast bosom a million crafts, whereof I see only one, --a littlepinnace, frail yet buoyant, --tossed hither and thither, yet alwayskeeping her prow to the waves, --washed, but not whelmed. So small andslight a thing, will she not be borne down by the merchant-ships, theocean steamers, the men-of-war, that ride the waves, reckless in theirpride of power? How will she escape the sunken rocks, the treacherousquicksands, the ravening whirlpools, the black and dark night? Lo!yonder, right across her bows, comes one of the Sea-Kings, freightedwith death for the frail little bark! Woe! woe! for the lithe littlebark! Nay, not death, but life. The Sea-King marks the path of thepinnace. Not death, but life. Signals flash back and forth. Shediscerns the voice of the Master. He, too, is steering seaward, --notmore bravely, not more truly, but a directer course. He will pilot herpast the breakers and the quicksands. He will bring her to the havenwhere she would be. O brave little bark! Is it Love that watches atthe masthead? Is it Wisdom that stands at the helm? Is it Strengththat curves the swift keel?--

"Hello! how many?"

I start up wildly, and knock my hat off into the water. Jump after it, at the imminent risk of going in myself, catch it by one of thestrings, and stare at Halicarnassus. 

"Asleep, I fancy?" says Halicarnassus, interrogatively. 

"Fancy, " I echo, dreamily. 

"How many fishes?" persists Halicarnassus. 

"Fishes?" says the echo. 

"Yes, fishes, " repeats Halicarnassus, in a louder tone. 

"Yes, it must have been the fishes, " murmurs the echo. 

"Goodness gracious me!" ejaculates Halicarnassus, with the voice of agiant; "how many fishes have you caught?"

"Oh! yes, " waking up and hastening to appease his wrath;"eight, --chiefly cod. "

Indignation chokes his speech. Meanwhile I wake up still further, and, instead of standing before him like a culprit, beard him like anavenging Fury, and upbraid him with his deception and desertion. Heattempts to defend himself, but is overpowered. Conscious guilt dyeshis face, and remorse gnaws at the roots of his tongue. 

"Sinful heart makes feeble hand. "

We walk silently towards the woods. We meet a small boy with a tinpail and thirty-six fishes in it. We accost him. 

"Are these fishes for sale?" asks Halicarnassus. 

"Bet they be!" says small boy, with energy. 

Halicarnassus looks meaningly at me. I look meaningly atHalicarnassus, and both look meaningly at our empty basket. 

"Won't you tell?" says Halicarnassus. 

"No; won't you?" Halicarnassus whistles, the fishes are transferredfrom pan to basket, and we walk away as "chirp as a cricket, " reach thesylvan party, and are speedily surrounded. 

"O what beauties! Who caught them? How many are there?"

"Thirty-six, " says Halicarnassus, in a lordly, thoroughbred way. "Icaught 'em. "

"In a tin pan, " I exclaim, disgusted with his conceit, and determinedto "take him down. "

A cry of rage from Halicarnassus, a shout of derision from the party. 

"And how many did you catch, pray?" demands he. 

"Eight, --all cods, " I answer, placidly. 

Tolerably satisfied with our aquatic experience, we determined toresume the mountains, but in a milder form; before which, however, itbecame necessary to do a little shopping. An individual--one of theparty, whose name I will not divulge, and whose identity you never canconjecture, so it isn't worth while to exhaust yourself withguessing--found one day, while she was in the country, that she hadwalked a hole through the bottom of her boots. How she discovered thisfact is of no moment; but, upon investigating the subject, sheascertained that it could scarcely be said with propriety that therewas a hole in her boots, but, to use a term which savors of the street, though I employ it literally, there WASN'T ANYTHING ELSE. Now the factof itself is not worthy of remark. That the integrity of a pair ofboots should yield to the continued solicitations of time, toil, bone, and muscle, is too nearly a matter of everyday occurrence to excitealarm. The "irrepressible conflict" between leather and land has, sofar as I know, been suspended but once since

 "Adam delved and Eve span, "

and that was only an amnesty of forty years while the Israelites werewandering in the wilderness. But when you are deep in the heart of thecountry, scouring woods, climbing mountains, and fording rivers, havingwith your usual improvidence neglected to furnish yourself with stoutboots, then a "horrid chasm, " or series of chasms, yawning in the onlypair that are of any use to you, presents a spectacle which noreflective mind can contemplate without dismay. 

It was, in fact, with a good deal of dismay that the individual inquestion sat down, one morning, on "Webster's Unabridged, "--that beingthe only available seat in an apartment not over-capacious, --and wentinto a committee of the whole on the state of her boots. The prospectwas not inviting. Heels frightfully wrenched and askew, and showingindubitable symptoms of a precipitate secession; binding frayed, ravelled, evidently stubborn in resistance, but at length overpoweredand rent into innumerable fissures; buttons dislocated, dragged up bythe roots, yet clinging to a forlorn hope with a courage and constancyworthy of a better cause; upper-leather (glove-kid), once black, now"the ashen hue of age, " gray, purple, flayed, scratched, and generallylacerated; soles, ah! the soles! There the process of disintegrationculminated. Curled, crisped, jagged, gaping, stratified, laminated, torn by internal convulsions, upheaved by external forces, they mighthave belonged to some pre-Adamic era, and certainly presented a seriesof dissolving views, deeply interesting, but not, it must be confessed, highly entertaining. 

After arranging these boots in every possible combination, --side byside, heel to heel, toe to toe, --and finding that the result of eachand every combination was that

 "No light, but rather darkness visible, Served only to discover sights of woe, "

the Individual at length, with a sigh, placed them, keel upwards, onthe floor in front of her, and, resting her head in her hands, gazed atthem with such a fixedness and rigidity that she might have been takenfor an old Ouate, absorbed in the exercise of his legitimate calling. (The old Druidical order were divided into three classes, Druids, Bards, and Ouates. The Druids philosophized and theologized, the Bardsharped and sang, and the Ouates divined and CONTEMPLATED THE NATURE OFTHINGS. I thought I would tell you, as you might not know. I execratethe self-conceited way some people have of tossing off their eruditeitems and allusions in a careless, familiar style, as if it is such A BC to them that they don't for a moment think of any one's notunderstanding it. Worse still is it to have some jagged brickbat, dugup from a heap of Patagonian rubbish, flung at you with a "we have allheard of"; or to be turned off, just as your ears are wide open tolisten to an old pre-Thautic myth, with "the story of ---- is toofamiliar to need repetition. " You have not the most distant conceptionwhat the story is, yet you don't like to say so, because it seems to beintimated that every intelligent person ought to know it; so you holdyour peace. My dear, don't do it. Don't hold your peace. Don't letyourself be put down in that way. Don't be deceived. Half the timethese people never knew it themselves, I dare say, more than a weekbefore-hand, and have been puzzling their brains ever since for achance to get it in. )

The Individual came at length to the conclusion that something must bedone. Masterly inactivity must give way to the exigencies of the case. She had recourse to the "oldest inhabitant. " A series of questionsdisclosed the important fact that--

"Well, there was a store at Sonose, about fourteen miles away; and Mr. Williams, he kept candy, and slate-pencils, and sich--"

"Do you suppose be keeps good thick boots?"

"O la! no. "

"Do you suppose he keeps any kind of boots? You see I have worn mineout, and what am I to do?"

"Well, now, I thinks likely you can get 'em mended. "

Individual brightens up. "O, do you?"

"Yes, there's Mr. Jacobs, lives right out there, under the hill; hemakes men's boots. I do' know as he could do yours, but you might try. Thinks likely he ain't got the tools, nor the stuff to do that sort ofwork with. "

I didn't care for the tools or the stuff. All I wanted was theshoemaker; if I could find HIM, little doubt that all the rest wouldfollow naturally from the premises. So I arranged my "sandal shoon andscallop-shell, " and departed on my pilgrimage. The way had beencarefully pointed out to me, but I never can remember such things morethan one turn, or street, ahead; so I made a point of inquiring ofevery one I met, where Mr. Jacobs lived. Every one, by the way, consisted of a little girl with a basket of potatoes, and a mancarrying the United States mail on his arm. 

At length the Individual found the house as directed, and found alsothat it was no house, but a barn, and the shoemaker's shop wasupstairs, and the stairs were on the outside. If they were firm andstrong, their looks were against them. Neither step nor balustradeinvited confidence. The Individual stood on the lower one in ameditative mood for a while, and then gave a jump by way of test, thinking it best to go through the one nearest the ground, if she mustgo through any. An ominous creaking and swaying and cracking followed, but no actual rupture. The second step was tested with the sameresult; then the third and fourth; and, reflecting that appearances aredeceitful, and recollecting the rocking-stone at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and the tower of Pisa, &c. , the Individual shook off herfears, and ascended rapidly. Being somewhat unfamiliar with theetiquette of shoemaker's shop, she hesitated whether to knock or plungeat once into the middle of things, but decided to err on the safe side, and gave a very moderate and conservative rap. Silence. A louderknock. The door rattled. Louder still. The whole building shook. Knuckles filed a caveat. Applied the heel of the dilapidated boot inher hand. Suffocated with a cloud of dust thence ensuing. Contemplatedthe nature of things for a while. Heard a voice. A man called from aneighboring turnip-field, "Arter Jake?"

"Yes, sir, --if he is a shoemaker" (to make sure of identity). 

"Yes, well, he ain't to home. "

"Oh. "

"He's gone to Sonose. "

"When will he be back, if you please?"

"Wall, I can't say for sartin. Next week or week after, --leastwise'fore the fair. Got a job?"

"Yes, sir, but I can't very well wait so long. Do you know of anyshoemakers anywhere about?"

"Wall, ma'am, I do' know as I do. Folks is mostly farmers here. There's Fuller, just moved, though. Come up from Exton yesterday. P'r'aps he'll give you a lift. That's his house right down there. 'Taint more 'n half a mile. "

"Yes, sir, I see it. Thank you. "

Individual descends from her precarious elevation, and marches to theattack of Fuller. A fresh-faced, good-natured-looking man is justcoming out at the gate. His pleasant countenance captivates her atonce, and, with a silent but intense hope that he may be theshoemaker, she asks if "Mr. Fuller lives here. "

"Well, " replies the man, in an easy, drawling tone, that harmonizesadmirably with his face, "when a fellow is moving, he can't be said tolive anywhere. I guess he'll live here, though, as soon as the stovegets up. "

I reciprocated his frankness with an engaging smile, and asked, in aconfidential tone, "Do you suppose he would mend a shoe for me?"

I thought I would begin with a shoe, and, if I found him acquiescent, Iwould mount gradually to a boot, then to a pair. But my littlesubterfuge was water spilled on the ground. 

"I don't know whether he would or not, but I know one thing. "

"Well?"

"Couldn't if he wanted to. Ain't got his tools here. They ain't comeup yet. "

"Oh! is that all?"

"ALL?"

"Yes; because, if you know how, I shouldn't think it would make so muchdifference about the tools. Couldn't you borrow a gimlet or somethingfrom the neighbors?"

"A GIMLET?"

"Yes, or whatever you want, to make shoes with. "

"An awl, you mean. "

"Well, yes, an awl. Couldn't you borrow an awl?"

"Nary awl. "

"When will your tools come?"

"Well, I don't know; you see I don't hurry 'em up, because it's haying, and I and my men, we'd just as lieves work out of doors a part of thetime as not. We don't mend shoes much. We make 'em mostly. "

"Oh that's better still; would you make me a pair?"

"Well, we don't do that kind of work. We work for the dealers. We makethe shoes that they send down South for the niggers. We ain't got thelasts that would do for you. "

Individual goes home, as Chaucer says, "in dumps, " and determines totake the boots under her own supervision. First, she inks over all thegray parts. Then she takes some sealing-wax, and sticks down all thebits of cuticle torn up. Then, in lieu of anything better, she takessome white flannel-silk, --not embroidery-silk, you understand, butflannel-silk, harder twisted and stronger, such as is to be found, sofar as I have tried, only in Boston, --and therewith endeavors to downthe curled sole to its appropriate sphere, or rather plane. It is notthe easiest or the most agreeable work in the world. How people manageto MAKE shoes I cannot divine, for of all awkward things to get holdof, and to handle and manage after you have hold, I think a shoe is theworst. The place where you put a needle in does not seem to hold themost distant relation to the place where it comes out. You set itwhere you wish it to go, and then proceed vi et armis et thimble, butit resists your armed intervention. Then you rest the head of theneedle against the windowsill, and push. You feel something move. Everything is going on and in delightfully. Mind asserts its controlover matter. You pause to examine. In? Yes, head deep in thepine-wood, but the point not an inch further in the shoe. You pull out. The shoe comes off the needle, but the needle does not come out of thewindowsill. You pull the silk, and break it, and then work the needleout as well as you can, and then begin again, --destroying threeneedles, getting your fingers "exquisitely pricked, " and keeping yourtemper--if you can. 

By some such process did the Individual, a passage of whose biography Iam now giving you, endeavor to repair the ravages of time and toil. Inso far as she succeeded in making the crooked places straight and therough places plain, her efforts may be said to have been crowned withsuccess. It is but fair to add, however, that the result did notinspire her with so much confidence but that she determined to lay bythe boots for a while, reserving them for such times as they should bemost needed, with a vague hope also that rest might exercise somewonderful recuperative power. 

About five days after this, they were again brought out, to do duty ona long walk. The event was most mournful. The flannel-silk gave atthe first fire. The soles rolled themselves again in a mostuncomfortable manner. At every step, the foot had to be put forward, placed on the ground, and then drawn back. The walk was an agony. Itso happened that on our return, without any intention, we came out ofwoods in the immediate vicinity of the shoemaker's aforesaid, and theIndividual was quite sure she heard the sound of his hammer. Sheremembered that, when she was young and at school, she was familiarwith a certain "wardrobe" which was generally so bulging-full ofclothes that the doors could not, by any fair, straightforward means, be shut; but if you sprang upon them suddenly, taking them unawares, asit were, and when they were off their guard, you could sometimes effecta closure. She determined to try this plan on the shoemaker. So shebade the rest of the party go on, while she turned off in the directionof the hammering. She went straight into the shop, without knocking, the door being ajar. There he was at it, sure enough. 

"Your tools have come!" she exclaimed, with ill-concealed exultation. "Now, will you mend my shoes?"

"Well, I don't know as I can, hardly. I'm pretty much in a hurry. What with moving and haying, I've got a little behindhand. "

"Oh! but you must mend them, because I am going up on the mountaintomorrow, and I have no others to wear, and I am afraid of the snakes;so you see, you must. "

"Got 'em here?"

Individual furtively works off the best one, and picks it up, --whilehis eyes are bent on his work, --as if she had only dropped it, andhands it to him. He takes it, turns it over, pulls it, knocks it, withan evident intention of understanding the subject thoroughly. 

"Rather a haggard-looking boot, " he remarks, after his close survey. 

"Yes, but--"

"Other a'n't so bad, I suppose?"

"Well--I--don't know--that is--"

"Both bad enough. "

"Yes, indeed, " with an uneasy laugh. 

"Let's see the other one. " The other one is produced, and examined insilence. 

"Are YOU going to wear them boots up the mountain?" with a tone thatsaid very plainly, "Of course you're not. "

"Why, yes, I WAS going to wear them. Don't you think they will do?"

"I wouldn't trust MY feet in 'em. "

"O--h! ARE there snakes? Do you think snakes could bite through them?"

A shake of the head, and a little, low, plaintive whistle, is the onlyreply, but they speak in thunder of boa-constrictors, anacondas, andcobra de capellos. 

"They were very good and stout when I had them. I called them verystout shoes. "

"O yes, they're made of good material, but you see they 're worn out. I don't believe I could mend them worth while. The stitches would tearout. "

"But couldn't you, somehow, glue on a pair of soles? any way to makethem stick. I'll pay you anything, if you'll only make them last tillI go home, or even till I get down the mountain. Now, I am sure you cando it, if you will only think so. Don't you know Kossuth says, 'Nothing is difficult to him who wills'?"

He was evidently moved by the earnestness of the appeal. "I supposethey'd be worth more to you now than half a dozen pair when you gethome. "

"Worth! why, they would be of inestimable value. Think of the snakes!I don't care how you do them, nor how you make them look. If you willonly glue on, or sew on, or nail on, or rivet on, something that isthick and will stick, I will pay you, and be grateful to you throughthe remainder of my natural life. "

"Well, --you leave 'em, and come over again this afternoon, and if I cando anything, I'll do it by that time. "

"Oh! I am so much obliged to you"; and I went away in high spirits, just putting my head back through the door to say, "Now you persevere, and I am sure you will succeed. "

I was as happy as a queen. To be sure, I had to walk home without anyshoes; but the grass was as soft as velvet, and the dust as clean assand, and it did not hurt me in the least. To be sure, he had notpromised to mend them; but I had faith in him, and how did it turn out?Verily, I should not have known the boots, if I seen only the soles. They were clipped, and shaved, and underpinned, and smoothed, andlooked as if they had taken out "a new lease of life. "

"I don't suppose they will last you as long as I have been doing them, "he remarked, with unprofessional frankness. I did not believe him, andindeed his prophecy was not true, for they are in existence yet, and Inever disposed of "a quarter" in my life with more satisfaction than Idropped it that day into his benevolent hand. 

A thousand years hence, when New Hampshire shall have become aspopulous as Babylon, this sketch may become the foundation of some"Tale of Beowulf" or other. At any rate here it is ready. 

Of all the White Mountains, the one of which you hear least said isAgamenticus, and perhaps justly, for it is not one of the WhiteMountains, but an isolated peak by itself. My information concerningit is founded partly on observation, partly on testimony, and partly onmemory, supported where she is weak by conjecture. These sources, however, mingle their waters together somewhat too intricately foraccurate analysis, and I shall, therefore, waive distinctions, andplant myself on the broad basis of assertion, warning the futurehistorian and antiquary not take this paper as conclusive withoutextraneous props. 

Agamenticus is a huge rock rising abruptly from a level country alongNew Hampshire's half-yard of sea-shore. As it is the only large rockon the eastern coast of the United States, it is in invaluable beaconto mariners. The first city ever built on American continent was laidout at its base, the remains are now visible from its summit; but, asfunds failed, and the founders were killed by the Indians, it was nevercompleted, in fact was never begun, only laid out. To the east I wascertain I saw Boar's Head and a steamer steaming towards it, till I wasassured that in such case the steamer must have been steaming over thecorn-fields, because, unlike Aenon near to Salim, there was no waterthere. So I suppose it must have been

 "A painted ship upon a painted ocean. "

The ascent to Agamenticus is sidling and uncertain so long as you hugyour carriage; but, leaving that, and confiding yourself to MotherEarth, you gather both strength and equipoise from the touch, and, witha little boy to guide you through the woods and over the rocks, youwill find the ascent quite pleasant and safe, if you are careful not toslip down, which you will be sure to do on your descent, whether youare careful or not. At the summit of the mountain is a fine andflourishing growth of muskmelon, sugar, and currant-wine. At least wefound them there in profusion. 

Agamenticus has its legend. Many years ago, the Indians, to avert theplague, drove twenty thousand cattle to the top of the mountain, andthere sacrificed them to the Great Spirit. We could still discerntraces of the sacrifice, --burnt stones, bits of green-black glass, andcharred pine branches. Then we came home. 

Perthes says, "That part of a journey which remains after thetravelling is the journey. " What remains of my journey, for me, foryou? Will any live over again a pleasant past and look more cheerilyinto a lowering future for these wayward words of mine? Are thereclouded lives that will find a little sunshine; pent-up souls that willcatch a breath of blooms in my rambling record? Are there lips thatwill relax their tightness; eyes that will lose for a moment the shadowof remembered pain? Then, indeed, the best part of my journey is yetto come. 

A CALL TO MY COUNTRYWOMEN. 

In the newspapers and magazines you shall see many poems andpapers--written by women who meekly term themselves weak, and modestlyprofess to represent only the weak among their sex--discussing theduties which the weak owe to their country in days like these. Theinvariable conclusion is, that, though they cannot fight, because theyare not men, --or go down to nurse the sick and wounded, because theyhave children to take care of, --or write effectively, because they donot know how, --or do any great and heroic thing, because they have notthe ability, --they can pray; and they generally do close with amelodious and beautiful prayer. Now praying is a good thing. It is, infact, the very best thing in the world to do, and there is no danger ofour having too much of it; but if women, weak or strong, consider thatpraying is all they can or ought to do for their country, and so settledown contented with that, they make as great a mistake as if they didnot pray at all. True, women cannot fight, and there is no call forany great number of female nurses; notwithstanding this, the issue ofthis war depends quite as much upon American women as upon Americanmen, --and depends, too, not upon the few who write, but upon the manywho do not. The women of the Revolution were not only Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Reed, and Mrs. Schuyler, but the wives of the farmers and shoemakersand blacksmiths everywhere. It is not Mrs. Stowe, or Mrs. Howe, or MissStevenson, or Miss Dix, alone, who is to save the country, but thethousands upon thousands who are at this moment darning stockings, tending babies, sweeping floors. It is to them I speak. It is theywhom I wish to get hold of; for in their hands lies slumbering thefuture of this nation. 

Shall I say that the women of today have not come up to the level oftoday, --that they do not stand abreast with its issues, --they do notrise to the height of its great argument? I do not forget what you havedone. I have beheld, O Dorcases, with admiration and gratitude, thecoats and garments, the lint and bandages, which you have made. If youcould have finished the war with your needle, it would have beenfinished long ago; but stitching does not crush rebellion, does notannihilate treason, or hew traitors in pieces before the Lord. Excellent as far as it goes, it stops fearfully of the goal. Thisought ye to do, but there other things which you ought not to leave me. The war cannot be finished by sheets and pillow-cases. Sometimes I amtempted to believe that it cannot be finished till we have flung themall away. When I read of the rebels fighting bare-headed, bare-footed, haggard, and shorn, in rags and filth, --fighting bravely, heroically, successfully, --I am ready to make a burnt-offering of our stacks ofclothing. I feel and fear that we must come down, as they have to arecklessness of all incidentals, down to the rough and ruggedfastnesses of life, down to very gates of death itself, before we shallbe ready and worthy to win victories. Yet it is not for the hardestfights the earth has ever known have been made by the delicate-handedand purple-robed. So, in the ultimate analysis, it is neithergold-lace nor rags that overpower obstacles, but the fiery soul thatconsumes both in the intensity of its furnace-heat, bendingimpossibilities to the ends of its passionate purpose. 

This soul of fire is what I wish to see kindled in our women, burningwhite and strong and steady, through all weakness, timidity, vacillation, treachery in church or state or press or parlor, scorching, blasting, annihilating whatsoever loveth and maketh alie, --extinguished by no tempest of defeat, no drizzle of delay, butglowing on its steadfast path till it shall have cleared through theabomination of our desolation a highway for the Prince of Peace. 

O my countrywomen, I long to see you stand under the time and bear itup in your strong hearts, and not need to be borne up through it. Iwish you to stimulate, and not crave stimulants from others. I wishyou to be the consolers, the encouragers, the sustainers, and nottremble in perpetual need of consolation and encouragement. When men'sbrains are knotted and their brows corrugated with fearful looking forand hearing of financial crises, military disasters, and any and everyform of national calamity consequent upon the war, come you out to meetthem, serene and smiling and unafraid. And let your smile be no formaldistortion of your lips, but a bright ray from the sunshine in yourheart. Take not acquiescently, but joyfully, the spoiling of yourgoods. Not only look poverty in the face with high disdain, butembrace it with gladness and welcome. The loss is but for a moment; thegain is for all time. Go further than this. Consecrate to a holycause not only the incidentals of life, but life itself. Father, husband, child, --I do not say, Give them up to toil, exposure, suffering, death, without a murmur;--that implies reluctance. I rathersay, Urge them to the offering; fill them with sacred fury; fire themwith irresistible desire; strengthen them to heroic will. Look not ondetails, the present, the trivial, the aspects of our conflict, but fixyour ardent gaze on its eternal side. Be not resigned, but rejoicing. Be spontaneous and exultant. Be large and lofty. Count it all joythat you are reckoned worthy to suffer in a grand and righteous cause. Give thanks evermore that you were born in this time; and BECAUSE it isdark, be you the light of world. 

And follow the soldier to the battle-field with spirit. The great armyof letters that marches southward with every morning sun is a powerfulengine of war. Fill them with tears and sighs, lament separation andsuffering, dwell on your loneliness and fears, mourn over thedishonesty of contractors and the incompetency of leaders, doubt if theSouth will ever be conquered, and foresee financial ruin, and you willdamp the powder and dull the swords that ought to deal death upon thefoe. Write as tenderly as you will. In camp, the roughest manidealizes his far-off home, and every word of love uplifts him to alover. But let your tenderness unfold its sunny side, and keep theshadows for His pity who knows the end from the beginning, and whom noforeboding can dishearten. Glory in your tribulation. Show yoursoldier that his unflinching courage, his undying fortitude, are yourcrown of rejoicing. Incite him to enthusiasm by your inspiration. Makea mock of your discomforts. Be unwearying in details of the littleinterests of home. Fill your letters with kittens and canaries, withbaby's shoes, and Johnny's sled, and the old cloak which you haveturned into a handsome gown. Keep him posted in all thevillage-gossip, the lectures, the courtings, the sleigh-rides, and thesinging schools. Bring out the good points of the world in strongrelief. Tell every piquant and pleasant and funny story you call thinkof. Show him that you clearly apprehend that all this warfare meanspeace, and that a dastardly peace would pave the way for speedy, incessant, and more appalling warfare. Help him to bear his burdens byshowing him how elastic you are under yours. Hearten him, enliven him, tone him up to the true hero-pitch. Hush your plaintive Miserere, accept the nation's pain for penance, and commission every Northernbreeze to bear a Te Deum laudamus. 

It fell to me once to read the record of a young life laid early on ourcountry's altar. I saw noble words traced by the still hand, --words ofduty and honor and love and trust that thrilled my heart and broughtback once more the virtue of the Golden Age, --nay, rather revealed thevirgin gold of this; but through all his letters and his life shone, half concealed, yet wholly revealed, a silver thread of light, woven inby a woman's hand. Rest and courage and hope, patience in theweariness of disease, strength that nerved his arm for shock and onset, and for the last grand that laid his young head low, --all flowed inupon him through the tones of one brave, sweet voice far off. Agentle, fragile, soft-eyed woman, what could such a delicate flower doagainst the "thunder-storm of battle"? What DID she do? Poured herown great heart and own high spirit into the patriot's heart and soul, and so did all. Now as she goes to fro and in her daily life, soft-eyedstill and serene, she seems to me no longer a beautiful girl, but asaint wrapped around already with the radiance of immortality. 

Under God, the only question, as to whether war shall be conducted to ashameful or an honorable close, is not of men or money or materialresource. In these our superiority is unquestioned. As Wellingtonphrased it, there is hard pounding; but we shall pound the longest, ifonly our hearts not fail us. Women need not beat their pewter spooninto bullets, for there are plenty of bullets without them. It is notwhether our soldiers shall fight a good fight; they have played the manon a hundred battle-fields. It is not whether officers are or are notcompetent; generals have blundered nation into victory since the worldbegan. It is whether this people shall have virtue to endure to theend, --to endure, not starving, not cold, but the pangs of hopedeferred, of disappointment and uncertainty, of commerce deranged andoutward prosperity checked. Will our vigilance to detect treachery andour perseverance to punish it hold out? If we stand firm, we shall besaved, though so as by fire. If we do not, we shall fall, and shallrichly deserve to fall; and may God sweep us off from the face of theearth, and plant in our stead a nation with the hearts of men!

O women, here you may stand powerful, invincible, I had almost saidomnipotent. Rise now to the heights of a sublime courage, --for thehour has need of you. When the first ball smote the rocky sides ofSumter, the rebound thrilled from shore to shore, and waked theslumbering hero in every human soul. Then every eye flamed, every lipwas touched with a live coal from the sacred altar, every form dilatedto the stature of the ideal time. Then we felt in our veins the pulseof immortal youth. Then all the chivalry of the ancient days, all theheroism, all the self-sacrifice that shaped itself into noble living, came back to us, poured over us, swept away the dross of selfishnessand deception and petty scheming, and Patriotism rose from the swellingwave stately as a goddess. Patriotism, that had been to us but a dingyand meaningless antiquity, took on a new form, a new mien, acountenance divinely fair and forever young, and received once more thehomage of our hearts. Was that a childish outburst of excitement, orthe glow of an aroused principle? Was it a puerile anger, or a manlyindignation? Did we spring up startled pygmies, or girded giants? Ifthe former, let us veil our faces, and march swiftly (and silently) tomerciful forgetfulness. If the latter, shall we not lay aside everyweight, and this besetting sin of despondency, and run with patiencethe race set before us?

A true philosophy and a true religion make the way possible to us. TheMost High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever Hewill; and he never yet willed that a nation strong in means, andbattling for the right, should be given over to a nation weak andbattling for the wrong. Nations have their future--reward andpenalty--in this world; and it is as certain as God lives, thatProvidence AND the heaviest battalions will prevail. We have hadreverses, but no misfortune hath happened unto us but such as is commonunto nations. Country has been sacrificed to partisanship. Early lovehas fallen away, and lukewarmness has taken its place. Unlimitedenthusiasm has given place to limited stolidity. Disloyalty, overawedat first into quietude, has lifted its head among us, and waxes wrothand ravening. There are dissensions at home worse than the guns of ourfoes. Some that did run well have faltered; some signal-lights havegone shamefully out, and some are lurid with a baleful glare. But untothis end were we born, and for this cause came we into the world. Whenshall greatness of soul stand forth, if not in evil times? When theskies are fair and the seas smooth, all ships sail festively. But theclouds lower, the winds shriek, the waves boil, and immediately eachcraft shows its quality. The deep is strown with broken masts, partedkeels, floating wrecks; but here and there a ship rides the raging sea, and flings defiance to the wind. She overlives the sea because she issea-worthy. Not our eighty years of peace alone, but our two years ofwar, are the touchstone of our character. We have rolled our Democracyas a sweet morsel under our tongue; we have gloried in the prosperitywhich it brought to the individual; but if the comforts of men ministerto the degradation of man, if Democracy levels down and does not levelup, if our era of peace and plenty leaves us so feeble and frivolous, so childish, so impatient, so deaf to all that calls to us from thepast, and entreats us in the future, that we faint and fail under thestress of our one short effort, then indeed is our Democracy our shameand curse. Let us show now what manner of people we are. Let us beclear-sighted and far-sighted to see how great is the issue that hangsupon the occasion. It is not a mere military reputation that is atstake, not the decay of a generation's commerce, not the determinationof this or that party to power. It is the question of the world thatwe have been set to answer. In the great conflict of ages, the longstrife between right and wrong, between progress and sluggardy, throughthe providence of God we are placed in the vanguard. Three hundredyears ago a world was unfolded for the battle-ground. Choice spiritscame hither to level and intrench. Swords clashed and blood flowed, and the great reconnaissance was successfully made. Since then bothsides have been gathering strength, marshalling forces, plantingbatteries, and today we stand in the thick of the fray. Shall we fail?Men and women of America, will you fail? Shall the cause go bydefault? When a great idea, that has been uplifted on the shoulders ofgenerations, comes now to its Thermopylae, its glory-gate, and needsonly stout hearts for its strong hands, --when the eyes of a greatmultitude are turned upon you, and the of dumb millions in the silentfuture rest you, --when the suffering and sorrowful, the lowly, whoseimmortal hunger for justice gnaws at hearts, who blindly see, butkeenly feel, by their God-given instincts, that somehow you are workingout their salvation, and the high-born, monarchs in the domain of mind, who, standing far off; see with prophetic eye the two courses that liebefore you, one to the Uplands of vindicated Right, one to the Valleyof the Shadow of Death, alike fasten upon you their hopes, theirprayers, their tears, --will you, for a moment's bodily comfort and restand repose, grind all these expectations and hopes between the upperand nether millstone? Will you fail the world in this fateful hour byyour faint-heartedness? Will you fail yourself; and put the knife toyour own throat? For the peace which you so dearly buy shall bring toyou neither ease nor rest. You will but have spread a bed of thorns. Failure will write disgrace upon the brow of this generation, and shamewill outlast the age. It is not with us as with the South. She cansurrender without dishonor. She is the weaker power, and her successwill be against the nature of things. Her dishonor lay in her attempt, not in its relinquishment. But we shall fail, not because of mechanicsand mathematics, but because our manhood and womanhood weighed in thebalance are found wanting. There are few who will not share in thesin. There are none who will not share in the shame. Wives, would youhold back your husbands? Mothers, would you keep your sons? From what?for what? From the doing of the grandest duty that ever ennobled man, to the grief of the greatest infamy that ever crushed him down. Youwould hold him back from prizes before which Olympian laurels fade, for a fate before which a Helot slave might cower. His country in theagony of her death-struggle calls to him for succor. All the blood inall the ages, poured out for liberty, poured out for him, cries untohim from the ground. All that life has of noble, of heroic, beckonshim forward. Death itself wears for him a golden crown. Ever sincethe world swung free from God's hand, men have died, --obeying the blindfiat of Nature; but only once in a generation comes the sacrificialyear, the year of jubilee, when men march lovingly to meet their fateand die for a nation's life. Holding back, we transmit to those thatshall come after us a blackened waste. The little one that lies in hiscradle will be accursed for our sakes. Every child will be base-born, springing from ignoble blood. We inherited a fair fame, and bays froma glorious battle; but for him is no background, no stand-point. Hiscountry will be a burden on his shoulders, a blush upon his cheek, achain about his feet. There is no career for the future, but a wearyeffort, a long, a painful, a heavy-hearted struggle to lift the landout of its slough of degradation and set it once more upon a dry place. 

Therefore let us have done at once and forever paltry considerations, with talk of despondency and darkness. Let compromise, submission, andevery form of dishonorable peace be not so much as named among us. Tolerate no coward's voice or pen or eye. Wherever the serpent's headis raised, strike it down. Measure every man by the standard ofmanhood. Measure country's price by country's worth, and country'sworth by country's integrity. Let a cold, clear breeze sweep down fromthe mountains of life, and drive out these miasmas that befog andbeguile the unwary. Around every hearthstone let sunshine gleam. Inevery home let fatherland have its altar and its fortress. From everyhousehold let words of cheer and resolve and high-heartiness ring out, till the whole land is shining and resonant in the bloom of itsawakening spring. 

A SPASM OF SENSE

The conjunction of amiability and sense in the same individual rendersthat individual's position in a world like us very disagreeable. Amiability without sense, or sense without amiability, runs alongsmoothly enough. The former takes things as they are. It receives allglitter as pure gold, and does not see that it is custom alone whichvarnishes wrong with a slimy coat of respectability, and glorifiesselfishness with the aureole of sacrifice. It sets down all collisionsas foreordained, and never observes that they occur because people willnot smooth off their angles, but sharpen them, and not only sharpenthem, but run them into you. It forgets that the Lord made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions. It attributes all the collisionand inaptitude which it finds to the nature of things, and neversuspects that the Devil goes around in the night, thrusting the squaremen into the round places, and the round men into the square places. It never notices that the reason why the rope does not unwind easily isbecause one strand is a world too large, and another a world too small, and so it sticks where it ought to roll, and rolls where it ought tostick. It makes sweet, faint efforts, with tender fingers andpalpitating heart to oil the wheels and polish up the machine, and doesnot for a moment imagine that the hitch is owing to originalincompatibility of parts and purposes, that the whole machine must bepulled to pieces and made over, and that nothing will be done bystanding patiently by, trying to sooth away the creaking and wheezingand groaning of the laboring, lumbering thing, by laying on a littledrop of sweet oil with a pin-feather. As it does not see any of thesethings that are happening before its eyes, of course it is shallowlyhappy. And on the other hand, he who does see them, and is notamiable, is grimly and Grendally happy. He likes to say disagreeablethings, and all this dismay and disaster scatter disagreeable thingsbroadcast along his path, so that all he has to do is to pick them upand say them. Therefore this world is his paradise. He would not knowwhat to do with himself in a world where matters were sorted and foldedand laid away ready for you when you should want them. He likes to seehuman affairs mixing themselves up in irretrievable confusion. If hedetects a symptom of straightening, it shall go hard but he will thrustin his own fingers and snarl a thread or two. He is delighted to finddogged duty and eager desire butting each other. All the irresistibleforces crashing against all the immovable bodies give him no shock, only a pleasant titillation. He is never so happy as when men aretaking hold of things by the blade, and cutting their hands, and losingblood. He tells them of it, but not in order to relieve so much as to"aggravate" them; and he does aggravate them, and is satisfied. O, buthe is an aggravating person!

It is you, you who combine the heart of a seraph with the head of acherub, who know what trouble is. You see where the shoe pinches, butyour whole soul shrinks from pointing out the tender place. You seewhy things go wrong, and how they might be set right; but you have amortal dread of being thought meddlesome and impertinent, or cold andcruel, or restless and arrogant, if you attempt to demolish the wrongor rebel against the custom. When you draw your bow at an abuse, people think you are trying to bring down religion and propriety andhumanity. But your conscience will not let you see the abuse raving toand fro over the earth without taking aim; so, either way, you are cutto the heart. 

I love men. I adore women. I value their good opinion. There is muchin them to applaud and imitate. There is much in them to elicit faithand reverence. If, only, one could see their good alone, or, seeingtheir vapid and vicious ones, could contemplate them with no touch oftenderness for the owner, life might indeed be lovely. As it is, whileI am at one moment rapt in enthusiastic admiration of the strength andgrace, the power and pathos, the hidden resources, the profoundcapabilities of my race, at another, I could wish, Nero-like, that allmankind were concentrated in one person, and all womankind in another, that I might take them, after the fashion of rural schoolmasters, andshake their heads together. Condemnation and reproach are not in myline; but there is so much in the world that merits condemnation andreproach, and receives indifference and even reward, there is so munchacquiescence in wrong doing and wrong thinking, so much letting thingsjolt along in the same rut wherein we and they were born, withoutinquiring whether, lifted into another groove, they might not run moreeasily, that, if one who does see the difficulty holds his peace, thevery stones will cry out. However gladly one would lie on a bed ofroses and glide silken-sailed down the stream of life, how exquisitelypainful soever it may be to say what you fear and feel may give pain, it is only a Sybarite who sets ease above righteousness, only a cowardwho misses victory through dread of defeat. 

There are many false ideas afloat regarding womanly duties. I do notdesign now to open anew any vulgar, worn-out, woman's-rightsy question. Every remark that could be made on that theme has been made--but one, and that I will take the liberty to make now in a single sentence, close the discussion. It is this: the man who gave rubber-boots towomen did more to elevate woman than all the theorizers, male orfemale, that were born. 

But without any suspicious lunges into that dubious region which liesoutside of woman's universally acknowledged "sphere, " (a blight restupon the word!) there is within the pale, within boundary-line whichthe most conservative never dreamed of questioning, room for a greatdivergence of ideas. Now divergence of ideas does not necessarily implyfighting at short range. People may adopt a course of conduct whichyou not approve; yet you may feel it your duty to make no openanimadversio. Circumstances may have suggested such a course to them, or forced it upon them; and perhaps, considering all things, it is thebest they can do. But when, encouraged by your silence, they publishit to the world, not only as relatively, but intrinsically, the bestand most desirable, --when, not content with swallowing it themselves asmedicine, they insist on ramming it down your throat as food, --it istime to buckle on your armor, and have at them. 

A little book, published by the Tract Society, "The Mother and herWork, " has been doing just this thing. It is a modest little book. Itmakes no pretensions to literary or other superiority. It has muchexcellent counsel, pious reflection, and comfortable suggestion. Beinga little book, it costs but little, and it will console, refresh, andinstruct weary, conscientious mothers, and so have a large circulation, a wide influence, and do an immense amount of mischief. For the EvilOne in his senses never sends out poison labelled "POISON. " He mixes itin with great quantities of innocent and nutritive flour and sugar. Heshapes it in cunning shapes of pigs and lambs and hearts and birds andbraids. He tints it with gay lines of green and pink and rose, andputs it in the confectioner's glass windows, where you buy--what?Poison? No, indeed! Candy, at prices to suit the purchasers. So thisgood and pious little book has such a preponderance of goodness andpiety that the poison in it will not be detected, except by chemicalanalysis. It will go down sweetly, like grapes of Beulah. Nobody willsuspect he is poisoned; but just so far as it reaches and touches, thesocial dyspepsia will be aggravated. 

I submit a few atoms of the poison revealed by careful examination. 

"The mother's is a MOST HONORABLE calling. 'What a pity that one sogifted should be so tied down!' remarks a superficial observer, as shelooks upon the mother of a young and increasing family. The pale, thinface and feeble step, bespeaking the multiplied and wearying cares ofdomestic life, elicit an earnest sympathy from the many, thoughtlesslyflitting across her pathway, and the remark passes from mouth to mouth, 'How I pity her! What a shame it is! She is completely worn down withso many children. ' It may be, however, that this young mother is onewho needs and asks no pity, " etc. 

"But the TRUE MOTHER yields herself uncomplainingly, yea, cheerfully, to the wholesome privation, solitude, and self-denial allottedher. .. .. . Was she fond of travelling, of visiting the wonderful inNature and in Art, of mingling in new and often-varying scenes? Nowshe has found 'an abiding city, ' and no allurements are strong enoughto tempt her thence. Had society charms for her, and in the socialcircle and the festive throng were her chief delights? Now she staysat home, and the gorgeous saloon and brilliant assemblage give place tothe nursery and the baby. Was she devoted to literary pursuits? Nowthe library is seldom visited, the cherished studies are neglected, therattle and the doll are substituted for the pen. Her piano is silent, while she chants softly and sweetly the soothing lullaby. Her dresscan last another season now, and the hat--oh, she does not care, if itis not in the latest mode, for she has a baby to look after, and has notime for herself. Even the ride and the walk are given up, perhaps toooften, with the excuse, 'Baby-tending is exercise enough for me. ' Herwhole life is reversed. "

The assumption is, that all this is just as it should be. Thethoughtless person may fancy that it is a pity; but it is not a pity. This is a model mother and a model state of things. It is not simply tobe submitted to, not simply to be patiently borne; it is to be aspiredto as the noblest and holiest state. 

That is the strychnine. You may counsel people to take joyfully thespoiling of their goods, and comfort, encourage, and strengthen them byso doing; but when you tell them that to be robbed and plundered is ofitself a priceless blessing, the highest stage of human development, you do them harm; because, in general, falsehood is always harmful, andbecause, in particular, so far as you influence them at all, youprevent them from taking measures to stop the wrong-doing. You oughtto counsel them to bear with Christian resignation what they cannothelp; but you ought with equal fervor to counsel them to look aroundand see if there are not many things which they can help, and if thereare, by all means to help them. What is inevitable comes to us fromGod, no matter how many hands it passes through; but submission tounnecessary evils is cowardice or laziness; and extolling of the evilas good is sheer ignorance, or perversity, or servility. Even the illsthat must be borne, should be borne under protest, lest patiencedegenerate into slavery. Christian character is never formed byacquiescence in, or apotheosis of wrong. 

The principle that underlies these extracts, and makes themministrative of evil, is the principle that a woman can benefit herchildren by sacrificing herself. It teaches, that pale, thin faces andfeeble steps are excellent things in young mothers, --provided they aregained by maternal duties. We infer that it is meet, right, and thebounden of such to give up society, reading, riding, music, and becomeindifferent to dress, cultivation, recreation, to everything, in short, except taking care of the children. It is all just as wrong as it canbe. It is wrong morally; it is wrong socially; wrong in principle, wrong in practice. It is a blunder as well as a crime, for it workswoe. It is a wrong means to accomplish an end; and it does notaccomplish the end, after all, but demolishes it. 

On the contrary, the duty and dignity of a mother require that sheshould never subordinate herself to her children. When she does so, she does it to their manifest injury and her own. Of course, ifillness or accident demand unusual care, she does well to grow thin andpale in bestowing unusual care. But when a mother in the ordinaryroutine of life grows thin and pale, gives up riding, reading, and theamusements and occupations of life, there is a wrong somewhere, and herchildren shall reap the fruits of it. The father and mother are thehead of the family, the most comely and the most honorable part. Theycannot benefit their children by descending from their Heaven-appointedplaces, and becoming perpetual and exclusive feet and hands. This isthe great fault of American mothers. They swamp themselves in a sloughof self-sacrifice. They are smothered in their own sweetness. Theydash into domesticity with an impetus and abandonment that annihilatethemselves. They sink into their families like a light in a poisonouswell, and are extinguished. 

One hears much complaint of the direction and character of femaleeducation. It is dolefully affirmed that young ladies learn how tosing operas but not how to keep house, --that they can conjugate Greekverbs, but cannot make bread, --that they are good for pretty toying, but not for homely using. Doubtless there is foundation for thisremark, or it would never have been made. But I have been in the Eastand the West, and the North and the South; I know that I have seen thebest society, and I am sure I have seen very bad, if not the worst; andI never met a woman whose superior education, whose piano, whosepencil, whose German, or French, or any school-accomplishments, or evenwhose novels, clashed with her domestic duties. I have read of them inbooks; I did hear of one once; but I never met one, --not one. I haveseen women, through love of gossip, through indolence, through sheerfamine of mental PABLUM, leave undone things that ought to bedone, --rush to the assembly, lecture-room, the sewing-circle, orvegetate in squalid, shabby, unwholesome homes; but I never saweducation run to ruin. So it seems to me that we are needlesslyalarmed in that direction. 

I have seen scores and scores of women leave school, leave their pianoand drawing and fancy-work, and all manner of pretty and pleasantthings, and marry and bury themselves. You hear of them about sixtimes in ten years, and there is a baby each time. They crawl out ofthe farther end of the ten years, sallow and wrinkled and lank, --teethgone, hair gone, roses gone, plumpness gone, --freshness, and vivacity, and sparkle, everything that is dewy, and springing, and spontaneous, gone, gone, gone forever. This our Tract-Society book puts veryprettily. "She wraps herself in the robes of infantile simplicity, and, burying her womanly nature in the tomb of childhood, patientlyawaits the sure-coming resurrection in the form of a noble, high-minded, world-stirring son, or a virtuous, lovely daughter. Thenursery is the mother's chrysalis. Let her abide for a little season, and she shall emerge triumphantly, with ethereal wings and a happyflight. "

But the nursery ought not to be the mother's chrysalis. God neverintended her to wind herself up into a cocoon. If he had, he wouldmade her a caterpillar. She has no right to bury her womanly nature inthe tomb of childhood. It will surely be required at her hands. Itwas given her to sun itself in the broad, bright day, to root itselffast and firm in the earth, to spread itself wide to the sky, that herchildren in their infancy and youth and maturity, that her husband inhis strength and his weakness, that her kinsfolk and neighbors and thepoor of the land, the halt and the blind and all Christ's little ones, may sit under its shadow with great delight. No woman has a right tosacrifice her own soul to problematical, high-minded, world-stirringsons, and virtuous, lovely daughters. To be the mother of such, onemight perhaps pour out one's life in draughts so copious that thefountain should run dry; but world-stirring people are extremely rare. One in a century is a liberal allowance. The overwhelmingprobabilities are, that her sons will be lawyers and shoemakers andfarmers and commission-merchants, her daughters nice, "smart, " prettygirls, all good, honest, kind-hearted, commonplace people, not at allworld-stirring, not at all the people one would glory to merge one'sself in. If the mother is not satisfied with this, if she wants themotherwise, she must be otherwise. The surest way to have high-mindedchildren is to be high-minded yourself. A man cannot burrow in hiscounting-room for ten or twenty of the best years of his life, and comeout as much of a man and as little of a mole as he went in. But thetwenty years should have ministered to his manhood, instead oftrampling on it. Still less can a woman bury herself in her nursery, and come out without harm. But the years should have done her greatgood. This world is not made for a tomb, but a garden. You are to bea seed, not a death. Plant yourself, and you will sprout. Buryyourself, and you can only decay. For a dead opportunity there is noresurrection. The only enjoyment, the only use to be attained in thisworld, must be attained on the wing. Each day brings its ownhappiness, its own benefit; but it has none to spare. What escapestoday is escaped forever. Tomorrow has no overflow to atone for thelost yesterdays. 

Few things are more painful to look upon than the self-renunciation, the self-abnegation of mothers, --painful both for its testimony and itsprophecy. Its testimony is of over-care, over-work, over-weariness, the abuse of capacities that were bestowed for most sacred uses, anutter waste of most pure and life-giving waters. Its prophecy is earlydecline and decadence, forfeiture of position and power, and worst, perhaps, of all, irreparable loss and grievous wrong to the childrenfor whom all is sacrificed. 

God gives to the mother supremacy in her family. It belongs to her tomaintain it. This cannot not be done without exertion. The temptationto come down from her throne, and become a mere hewer of wood anddrawer of water is very strong. It is so much easier to work with thehands than with the head. One can chop sticks all day serenelyunperplexed. But to administer a government demands observation andknowledge and judgment and resolution and inexhaustible patience. Yet, however uneasy lies the head that wears the crown of womanhood, thatcrown cannot be bartered away for any baser wreath without infiniteharm. In both cases there must be sacrifice; but in the one case it isunto death, in the other unto life. If the mother stands on highground, she brings her children up to her own level; if she sinks, theysink with her. 

To maintain her rank, no exertion is too great, no means too small. Dress is one of the most obvious things to a child. If the mother wearscheap or shabby or ill-assorted clothes, while the children's are fineand harmonious, it is impossible that they should not receive theimpression that they are of more consequence than their mother. Therefore, for her children's sake, if not for her own, the mothershould always be well-dressed. Her baby, so far as it is concerned inthe matter, instead of being an excuse for a faded bonnet, should be aninducement for a fresh one. It is not a question of riches or poverty;it is a thing of relations. It is simply that the mother's dress--hermorning and evening and street and church dress--should be quite asgood as, and if there is any difference, better than her child's. Itis of manner of consequence how a child is clad, provided only itshealth be not injured, its taste corrupted, or its self-respectwounded. Children look prettier in the cheapest and simplest materialsthan in the richest and most elaborate. But how common is it to seethe children gaily caparisoned in silk and feathers and flounces, whilethe mother is enveloped in an atmosphere of cottony fadiness! Onewould take the child to be mistress, and the mother a servant. "But, "the mother says, "I do not care for dress, and Caroline does. She, poor child, would be mortified not to be dressed like the otherchildren. " Then do you teach her better. Plant in her mind a higherstandard of self-respect. Don't tell her you cannot afford to do forher thus and thus; that will scatter premature thorns along her path;but say that you do not approve of it; it is proper for her to dress insuch and such a way. And be so nobly and grandly a woman that sheshall have faith in you. 

It is essential also that the mother have sense, intelligence, comprehension. As much as she can add of education and accomplishmentswill increase her stock in trade. Her reading and riding and music, instead of being neglected for her children's sake, should for theirsake be scrupulously cultivated. Of the two things, it is a thousandtimes better that they should be attended by a nursery-maid in theirinfancy than by a feeble, timid, inefficient matron in their youth. Themother can oversee half a dozen children with a nurse; but she needsall her strength, all her mind, her own eyes, and ears, and quickperceptions, and delicate intuition, and calm self-possession, when hersturdy boys and wild young girls are leaping and bounding and careeringinto their lusty life. All manner of novel temptations besetthem, --perils by night and perils by day, --perils in the house and bythe way. Their fierce and hungry young souls, rioting in awakeningconsciousness, ravening for pleasure, strong and tumultuous, snatcheagerly at every bait. They want then a mother able to curb, andguide, and rule them; and only a mother who commands their respect cando this. Let them see her sought for her social worth, --let them seethat she is familiar with all the conditions of their life, --that hervision is at once broader and keener than theirs, --that her feet havetravelled along the paths they are just beginning to explore, --that sheknows all the phases alike of their strength and their weakness, --andher influence over them is unbounded. Let them see her uncertain, uncomfortable, hesitating, fearful without discrimination, leaningwhere she ought to support, interfering without power of suggesting, counseling, but not controlling, with no presence, no hearing, noexperience, no prestige, and they will carry matters with a high hand. They will overrule her decisions, and their love will not be unmingledwith contempt. It will be strong enough to prick them when they havedone wrong, but not strong enough to keep them from doing wrong. 

Nothing gives a young girl such vantage-ground in society and in lifeas a mother, --a sensible, amiable, brilliant, and commanding woman. Under the shelter of such a mother's wing, the neophyte is safe. Thismother will attract to herself the wittiest and the wisest. The younggirl can see society in its best phases, without being herself drawnout into its glare. She forms her own style on the purest models. Shegains confidence, without losing modesty. Familiar with wisdom, shewill not be dazed by folly. Having the opportunity to makeobservations before she begins to be observed, she does not become theprey of the weak and the wicked. Her taste is strengthened andrefined, her standard elevates itself; her judgment acquires a firmbasis. But cast upon own resources, her own blank inexperience, at herfirst entrance into the world, with nothing to stand between her andwhat is openly vapid and covertly vicious, with no clear eye to detectfor her the false and distinguish the true, no firm, judicious hand toguide tenderly and undeviatingly, to repress without irritating andencourage without emboldening, what wonder that the peach-bloom losesits delicacy, deepening into rouge or hardening into brass, and thehappy young life is stranded on a cruel shore?

Hence it follows that our social gatherings consist, to so lamentablean extent, of pert youngsters, or faded oldsters. Thence come thoseabominable "young people's parties, " where a score or two or three ofboys and girls meet and manage after their own hearts. Thence ithappens that conversation seems to be taking its place among the LostArts, and the smallest of small talk reigns in its stead. Society, instead of giving its tone to the children, takes it from them, andsince it cannot be juvenile, becomes insipid, and because it is too oldto prattle, jabbers. Talkers are everywhere, but where are the menthat say things? Where are the people that can be listened to andquoted? Where are the flinty people whose contact strikes fire? Whereare the electric people who thrill a whole circle with sudden vitality?Where are the strong people who hedge themselves around with theirindividuality, and will be roused by no prince's kiss, but taken onlyby storm, yet once captured, are sweeter than the dews of Hymettus?Where are the seers, the prophets, the Magi, who shall unfold for usthe secrets of the sky and the seas, and the mystery of human hearts?

Yet fathers and mothers not only acquiesce in this state of things, they approve of it. They foster it. They are forward to annihilatethemselves. They are careful to let their darlings go out alone, lestthey be a restraint upon them, --as if that were not what parents weremade for. If they were what they ought to be, the restraint would benot only wholesome, but impalpable. The relation between parents andchildren should be such that pleasure shall not be quite perfect, unless shared by both. Parents ought to take such a tender, proud, intellectual interest in the pursuits and amusements of their childrenthat the children shall feel the glory of the victory dimmed, unlesstheir parents are there to witness it. If the presence of a sensiblemother is felt as a restraint, it shows conclusively that restraint isneeded. 

A woman also needs self-cultivation, both physical and mental, in orderto self-respect. Undoubtedly Diogenes glorified himself in his tub. But people in general, and women in universal, --except thegeniuses, --need the pomp of circumstance. A slouchy garb is both effectand cause of a slouchy mind. A woman who lets go her hold upon dress, literature, music, amusement, will almost inevitably slide down into abog of muggy moral indolence. She will lose her spirit, and when thespirit is gone out of a woman, there not much left of her. When shecheapens herself, she diminishes her value. Especially when theevanescent charms of mere youth are gone, when the responsibilities oflife have left their mark upon her, is it indispensable that she attendto all the fitnesses of externals, and strengthen and polish all hermental and social qualities. By this I do not mean that women shouldallow themselves to lose their beauty as they increase in years. Mengrow handsomer as they grow older. There is no reason, there ought tobe no reason, why women should not. They will have a different kind ofbeauty, but it will be just as truly beauty and more impressive andattractive than the beauty of sixteen. It is absurd to suppose thatGod has made women so that their glory passes away in half a dozenyears. It is absurd to suppose that thought and feeling and passionand purpose, all holy instincts and impulses, can chisel away on awoman's face for thirty, forty, fifty years, and leave that face at theend worse than they found it. They found it a negative, --mere skin andbone, blood and muscle and fat. They can but leave their mark upon it, and the mark of good is good. Pity does not have the same finger-touchas revenge. Love does not hold the same brush as hatred. Sympathy andgratitude and benevolence have a different sign-manual from cruelty andcarelessness and deceit. All these busy little sprites draw their finelines, lay on their fine colors; the face lights up under their tinyhands; the prisoned soul shines clearer and clearer through, and thereis the consecration and the poet's dream. 

But such beauty is made, not born. Care and despondency come ofthemselves, and groove their own furrows. Hope and intelligence andinterest and buoyancy must be wooed for their gentle and genial touch. A mother must battle against the tendencies that drag her downward. She must take pains to grow, or she will not grow. She must sedulouslycultivate her mind and heart, or her old age will be ungraceful; and ifshe lose freshness without acquiring ripeness, she is indeed in an evilcase. The first, the most important trust which God has given to anyone is himself. To secure this trust, He has made us so that in nopossible way can we benefit the world so much as by making the most ofourselves. Indulging our whims, or, inordinately, our just tastes, isnot developing ourselves; but neither is leaving our own fields to growthorns and thistles, that we may plant somebody else's garden-plot, keeping our charge. Even were it possible for a mother to work wellto her children in thus working ill to herself, I do not think shewould be justified in doing it. Her account is not complete when shesays, "Here are they whom thou hast given me. " She must first say, "Here am I. " But when it is seen that suicide is also child-murder, itmust appear that she is under doubly heavy bonds for herself. 

Husbands, moreover, have claims, though wives often ignore them. It isthe commonest thing in the world to see parents tender of theirchildren's feelings, alive to their wants, indulgent to their tastes, kind, considerate, and forbearing; but to each other hasty, careless, and cold. Conjugal love often seems to die out before parental love. It ought not so to be. Husband and wife should each stand first in theother's estimation. They have no right to forget each other's comfort, convenience, sensitiveness, tastes, or happiness, in those of theirchildren. Nothing can discharge them from the obligations which theyare under to each other. But if a woman lets herself become shabby, drudgy, and commonplace as a wife, in her efforts to be perfect as amother, can she expect to retain the consideration that is due to thewife? Not a man in the world but would rather see his wife tidy, neat, and elegant in her attire, easy and assured in her bearing, intelligentand vivacious in her talk, than the contrary; and if she neglect thesethings, ought she to be surprised if he turns to fresh woods andpastures new for the diversion and entertainment which he seeks in vainat home? This is quaky ground, but I know where I am, and I am notafraid. I don't expect men or women to say that they agree with me, but I am right for all that. Let us bring our common sense to bear onthis point, and not be fooled by reiteration. Cause and effect obtainhere as elsewhere. If you add two and two, the result is four, howevermuch you may try to blink it. People do not always tell lies, whenthey are telling what is not the truth; but falsehood is stilldisastrous. Men and women think they believe a thousand which they donot believe; but as long as they think so, it is just as bad as if itwere so. Men talk--and women listen and echo--about the overpoweringloveliness and charm of a young mother surrounded by her bloomingfamily, ministering to their wants and absorbed in their welfare, self-denying and self-forgetful; and she is lovely and charming; but ifthis is all, it is little more than the charm and loveliness of apicture. It is not magnetic and irresistible. It has the semblance, but not the smell of life. It is pretty to look at, but it is notvigorous for command. Her husband will have a certain kind ofadmiration and love. Her wish will be law within a certain verylimited sphere; but beyond that he will not take her into his counselsand confidence. A woman must make herself obvious to her husband, orhe will drift out beyond her horizon. She will be to him very nearlywhat she wills and works to be. If she adapts herself to her children, and does not adapt herself to her husband, he will fall into thearrangement, and the two will fall apart. I do not mean that theyquarrel, but they will lead separate lives. They will be no longerhusband and wife. There will be a domestic alliance, but no marriage. A predominant interest in the same objects binds them together after afashion; but marriage is something beyond that. If a woman wishes andpurposes to be the friend of her husband, --if she would be valuable tohim, not simply as the nurse of his children and the directress of hishousehold, but as a woman fresh and fair and fascinating, --to himintrinsically lovely and attractive, --she should make an effort for it. It is not by any means a thing that comes of itself, or that can beleft to itself. She must read, and observe, and think, and rest up toit. Men, as a general thing, will not tell you so. They talk abouthaving the slippers ready, and enjoin women to be domestic. But menare blockheads, --dear, and affectionate, and generousblockheads, --benevolent, large-hearted, and chivalrous, --kind, andpatient, and hard-working, --but stupid where women are concerned. Indispensable and delightful as they are in real life, --pleasant andcomfortable as women actually find them, --not one in ten thousand butmakes a dunce of himself the moment he opens his mouth to theorizeabout women. Besides, they have "an axe to grind. " The pretty thingsthey inculcate--slippers, and coffee, and care, and courtesy--oughtindeed to be done, but the others ought not to be left undone. And tothe former women seldom need to be exhorted. They take to themnaturally. A great many more women fret boorish husbands with fondlittle attentions than wound appreciative ones by neglect. Womendomesticate themselves to death already. What they want iscultivation. They need to be stimulated to develop a large, comprehensive, catholic life, in which their domestic duties shall havean appropriate niche, and not dwindle down to a narrow and servile one, over which those duties shall spread and occupy the whole space. 

This mistake is the foundation of a world of wretchedness and ruin. Ican see Satan standing at the mother's elbow. He follows her aroundinto the nursery and the kitchen. He tosses up the babies and theomelets, delivers dutiful harangues about the inappropriateness of thepiano and the library, and grins fiendishly in his sleeve at the wreckhe is making, --a wreck not necessarily of character, but of happiness;for I suppose Satan has so bad a disposition, that, if he cannot do allthe harm he would wish, he will still do all he can. It is true thatthere are thousands of good men married to fond and foolish women, andthey are happy. Well, the fond and foolish women are very fortunate. They have fallen into hands that will entreat them tenderly, and theywill not perceive any lack. Nor are the noble men wholly unfortunate, in that they have not taken to their hearts shrews. But this is notmarriage. 

There are women less foolish. They see their husbands attracted inother directions more often and more easily than in theirs. They havetoo much sterling worth and profound faith to be vulgarly jealous. They fear nothing like shame or crime; but they feel the fact thattheir own preoccupation with homely household duties precludes realcompanionship, the interchange of emotions, thoughts, sentiments, --aliving, and palpable, and vivid contact of mind with mind, of heartwith heart. They see others whose leisure ministers to grace, accomplishments, piquancy, and attractiveness, and the moth fliestowards the light by his own nature. Because he is a wise, andvirtuous, and honorable moth, he does not dart into the flame. He doesnot even scorch his wings. He never thinks of such a thing. He merelycircles around the pleasant light, sunning himself in it without muchthought one way or another, only feeling that it is pleasant; butmeanwhile Mrs. Moth sits at home in darkness, mending the children'sclothes, which is not exhilarating. Many a woman who feels that shepossesses her husband's affection misses something. She does notsecure his fervor, his admiration. His love is honest and solid, but alittle dormant, and therefore dull. It does not brace, and tone, andstimulate. She wants not the love only, but the keenness, and edge, and flavor of the love; and she suffers untold pangs. I know it, for Ihave seen it. It is not a thing to be uttered. Most women do notadmit it even to themselves; but it is revealed by a lift of theeyelash, by a quiver of the eye, by a tone of the voice, by a trick ofthe finger. 

But what is the good of saying all this, if a woman cannot helpherself? The children must be seen to, and the work must be done, andafter that she has no time left. The "mother of a young and increasingfamily, " with her "pale, thin face and feeble step, " and her"multiplied and wearying cares, " is "completely worn down with so manychildren. " She has neither time nor for self-culture, beyond what shemay obtain in the nursery. What satisfaction is there in proving thatshe is far below where she ought to be, if inexorable circumstanceprevent her from climbing higher? What use is there in telling herthat she will alienate her husband and injure her children by hercourse, when there is no other course for her to pursue? What can shedo about it?

There is one thing that she need not do. She need not sit down andwrite a book, affirming that the most glorious and desirable conditionimaginable. She need not lift up her voice and declare that "she livesabove the ills and disquietudes of her condition, in an atmosphere oflove and peace and pleasure far beyond the storms and conflicts of thismaterial life. " Who ever heard of the mother of a young and increasingfamily living in an atmosphere of peace, not to say pleasure, aboveconflicts and storms? Who does not know that the private history offamilies with the ordinary allowance of brains is a record of recurringinternecine warfare? If she said less, we might believe her. When shesays so much, we cannot help suspecting. To make the best of anything, it is not necessary to declare that it is the best thing. Children must be taken care of; but it is altogether probable thatthere are too many of them. Some people think that opinion severaltimes more atrocious than murder in the first degree; but I see noatrocity in it. I think there is an immense quantity of nonsenseabout, regarding this thing. I believe in Malthus, --a great deal morethan Malthus did himself. The prosperity of a country is oftenmeasured by its population; but quite likely it should be taken ininverse ratio. I certainly do not see why the mere multiplication ofthe species is so indicative of prosperity. Mobs are not so altogetherlovely that one should desire their indefinite increase. A village ishonorable, not according to the number, but the character of itsresidents. The drunkards and the paupers and the thieves and theidiots rather diminish than increase its respectability. It seems to methat the world would be greatly benefited by thinning out. Most of theplaces that I have seen would be much unproved by being decimated, notto say quinqueted or bisected. If people are stubborn and rebellious, stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, the fewer of them thebetter. A small population, trained to honor and virtue, to liberalityof culture and breadth of view, to self-reliance and self-respect, is athousand times better than an over-crowded one with everything at looseends. As with the village, so with the family. There ought to be nomore children than can be healthily and thoroughly reared, as regardsthe moral, physical, and intellectual nature both of themselves andtheir parents. All beyond this is wrong and disastrous. I know of nogreater crime than to give life to souls, and then degrade them, orsuffer them to be degraded. Children are the poor man's blessing andCornelia's jewels, just so long as Cornelia and the poor man can makeadequate provision for them. But the ragged, filthy, squalid, unearthly little wretches that wallow before the poor man's shanty-doorare the poor man's shame and curse. The sickly, sallow, sorrowfullittle ones, shadowed too early by life's cares, are something otherthan a blessing. When Cornelia finds children too many for her, whenher step trembles and her cheek fades, when the sparkle dies on herchalice-brim and her salt has lost its savor, her jewels are Tarpeianjewels. One child educated by healthy and happy parents is better thanseven dragging their mother into the grave, notwithstanding theunmeasured reprobation of our little book. Of course, if they canstand seven, very well. Seven and seventy times seven, if you like, only let them be buds, not blights. If we obeyed the laws of God, children would be like spring blossoms. They would impart as muchfreshness and strength as they abstract. They are a naturalinstitution, and Nature is eminently healthy. But when they "comecrowding into the home-nest, " as our book daintily says, they areunnatural. God never meant the home-nest to be crowded. There is roomenough and elbow-room enough in the world for everything that ought tobe in it. The moment there is crowding, you may be sure somethingwrong is going on. Either a bad thing is happening, or too much of agood thing, which counts up just the same. The parents begin to repairthe evil by a greater one. They attempt to patch their own rents bydilapidating their children. They recruit their own exhausted energiesby laying hold of the young energies around them, and older childrenare wearied, and fretted, and deformed in figure and temper by the careof younger children. This is horrible. Some care and task andresponsibility are good for a child's own development; but care andtoil and labor laid upon children beyond what is best for their owncharacter is intolerable and inexcusable oppression. Parents have noright to lighten their own burdens by imposing them upon the children. The poor things had nothing to do with being born. They came into theworld without any volition of their own. Their existence began only toserve the pleasure or the pride of others. It was a culpable cruelty, in the first place, to introduce them into a sphere where no adequateprovision could be made for their comfort and culture; but to shoulderthem, after they get here, with the load which belongs to their parentsis outrageous. Earth is not a paradise at best, and at worst it isvery near the other place. The least we can do is to make the way assmooth as possible for the new-comers. There is not the least dangerthat it will be too smooth. If you stagger under the weight which youhave imprudently assumed, stagger. But don't be such an unutterablecoward as to illumine your own life by darkening the young lives whichsprang from yours. I wonder that children do not open their mouths andcurse the father that begat and the mother that bore them. I oftenwonder that parents do not tremble lest the cry of the children whomthey oppress go up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and bring downwrath upon their guilty heads. It was well that God planted filialaffection and reverence as an instinct in the human breast. If itdepended upon reason it would have but a precarious existence. 

I wish women would have the sense and courage, --I will not say, to saywhat they think, for that is not always desirable, --but to thinkaccording to the facts. They have a strong desire to please men, whichis quite right and natural; but in their eagerness to do this, theysometimes forget what is due to themselves. To think namby-pambyismfor the sake of pleasing men is running benevolence into the ground. Not that women consciously do this, but they do it. They don't mean topander to false masculine notions, but they do. They don't know thatthey are pandering to them, but they are. Men say silly things, partlybecause they don't know any better, and partly because they don't wantany better. They are strong, and can generally make shift to beartheir end of the pole without being crushed. So they are tolerablycontent. They are not very much to blame. People cannot be expectedto start on a crusade against ills of which they have but a vague andcloudy conception. The edge does not cut them, and so they think it isnot much of a sword after all. But women have, or ought to have, amore subtle and intimate acquaintance with realities. They ought toknow what is fact and what is fol-de-rol. They ought to distinguishbetween the really noble and the simply physical, not to say faulty. If men do not, it is women's duty to help them. I think, if womenwould only not be quite so afraid of being thought unwomanly, theywould be a great deal more womanly than they are. To be brave, andsingle-minded, and discriminating, and judicious, and clear-sighted, and self-reliant, and decisive, that is pure womanly. To be womanishis not to be womanly. To be flabby, and plastic, and weak, andacquiescent, and insipid, is not womanly. And I could wish sometimesthat women would not be quite so patient. They often exhibit a degreeof long-suffering entirely unwarrantable. There is no use in suffering, unless you cannot help it; and a good, stout, resolute protest wouldoften be a great deal more wise, and Christian, and beneficial on allsides, than so much patient endurance. A little spirit and "spunk"would go a great way towards setting the world right. It is notnecessary to be a termagant. The firmest will and the stoutest heartmay be combined with the gentlest delicacy. Tameness is not the stuffthat the finest women are made of. Nobody can be more kind, considerate, or sympathizing towards weakness or weariness than men, ifthey only know it exists; and it is a wrong to them to go on bolsteringthem up in their bungling opinions, when a few sensible ideas, wiselyadministered, would do so much to enlighten them, and reveal the pathwhich needs only to be revealed to secure their unhesitating entranceupon it. It is absurd to suppose that unvarying acquiescence isnecessary to secure and retain their esteem, and that a frank avowal ofdiffering opinions, even if they were wrong, would work its forfeiture. A respect held on so frail a tenure were little worth. But it is notso. I believe that manhood and womanhood are too truly harmonious toneed iron bands, too truly noble to require the props of falsehood. Truth, simple and sincere, without partiality and without hypocrisy, isthe best food for both. If any are to be found on either side too weakto administer or digest it, the remedy is not to mix it with folly orfalsehood, for they are poisons, but to strengthen the organisms withwholesome tonics, --not undiluted, perhaps, but certainly unadulterated. 

O Edmund Sparkler, you builded better than you knew, when you rearedeulogiums upon the woman with no nonsense about her. 

CAMILLA'S CONCERT

I, who labor under the suspicion of not knowing the difference between"Old Hundred" and "Old Dan Tucker, "--I, whose every attempt at music, though only the humming of a simple household melody, has, from myearliest childhood, been regarded as premonitory symptom of epilepsy, or, at the very least, hysterics, to be treated with cold water, thebellows, and an unmerciful beating between my shoulders, --I, who canbut with much difficulty and many a retrogression make my way among theolden mazes of tenor, alto, treble, bass, and who stand "clean daft" inthe resounding confusion of andante, soprano, falsetto, palmetto, pianissimo, akimbo, l'allegro, and il penseroso, --_I_ was bidden toCamilla's concert, and, like a sheep to slaughter, I went. 

He bears a great loss and sorrow who has "no ear for music. " Into onegreat garden of delights he may not go. There needs no flaming swordto bar the way, since for him there is no gate called Beautiful whichhe should seek to enter. Blunted and stolid he stumbles through lifefor whom its harp-strings vainly quiver. Yet, on the other hand, whatdoes he not gain? He loses the concord of sweet sounds, but he isspared the discord of harsh noises. For the surges of bewilderingharmony and the depths of dissonant disgust, he stands on the levels ofperpetual peace. You are distressed, because in yonder well-trainedorchestra a single voice is pitched one sixteenth of a note too high. For me, I lean out of my window on summer nights enraptured over theorgan-man who turns poor lost Lilian Dale round and round with hisinexorable crank. It does not disturb me that his organ wheezes andsputters and grunts. Indeed, there is for me absolutely no wheeze, nosputter, no grunt. I only see dark eyes of Italy, her olive face, andher gemmed and lustrous hair. You mutter maledictions on the infernalnoise and caterwauliug. I hear no caterwauliug, but the river-god ofArno ripples soft songs in the summertide to the lilies that bend abovehim. It is the guitar of the cantatrice that murmurs through thescented, dewy air, --the cantatrice with the laurel yet green on herbrow, gliding over the molten moonlit water-ways of Venice, anddreamily chiming her well-pleased lute with the plash of the oars ofthe gondolier. It is the chant of the flower-girl with large eyesshining under the palm-branches in the market-place of Milan; and withthe distant echoing notes come the sweet breath of her violets and theunquenchable odors of her crushed geraniums borne on many a white sailfrom the glorified Adriatic. Bronzed cheek and swart brow under mywindow, I shall by and by throw you a paltry nickel cent for yourtropical dreams; meanwhile tell me, did the sun of Dante's Florencegive your blood its fierce flow and the tawny hue to your bared andbrawny breast? Is it the rage of Tasso's madness that burns in youruplifted eyes? Do you take shelter from the fervid noon under thecypresses of Monte Mario? Will you meet queenly Marguerite with myrtlewreath and myrtle fragrance, as she wanders through the chestnut vales?Will you sleep tonight between the colonnades under the golden moon ofNapoli? Go back, O child of the Midland Sea! Go out from this coldshore, that yields crabbed harvests for your threefold vintages ofItaly. Go, suck the sunshine from Seville oranges under the elms ofPosilippo. Go, watch the shadows of the vines swaying in themulberry-trees from Epomeo's gales. Bind the ivy in a triple crownabove Bianca's comely hair, and pipe not so wailingly to the Vikings ofthis frigid Norseland. 

But Italy, remember, my frigid Norseland has a heart of fire in herbosom beneath its overlying snows, before which yours dies like thewhite sick hearth-flame before the noonday sun. Passion, but notcompassion, is here "cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth. " Welure our choristers with honeyed words and gentle ways: you lay yoursweetest songsters on the gridiron. Our orchards ring with thefull-throated happiness of a thousand birds: your pomegranate grovesare silent, and your miserable cannibal kitchens would tell the reasonwhy, if outraged spits could speak. Go away, therefore, from mywindow, Giuseppo; the air is growing damp and chilly, and I do notsleep in the shadows of broken temples. 

Yet I love music; not as you love it, my friend, with intelligence, discrimination, and delicacy, but in a dull, woodeny way, as the "goutyoaks" loved it, when they felt in their fibrous frames the stir ofAmphion's lyre, and "floundered into hornpipes"; as the gray, stupidrocks loved it, when they came rolling heavily to his feet to listen;in a great, coarse, clumsy, ichthyosaurian way, as the rivers loved sadOrpheus's wailing tones, stopping in their mighty courses, and thethick-hided hippopotamus dragged himself up from the unheeded pause ofthe waves, dimly thrilled with a vague ecstasy. The confession is sad, yet only in such beastly fashion come sweetest voices to me, --not inthe fulness of all their vibrations, but sounding dimly through many anearthly layer. Music I do not so much hear as feel. All the exquisitenerves that bear to your soul these tidings of heaven in me lie torpidor dead. No beatitude travels to my heart over that road. But assometimes an invalid, unable through mortal sickness to swallow hisneeded nutriment, is yet kept alive many days by immersed in a bath ofwine and milk, which somehow, through unwonted courses, penetrates tothe sources of vitality, --so I, though the natural avenues of sweetsounds have been hermetically sealed, do yet receive the fine flow ofthe musical ether. I feel the flood of harmony pouring around me. Aninward, palpable, measured tremulousness of the subtile secret essenceof life attests the presence of some sweet disturbing cause, and, borneon unseen wings, I mount to loftier heights and diviner airs. 

So I was comforted for my waxed ears and Camilla's concert. 

There is one other advantage in being possessed with a deaf-and-dumbdevil, which, now that I am on the subject of compensation, I may aswell mention. You are left out of the arena of fierce discussion anddebate. You do not enter upon the lists wherefrom you would be sure tocome off discomfited. Of all reputations, a musical reputation seemsthe most shifting and uncertain; and of all rivalries, musicalrivalries are the most prolific of heart-burnings and discomfort. Now, if I should sing or play, I should wish to sing and play well. But whatis well? Nancie in the village "singing-seats" stands head andshoulders above the rest, and wears her honors tranquilly, an authorityat all rehearsals and serenades. But Anabella comes up from the townto spend Thanksgiving, and, without the least mitigation or remorse ofvoice, absolutely drowns out poor Nancie, who goes under, giving manysigns. Yet she dies not unavenged, for Harriette sweeps down from thecity, and immediately suspends the victorious Anabella from heraduncate nose, and carries all before her. Mysterious is thearrangement of the world. The last round of the ladder is not yetreached. To Madame Morlot, Harriette is a savage, une bete, withoutcultivation. "Oh, the dismal little fright! a thousand years of studywould be useless; go, scour the floors; she has positively no voice. "No voice, Madame Morlot? Harriette, no voice, --who burst every ear-drumin the room last night with her howling and hooting, and made thestoutest heart tremble with fearful forebodings of what might comenext? But Madame Morlot is not infallible, for Herr Driesbach sitsshivering at the dreadful noises which Madame Morlot extorts from hissensitive and suffering piano, and at the necessity which lies upon himto go and congratulate her upon her performance. Ah! if his torturedconscience might but congratulate her and himself upon its close! Andso the scale ascends. Hills on hills and Alps on Alps arise, and whoshall mount the ultimate peak till all the world shall say, "Herereigns the Excellence"? I listen with pleasure to untutored Nancietill Anabella takes all the wind from her sails. I think the force ofmusic can no further go than Madame Morlot, and, behold, Herr Driesbachhas knocked out that underpinning. I am bewildered, and I say, helplessly, "What shall I admire and be a la mode?" But if it is sodisheartening to me, who am only a passive listener, what must be theagonies of the dramatis personae? "Hang it!" says Charles Lamb, "howI like to be liked, and what I do to be liked!" And do Nancie, Harriette, and Herr Driesbach like it any less? What shall avenge themfor their spretae injuria formae? What can repay the haplessperformer, who has performed her very best, for learning by terrible, indisputable indirections that her cherished and boasted Cremona is buta very second fiddle?

So, standing on the high ground of certain immunity from criticism andhostile judgment, I do not so much console myself as I do not stand inneed of consolation. I rather give thanks for my mute and necessarilyunoffending lips, and I shall go in great good-humor to Camilla'sconcert. 

There are many different ways of going to a concert. You can be one ofa party of fashionable people to whom music is a diversion, a pastime, an agreeable change from the assembly or the theatre. They applaud, they condemn, they criticise. They know all about it. Into suchcompany as this, even I, whose poor old head is always getting itselfwedged in where it has no business to be, have chanced to be thrown. This is torture. My cue is to turn into the Irishman's echo, whichalways returned for his "How d'ye do?" a "Pretty well, thank you. " Icling to the skirts of that member of the party who is agreed to havethe best taste and echo his responses an octave higher. If he sighs atthe end of a song, I bring out my pocket-handkerchief. If he says"charming, " I murmur "delicious. " If he thinks it "exquisite, " Ipronounce it "enchanting. " Where he is rapt in admiration, I go into atrance, and so shamble through the performances, miserable impostorthat I am, and ten to one nobody finds out that I am a dunce, fit fortreason, stratagem, and spoils. It is a great strain upon the mentalpowers, but it is wonderful to see how much may be accomplished, andwhat skill may be attained, by long practice. 

Also one may go to a concert as a conductor with a single musicalfriend. By conductor I do not mean escort, but a magnetic conductor, rapture conductor, a fit medium through which to convey away hisdelight, so that he shall not become surcharged and explode. He doesnot take you for your pleasure, nor for his own, but for use. Hedesires some one to whom he can from time to time express his opinionsand his enthusiasm, sure of an attentive listener, --since nothing is sopleasant as to see one's views welcomed. Now you cannot pretend thatin such a case your listening is thoroughly honest. You are receptiveof theories, criticisms, and reminiscences; but you would not like tobe obliged to pass an examination on them afterwards. You do, it mustbe confessed, sometimes, in the midst of eloquent dissertations, strikeout into little flowery by-paths of your own, quite foreign to thegrand paved-ways along which your friend supposes he is so kind as tobe leading you. But however digressive your mind may be, do not sufferyour eyes to digress. Whatever may be the intensity of your ennui, endeavor to preserve an animated expression, and your success iscomplete. This is all that is necessary. You will never be calledupon for notes or comments. Your little escapades will never bedetected. It is not your opinions that were sought, nor your educationthat was to be furthered. You were only an escape-pipe, and yourmission ceased when the soul of song fled and the gas was turned off. This, too, is all that can justly be demanded. Minister, lecturer, singer, no one has any right to ask of his audience anything more thanopportunity, --the externals of attention. All the rest is his ownlook-out. If you prepossess your mind with a theme, you do not givehim an even chance. You must offer him in the beginning a tabularasa, --a fair field, and then it is his business to go in and win yourattention; and if he cannot, let him pay the costs, for the fault ishis own. 

This also is torture, but its name is Zoar, a little one. 

There is yet another way. You may go with one or many who believe inindividuality. They go to the concert for love of music, --negativelyfor its rest and refreshment, positively for its embodied delights. They take you for your enjoyment, which they permit you to compassafter your own fashion. They force from you no comment. They demandno criticism. They do not require censure as your certificate oftaste. They do not trouble themselves with your demeanor. If youchoose to talk in the pauses, they are receptive and cordial. If youchoose to be silent, it is just as well. If you go to sleep, they willnot mind, --unless, under the spell of the genius of the place, yoursleep becomes vocal, and you involuntarily join the concert in theundesirable role of De Trop. If you go into raptures, it is all thesame; you are not watched and made a note of. They leave you at thetop of your bent. Whether you shall be amused, delighted, ordisgusted, they respect your decisions and allow you to remain free. 

How did I go to my concert? Can I tell for the eyes that made "asunshine in the shady place"? Was I not veiled with the beautifulhair, and blinded with the lily's white splendor? So went I with theFairy Queen in her golden coach drawn by six white mice, and, behold, Iwas in Camilla's concert-room. 

It is to be a fiddle affair. Now I am free to say, if there isanything I hate, it is a fiddle. Hide it away under as many Italiancoatings as you choose, viol, violin, viola, violone, violoncello, violoncellettissimo, at bottom it is all one, a fiddle; in its bestestate, a whirligig, without dignity, sentiment, or power; and at worsta rubbing, rasping, squeaking, woollen, noisy nuisance that it setsteeth on edge to think of. I shudder at the mere memory of thereluctant bow dragging its slow length across the whining strings. Andhere I am, in my sober senses, come to hear a fiddle!

But it is Camilla's. Do you remember a little girl who, a few yearsago, became famous for her wonderful performance on the violin? At sixyears of age she went to a great concert, and of all the fineinstruments there, the unseen spirit within her made choice, "Papa, Ishould like to learn the violin. " So she learned it and loved it, andwhen ten years old delighted foreign and American audiences with hermarvelous genius. It was the little Camilla who now, after ten yearsof silence, tuned her beloved instrument once more. 

As she walks softly and quietly in, I am conscious of a disappointment. I had unwittingly framed for her an aesthetic violin, with theessential strings and bridge and bow indeed, but submerged and forgotin such Orient splendors as befit her glorious genius. Barbaric pearland gold, finest carved work, flashing gems from Indian watercourses, the delicatest pink sea-shell, a bubble-prism caught andcrystallized, --of all rare and curious substances wrought with daintydevice, fantastic as a dream, and resplendent as the light, should herinstrument be fashioned. Only in "something rich and strange" shouldthe mystic soul lie sleeping for whom her lips shall break the spell ofslumber, and her young fingers unbar the sacred gates. And, oh me! itis, after all, the very same old red fiddle! Dee, dee!

But she neither glides nor trips nor treads, as heroines invariably do, but walks in like a Christian woman. She steps upon the stage andfaces the audience that gives her hearty greeting and waits theprelude. There is time for cool survey. I am angry still about the redfiddle, and I look scrutinizingly at her dress, and think how ugly isthe mode. The skirt is white silk, --a brocade, I believe, --at any rate, stiff, and, though probably full to overflowing in the hands of theseamstress, who must compress it within prescribed limits about thewaist, looks scanty and straight. Why should she not, she who comesbefore us tonight, not as a fashion, but an inspiration, --why shouldshe not assume that immortal classic drapery whose graceful falls andfolds the sculptor vainly tries to imitate, the painter vainly seeks tolimn? When Corinne tuned her lyre at the Capitol, when she knelt to becrowned with her laurel crown at the hands of a Roman senator, is itpossible to conceive her swollen out with crinoline? And yet Iremember, that, though sa roe etait blanche, et son costume etait trespittoresque, it was sans s'e carter cependant assez des usages recuspour que l'on put y trouver de l'affectation; and I suppose, if oneshould now suddenly collapse from conventional rotundity to antiquestatuesqueness, the great "on" would very readily "y trouver del'affectation. " Nevertheless, though one must dress in Rome as Romansdo, and though the Roman way of dressing is, taking all things into theaccount, as good as any, and if not more graceful, a thousand timesmore convenient, wholesome, comfortable, and manageable that Helen's, still it does seem that, when one steps out of the ordinary area ofRoman life and assumes an abnormal position, one might, withoutviolence, assume temporarily an abnormal dress, and refresh our dilatedeyes once more with flowing, wavy outlines. Music is one of theeternities: why should not its accessories be? Why should a discorddisturb the eye, when only concords delight the ear?

But I lift my eyes from Camilla's unpliant drapery to the red red rosein her hair, and thence, naturally, to her silent face, and in thatinstant ugly dress and red red rose fade out of my sight. What is itthat I see, with tearful tenderness and a nameless pain at the heart?A young face deepened and drawn with suffering; dark, large eyes, whosenatural laughing light has been quenched in tears, yet shining stillwith a distant gleam caught from the eternal fires. O still, patheticface! A sterner form than Time has passed and left his vestige there. Happy little girl, playing among the flickering shadows of theRhine-land, who could not foresee the darker shadows that should settleand never lift nor flicker from her heavy heart? Large, lambent eyes, that might have been sweet, but now are only steadfast, --that may yetbe sweet, when they look tonight into a baby's cradle, but gazing nowupon a waiting audience, are only steadfast. Ah! so it is. Life hassuch hard conditions, that every dear and precious gift, every rarevirtue, every pleasant facility, every genial endowment, love, hope, joy, wit, sprightliness, benevolence, must sometimes be cast into thecrucible to distil the one elixir, patience. Large, lambent eyes, inwhich days and nights of tears are petrified, steadfast eyes that areneither mournful nor hopeful nor anxious, but with such unvoicedsadness in their depths that the hot tears well up in my heart, what doyou see in the waiting audience? Not censure, nor pity, norforgiveness for you do not need them, --but surely a warm humansympathy, since heart can speak to heart, though the thin, fixed lipshave sealed their secret well. Sad mother, whose rose of life wascrushed before it had budded, tender young lips that had drunk the cupof sorrow to the dregs, while their cup of bliss should hardly yet bebrimmed for life's sweet springtime, your crumbling fanes and brokenarches and prostrate columns lie not among the ruins of Time. Becomforted of that. They witness of a more pitiless Destroyer, and bythis token I know there shall dawn a brighter day. The God of thefatherless and the widow, of the worse than widowed and fatherless, theAvenger of the Slaughter of the Innocents, be with you, and shield andshelter and bless!

But the overture wavers to its close, and her soul hears far off thevoice of the coming Spirit. A deeper light shines in the strangelyintroverted eyes, --the look as of one listening intently to a distantmelody which no one else can hear, --the look of one to whom the roomand the people and the presence are but a dream, and past and futurecentre on the far-off song. Slowly she raises her instrument. Ialmost shudder to see the tawny wood touching her white shoulder; yetthat cannot be common or unclean which she so loves and carries withalmost a caress. Still intent, she raises the bow with a slow sweep, as were a wand of divination. Nearer and nearer comes the heavenlyvoice, pouring around her a flood of mystic melody. And now at last itbreaks upon our ears, --softly at first, only a sweet faint echo fromthat other sphere, but deepening, strengthening, conquering, --nowrising on the swells of a controlling passion, now sinking into thedepths with its low wail of pain; exultant, scornful, furious, in theglad outburst of opening joy and the fierce onslaught of strength;crowned, sceptred, glorious in garland and singing-robes, throned inthe high realms of its inheritance, a kingdom of boundless scope andever new delights: then sweeping down through the lower world withdiminishing rapture, rapture lessening into astonishment, astonishmentdying into despair, it gathers up the passion and the pain, the blightand woe and agony; all garnered joys are scattered. Evil supplants thegood. Hope dies, love pales, and faith is faint and wan. But everydeath has its moaning ghost, pale spectre of vanished loves. Oh, fearful revenge of the outraged soul! The mysterious, uncomprehended, incomprehensible soul! The irrepressible, unquenchable, immortal soul, whose every mark is everlasting! Every secret sin committed against itcries out from the house-tops. Cunning may strive to conceal, will maydetermine to smother, love may fondly whisper, "It does not hurt"; butthe soul will not BE outraged. Somewhere, somehow, when and where youleast expect, unconscious, perhaps, to its owner, unrecognized by themany, visible only to the clear vision, somewhere, somehow, the soulbursts asunder its bonds. It is but a little song, a tripping of thefingers over the keys, a drawing of the bow across the strings, --onlythat! Only that? It is the protest of the wronged and ignored soul. It is the outburst of the pent and prisoned soul. All the ache andagony, all the secret wrong and silent endurance, all the rejected loveand wounded trust and slighted truth, all the riches wasted, all theyouth poisoned, all the hope trampled, all the light darkened, --allmeet and mingle in a mad whirl of waters. They surge and lash andrage, a wild storm of harmony. Barriers are broken. Circumstance isnot. The soul! the soul! the soul! the wronged and fettered soul! thefreed and royal soul! It alone is king. Lift up your heads, O yegates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Gloryshall come in! Tremble, O Tyrant, in your mountain-fastness! Tremble, Deceiver, in your cavern under the sea! Your victim is your accuser. Your sin has found you out. Your crime cries to Heaven. You havecondemned and killed the just. You have murdered the innocent insecret places, and in the noonday sun the voice of their blood criethunto God from the ground. There is no speech nor language. There is nowill nor design. The seal of silence is unbroken. But unconscious, entranced, inspired, the god has lashed his Sybil on. The vitalinstinct of the soul, its heaven-born, up-springing life, flings backthe silver veil, and reveals the hidden things to him who hath eyes tosee. 

The storm sobs and soothes itself to silence. There is a hush, andthen an enthusiasm of delight. The small head slightly bows, the stillface scarcely smiles, the slight form disappears, --and after all, itwas only a fiddle. 

"When Music, heavenly maid, was young, " begins the ode; but Music, heavenly maid, seems to me still so young, so very young, as scarcelyto have made her power felt. Her language is yet unlearned. When ababy of a month is hungry or in pain, he contrives to make the factunderstood. If he is at peace with himself and his surroundings, heleaves no doubt on the subject. To precisely this degree ofintelligibility has the Heavenly Maid attained among us. WhenBeethoven sat down to the composition of one of his grand harmonies, there was undoubtedly in his mind as distinct a conception of thatwhich he wished to express, of that within him which clamored forexpression, as ever rises before a painter's eye, or sings in a poet'sbrain. Thought, emotion, passion, hope, fear, joy, sorrow, each hadits life and law. The painter paints you this. This the poet singsyou. You stand before a picture, and to your loving, searching gazeits truths unfold. You read the poem with the understanding, and catchits concealed meanings. But what do you know of what was inBeethoven's soul? Who grasps his conception? Who faithfully renders, who even thoroughly knows his idea? Here and there to some patientnight-watcher the lofty gates are unbarred, "on golden hinges turning. "But, for the greater part, the musician who would tell so much speaksto unheeding ears. We comprehend him but infinitesimally. It is theBattle of Prague. Adrianus sits down to the piano, and Dion stands byhis side, music-sheet in hand, acting as showman. "The cannon, " saysDion, at the proper place, and you imagine you recognize reverberation. "Charge, " continues Dion, and with a violent effort you fancy theground trembles. "Groans of the wounded, " and you are partlyhorror-struck and partly incredulous. But what lame representation isthis! As if one should tie a paper around the ankle of the BelvedereApollo, with the inscription, "This is the ankle. " A collar declares, "This is the neck. " A bandeau locates his "forehead. " A braceletindicates the "arm. " Is the sculpture thus significant? Hardly moredoes our music yet signify to us. You hear an unfamiliar air. Youlike it or dislike it, or are indifferent. You can tell that it isslow and plaintive, or brisk and lively, or perhaps even that it isdefiant or stirring; but how insensible you are to the delicate shadesof its meaning! How hidden is the song in the heart of the composertill he gives you the key! You hear as though you heard not. You hearthe thunder, and the cataract, and the crash of the avalanche; but thesong of the nightingale, the chirp of the katydid, the murmur of thewaterfall never reach you. This cannot be the ultimatum. Music musthold in its own bosom its own interpretation, and man must have in hisits corresponding susceptibilities. Music is language, and languageimplies a people who employ and understand it. But music, even by itsprofessor, is as yet faintly understood. Its meanings go on crutches. They must be helped out by words. What does this piece say to you?Interpret it. You cannot. You must be taught much before you can knowall. It must be translated from music into speech before you canentirely assimilate it. Musicians do not trust alone to notes formoods. Their light shines only through a glass darkly. But in someother sphere, in some happier time, in a world where gross wants shallhave disappeared, and therefore the grossness of words shall be nolonger necessary, where hunger and thirst and cold and care and passionhave no more admittance, and only love and faith and hope andadmiration and aspiration, shall crave utterance, in that blessedunseen world shall not music be the everyday speech, conveying meaningnot only with a sweetness, but with an accuracy, delicacy, anddistinctness, of which we have now but a faint conception? Here wordsare not only rough, but ambiguous. There harmonies shall be minutelyintelligible. Speak with what directness we can, be as explanatory, emphatic, illustrative as we may, there are mistakes, misunderstandings, many and grievous, and consequent missteps andcatastrophes. But in that other world language shall be exactlycoexistent with life; music shall be precisely adequate to meaning. There shall be no hidden corners, no bungling incompatibilities, butthe searching sound penetrates into the secret sources of the soul, all-pervading. Not a nook, not a crevice, no maze so intricate, butthe sound floats in to gather up fragrant aroma, to bear it yonder toanother waiting soul, and deposit it as deftly by unerring magnetismsin the corresponding clefts. 

Toot away, then, fifer-fellow! Turn your slow crank, inexorableItalian! Thrum your thrums, Miss Laura, for Signor Bernadotti! Youare a way off, but your footprints point the right way. With many ayawn and sigh subjective, I greatly fear me, many a maledictionobjective, you are "learning the language of another world. " To us, huddled together in our little ant-hill, one is "une bete, " and one is"mon ange"; but from that fixed star we are all so far to have noparallax. 

But I come down from the golden stars, for the white-robed one hasraised her wand again, and we float away through the glowing gates ofthe sunrise, over the purple waves, over the vine-lands of sunnyFrance, in among the shadows of the storied Pyrenees. Sorrow andsighing have fled away. Tragedy no longer "in sceptred pall comessweeping by"; but young lambs leap in wild frolic, silken-fleeced sheeplie on the slopes of the hills, and shepherd calls to shepherd from hismountain-peak. Peaceful hamlets lie far down the valley, and everygentle height blooms with a happy home. Dark-eyed Basque girls dancethrough the fruitful orchards. I see the gleam of their scarlet scarfswound in with their bold black hair. I hear their rich voices trillingthe lays of their land, and ringing with happy laughter. But I mounthigher and yet higher, till gleam and voice are lost. Here thefreshening air sweeps down, and the low gurgle of living water purlingout from cool, dark chasms, mingles with the shepherd's flute. Here theyoung shepherd himself climbs, leaping from rock to rock, supple, strong, brave, and free as the soul of his race, --the same iron in hissinews, and the same fire in his blood that dealt the "dolorous rout"to Charlemagne a thousand years ago. Sweetly across the path ofRoncesvalles blow the evening gales, wafting tender messages to thelistening girls below. Green grows the grass and gay the flowers thatspring from the blood of princely paladins, the flower of chivalry. Nobugle-blast can bring old Roland back, though it wind long and loudthrough the echoing woods. Lads and lasses, worthy scions of valiantstems, may sit on happy evenings in the shadow of the vines, or groupthemselves on the greensward in the pauses of the dance, and sing theirsongs of battle and victory, --the olden legends of their heroic sires;but the strain that floats down from e darkening slopes into theirheart of hearts, the song that reddens in their glowing cheeks, andthrobs in their throbbing breasts, and shines in their dewy eyes, isnot the shock of deadly onset, glorious though it be. It is the sweetold song, --old, yet ever new, --whose burden is, Come live with me and be my love, "--

old, yet always new, --sweet and tender, and not to be gainsaid, whetherit be piped to a shepherdess in Arcadia, or whether a princess hears itfrom princely lips in her palace on the sea. 

But the mountain shadows stretch down the valleys and wrap the meadowsin twilight. Farther and farther the notes recede as the flutesmangathers his quiet flock along the winding paths. Smooth and far in thetranquil evening-air fall the receding notes, a clear, silverysweetness; farther and farther in the hushed evening air, lessening andlowering, as you bend to listen, till the vanishing strain justcleaves, a single thread of pearl-pure melody, finer, finer, finer, through the dewy twilight, and--you hear only your own heart-beats. Itis not dead, but risen. It never ceased. It knew no pause. It hasgone up the heights to mingle with the songs of the angels. You rouseyourself with a start, and gaze at your neighbor half bewildered. Whatis it? Where are we? Oh, my remorseful heart! There is no shepherd, no mountain, no girl with scarlet ribbon and black braids bound on herbeautiful temples. It was only a fiddle on a platform!

Now you need not tell me that. I know better. I have lived amongfiddles all my life, --embryotic, Silurian fiddles, splintered fromcornstalks, that blessed me in the golden afternoons of green summerswaving in the sunshine of long ago, --sympathetic fiddles that did meyeomen's service once, when I fell off a bag of corn up garret andbroke my head, and the frightened fiddles, not knowing what else to do, came and fiddled to me lying on the settee, with such boundless, extravagant flourish that nobody heard the doctor's gig rolling by, andso sinciput and occiput were left overnight to compose their ownquarrels, whereby I was naturally all right before the doctor had achance at me, suffering only the slight disadvantage of goingbroken-headed through life. What I might have been with a whole skull, I don't know; but I will say, that, good or bad, and even in fragments, my head is the best part of me. 

Yes, I think I may dare affirm that whatever there is to know about afiddle I know, and I can give my affidavit that it is no fiddle thattakes you up on its broad wings, outstripping the "wondrous horse ofbrass, " which required

 "the space of a day natural, This is to sayn, four and twenty houres, Wher so you list, in drought or elles showres, To beren your body into every place To which your herte willeth for to pace, Withouten wemme of you, thurgh foule or faire, "

since it bears you, "withouten" even so much as your "herte's" will, ina moment's time, over the and above the stars. 

A fiddle, is it? Do not for one moment believe it. --A poet walkedthrough Southern woods, and the Dryads opened their hearts to him. They unfolded the secrets that dwell in the depths of forests. Theysang to him under the starlight the songs of their green, rustlingland. They whispered the loves of the trees sentient to poets:--

 "The sayling pine; the cedar, proud and tall; The vine-propt elme; the poplar, never dry; The builder oake, sole king of forrests all; The aspine, good for staves; the cypresse funerall; The lawrell, meed of mightie conquerours And poets sage; the firre, that weepeth stille; The willow, worne of forlorne paramours; The eugh, obedient to the benders will The birch, for shaftes; the sallow, for the mill; The mirrhe, sweete-bleeding in the bitter wounde; The warlike beech; the ash, for nothing ill; The fruitful olive; and the platane round; The carver holme; the maple, seldom inward sound. "

They sang to him with their lutes. They danced before him with sunny, subtile grace, wreathing with strange loveliness. They brought himhoney and wine in the white cups of lilies, till his brain was drunkwith delight; and they kept watch by his moss pillow, while he slept. 

In the dew of the morning, he arose and felled the kindly tree that hadsheltered him, not knowing it was the home of Arborine, fairest of thewood-nymphs. But he did it not for cruelty, but tenderness, to carve amemorial of his most memorable night, and so pulled down no thunders onhis head. For Arborine loved him, and, like her, sister Undine in theNorth, found her soul in loving him. Unseen, the beautiful nymphguided his hand as he fashioned the sounding viol, not knowing he wasfashioning a palace for a soul new-born. He wrought skilfully strungthe intense chords, and smote them with the sympathetic bow. Whatburst of music flooded the still air! What new song trembled among themermaiden tresses of the oaks! What new presence quivered in everylistening harebell and every fearful windflower? The forest felt achange, for tricksy nymph had proved a mortal love, and put off herfairy phantasms for the deep consciousness of humanity. The wood heard, bewildered. A shudder as of sorrow thrilled through it. A breeze thatwas almost sad swept down the shady aisles as the Poet passed out intothe sunshine and the world. 

But Nature knows no pain, though Arborines appear never more. A balmsprings up in every wound. Over the hills, and far away beyond theirutmost purple rim, and deep into the dying days the happy love-born onefollowed her love, happy to exchange her sylvan immortality for thespasm of mortal life, --happy, in her human self-abnegation, to lieclose on his heart and whisper close in his ear, though he knew onlythe loving voice and never the loving lips. Through the world theypassed, the Poet and his mystic viol. It gathered to itself themelodies that fluttered over sea and land, --songs of the mountains, andsongs of the valleys, --murmurs of love, and the trumpet-tones ofwar, --bugle-blast of huntsman on the track of the chamois, and mother'slullaby to the baby at her breast. All that earth had of sweetness thenymph drew into her viol-home, and poured it forth anew in strains ofmore than mortal harmony. The fire and fervor of human hearts, thequiet ripple of inland waters, the anthem of the stormy sea, the voicesof the flowers and the birds, their melody to the song of her who knewthem all. 

The Poet died. Died, too, sweet Arborine, swooning away in the fiercegrasp of this stranger Sorrow, to enter by the black gate of death intothe full presence and recognition of him by loving whom she had learnedto be. 

The viol passed into strange hands, and wandered down the centuries, but its olden echoes linger still. Fragrance of Southern woods, coolness of shaded waters, inspiration of mountain-breezes, all thesecret forces of Nature that the wood-nymph knew, and the joy, thepassion, and the pain that throb only in a woman's heart, lie still, silent under the silent strings, but wakening into life at the touch ofa royal hand. 

Do you not believe my story? But I have seen the viol and the royalhand!

CHERI

Cheri is the Canary-bird, --a yellow bird with a white tail, when thecat leaves him any tail at all. He came as a gift, and I welcomed him, but without gratitude. For a gift is nothing. Always behind the giftstands the giver, and under the gift lies the motive. The gift itselfhas no character. It may be a blunder, a bribe, an offering, accordingto the nature and design of the giver; and you are outraged, ormagnanimous, or grateful. Cheri came to me with no love-token underhis soft wings, --only the "good riddance" of his heartless master. Those little black eyes had twinkled, those shining silken feathers hadgleamed, that round throat had waved with melody in vain. He had wornhis welcome out. Even the virtues which should have throbbed, tenderand all-embracing, under priestly vestments, had no tenderness, noembrace for him, --only a mockery and a prophecy, a cold and cynicalprediction that I should soon tire of his shrill voice. Yes, Cheri, your sweet silver trills, your rippling June-brook warbles, were to himonly a shrew's scolding. I took the bird wrathfully, his name had beenCherry, and rechristened him on the spot Cheri, in anticipation of thenew life that was to dawn upon him, no longer despised Cherry, butCheri, my cherished one. 

He has been with me now nearly a year, and every trick of his voice andhead and tail is just as fresh, graceful, and charming as on the firstday of his arrival. He is a constant recreation and delight. I puthim in my own room, and went up to look at him two or three times thefirst evening. Every time I looked he would be quite still, but hislittle black beads of eyes shone wide open in the candle-light, and Irecalled how Chaucer's

 "Smale foules maken melodie That slepen alle night with open eye, "

and reflected that Cheri certainly made melodie enough in the daytimeto be ranked with the poetic tribe; but one night, after he had beenhere long enough to have worn away his nervous excitement, I happenedto go into the room very softly, and the black beads had disappeared. The tiny head had disappeared, too, and only a little round ball offeathers was balanced on his perch. Then I remembered that chickenshave a way of putting their heads in their pockets when they go tosleep, and poetry yielded to poultry, Cheri stepped out of Chaucer, andtook his place in the hencoop. 

He has had an eventful life since he came to me. In the summer I hunghim on a hook under piazza for the merry company of robins andbluebirds, which he enjoyed excessively. One day, in the midst of amost successful concert, an envious gust swept down the cage, up wentthe door, and out flew the frightened bird. I could have borne to losehim, but I was sure he would lose himself, --a tender little dilettante, served a prince all the days of his life, never having to lift a fingerto help himself, or knowing a want unsatisfied. Now, thrown suddenlyupon his own resources, homeless, friendless, forlorn, how could evermake his fortune in this bleak New England, for all he has, accordingto Cuvier, more brains in his head in proportion to his size than anyother created being? I saw him already in midsummer, drenched withcold rains, chilled and perishing; but sharper eyes than mine hadmarked his flight, and a pair of swift hands plunged after him into thelong grass that tangled his wings and kept him back from headlongdestruction. Amicable relations between Cheri and the cat are on amost precarious footing. The cat was established in the house beforeCheri came, --a lovely, frolicsome kitten, that sat in my lap, purred inmy face, rubbed her nose against my book, and grew up, to my horror, out of all possibility of caresses, into a great, ugly, fierce, fighting animal, that comes into the house drenched and dripping fromthe mud-puddle in which she has been rolling in a deadly struggle withevery Tom Hyer and Bill Sayers of the cat kind that make night hideousthrough the village. This cat seems to be possessed with a devil everytime she looks at Cheri. Her green eyes bulge out of her head, herwhole feline soul rushes into them, and glares with a hot, greeny-yellow fire and fury of unquenchable desire. One evening I hadput the cage on a chair, and was quietly reading in the room below, when a great slam and bang startled the house. "The bird!" shrieked avoice, mine or another's. I rushed upstairs. The moonlight shone in, revealing the cage upturned on the floor, the water running, the seedsscattered about, and a feather here and there. The cat had managed toelude observation and glide in, and she now managed to eludeobservation and glide out. Cheri was alive, but his enemy had attackedhim in the flank, and turned his left wing, which was pretty much gone, according to all appearances. He could not mount his perch, and forthree days, crouching on the floor of his cage, life seemed to havelost its charm. His spirits drooped, his appetite failed, and his songwas hushed. Then his feathers grew out again, his spirit returned tohim with his appetite, and he hopped about as good as new. To thinkthat cat should have been able to thrust her villanous claw in farenough to clutch a handful of feathers of him before she upset thecage! I have heard that canaries sometimes die of fright. If so, Ithink Cheri would have been justified in doing it. To have a greatovergrown monster, with burning globes of eyes as big as your head andclaws as sharp as daggers, come glaring on you in the darkness, overturn your house, and grab half your side with one huge paw, is athing well calculated to alarm a person of delicate organization. 

Then I said to myself, this cat thinks she has struck a placer, and ahundred to one she will be driving her pick in here again directly. SoI removed the cage immediately, and set it on a high bureau, with a"whisking-stick" close by it. Sure enough I was awakened the nextmorning before day by a prolonged and mournful "maeouw" ofdisappointment from the old dragon at not finding the prey where shehad expected. Before she had time to push her researches to success, she and I and the stick were not letting the grass grow under our feeton the stairs. Long after, when the fright and flurry had beenforgotten, the cage was again left in a rocking-chair in the upperfront entry, where I had been sitting in sunshine all the afternoonwith Cheri, who thinks me, though far inferior to a robin or a finch, still better than no company at all. In the course of the evening Ihappened to open the lower entry door, when the cat suddenly appearedon the lower stair. I should have supposed she had come from thesitting-room with me, but for a certain elaborate and enforcednonchalance in her demeanor, a jaunty air of insouciance, as farremoved, on the one hand, from the calm equilibrium of dignity whichalmost imperceptibly soothes and reassures you, as from the guilelessgayety of infantile ignorance, which perforce "medicines yourweariness, " on the other, --a demeanor which at once disgusts and alarmsyou. I felt confident that some underhand work was going on. I wentupstairs. There was Cheri again, this time with his right wing gone, and a modicum of his tail. The cage had retained its position, but theEvil One had made her grip at him; and the same routine of weariness, silence, loss of appetite and spirits was to be gone through withagain, followed by re-pluming and recuperating. But every time I thinkof it, I am lost in wonder at the skill and sagacity of that cat. Itwas something to carry on the campaign in a rocking-chair, withoutdisturbing the base of operations so as to make a noise and create adiversion in favor of the bird; but the cunning and self-control which, as soon as I opened the door, made her leave the bird, and come purringabout my feet, and tossing her innocent head to disarm suspicion, waswonderful. I look at her sometimes, when we have been sitting togethera while, and say, with steadfast gaze, "Cat-soul, what are you? Whereare you? Whence come you? Whither go you?" But she only her whiskers, and gives me no satisfaction. 

But I saw at once that I must make a different disposition of Cheri. It would never do to have him thus mauled. To be sure, I suppose thecat might be educationally mauled into letting him alone; but whyshould I beat the beast for simply acting after her kind? Has not theManciple, with as much philosophy as poetry, bidden, --

 "Let take a cat, and foster hire with milke And tendre flesh, and make hire couche of silke, And let hire see a mous go by the wall, Anon she weiveth milke and flesh, and all, And every deintee that is in that hous, Swich appetit hath she to ete the mous Lo, here hath kind hire domination, And appetit flemeth discretion"?

Accordingly I respected the "domination" of "kind, " took the cage intothe parlor and hung it up in the folds of the window-curtain, wherethere is always sunshine, wrapping a strip of brown paper around thelower part of the cage, so that he should not scatter his seeds overthe carpet. What is the result? Perversely he forsakes his cup ofseed, nicely mixed to suit his royal taste; forsakes his conch-shell, nicely fastened within easy reach; forsakes the bright sand that lieswhitely strewn beneath his feet, and pecks, pecks, pecks away at thatstiff, raw, coarse brown paper, jagging great gaps in it from hour tohour. I do not mind the waste of paper, even at its present highprices; but suppose there should be an ornithological dyspepsia, or acongestion of the gizzard, or some internal derangement? Thepossibility of such a thing gave me infinite uneasiness at first; buthe has now been at it so long without suffering perceptible harm, thatI begin to think Nature knows what she is about, and brown paper agreeswith birds. I am confident, however, that he would devout it all thesame, whether it were salutary or otherwise, for he is a mule-headedfellow. I let him loose on the flower-stand yesterday, hoping he mightdeal death to a horde of insects who had suddenly squatted on the soilof the money-plant. He scarcely so much as looked at the insects, buthopped up to the adjoining rose-bush, and proceeded to gorge himselfwith tender young leaves. I tilted him away from that, and hefluttered across the money-plant over to the geranium opposite. Disturbed there, he flashed to the other side of the stand, and, quickas thought, gave one mighty dab at a delicate little fuchsia that isjust "picking up" from the effects of transplanting and a long winterjourney. Seeing he was bent on making himself disagreeable, I put himinto his cage again, first having to chase him all about the room tocatch him, and prying him up at last from between a picture and thewall, where he had flown and settled down in his struggle to get out. For my Cheri is not in the least tame. He is an entirely uneducatedbird. I have seen canaries sit on people's fingers and eat from theirtongues, but Cheri flies around like a madman at the first approach offingers. Indeed, he quite provokes me by his want of trust. He oughtto know by this time that I am his friend, yet he goes off into violenthysterics the moment I touch him. He does not even show fight. Thereis no outcry of anger or alarm, but one "Yang!" of utter despair. Hegives up at once. Life is a burden, his "Yang!" says. "Everything isgoing to ruin. There is no use in trying. I wish I never was born. Yang!" Little old croaker, what are you Yang-ing for? Nobody wishesto harm you. It is your little cowardly heart that sees lions andhyenas in a well-meaning forefinger and thumb. Be sensible. 

Another opportunity for the exhibition of his perversity is furnishedby his bathing. His personal habits are exquisite. He has agentleman's liking for cold water and the appliances of cleanliness;but if I spread a newspaper on the floor, and prepare everything for acomfortable and convenient bath, the little imp clings to his perchimmovable. It is not only a bath that he wishes, but fun. Mischief ishis sine qua non of enjoyment. "What is the good of bathing, if youcannot spoil anything?" says he. "If you will put the bathtub in thewindow, where I can splash and spatter the glass and the curtains andthe furniture, very well, but if not, why--" he sits incorrigible, witheyes half closed, pretending to be sleepy, and not see water anywhere, the rogue!

One day I heard a great "to-do" in the cage, and found that half theblind was shut, and helped Cheri to a reflection of himself, which heevidently thought was another bird, and he was in high feather. Hehopped about from perch to perch, sidled from one side of the cage tothe other, bowed and bobbed and courtesied to himself, sung and swelledand smirked, and became thoroughly frantic with delight. "Poor thing!"I said, "you are lonely, no wonder. " I had given him a new and shiningcage, a green curtain, a sunny window; but of what avail are these to adesolate heart? Who does not know that the soul may starve insplendor? "Solitude, " says Balzac, I think, "is a fine thing; but itis also a fine thing to have some one to whom you can say, from time totime, that solitude is a fine thing. " I know that I am but a poorsubstitute for a canary-bird, --a gross and sorry companion for one ofethereal mould. I can supply seed and water and conch-shells, but whatdo I know of finchy loves and hopes? What sympathy have I to offer inhis joyous or sorrowful moods? How can I respond to his enthusiasms?How can I compare notes with him as to the sunshine and the trees andthe curtain and views of life? It is not sunshine, but sympathy, thatlights up houses into homes. Companionship is what he needs, for hishigher aspirations and his everyday experiences, --somebody to whom hecan observe "The sand is rather gritty today, isn't it?"

"Very much as usual, my dear. "

"Here is a remarkably plump seed, my dear, won't you have it?"

"No, thank you, dear, nothing more. Trol-la-la-r-r-r!"

"Do let me help you to a bit of this hemp. It is quite a marvel ofripeness. "

"Thank you. Just a snip. Plenty. "

"My dear, I think you are stopping in the bathtub too long thismorning. I fancied you a trifle hoarse yesterday. "

"It was the company, pet. I strained my voice slightly in that lastduet. "

"We shall have to be furnished with a new shell before long. This oldone is getting to be rather the last peas of the picking. "

"Yes, I nearly broke my beak over it yesterday. I was quite ashamed ofit when the ladies were staring at you so admiringly. "

"Little one, I have a great mind to try that swing. It has tempted methis long while. "

"My love, I beg you will do no such thing. You will inevitably breakyour neck. "

Instead of this pleasant conjugal chit-chat, what has he? Nothing. Hestands looking out at the window till his eyes ache, and then he turnsaround and looks at me. If any one comes in and begins to talk, and hedelightedly joins, he gets a handkerchief thrown over his cage. Sometimes the cat creeps in, --very seldom, for I do not trust her, evenwith the height of the room between them, and punish her whenever Ifind her on forbidden ground, by taking her upstairs and putting herout on the porch-roof, where she has her choice to stay and starve orjump off. This satisfies my conscience while giving a good lesson tothe cat, who is not fond of saltatory feats, now that she is gettinginto years. If it is after her kind to prey upon birds, and she musttherefore not be beaten, it is also after her kind to leap fromanywhere and come down on her feet, and therefore the thing does notharm her. Whenever she does stealthily worm herself in, Cheri givesthe pitch the moment he sets eyes on her. Cat looks up steadily at himfor five minutes. Cheri, confident, strikes out in a very temptingway. Cat describes a semicircle around the window, back and forth, backand forth, keeping ever her back to the room and her front to the foe, glaring and mewing and licking her chaps. O, what a delicious tit-bit, if one could but get at it! Cheri sings relentlessly. Like Shirleywith Louis Moore in her clutches, he will not subdue one of his charmsin compassion. 

 "Certes it is NOT of herte, all that he sings. "

She leaps into a chair. Not a quarter high enough. She jumps to thewindow-seat, and walks to and fro, managing the turning-points withmuch difficulty. Impossible. She goes over to the other window. Still worse. She takes up position on the sofa, and her whole soulexhales into one want. 

She mews and licks her chaps alternately. Cheri "pitilessly sweet"sings with unsparing insolence at the top of his voice, and looksindifferently over her head. 

That is the extent of his society. "It is too bad, " I said one day, and scoured the country for a canary-bird. Everybody had had one, butit was sold. Then I remembered Barnum's Happy Family, and went out tothe hen-pen, and brought in a little auburn chicken, with white breast, and wings just budding; a size and a half larger than Cheri, it istrue, but the smallest of the lot, and very soft and small for achicken, the prettiest wee, waddling tot you ever saw, a Minnie Warrenof a little duck, and put him in the cage. A tempest in a teapot!Cheri went immediately into fits and furies. He hopped aboutconvulsively. You might have supposed him attacked simultaneously withSt. Anthony's fire, St. Vitus's dance, and delirium tremens. Heshrieked, he writhed, he yelled, he raved. The chicken was stupid. Ifhe had exerted himself a little to be agreeable, if he had only shownthe smallest symptom of interest or curiosity or desire to cultivate anacquaintance, I have no doubt something might have been accomplished;but he just huddled down in one corner of the cage, half frightened todeath, like a logy, lumpy, country bumpkin as he was, and I swept himback to his native coop in disgust. Relieved from the lout's presence, Cheri gradually laid aside his tantrums, smoothed down his ruffledplumes, and resumed the manners of a gentleman. 

My attempt at happy families was nipped in the bud, decidedly. 

By and by I went to the market-town, and, having sold my butter andeggs, hunted up a bird-fancier. He had plenty of heliotropes, verbenas, and japonicas, and HAD had plenty of birds, but of coursethey were every one gone. Nobody wanted them. He had just about giventhem away, for a quarter of a dollar or so, and since then ever so manyhad been to buy them. Could he tell me where I might find one? Yes, hesold one to the barber last week, down near the depot. Didn't believebut what he would sell it. Was it a female bird? For my ambition hadgrown by what it fed on, and, instead of contenting myself simply witha companion for Cheri, I was now planning for a whole brood ofcanaries, with all the interests of housekeeping, baby-tending, and themanifold small cares incident upon domestic life. In short, I waslaunching out upon an entirely new career, setting a new worlda-spinning in that small wire cage. Yes, it was a female bird. A goodbird? For I could not understand the marvelously low price. Yes 'm, prime. Had eight young ones last year. Eight young ones! I rathercaught my breath. I wanted a brood, but I thought three was theregular number, and I must confess I could hardly look with fortitudeon such a sudden and enormous accession of responsibility. Besides, the cage was not half large enough. And how could they all bathe? Andhow could I take proper care of so many? And, dear me, eight youngones! And eight more next year is sixteen. And the grandchildren! Andthe great-grandchildren! Hills on hills and Alps on Alps! I shall bepecked out of house and home. I walked up the street musingly, andfinally concluded not to call on the barber just yet. 

It was very well I did so, for just afterwards Cheri's matins andvespers waxed fainter and fainter, and finally ceased altogether. Ingreat anxiety I called in the highest medical science, which announcedthat he was only shedding his feathers. This opinion was corroboratedby numerous little angelic soft fine feathers scattered about inlocalities that precluded the cat. Cheri is a proud youngster, and Isuppose he thought if he must lose his good looks, there was no use inkeeping up his voice; therefore he moped and pouted for several months, and would have appeared to very great disadvantage in case I hadintroduced a stranger to his good graces. 

So Cheri is still alone in the world, but when my ship comes home fromsea and brings an additional hour to my day, and a few golden eagles tomy purse, he is going to have his mate, eight young ones and all, and Ishall buy him a new cage, a trifle smaller than Noah's ark, and a caskof canary-seed and a South Sea turtle-shell, and just put them in thecage and let them colonize. If they increase and multiply beyond allpossibility of provision, why, I shall by that time, perhaps havebecome world-encrusted and hard-hearted, and shall turn the cat in uponthem for an hour or two, which will no doubt have the effect of at oncethinning them down to wieldy proportions. 

Sweet little Cheri. My heart smites me to see you chirping there soinnocent and affectionate while I sit here plotting treason againstyou. Bright as is the day and dazzling as the sunlit snow, you turnaway from it all, so strong is your craving for sympathy, and bend yourtiny head towards me to pour out the fulness of your song. 

And what a song it is! All the bloom of his beautiful islands shedsits fragrance there. The hum of his honey-bees roving through beds ofspices, the loveliness of dark-eyed maidens treading the wine-presswith ruddy feet, the laughter of young boys swinging in the vines andstained with the scented grapes, --all the music that rings through hisorange-groves, all the sunshine of the tropics caught in the glow offruit and flower, in the blue of sky and sea, in the blinding whitenessof the shore and the amethystine evening, --all come quivering over thewestern wave in the falls of his tuneful voice. You shall hear itwhile the day is yet dark in the folds of the morning twilight, --aweak, faint, preliminary "whoo! whoo!" uncertain and tentative, then atrill or two of awakened assurance, and then, with a confident, courageous gush and glory of soul, he flings aside all minorconsiderations, and dashes con amore into the very middle of things. Iam not musical, and cannot give you his notes in technical hieroglyphs, but in exact and intelligible lines such as all may understand, whethermusical or not, his song is like this, --and you may rely upon itsaccuracy, for I wrote it down from his own lips this morning:--

 /_`'`______ . .. .. .. ^^------^^^ ^^\\^^^-------- / / / ---- ||| ----^^_^/ ^^^ ///\\\ ^^

SIDE-GLANCES AT HARVARD CLASS-DAY

It happened to me once to "assist" at the celebration of Class-Day atHarvard University. Class-Day is the peculiar institution of theSenior Class, and marks its completion of College study and lease fromCollege rules. 

Harvard has set up her Lares and Penates in a fine old grove, or a fineold grove and green have sprouted up around her, as the case maybe, --most probably the latter, if one may judge from the appearance ofthe buildings which constitute the homes of the students, and whichseem to have been built, and to be now sustained, without the remotestreference to taste or influence, but solely to furnishshelter, --angular, formal, stiff, windowy, bricky, and worse withinthan without. Why, I pray to know, as the first inquiry suggested byClass-Day, why is it that a boys' school should be placed beyond thepale of civilization? Do boys take so naturally to the amenities oflife, that they can safely dispense with the conditions of amenity?Have boys so strong a predisposition to grace, that society can affordto take them away from home and its influences, and turn them loosewith dozens of other boys into a bare and battered boarding-house, withits woodwork dingy, unpainted, gashed, scratched; windows dingy anddim; walls dingy and gray and smoked; everything narrow and rickety, unhomelike and unattractive?

America boasts of having the finest educational system in the world. Harvard is, if not the most distinguished, certainly among the firstinstitutions in the country; but it is necessary only to stand upon thethreshold of the first Harvard house which I entered, to pass throughits mean entry and climb up its uncouth staircase, to be assured thatour educational system has not yet found its key-stone. It has all thenecessary materials, but it is incomplete. At its base it is fallingevery day more and more into shape and symmetry, but towards the top itis still only a pile of pebbles and boulders, and no arch. We havePrimary Schools, Grammar Schools, High Schools, in which, first, boysand girls are educated together, as it seems impossible not to believethat God meant them to be; in which, secondly, home life and schoollife come together, and correct each other; in which, thirdly, comfortable and comely arrangements throughout minister toself-respect. But the moment you rise as high as a college, nature isviolated. First, boys go off by themselves to their own destruction;secondly, home influences withdrawn; and, thirdly, --at Harvard, whichthe only college I ever visited, --the thorough comeliness which isfound in the lower grades of schools does not appeal. The separationof boys and girls in school is a subject which has much talked about, but has not yet come to its adequate discussion. But the achievementsof the past are the surest guaranties of the future. When we rememberthat, sixty years ago, the lowest district public schools were open toboys only, and that since that time girls have flocked into every gradeof school below a college, it is difficult to believe that collegedoors will forever stand closed to them. _I_ believe that the timewill come when any system framed for boys alone or for girls alone willbe looked upon in the same light in which we now regard a monastery ora nunnery. Precisely the same course will not be prescribed to bothsexes, but they will be associated in their education to theinestimable advantage of both. 

This, however, I do not purpose now to discuss further. Neither shall Ispeak of the second deficiency, --that of home influences, --any furtherthan it is connected with the third, namely, a culpable neglect ofcircumstances which minister directly to character. I design to speakonly of those evils which lie on the surface, patent to the most casualobserver, and which may be removed without any change in the structureof society. And among the first of these I reckon the mean and meagrehomes provided for the college students. If the State were poor, ifthe question were between mere rude shelter and no college education, we should do well to choose the former, and our choice would be ourglory. It would be worthwhile even to live in such a house as Thoreausuggests, a tool-box with a few augur-holes bored in it to admit air, and a hook to hook down the lid at night. But we are not poor. Society has money enough to do everything it wishes to do; and it hasprovided no better homes for its young men because it has not come tothe point of believing that better homes are necessary. Sometimes itaffects to maintain that this way of living is beneficial, and talks ofthe disciplinary power of soldiers' fare. It is true that a soldier, living on a crust of bread and lying on the ground for love of countryor of duty, is ennobled by it; but it is also true, that a miser doingthe same things for love of stocks and gold is degraded; and a dreamerdoing it serenely unconscious is neither ennobled nor degraded, but issimply laying the foundation for dyspepsia. To despise the elegances oflife when they interfere with its duties the part of a hero. To beindifferent to them when they stand in the way of knowledge is theattribute of a philosopher. To disregard them when they wouldcontribute to both character and culture is neither the one nor theother. It was very well to cultivate the muses on a little oatmeal, when resources were so scanty that a bequest of seven hundred andseventy-nine pounds seventeen shillings and two pence was a giftmunificent enough to confer upon the donor the honor of giving his nameto the College so endowed; when a tax of one peck of corn, or twelvepence a year, from each family was all could reasonably be levied forthe maintenance of poor scholars at the College; when thePilgrims--hardly escaped from persecution, and plunged into the midstof perils by Indian warfare, perils by frost and famine and disease, but filled with the love of liberty, and fired with the conviction thatonly fortified by learning could be a blessing--gave of their scantystock and their warm hearts, one man his sheep, another his nineshillings' worth of cotton cloth, a third his pewter flagon, and so ondown to the fruit-dish, the sugar-spoon, the silver-tipt jug, and thetrencher-salt; but a generation that is not astonished when a man payssix thousand dollars for a few feet land to bury himself in, is withoutexcuse in not providing for its sons a dignified and respectable homeduring the four years of their college life, --years generally when theyare most susceptible of impressions, most impatient of restraints, mostremoved from society, and most need to be surrounded by everyinducement to a courteous and Christian life. What was a large windedliberality then may be but niggardliness or narrowness now. If indeedthere be a principle in the case, the principle that this arrangementis better adapted to a generous growth than a more ornate one, then letit be carried out. Let all public edifices and private houses bereduced to a scale of Spartan simplicity; let camel's-hair and leatherngirdles take the place of broadcloth, and meat be locusts and wildhoney. But so long as treasures of art and treasures of wealth arelavished on churches, and courthouses, and capitols, and privatedwellings, so long as earth and sea are forced to give up the richeswhich are in them for the adornment of the person and the enjoyment ofthe palate, we cannot consistently bring forward either principles orpractice to defend our neglect withal. If the experiment of a roughand primitive life is to be tried, let it be tried at home, wherecommunity of interests, and diversity of tastes, and the refinements offamily and social life, will prevent it from degenerating into a fatalfailure; but do not let a horde of boys colonize in a base and shabbydwelling, unless you are willing to admit the corollary that they mayto that extent become base and shabby. If they do become so they arescarcely blameworthy; if they do not, it is no thanks to the system, but because other causes come in to deflect its conclusions. But whyset down a weight at one end of the lever because there is a power atthe other? Why not wait until, in the natural course of things, levercomes to an obstacle, and then let power bear down with all its mightto remove it?

Doubtless those who look back upon their college days through theluminous mist of years, see no gray walls or rough floors, and count itonly less than sacrilege to find spot or wrinkle or any such thing onthe garments of their alma mater. But awful is the gift of the godsthat we can become used to things; awful, since, by becoming used tothem, we become insensible to their faults and tolerant of theirdefects. Harvard is beloved of her sons: would she be any less belovedif she were also beautiful to outside barbarians? Would her fame beless fair, or her name less dear, if those who come up to her solemnfeasts, filled the idea of her greatness, could not only tell hertowers, but consider her palaces, without being forced to bury theiradmiration and reverence under the first threshold which they cross?O, be sure the true princess is not yet found, for king's daughter isall glorious within. 

Deficiency takes shelter under antiquity and associations: associationsmay, indeed, festoon unlovely places, but would they cluster any lessrichly around walls that were stately and adequate? Is it not fitterthat associations should adorn, than that they should conceal? If hereand there a relic of the olden time is cherished because it isolden, --a house, a book, a dress, --shall we then live only in thehouses, read only the books, and wear the dresses of our ancestors? Ifhere and there some ship has breasted the billows of time, and sailsthe seas today because of its own inherent grace and strength, shallwe, therefore, cling to crazy old crafts that can with difficulty betowed out of harbor, and must be kept afloat by constant application oftar and oakum? As I read the Bible and the world, gray hairs are acrown unto a man only when they are found in the way of righteousness. Laden with guilt and heavy woes, behold the AGED SINNER goes. A seemlyold age is fair and beautiful, and to be had in honor by all people;but an old age squalid and pinched is of all things most pitiful. 

After the Oration and Poem, which, having nothing distinctive, I passover, comes the "Collation. " The members of the Senior Class prepare abanquet, --sometimes separately and sometimes in clubs, at an expenseranging from fifty to five hundred dollars, --to which they invite asmany friends as they choose, or as are available. The banquet is quiteas rich, varied, and elegant as you find at evening parties, and theoccasion is a merry and pleasant one. But it occurred to me that theremay be unpleasant things connected with this custom. In a class ofseventy-five, in a country like America, it is probable that a certainproportion are ill able to meet the expense which such customnecessitates. Some have fought their own way through college. Somemust have been fought through by their parents. To them I should thinkthis elaborate and considerable outlay must be a very sensibleinconvenience. The mere expense of books and board, tuition andclothing, cannot be met without strict economy, and much parental andfamily sacrifice. And at the end of it all, when every nerve has beenstrained, and must be strained harder still before the man can beconsidered fairly on his feet and able to run his own race in life, comes this new call for entirely uncollegiate disbursements. Of courseit is only a custom. There is no college by-law, I suppose, whichprescribes a valedictory SYMPOSIUM. Probably it grew up gradually fromsmall ice-cream beginnings to its present formidable proportions; but acustom is as rigid as a chain. I wondered whether the moral characterof the young men was generally strong enough, by the time they were intheir fourth collegiate year, to enable them to go counter to thecustom, if it involved personal sacrifice at home, --whether there wasgenerally sufficient courtliness, not to say Christianity, in theclass, --whether there was sufficient courtesy, chivalry, high-breeding, --to make the omission of this party-giving unnoticeable, or not unpleasant. I by no means say, that the inability of a portionof the students to entertain their friends sumptuously should preventthose who are able from doing so. As the world is, some will be richand some will be poor. This is a fact which they have to face themoment they go out into the world; and the sooner they grapple with it, and find out its real bearings and worth, or worthlessness, the better. Boys are usually old enough by the time they are graduated tounderstand and take philosophically such a distinction. Nor do I admitthat poor people have any right to be sore on the subject of theirpoverty. The one sensitiveness which I cannot comprehend, with which Ihave no sympathy, for which I have no pity, and of which I have notolerance, is sensitiveness about poverty. It is an essentially vulgarfeeling. I cannot conceive how a man who has any real elevation ofcharacter, any self-respect, can for a moment experience so ignoble ashame. One may be annoyed at the inconveniences, and impatient of therestraints of poverty; but to be ashamed to be called poor or to bethought poor, to resort to shifts, not for the sake of beingcomfortable or elegant, but of seeming to be above the necessity ofshifts, is an indication of an inferior mind, whether it dwell inprince or in peasant. The man who does it shows that he has not in hisown opinion character enough to stand alone. He must be supported byadventitious circumstances, or he must fall. Nobody, therefore, needever expect to receive sympathy from me in recounting the social pangsor slights of poverty. You never can be slighted, if you do not slightyourself. People may attempt to do it, but their shafts have no barb. You turn it all into natural history. It is a psychological phenomenon, a study, something to be analyzed, classified, reasoned from, and bentto your own convenience, but not to be taken to heart. It amuses you;it interests you; it adds to your stock of facts; it makes life curiousand valuable: but if you suffer from it, it is because you have notbasis, stamina; and probably you deserve be slighted. This, however, is true only when people have become somewhat concentrated. Childrenknow nothing of it. They live chiefly from without, not from within. Only gradually as they approach maturity do they cut loose from thescaffolding, and depend upon their own centre of gravity. Appearancesare very strong in school. Money and prodigality have great weightthere, notwithstanding the democracy of attainments and abilities. Have the students self-poise enough to refrain from these festiveexpenses without suffering mortification? Have they virtue enough torefrain from them with the certainty of incurring such suffering? Havethey nobility, and generosity, and largeness of soul enough, whileabstaining themselves for conscience' sake, to share in the plans, andsympathize without servility in the pleasures of their rich comrades?to look on with friendly interest, without cynicism or concealedmalice, at the preparations in which they do not join? Or do theyyield to selfishness, and gratify their own vanity, weakness, self-indulgence, and love of pleasure, at whatever cost to theirparents? Or is there such a state of public opinion and usage inCollege, that this custom is equally honored in the breach and in theobservance?

When the feasting was over, the most picturesque part of the day began. The College green put off suddenly its antique gravity, and became

 "Embrouded . .. .. As it were a mede Alle ful of fresshe floures, white and rede, "

"floures" which to their gay hues and graceful outlines added the rarecharm of fluttering in perpetual motion. It was a kaleidoscope withoutangles. To me, niched in the embrasure of an old upper window, thescene, it seemed, might have stepped out of the Oriental splendor ofArabian Nights. I never saw so many well-dressed people together in mylife before. That seems a rather tame fact to buttress Arabian Nightswithal, but it implies much. The distance was a little too great forone to note personal and individual beauty; but since I have heard thatBoston is famous for its ugly women, perhaps that was an advantage, asdiminishing likewise individual ugliness. If no one was strikinglyhandsome, no one was strikingly plain. And though you could not markthe delicacies of faces, you could have the full effect ofcostume, --rich, majestic, floating, gossamery, impalpable. Everythingwas fresh, spotless, and in tune. It scarcely needed music to resolveall the incessant waver and shimmer into a dance; but the music came, and, like sand-grains under the magnet, the beautiful atoms swept intostately shapes and tremulous measured activity, --

 "A fine, sweet earthquake gently moved By the soft wind of whispering silks. "

Then it seemed like a German festival, and came back to me theFatherland, the lovely season of the Blossoming, the short, sweetbliss-month among the Blumenbuhl Mountains. 

Nothing call be more appropriate, more harmonious, than dancing on thegreen. Youth, and gaiety, and beauty--and in summer we are all young, and gay, and beautiful--mingle well with the eternal youth of blue sky, and velvet sward, and the light breezes toying in the treetops. Youthand Nature kiss each other in the bright, clear purity of the happysummer-tide. Whatever objections lie against dancing elsewhere mustveil their faces there. 

If only men would not dance! It is the most unbecoming exercise whichthey can adopt. In women you have the sweep and wave of drapery, gentle undulations, summer-cloud floatings, soft, sinuous movements, fluency of pliant forms, the willowy bend and rebound of lithe andlovely suppleness. It is grace generic, --the sublime, the evanescentmysticisin of motion, without use, without aim, except its ownoverflowing and all-sufficing fascination. But when a man dances, itreminds me of that amusing French book called "Le Diable Boiteux, "which has been free-thinkingly translated, "The Devil on Two Sticks. "A woman's dancing is gliding, swaying, serpentine. A man's is jerks, hops, convulsions, and acute angles. The woman is light, airy, indistinctly defined. Airy movements are in keeping. The man issombre in hue, grave in tone, distinctly outlined; and nothing is moreincongruous, to my thinking, than his dancing. The feminine draperyconceals processes and gives results. The masculine absence of draperyreveals processes, and thereby destroys results. 

Once upon a time, long before the Flood, the clergyman of acountry-village, possessed with such a zeal as Paul bore record ofconcerning Israel, conceived it his duty to "make a note" of sundryyoung members of his flock who had met for a drive and a supper, with adance fringed upon the outskirts. The fame whereof being noisedabroad, a sturdy old farmer, with a good deal of shrewd sense andmother-wit in his brains, and a fine, indirect way of hitting the nailon the head with a side-stroke, was questioned in a neighboring villageas to the facts of the case. "Yes, " he said, surlily, "the young folkshad a party, and got up a dance, and the minister was mad, --and I don'tblame him, --he thinks nobody has any business to dance, unless he knowshow better than they did!" It was a rather different casus belli fromthat which the worthy clergyman would have preferred before a council;but it "meets my views" precisely as to the validity of the objectionsurged against dancing. I would have women dance, and women only, because it is the most beautiful thing in the world. And I think myviews are Scriptural, for I find that it was the VIRGINS of Israel thatwere to go forth in the dances of them that make merry. It was theDAUGHTERS of Shiloh that went out to dance in dances at the feast ofthe Lord on the south of Lebonah. 

From my window overlooking the green, I was led away into some one orother of the several halls to see the "round dances"; and it was likegoing from Paradise to Pandemonium. From the pure and healthy lawn, all the purer for the pure and peaceful people pleasantly walking upand down in the sunshine and shade, or grouped in the numerous windows, like bouquets of rare tropical flowers, --from the green, rainbowed invivid splendor, and alive with soft, tranquil motion, fair forms, andthe flutter of beautiful and brilliant colors, --from the green, sanctified already by the pale faces of sick, and wounded, and maimedsoldiers who had gone out from the shadows of those sheltering trees todraw the sword for country, and returned white wraiths of theirvigorous youth, the sad vanguard of that great army of blessed martyrswho shall keep forever in the mind of this generation how costly andprecious a thing is liberty, who shall lift our worldly age out of theslough of its material prosperity in to the sublimity of suffering andsacrifice, --from suggestions, and fancies, and dreamy musing, and"phantasms sweet, " into the hall, where, for flower-scented summer airwere thick clouds of fine, penetrating dust; and for lightly troopingfairies, a jam of heated human beings, so that you shall hardly comenigh the dancers for the press; and when you have, with difficulty, andmany contortions, and much apologizing, threaded the solid mass, piercing through the forest of fans, --what? An enclosure, but no moreillusion. 

Waltzing is a profane and vicious dance. When it is prosecuted in thecentre of a great crowd, in a dusty hall, on a warm midsummer day, itis also a disgusting dance. Night is its only appropriate time. Theblinding, dazzling gas-light throws a grateful glare over the salientpoints of its indecency, and blends the whole into a wild whirl thatdizzies and dazes one; but the uncompromising afternoon, pouring inthrough manifold windows, tears away every illusion, and reveals thewhole coarseness and commonness and all the repulsive details of thismost alien and unmaidenly revel. The very POSE of the dance isprofanity. Attitudes which are the instinctive expression of intimateemotions, glowing rosy-red in the auroral time of tenderness, andjustified in unabashed freedom only by a long and faithful habitude ofunselfish devotion, are here openly, deliberately, and carelesslyassumed by people who have but a casual and partialsociety-acquaintance. This I reckon profanity. This is levity themost culpable. This is a guilty and wanton waste of delicacy. That itis practised by good girls and tolerated by good mothers does not provethat it is good. Custom blunts the edge of many perceptions. A goodthing soiled may be redeemed by good people; but waltz as many as youmay, spotless maidens, you will only smut yourselves, and not cleansethe waltz. It is of itself unclean. 

There were, besides, peculiar desagrements on this occasion. As I said, there was no illusion, --not a particle. It was no Vale of Tempe, withNymphs and Apollos. The boys were boys, young, full of healthfulpromise, but too much in the husk for exhibition, and not entirely atease in their situation, --indeed, very much NOT at ease, --unmistakablywarm, nervous, and uncomfortable. The girls were pretty enough girls, I dare say, under ordinary circumstances, --one was really lovely, withsoft cheeks, long eyelashes, eyes deep and liquid, and Tasso's gold inher hair, though of a bad figure, ill set off by a bad dress, --butVenus herself could not have been seen to advantage in such evil plightas they, panting, perspiring, ruffled, frowzy, --puff-balls revolvingthrough an atmosphere of dust, --a maze of steaming, reeking humancouples, inhumanly heated and simmering together with a more thanSpartan fortitude. 

It was remarkable, and at the same time amusing, to observe thedifference in the demeanor of the two sexes. The lions and the fawnsseemed to have changed hearts, --perhaps they had. It was the boys thatwere nervous. The girls were unquailing. The boys were, however, heroic. They tried bravely to hide the fox and his gnawings; buttraces were visible. They made desperate feint of being at the heightof enjoyment and unconscious of spectators; but they had much modesty, for all that. The girls threw themselves into it pugnis etcalcibus, --unshrinking, indefatigable. Did I say that it was amusing?I should rather say that it was painful. Can it be anything butpainful to see young girls exhibiting the hardihood of the"professional" without the extenuating necessity?

There is another thing which girls and their mothers do not seem toconsider. The present mode of dress renders waltzing almost asobjectionable in a large room as the boldest feats of a Frenchballet-dancer. 

If the title of my article do not sufficiently indicate the depth andbreadth of knowledge on which my opinions assume to be based, let me, that I may not seem to claim confidence upon false pretences, confessthat I have never seen, either in this country or abroad, anyballet-dancer or any dancer on any stage. I do not suppose that I haveever been at any assembly where waltzing was a part of the amusementshalf a dozen times in my life, and never in the daytime, upon thisoccasion. I also admit that the sensations with which one would lookupon this performance at Harvard would depend very much upon whetherone went to it from that end of society which begins at the JardinMabille, or that which begins at a New England farm-house. I speakfrom the stand-point of the New England farm-house. Whether that orthe Jardin Mabille is nearer the stand-point of the Bible, every onemust decide for himself. When I say "this is right, this is wrong, " Ido not wish to be understood as settling the question for others, butas expressing my own strongest conviction. When I say that the presentmode of dress renders waltzing almost as objectionable in a large roomas the boldest feats of a French ballet-dancer, I mean that, from whatI have heard and read of ballet-dancers, I judge that these girlsgyrating in the centre of their gyrating and unmanageable hoops, cannotavoid, or do not know how to avoid, at any rate do not avoid, theexposure which the short skirts of the ballet-dancer are intended tomake, and which, taking to myself all the shame of both the prudery andthe coarseness if I am wrong, I call an indecent exposure. In theglare and glamour of gas-light, it is flash and clouds andindistinctness. In the broad and honest daylight it is not. Indeed, Ido not know that I will say "almost. " Anything which tends to removefrom woman her sanctity is not only almost, but altogetherobjectionable. Questionable action is often consecrated by holymotive, and there, even mistake is not fatal; but in this thing is nonoble principle to neutralize practical error. 

I do not speak thus about waltzing because I like to say it; but yehave compelled me. If one member suffers, all the members suffer withit. I respect and revere woman, and I cannot see her destroying ordebasing the impalpable fragrance and delicacy of her nature withoutfeeling the shame and shudder in my own heart. Great is my boldness ofspeech towards you, because great is my glorying of you. Though Ispeak as a fool, yet as a fool receive me. My opinions may be rustic. They are at least honest; and it not be that the first freshimpressions of an unprejudiced and uninfluenced observer are as likelyto be natural and correct views as those which are the result of manyafter-thoughts, long and use, and an experience of multifoldfascinations, combined with the original producing cause? My opinionsmay be wrong, but they will do no harm; the penalty will rest alone onme: while, if they are right, they may serve as a nail or two to befastened by the masters of assemblies. 

O girls, I implore you to believe me! They are not your true friendswho would persuade you that you can permit this thing with impunity. It is not they who best know your strength, your power, yourpossibilities. It is not they who pay you the truest homage. BelieveME, for it is not possible that I can have any but the highest motive. If the evil of foreign customs is to be incorporated into Americansociety, if foul freedom of manners is to defile our pure freedom oflife, if the robes of our refinement are to be white only when relievedagainst the dark background revealed by polluted stage of a corruptmetropolis, on you will fall the burden of the consequences. BelieveME, for your weal and mine are one. Your glory is my glory. Yourdegradation is mine. There are honeyed words whose very essence isinsult. There are bold and bitter words whose roots lie in the deepestreverence. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Beware of the honor which is dishonor. 

I hear that the ground is taken that the affairs of Class-Day are not alegitimate subject of public comment; that it is a private matter ofthe Senior Class, of which one has no more right to speak in print thanone has so to speak of a house in Beacon Street to which one might beinvited. Is it indeed so? I have no right to go into Mr. Smith's housein Beacon Street, --I use the term Smith as simply generic, not meaningto imply for a moment that so plebeian a name ever marred a BeaconStreet door-plate, --and subsequently print that I was hospitablyentreated, or that the chair-covers were faded and the conversationbrilliant. Neither have I any right to go into Master Jones's room, inHollis Hall, and inform the public that he keeps wine in his cigar-box, and that he entertained his friends awkwardly or gracefully. Butsuppose all the Beacon Street families have a custom of devoting oneday of every year to festivities, in which festivities all Boston, andall the friends, and the friends' friends, whom each Beacon Streetfamily chooses to invite, are invited to partake. The Common, and theState-House, and the Music-Hall, &c. Are set apart for dancing, thehouses are given up to feasting, --and this occurs year after year. Isit a strictly private affair? I have still no right to denounce orapplaud or in any way characterize Mr. Smith's special arrangements;but have I not a right to discuss in the most public manner the generalfeatures of the custom? May I not say that I consider feasting apossible danger, and the dancing a certain evil, and assign my reasonsfor these opinions?

I have spoken of the condition of some of the buildings. I find in theCollege records repeated instances of the College authorities appealingto the public concerning this very thing. So early as 1651, the Rev. Henry Dunster, President of the College, represented to theCommissioners of the United Colonies the decaying condition of theCollege buildings, and the necessity of their repair and enlargement:and the Commisioners reply, that they will recommend to the Colonies togive some yearly help, by pecks, half-bushels, and bushels of wheat. Is a subject that is brought before Congress improper to be broughtbefore the public in a magazine?

I have spoken of the banqueting arranged by the Senior Class. Is thatprivate? I find in a book regularly printed and published, a bookwritten by a former President of the College, --a man whom no words ofmine can affect, yet whom I cannot pass without laying at his feet mytribute of gratitude and reverence; a man who lives to receive from hiscontemporaries the honors which are generally awarded only byposterity, --I find in this book accounts of votes passed by theCorporation and Overseers, prohibiting Commencers from "preparing orproviding either plum-cake, or roasted, boiled, or baked meats, or piesof any kind"; and afterwards, if anyone should do anything contrary tothis act, or "go about to evade it by plain cake, they shall not beadmitted to their degree; and also, "that commons be of better quality, have more variety, clean table-cloths of convenient length and breadthtwice a week, and that plates be allowed. " Now if the plum-cake andpies of the "Commencers" are spread before the public, how shall oneknow that the plum-cake and pies of an occasion at least equallypublic, and only a month beforehand, must not be mentioned? If anyfamily in Beacon Street should publish its housekeeping rules and itemsin this unhesitating manner, I think a very pardonable confusion ofideas might exist as to what was legitimately public, and what must beheld private. If it be said that these items concern a period fromwhich the many years that have since elapsed remove the seal ofsilence, I have but to turn to the Boston Daily Advertiser, a journalwhose taste and judgment are unquestionable, and find in its issue ofJuly 18, 1863, eight closely printed columns devoted to a minutedescription of what they said, and what they did, at the Collegefestival arranged by the Association of the Alumni, in whichdescription may be read such eminently private incidents as that--bysome unfortunate mistake, which would have been a death-blow to anyBeacon Street housekeeper--there were one hundred more guests thanthere were plates, and--what it might be hoped would be quiteunnecessary to state--that the unlucky De trop "bore the disappointmentwith the most admirable good-breeding, AND RETIRED FROM THE HALLWITHOUT NOISE OR DISTURBANCE. " (Noble army of martyrs! Let a monumentmore durable than brass rise in the hearts of their countrymen tocommemorate their heroism, and let it graven all over, in characters ofliving light, with the old-time query, "Why didn't Jack eat hissupper?")

I find also in the same issue of the same paper the CommencementDinner, its guests, its quantity and quality, its talk, its singing ofsongs, and giving of gifts, spread before the public. If, now, thefestivities of Commencement and of the Alumni Association are public, by what token shall one know that the festivities of Class-Day, whichhave every appearance of being just as public, are in reality a familyaffair, and strictly private?

I have spoken of waltzing. The propriety of my speaking must stand orfall with the previous count. But in the book to which I have beforereferred is recorded a vote passed by the Overseers, "To restrainunsuitable and unseasonable dancing in the College. " If a rule of theCollege is published throughout the land, is not the land in somemeasure appealed to, and may it not speak when it thinks it sees acustom in open and systematic violation of the rule?

But, independent of this special rule, Harvard College was founded inthe early days of the Colony. It was the pet and pride and hope of thecolonists. They gave to it of their abundance and their poverty. Towhat end? "Dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, "says the author of "New England First-Fruits. " The first Constitutionof the College declares one of its objects to be "to make and establishall such orders, statutes, and constitutions as they shall seenecessary for the instituting, guiding, and furthering of the saidCollege, and the several members thereof, from time to time, in piety, morality, and learning. " Later, its objects are said to be "theadvancement of all good literature, arts, and sciences, " and "theeducation of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledgeand godliness. " Of the rules of the College, one is, "Let everystudent be earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his lifeand studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and, therefore, to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation ofall sound knowledge and learning. " Quincy says that to theCongregational clergy the "institution is perhaps more indebted than toany other class of men for early support, if not for existence. " Thatit has not avowedly turned aside from its original object is indicatedby the motto which it still bears, Christo et Ecclesiae. Now I wish toknow if the official sanction of this College, founded bystatesmen-clergy for the promotion of piety and learning, to furtherthe welfare of the State, consecrated to Christ and the Church, is tobe given to a practice which no one will maintain positively conducesto either piety or learning, which many believe to be positivelydetrimental to both, and which an overwhelming majority of the clergywho founded the College, and of their ecclesiastical descendants at thepresent day, would, I am confident, condemn, and yet is not to bepublicly spoken of, because it is a private affair! Has it any rightto privacy? Does the College belong to a Senior Class, or to theState? Have the many donations been given, and the appropriations beenmade, for the pleasure or even profit of any one class, or for thewhole Commonwealth? Has any class any right to introduce in anyCollege hall, or anywhere, as a College class, with the sanction of theFaculty, a custom which is entirely disconnected with either learningor piety, a custom of doubtful propriety, not to say morality inasmuchas many believe it to be wrong, and a custom, therefore, whose tendencyis to weaken confidence in the College, and consequently to restrictits beneficence? And is the discussion of this thing a violation ofthe rites of hospitality?

These are my counts against "Class-Day, " as it is now conducted. Itcontains much that is calculated to promote neither learning norgodliness, but to retard both. Neither literary nor moral excellenceseems to enter as an element into its standard. In point of notorietyand popular interest it seems to me to reach, if not to over-top, Commencement-Day, and therefore it tends to subordinate scholarship toother and infinitely less important matters. It in a mannernecessitates an expenditure which many are ill able to bear, and underwhich, I have reason to believe, many parents do groan, being burdened. It has not the pleasure and warmth of reunion to recommend it, for itprecedes separation. The expense is not incurred by men who aremasters of their own career, who know where they stand and what theycan do; but chiefly by boys who are dependent upon others, and whoseknowledge of ways and means is limited, while their knowledge of wantsis deep and pressing and aggressive. It is an extraordinary andunnecessary expense, coming in the midst of ordinary and necessaryexpense, while the question of reimbursement is still entirely inabeyance. It launches young men at the outset of their career intoextravagance and display, --limited indeed in range, but rampant withinthat range, --and thereby throws the influence of highest authority infavor of, rather than against, that reckless profusion, display, anddissipation which is the weakness and the bane of our social life. Itsignalizes in a marked and public manner the completion of the mostvaried and thorough course of study in the country, and thecommencement of a career which should be the most noble and beneficial, not by peculiar and appropriate ceremonies, but by the commonest ritesof the lecture-room and ball-room; and I cannot but think that, especially at this period of history, when no treasure is esteemed tooprecious for sacrifice, and the land is red with the blood of her bestand bravest, --when Harvard herself mourns for her children lost, butglories in heroes fallen, --that the most obvious and prominent customsof Class-Day would be more honored in the breach than in the observance. 

I look upon the violation of hospitality as one of the seven deadlysins, --a sin for which no punishment is too great; but this sin I havenot consciously, and I do not think I have actually, committed. Icannot but suspect, that, if I had employed the language of exclusiveeulogy, --such language as is employed at and concerning theCommencement dinners and the Alumni dinners, I might have described thecelebration of Class-Day with much more minuteness than I haveattempted to do, and should have heard no complaints of violatedhospitality. This I would gladly have done, had it been possible. Asit was not, I have pointed out those features which seemed to meobjectionable, --certainly with no design so ridiculous as that ofsetting up myself against Harvard University, but equally certainlywith no heart so craven as to shrink from denouncing what seemed to mewrong because it would be setting myself against Harvard University. Opinions must be judged by their own weight, not by the weight of thepersons who utter them. The fair fame of Harvard is the possession ofevery son and daughter of Massachusetts, and the least stain that marsher escutcheon is the sorrow of all. But Harvard is not the Ark of theCovenant, to be touched only by consecrated hands, upon penalty ofinstant death. She is honorable, but not sacred; wise, but notinfallible. To Christo et Ecclesiae, she has a right; to Noli metangere, she has none. A very small hand may hurl an arrow. If it isheaven-directed, it may pierce in between the joints of the armor. Ifnot, it may rebound upon the archer. I make the venture, promisingthat I shall not follow the example of that President of Harvard whodied of a broken heart, because, according to Cotton Mather, he "FELLUNDER THE DISPLEASURE OF CERTAIN GOOD MEN WHO MADE A FIGURE IN THATNEIGHBORHOOD. "

As it may never again happen to me to be writing about colleges, Idesire to say in this paper everything I have to say on the subject, and therefore take this opportunity to refer to the practice of"hazing, " although it is but remotely connected with Class-Day. If weshould find it among hinds, a remnant of the barbarisms of the DarkAges, blindly handed down by such slow-growing people as go to millwith their meal on side of the saddle and a stone on the other tobalance, as their fathers did, because it never occurred to them todivide the meal into two parcels and make it balance itself, we shouldbe surprised; but "hazing" occurs among boys who have been accustomedto the circulation of ideas, boys old enough and intelligent enoughunderstand the difference between brutality and frolic, old enough toknow what honor and rage mean, and therefore I cannot conceive how theyshould countenance a practice which entirely ignores and defies honor, and which not a single redeeming feature. It has neither wisdom norwit, no spirit, no genius, no impulsiveness, scarcely boyish mirth. Anarrow range of stale practical jokes, lighted up by no gleam oforiginality, seems to be transmitted from year to year with as muchfidelity as the Hebrew Bible, and not half the latitude allowed toclergymen of the English Established Church. But besides itsplatitude, its one over-powering and fatal characteristic is itsintense and essential cowardice. Cowardice is its head and front andbones and blood. One boy does not single out another boy of his ownweight, and take his chances in a fair stand-up fight. But a party ofSophomores club together in such numbers as to render oppositionuseless, and pounce upon their victim unawares, as Brooks and hisminions pounced upon Sumner, and as the Southern chivalry is given todoing. For sweet pity's sake, let this mode of warfare be monopolizedby the Southern chivalry. 

The lame excuse is offered, that it does the Freshmen good, --takes theconceit out of them. But if there is any Class in College so divestedof conceit as to be justified in throwing stones, it is surely not theSophomore Class. Moreover, whatever good it may do the sufferers, itdoes harm, and only harm, to the perpetrators; and neither the Law northe Gospel requires a man to improve other people's characters at theexpense of his own. Nobody can do a wrong without injuring himself;and no young man can do a mean, cowardly wrong like this withoutsuffering severest injury. It is the very spirit of the slaveholder, adastardly and detestable, a tyrannical and cruel spirit. If young menare so blinded by custom and habit that a meanness is not to them ameanness because it has been practised for years, so much the worse forthe young men, and so much the worse for our country, whose sweat ofblood attests the bale and blast which this evil spirit has wrought. Ifuprightness, if courage, if humanity and rectitude and the mindconscious to itself of right are anything more than a name, let theyoung men who mean to make time minister to life scorn this debasingand stupid practice. 

Why, as one resource against this, as well as for its own intrinsicimportance, should there not be a military department to every college, as well as a mathematical department? Why might not every college be amilitary normal school, so that the exuberance and riot of animalspirits, the young, adventurous strength and joy in being, might notonly be kept from striking out as now in illegitimate, unworthy, andhurtful directions, but might become the very basis and groundwork ofuseful purposes. Such exercise would be so promotive of health anddiscipline, it would so train and LIMBER the physical powers, that thesuperior quality of study would, I doubt not, more than atone forwhatever deficiency in quantity might result. And even suppose alittle less attention should be given to Euclid and Homer, which is ofthe greater importance now-a-days, an ear that can detect a falsequantity in a Greek verse, or an eye that can sight a Rebel ninehundred yards off, and a hand that can pull a trigger and shoot him?Knowledge is power; but knowledge must sharpen its edges and polish itspoints, if it would be greatliest available in days like these. Theknowledge that can plant batteries and plan campaigns, that is fertilein expedients and wise to baffle the foe, is just now the strongestpower. Diagrams and first-aorists are good, and they who have fed onsuch meat have grown great, and done the state service in theirgeneration; but these times demand new measures and new men. It isconceded that we shall probably be for many years a military nation. At least a generation of vigilance shall be the price of our liberty. And even of peace we can have no stronger assurance than a wise andwieldy readiness for war. But the education of our unwarlike days isnot adequate to the emergencies of this martial hour. We must beseasoned with something stronger than Attic salt, or we shall be castout and trodden under foot of men. True, all education is worthy. Everything that exercises the mind fits it for its work; butprofessional education is indispensable to professional men. And theprofession, par excellence, of every man of this generation is war. Country overrides all personal considerations. Lawyer, minister, whatnot, a man's first duty is the salvation of his country. When shecalls, he must go; and before she calls, let him, if possible, preparehimself to serve her in the best manner. As things are now at Harvard, college boys are scarcely better than cow-boys for the army. Theircostly education runs greatly to waste. It gives no them directadvantage over the clod who stumbles against a trisyllable. So far asit makes them better men, of course they are better soldiers; but forall of military education which their college gives them, they are fitonly for privates, whose sole duty is to obey. They know nothing ofmilitary drill or tactics or strategy. The State cannot afford thiswaste. She cannot afford to lose the fruits of mental toil anddiscipline. She needs trained mind even more than trained muscle. Itis harder to find brains than to find hands. The average mentalendowment may be no higher in college than out; but granting it to beas high, the culture which it receives gives it immense advantage. Thefruits of that culture, readiness, resources, comprehensiveness, shouldall be held in the service of the State. Military knowledge andpractice should be imparted and enforced to utilize ability, and makeit the instrument, not only of personal, but of national welfare. Thateducation which gives men the advantage over others in the race of lifeshould be so directed as to convey that advantage to country, when shestands in need. Every college might and should be made a nursery ofathletes in mind and body, clear-eyed, stout-hearted, strong-limbed, cool-brained, --a nursery of soldiers; quick, self-possessed, brave andcautions and wary, ready in invention, skilful to command men andevolve from a mob an army, --a nursery of gentlemen, reminiscent of nolawless revels, midnight orgies, brutal outrages, launching out alreadyattainted into an attainting world, but with many a memory ofadventure, wild, it may be, and not over-wise, yet pure as a breezefrom the hills, --banded and sworn

 "To serve as model for the mighty world, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man. "

SUCCESS IN LIFE

THE SUCCESSFUL

There are successes more melancholy than any failure. There arefailures more noble than success. The man who began life as aploughboy, who went from his father's farm to the great city with hiswardrobe tied up in his handkerchief, and one dollar in his pocket, andwho by application, economy, and forecast has amassed a fortune, is notnecessarily a successful man. If his object was to amass a fortune, heis so far successful; but it is a mean and miserable object, and hislife would be a contemptible, if it were not a terrible, failure. We donot keep this sufficiently in mind. American society, and perhaps allsociety, is too apt to do homage to material prosperity; but materialprosperity may be obtained by the sacrifice of moral grandeur; and soobtained, it is an apple of Sodom. A man may call out his wholeenergy, wield all his power, and wealth follow as one of the results. This is well. Wealth may even be an object, if it be a subordinateobject, --the servant of a higher power. Wealth may minister to thebest part of man, --but only minister, not master. Only as a ministerit deserves regard. When it usurps the throne and becomes monarch, itis of all things most pitiful and abject. The man who sets out with thedetermination to be rich as an end, sets out with a very ignobledetermination; and he who seeks or values wealth for the respect whichit secures and the position it gives, is not very much higher in thescale; yet such people are often held up to the admiration andimitation of American youth; and oftener still have those men been heldup for imitation who, whether by determination or drift, had becomerich, and whose sole claim to distinction was that they had becomerich. Again and again I have seen "success" which seemed to me to bethe brand of ignominy rather than the stamp of worth, --the epitaph ofculture, if not of character. I look on with a profound and regretfulpity. You successful, --YOU! with half your powers lying dormant, --you, with your imagination stifled, your conscience unfaithful, yourchivalry deadened into shrewdness, your religion a thing of tithes andforms;--you successful, in whom romance has died out; to whom fidelityand constancy and aspiration are nothing but a voice; who remember loveand heroism and self-sacrifice only as the vaporings of youth; whomeasure principles by your purse, utility by your using; who seenothing glorious this side of honesty; nothing terrible in thesurrender of faith; nothing degrading that is not amenable to the law;nothing in your birthright that may not be sold for a mess of pottage, if only the mess be large enough, and the pottage savory;--yousuccessful? Is this success? Then, indeed, humanity is a base andbitter failure. 

It is not necessary that a man should be a robber or a murderer, inorder to degrade himself. Without defrauding his neighbor of a cent, without laying himself open to a single accusation of illegality orviolence, a man may destroy himself. A moral suicide, he kills out allthat belongs to his highest nature, and leaves but a bare and batteredwreck where the temple of the holy Ghost should rise. 

 "Measure not the work Until the day's out, and the labor done; Then bring your gauges. "

Is that man successful who trades on his country's necessities? He, nota politician, nor a horse-jockey, nor a footpad, but a man who talks ofhonor and integrity, --a man of standing and influence, whose virtue isnot tempted by hunger, whose life has been such that he may be supposedintelligently to comprehend the interests which are at stake, and themeasures which should be taken to secure them, --is he successfulbecause he obtains in a few months, by the perquisites--not illegal, but strained to the extreme verge of legal--of an office, --not illegal, but accidental, not in the line of promotion, --a sum of money which thegreatest merit and the highest office in the land cannot claim foryears? He is shrewd. He understands his business. He knows the insand outs. He can manage the sharpers. He can turn an honest penny, and a good many of them. He need not refuse to do himself a good turnwith his left hand, while he is doing his country a good turn with hisright. It is all fair and aboveboard. He does the business assignedhim, and does it well. He takes no more compensation than the lawallows. The money may as well go to him as to shoddy contractors, Shylock sutlers, and the legion of plebeian rascals. But it was a goodstroke. It was a great chance. It was a rare success. 

O wretched failure! O pitiful abortion! O accursed hunger for gold!When the nation struggles in a death-agony, when her life-blood ispoured out from hundreds of noble hearts, when men and women andchildren are sending up to the Lord the incense of daily sacrifice inher behalf, and we know not yet whether prayer and effort, whetherfaith and works, shall avail, --whether our lost birthright, soughtcarefully, and with tears, shall be restored to us once more, --in thissolemn and awful hour, a man can close his eyes and ears to the fearfulsights and great signs in the heavens, and, stooping earthward, delvewith his muck-rake in the gutter for the paltry pennies! A man? A MAN!Is this manhood? Is this manliness? Is this the race that ourinstitutions engender? Is this the best production which we have aright to expect? Is this the result which Christianity andcivilization combine to offer? Is this the advantage which thenineteenth century claims over its predecessors? Is this the flower ofall the ages, --earth's last, best gift to heaven?

No, --no, --no, --this is a changeling, and no child. The true brother'sblood cries to us from Baltimore. It rings out from the East whereWinthrop fell. It swells up from the West with Lyon's dirge. And allalong, from hill and valley and river-depths, where the soil isdrenched, and the waters are reddened, and nameless graves arescattered, --cleaving clearly through the rattle of musketry, minglinggrandly with the "diapason of the cannonade, " or floating softly upunder the silent stars, "the thrilling, solemn, proud, pathetic voice"ceases not to cry unto us day and night; its echoes linger tenderly andtearfully around every hearth-stone, and vibrate with a royal resonancefrom mountain to sea-shore. The mother bends to it in her silentwatches. The soldier, tempest-tost, hears it through the creakingcordage, and every true heart knows its brother, and takes up themagnificent strain, --victorious, triumphant, exultant, --

 "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. " Sweet and honorable is it for country to die. 

THE UNSUCCESSFUL

The unsuccessful men are all around us; and among them are those whoconfound all distinctions set up by society, and illustrate the greatlaw of compensation set up by God, cutting society at right angles, andobtuse angles, and acute angles, unnoticed, or but flippantly mentionedby the careless, but giving food for intimate reflections to those forwhom things suggest thoughts. 

Have you not seen them, --these unsuccessful men?--men who seem not tohave found their niche, but are always on somebody's hands forsettlement, or, if settled, never at rest? If they are poor, theirneighbors say, Why does he not learn a trade? or, Why does he not stickto his trade? He might be well off, if he were not so flighty. He hasa good head-piece, but he potters rhymes; he tricks out toy-engines andknick-knacks; he roams about the woods gathering snakes and toads; andmeanwhile he is out at the elbows. If he is rich, they say, Why doeshe not make a career? He has great resources. His brain isinexhaustible. He is equipped for any emergency. There is nothingwhich he might not attain, if he would only apply himself, but hefritters himself away. He sticks to nothing. He touches on this, that, and the other, and falls off. 

True, O Philosophers, he does stick to nothing, but condemn him not tooharshly. It is the old difficulty of the square man in the round hole, and the round man in the square hole. They never did rest easy theresince time began, and never will. Many--perhaps the greater number--ofpeople have no overmastering inclination for any employment. They arefarmers because their fathers were before them, and that road wasgraded for them, --or shoemakers, or lawyers, or ministers, for the samereason. If circumstances had impelled them in a different direction, they would have gone in a different direction, and been content. It isnot easy for them to conceive that a man is an indifferent lawyer, because his raw material should have been worked up into a practicalengineer; or an unthrifty shoemaker, because he is a statesman nippedin the bud. Yet such things are. Sometimes these men are gay, giddy, rollicking fellows. Sometimes their faces are known at thegaming-houses and the gin-palaces. Sometimes they go down quickly to adishonored grave, over which Love stands bewildered, and weeps herunavailing tears. Sometimes, on the other hand, they are gloomy, sad, silent. Perhaps they are morose. Worse still, they are whining, fretful, complaining. You would even call them sour. Often they arecynical and disagreeable. But be not too hasty, too sweeping, tooclear-cut. I have seen such men who were the reverse of the Pharisees. Their faces were a tombstone. The portals of their soul were guardedby lions scarcely chained. But though their temple had no BeautifulGate, it was none the less a temple, consecrated to the Most High. Within it, day and night, the sacred fire burned, the sacred Presencerested. There, honor, justice, devotion, and all heroic virtues dwelt. Thence falsehood, impurity, profanity, whatsoever loveth and maketh alie, --were excluded. They are unsuccessful, because they will notlower the standard which their youth unfurled. Its folds float highabove them, out of reach, but not out of sight, nor out of desire. Withconstant feet they are climbing up to grasp it. You do not see it; no, and you never will. You need not strain your aching eyes; but they seeit, and comfort their weary hearts withal. 

These men may receive sympathy, but they do not need pity. They are athousand times more blessed than the vulgarly successful. The shell iswrinkled, and gray, and ugly; but within, the meat is sweet andsucculent. Perhaps they will never make a figure in the world, but

 "True happiness abides with him alone Who in the silent hour of inward thought Can still suspect and still revere himself In lowliness of mind. "

And it is even better never to be happy than to be sordidly happy. Itis better to be nobly dissatisfied than meanly content. A splendidsadness is better than a vile enjoyment. 

I hear of people that never failed in anything they undertook. I do notbelieve in them. In the first place, however, I do not believe thistestimony is true. It is the honest false-witness, it is thebenevolent slander of their affectionate and admiring friends. But ifit were in any case true, I should not believe in the man of whom itwas affirmed. It is difficult to conceive that a person of elevatedcharacter should not attempt many things too high for him. He findshimself set down in the midst of life. Earth, air, and water, his ownmind and heart, the whole mental, moral, and physical world, teem withmysteries. He is surrounded with problems incapable of mortalsolution. He must grasp many of them and he foiled. He must attackmany foes and be repulsed. He may be stupidly blind, or selfish, orcowardly, and make no endeavor, --in which case he will of course endureno defeat. If he sets out with small aims, he may accomplish them; butit is not a thing to boast of. It is better to fall below a highstandard than to come up to a low one, --to try great things and fail, than to try only small ones and succeed. For he who attempts grandlywill achieve much, while he whose very desires are small will make butsmall acquisitions. Of course, I am not speaking now of definite, measurable matters of fact, in which the reverse is the case. Ofcourse, it is better to build a small house and pay for it, than tobuild a palace and involve yourself in debt. It is wiser to setyourself a reasonable task and perform it, than a prodigious one and donothing. I am endeavoring to present only one side of a truth which ismany-sided, --and that side is, that great deeds are done by those whoaspire greatly. You may not attain perfection, but if you strive to beperfect, you will be better than if you were content to be as good asyour neighbors. You are not, perhaps, the world's coming man; but ifyou aim at the completest possible self-development, you will be a fargreater man than if your only aim is to keep out of the poor-house. "Ihave taken all knowledge to be my province, " said Lord Bacon. He didnot conquer; he could not even overrun his whole province; but he madevast inroads, --vaster by far than if he had designed only to occupy agarden-plot in the Delectable Land. True greatness is a growth, andnot an accident. The bud, brought into light and warmth, may burstsuddenly into flower; but the seed must have been planted, and thekindly soil must have wrapped it about, and shade and shine and showermust have wrought down into the darkness, and nursed and nurtured thetiny germ. The touch of circumstance may reveal, may even quicken, butcannot create, nobility. 

This I reckon to be success in life, --fitness, --perfect adaptation. Ihold him successful, and him only, who has found or conquered aposition in which he can bring himself into full play. Success isperfect or partial, according as it comes up to, or falls below, thisstandard. But entire success is rare in this world. Success inbusiness, success in ambition, is not success in life, though it may becomprehended in it. Very few are the symmetrical lives. Very few ofus are working at the top of our bent. One may give scope to hismechanical invention, but his poetry is cramped. One has his intellectat high pressure, but the fires are out under his heart. One is thebond-servant of love, and Pegasus becomes a dray-horse, Apollo mustkeep the pot boiling, and Minerva is hurried with the fall sewing. Sowe go, and above us the sun shines, and the stars throb; and beneath usthe snows, and the flowers, and the blind, instinctive earth; and overall, and in all, God blessed forever. 

Now, then, success being the best thing, we do well to strive for it;but success being difficult to attain, if not unattainable, it remainsfor us to wring from our failures all the sap and sustenance and succorthat are in them, if so be we may grow thereby to a finer and fullerrichness, and hear one day the rapturous voice bid us come up higher. 

And be it remembered, what a man is, not what a man does, is themeasure of success. The deed is but the outflow of the soul. By theirfruits ye shall know THEM. The outward act has its inwardsignificance, though we may not always interpret it aright, and itsmoral aspect depends upon the agent. "In vain, " says Sir ThomasBrowne, "we admire the lustre of anything seen; that which is trulyglorious is invisible. " Character, not condition, is the trust of life. A man's own self is God's most valuable deposit with him. This is notegotism, but the broadest benevolence. A man can do no good to theworld beyond himself. A stream can rise no higher than its fountain. A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. If a man's soul isstunted and gnarled and dwarfed, his actions will be. If his soul iscorrupt and base and petty, so will his actions be. Faith is the basisof works. Essence underlies influence. If a man beget an hundredchildren, and live many years, and his soul be not filled with good, Isay that an untimely birth is better than he. 

When I see, as I sometimes do see, those whom the world callsunsuccessful, furnished with every virtue and adorned with every grace, made considerate through suffering, sympathetic by isolation, spiritedly patient, meek, yet defiant, calm and contemptuous, tendereven of the sorrows and tolerant of the joys which they despise, enduring the sympathy and accepting the companionship of weaknessbecause it is kindly offered, though it be a burden to be dropped justinside the door, and not a treasure to be taken into the heart'schamber, I am ready to say, Blessed are the unsuccessful. 

Blessed ARE the unsuccessful, the men who have nobly striven and noblyfailed. He alone is in an evil case who has set his heart on false orselfish or trivial ends. Whether he secure them or not, he is alikeunsuccessful. But he who "loves high" is king in his own right, thoughhe "live low. " His plans may be abortive, but himself is sure. Godmay overrule his desires, and thwart his hopes, and baffle hispurposes, but all things shall work together for his good. Though hefall, he shall rise again. Every defeat shall be a victory. Everycalamity shall drop down blessing. Inward disappointment shallminister to enduring joy. From the grapes of sorrow he shall press thewine of life. 

Theodore Winthrop died in the bud of his promise. As I write thatname, hallowed from our olden time, and now baptized anew for thegenerations that are to follow, comes back again warm, bright, midsummer morning, freighted with woe, --that dark, sad summer morningthat wrenched him away from sweet life, and left silence for song, ashes for beauty, --only cold, impassive clay, where glowing, vigorousvitality had throbbed and surged. 

Scarcely had his fame risen to illumine that early grave, but, one byone, from his silent desk came those brilliant books, speaking to allwho had ears to hear words of grand resolve and faith, --words of higherimport than their sound, --key-words to a lofty life; for all thebravery and purity and trust and truth and tenderness that gleam ingolden setting throughout his books must have been matched with braveryand purity and trust and truth and tenderness in the soul from whichthey sprang. Looking at what might have been accomplished withendowments so rare, culture so careful, and patience so untiring, ourlament for the dead is not untinged with bitterness. A mind so wellpoised, so self-confident, so eager in its honorable desire forhonorable fame, that, without the stimulus of publication, it couldproduce work after work, compact and finished, studded with gems of witand wisdom, white and radiant with inward purity, --could polish awayroughness, and toil on alone, pursuing ideal perfection, and attaininga rare excellence, --surely, here was promise of great things for thefuture; but it seemed otherwise to God. A poor little drummer-boy, notknowing what he did, sped a bullet straightway to as brave a heart asever beat, and quenched a royal life. 

I have spoken of Winthrop, but a thousand hearts will supply each itsown name wreathed with cypress and laurel. Were these lives failures?Is not the grandeur of the sacrifice its offset? The choice of life ordeath is in no man's hands. The choice is only and occasionally in themanner. All must die. To a few, and only a few, is granted theopportunity of dying martyrs. They rush on to meet the King ofTerrors. They wrest the crown from his awful brow, and set it on theirown triumphant. They die, not from inevitable age or irresistibledisease, but in the full flush of manhood, in the very prime and zenithof life, in that glorious transition-hour when hope is culminating infruition. They die of set purpose, with unflinching will, for God andthe right. O thrice and four times happy these who bulwark libertywith their own breasts! No common urn enshrines their sacred dust. Novulgar marble emblazons their hero-deeds. Every place which their lifehas touched becomes at once and forever holy ground. A nation'sgratitude embalms their memory. In the generations which are to come, when we are lying in undistinguished earth, mothers shall lead theirlittle children by the hand, and say: "Here he was born. This is theblue sky that bent over his baby head. Here he fell, fighting for hiscountry. Here his ashes lie";--and the path thither shall be wellworn, and for many and many a year there shall be hushed voices, andtrembling lips, and tear-dimmed eyes. Everywhere there shall bedeath, --yours and mine, --but only here and there immortality, --and itis his. 

So the young soldier's passing away is not untimely. The longest lifecan accomplish only benefaction and fame, and the life that hasaccomplished these has reached life's ultimatum. It is a fair anddecorous fate to devote length of days to humanity, but he who gathersup his life with all its beauty and happiness and hope, and lays it onthe altar of sacrifice, --he has done all. A century of earthlyexistence only scatters its benefits one by one. The martyr binds hisin a single bundle of life, and the offering is complete. To all nobleminds fame is sweet and desirable, and threescore years and ten are alltoo few to carve the monument more durable than brass; but when suchmen as Winthrop die such death as his, we seize the tools that fallfrom their dying grasp, and complete the fragmentary structure, inshape more graceful, it may be, in height more majestic, in colors morelovely, than their own hands could have wrought. We attribute to them, not simply what they did, but all that they might have done. HadWinthrop lived, failing health, adverse circumstance, might haveblasted his promise in the bud; but now nothing of that can ever marhis fame. We surround him with his aspirations. We glorify him withhis possibilities. He is not only the knight without fear and withoutreproach, but the author immortal as the brightest auspices could havemade his strong and growing powers. A century could not have left himgreater than the love and hope and sorrow of his countrymen, buildingon the little that is known of his short and beautiful life, have madehim. 

O men and women everywhere who are following on to know the Lord, faintyet pursuing; men women who are troubled, toiling, doubting, hoping, watching, struggling; whose attainments "through the long green days, worn bare of grass and sunshine, " lag hopelessly behind youraspirations; who are haunted evermore by the ghosts of your youngpurposes; who see far off the shining hills your feet are fain totread; who work your work with dumb, assiduous energy, but withperpetual protest, --I bid you good luck in the name of the Lord. 

HAPPIEST DAYS

Long ago, when you were a little boy or a little girl, --perhaps not sovery long ago, either, --were you never interrupted in your play bybeing called in to have your face washed, your hair combed, and yoursoiled apron exchanged for a clean one, preparatory to an introductionto Mrs. Smith, or Dr. Jones, or Aunt Judkins, your mother's earlyfriend? And after being ushered into that august presence, and made toface a battery of questions which where either above or below yourcapacity, and which you consequently despised as trash or resented asinsult, did you not, as were gleefully vanishing, hear a soft sighbreathed out upon the air, --"Dear child, he is seeing his happiestdays"? In the concrete, it was Mrs. Smith or Dr. Jones speaking ofyou. But going back to general principles, it was Commonplacedomexpressing its opinion of childhood. 

There never was a greater piece of absurdity in the world. I thoughtso when I was a child, and now I know it; and I desire here to brand itas at once a platitude and a falsehood. How the idea gained currency, that childhood is the happiest period of life, I cannot conceive. How, once started, it kept afloat, is equally incomprehensible. I shouldhave supposed that the experience of every sane person would have giventhe lie to it. I should have supposed that every soul, as it burst intoflower, would have hurled off the imputation. I can only account forit by recurring to Lady Mary Wortley Montague's statistics, andconcluding that the fools ARE three out of four in every person'sacquaintance. 

I for one lift up my voice emphatically against the assertion, and doaffirm that I think childhood is the most undesirable portion of humanlife, and I am thankful to be well out of it. I look upon it as nobetter than a mitigated form of slavery. There is not a child in theland that can call his soul, or his body, or his jacket his own. Alittle soft lump of clay he comes into the world, and is moulded into avessel of honor or a vessel of dishonor long before he can put in aword about the matter. He has no voice as to his education or histraining, what he shall eat, what he shall drink, or wherewithal heshall be clothed. He has to wait upon the wisdom, the whims, and oftenthe wickedness of other people. Imagine, my six-foot friend, how youwould feel, to be obliged to wear your woollen mittens when you desireto bloom out in straw-colored kids, or to be buttoned into your blackwaistcoat when your taste leads you to select your white, or to beforced under your Kossuth hat when you had set your heart on your blackbeaver: yet this is what children are perpetually called on toundergo. Their wills are just as strong as ours, and their tastes arestronger, yet they have to bend the one and sacrifice the other; andthey do it under pressure of necessity. Their reason is not convinced;they are forced to yield to superior power; and, of all disagreeablethings in the world, the most disagreeable is not to have your own way. When you are grown up, you wear a print frock because you cannot afforda silk, or because a silk would be out of place, --you wear India-rubberovershoes because your polished patent-leather would be ruined by themud; and your self-denial is amply compensated by the reflection ofsuperior fitness or economy. But a child has no such reflection toconsole him. He puts on his battered, gray old shoes because you makehim; he hangs up his new trousers and goes back into his detestablegirl's-frock because he will be punished if he does not, and it isintolerable. 

It is of no use to say that this is their discipline, and is allnecessary to their welfare. It is a repulsive condition of life inwhich such degrading SURVEILLANCE is necessary. You may affirm that anabsolute despotism is the only government fit for Dahomey, and I maynot disallow it; but when you go on and say that Dahomey is thehappiest country in the world, why--I refer you to Dogberry. Now theparents of a child are, from the nature of the case, absolute despots. They may be wise, and gentle, and doting despots, and the chain may besatin-smooth and golden-strong; but if it be of rusty iron, partingevery now and then and letting the poor prisoner violently loose, andagain suddenly caught hold of, bringing him up with a jerk, galling histender limbs and irretrievably ruining his temper, --it is all the same;there is no help for it. And really to look around the world and seethe people that are its fathers and mothers is appalling, --thenarrow-minded, prejudiced, ignorant, ill-tempered, fretful, peevish, passionate, careworn, harassed men and women. Even we grown people, independent of them and capable of self-defence, have as much as we cando to keep the peace. Where is there a city, or a town, or a village, in which are no bickerings, no jealousies, no angers, no petty orswollen spites? Then fancy yourself, instead of the neighbor andoccasional visitor of these poor human beings, their children, subjectto their absolute control, with no power of protest against theirfolly, no refuge from their injustice, but living on through thick andthin right under their guns. 

"Oh!" but you say, "this is a very one-sided view. You leave outentirely the natural tenderness that comes in to temper the matter. Without that, a child's situation would of course be intolerable; butthe love that is born with him makes all things smooth. "

No, it does not make all things smooth. It does wonders, to be sure, but it does not make cross people pleasant, nor violent people calm, nor fretful people easy, nor obstinate people reasonable, nor foolishpeople wise, --that is, it may do so spasmodically, but it does not holdthem to it and keep them at it. A great deal of beautiful moonshine iswritten about the sanctities of home and the sacraments of marriage andbirth. I do not mean to say that there is no sanctity and nosacrament. Moonshine is not nothing. It is light, --real, honestlight, --just as truly as the sunshine. It is sunshine at second-hand. It illuminates, but indistinctly. It beautifies, but it does notvivify or fructify. It comes indeed from the sun, but in tooroundabout a way to do the sun's work. So, if a woman is pretty nearlysanctified before she is married, wifehood and motherhood mayaccomplish the work; but there is not one man in ten thousand of thewriters aforesaid who would marry a vixen, trusting to the sanctifyinginfluences of marriage to tone her down to sweetness. A thoughtful, gentle, pure, and elevated woman, who has been accustomed to stand faceto face with the eternities, will see in her child a soul. If thecircumstances of her life leave her leisure and adequate repose, thatsoul will be to her a solemn trust, a sacred charge, for which she willgive her own soul's life in pledge. But how many such women do yousuppose there are in your village? Heaven forbid that I should evenappear to be depreciating woman! Do I not know too well theirstrength, and their virtue which is their strength? But, stepping outof idyls and novels, and stepping into American kitchens, is it nottrue that the larger part of the mothers see in their babies, or act asif they saw, only babies? And if there are three or four or half adozen of them, as there generally are, so much the more do they seebabies whose bodies monopolize the mother's time to the disadvantage oftheir souls. She loves them, and she works for them day and night; butwhen they are ranting and ramping and quarrelling, and torturing herover-tense nerves, she forgets the infinite, and applies herselfenergetically to the finite, by sending Harry with a round scoldinginto one corner, and Susy into another, with no light thrown upon thepoint in dispute, no principle settled as a guide in futuredifficulties, and little discrimination as to the relative guilt of theoffenders. But there is no court of appeal before which Harry and Susycan lay their case in these charming "happiest days"!

Then there are parents who love their children like wild beasts. It isa passionate, blind, instinctive, unreasoning love. They have no moreintelligent discernment, when an outside difficulty arises with respectto their children, than a she-bear. They wax furious over the mostrichly deserved punishment, if inflicted by a teacher's hand; they takethe part of their child against legal authority; but observe, this doesnot prevent them from laying their own hands heavily on their children. The same obstinate ignorance and narrowness that are exhibited withoutexist within also. Folly is folly, abroad or at home. A man does notplay the fool outdoors and act the sage in the house. When the poorchild becomes obnoxious, the same unreasoning rage falls upon him. Theobject of a ferocious love is the object of an equally ferocious anger. It is only he who loves wisely that loves well. 

The manner in which children's tastes are disregarded, their feelingsignored, and their instincts violated, is enough to disaffect one withchildhood. They are expected to kiss all flesh that asks them to doso. They are jerked up into the laps of people whom they abhor. Theysay, "Yes, ma'am, " under pain of bread and water for a week, when theirunerring nature prompts them to hurl out emphatically, "No. " They aresent out of the room whenever a fascinating bit of scandal is to berehearsed, packed off to bed just as everybody is settled down for acharming evening, bothered about their lessons when their play is butfairly under way, and hedged and hampered on every side. It is true, that all this may be for their good, but what of that? So everythingis for the good of grown-up people; but does that make us contented?It is doubtless for our good in the long run that we lose ourpocket-books, and break our arms, and catch a fever, and have ourbrothers defraud a bank, and our houses burn down, and people steal ourumbrellas, and borrow our books and never return them. In fact, weknow that upon certain conditions all things work together for ourgood, but, notwithstanding, we find some things very unpleasant; and wemay talk to our children of discipline and health by the hour together, and it will never be anything but an intolerable nuisance to them to beswooped off to bed by a dingy old nurse just as the people arebeginning to come, and shining silk, and floating lace, and odorous, fragrant flowers are taking their ecstatic young souls back into thegolden days of the good Haroun al Raschid. 

Even in this very point lies one of the miseries of childhood, that nophilosophy comes to temper their sorrow. We do not know why we aretroubled, but we know there is some good, grand reason for it. Thepoor little children do not know even that. They find trouble utterlyinconsequent and unreasonable. The problem of evil is to themabsolutely incapable of solution. We know that beyond our horizonstretches the infinite universe. We grasp only one link of a chainwhose beginning and end is eternity. So we readily adjust ourselves tomystery, and are content. We apply to everything inexplicable the testof partial view, and maintain our tranquillity. We fall into theranks, and march on, acquiescent, if not jubilant. We hear the roar ofcannon and the rattle of musketry. Stalwart forms fall by our side, and brawny arms are stricken. Our own hopes bite the dust, our ownhopes bury their dead; but we know that law is inexorable. Effect mustfollow cause, and there is no happening without causation. So, knowingourselves to be only one small brigade of the army of the Lord, wedefile through the passes of this narrow world, bearing aloft on ourbanner, and writing ever on our hearts, the divine consolation, "Whatthou knowest not now thou shalt know hereafter. " This is anunspeakable tranquillizer and comforter, of which, woe is me! thelittle ones know nothing. They have no underlying generalities on whichto stand. Law and logic and eternity are nothing to them. They onlyknow that it rains, and they will have to wait another week before theygo a-fishing; and why couldn't it have rained Friday just as well asSaturday? and it always does rain or something when I want to goanywhere, --so, there! And the frantic flood of tears comes up fromoutraged justice as well as from disappointed hope. It is theflimsiest of all possible arguments to say that their sorrows aretrifling, to talk about their little cares and trials. These littlethings are great to little men and women. A pine bucket full is justas full as a hogshead. The ant has to tug just as hard to carry agrain of corn as the Irishman does to carry a hod of bricks. You cansee the bran running out of Fanny's doll's arm, or the cat putting herfoot through Tom's new kite, without losing your equanimity; but theirhearts feel the pang of hopeless sorrow, or foiled ambition, or bitterdisappointment, --and the emotion is the thing in question, not theevent that caused it. 

It is all additional disadvantage to children in their troubles, thatthey can never estimate the relations of things. They have noperspective. All things are at equal distances from the point ofsight. Life presents to them neither foreground nor background, principal figure nor subordinates, but only a plain spread of canvas, on which one thing stands out just as big and just as black as another. You classify your desagrements. This is a mere temporary annoyance, and receives but a passing thought. This is a life-long sorrow, but itis superficial; it will drop off from you at the grave, be folded awaywith your cerements, and leave no scar on your spirit. This thrustsits lancet into the secret place where your soul abideth, but you knowthat it tortures only to heal; it is recuperative, not destructive, andyou will rise from it to newness of life. But when little ones see aripple in the current of their joy, they do not know, they cannot tell, that it is only a pebble breaking softly in upon the summer flow, totoss a cool spray up into the white bosom of the lilies, or to bathethe bending violets upon the green and grateful bank. It seems to themas if the whole strong tide is thrust fiercely and violently back, andhurled into a new channel, chasmed in the rough, rent granite. It isimpossible to calculate the waste of grief and pathos which thisincapacity causes. Fanny's doll aforesaid is left too near the fire, and waxy tears roll down her ruddy cheeks, to the utter ruin of herpretty face and her gay frock; and anon poor Fanny breaks her littleheart in moans and sobs and sore lamentations. It is Rachel weepingfor her children. I went on a tramp one May morning to buy atissue-paper wreath of flowers for a little girl to wear to aMay-party, where all the other little girls were expected to appearsimilarly crowned. After a long and weary search, I was forced toreturn without it. Scarcely had I pulled the bell, when I heard thequick pattering of little feet in the entry. Never in all my lifeshall I lose the memory of those wistful eyes, that did not so much aslook up to my face, but levelled themselves to my hand, and filmed withdisappointment to find it empty. _I_ could see that the wreath was avery insignificant matter. I knew that every little beggar in thestreet had garlanded herself with sixpenny roses, and I should havepreferred that my darling should be content with her own silky brownhair; but my taste availed her nothing, and the iron entered into hersoul. Once a little boy, who could just stretch himself up as high ashis papa's knee, climbed surreptitiously into the store-closet andupset the milk-pitcher. Terrified, he crept behind the flour-barrel, and there Nemesis found him, and he looked so charming and so guiltythat two or three others were called to come and enjoy the sight. Buthe, unhappy midget, did not know that he looked charming; he did notknow that his guilty consciousness only made him the more interesting;he did not know that he seemed an epitome of humanity, a Liliputianminiature of the great world; and his large, blue, solemn eyes werefilled with remorse. As he stood there silent, with his grave, utterlymournful face, he had robbed a bank, he had forged a note, he hadcommitted a murder, he was guilty of treason. All the horror ofconscience, all the shame of discovery, all the unavailing regret of adetected, atrocious, but not utterly hardened pirate, tore his poorlittle innocent heart. Yet children are seeing their happiest days!

These people--the aforesaid three fourths of our acquaintance--laygreat stress on the fact that children are free from care, as iffreedom from care were one of the beatitudes of Paradise; but I shouldlike to know if freedom from care is any blessing to beings who don'tknow what care is. You who are careful and troubled about many thingsmay dwell on it with great satisfaction, but children don't find itdelightful by any means. On the contrary, they are never so happy aswhen they can get a little care, or cheat themselves into the beliefthat they have it. You can make them proud for a day by sending themon some responsible errand. If you will not place care upon them, theywill make it for themselves. You shall see a whole family of dollsstricken down simultaneously with malignant measles, or a restive horseevoked from a passive parlor-chair. They are a great deal more eagerto assume care, than you are to throw it off. To be sure, they may bequite as eager to be rid of it after a while; but while this does notprove that care is delightful, it certainly does prove that freedomfrom care is not. 

Now I should like, Herr Narr, to have you look at the other side for amoment: for there is a positive and a negative pole. Children notonly have their full share of misery, but they do not have their fullshare of happiness; at least, they miss many sources of happiness towhich we have access. They have no consciousness. They havesensations, but no perceptions. We look longingly upon them, becausethey are so graceful, and simple, and natural, and frank, and artless;but though this may make us happy, it does not make them happy, becausethey don't know anything about it. It never occurs to them that theyare graceful. No child is ever artless to himself. The onlydifference he sees between you and himself is, that you are grown-upand he is little. Sometimes I think he does have a dim perception thatwhen he is ill, it is because he has eaten too much, and he must takemedicine, and feed on heartless dry toast, while, when you are ill, youhave the dyspepsia, and go to Europe. But the beauty and sweetness ofchildren are entirely wasted on themselves, and their frankness is asource of infinite annoyance to each other. A man enjoys HIMSELF. Ifhe is handsome, or wise, or witty, he generally knows it, and takesgreat satisfaction in it; but a child does not. He loses half hishappiness because he does not know that he is happy. If he ever hasany consciousness, it is an isolated, momentary thing, with no relationto anything antecedent or subsequent. It lays hold on nothing. Notonly have they no perception of themselves, but they have no perceptionof anything. They never recognize an exigency. They do not salutegreatness. Has not the Autocrat told us of some lady who remembered acertain momentous event in our Revolutionary War, and remembered itonly by and because of the regret she experienced at leaving her dollbehind when her family was forced to fly from home? What humiliationis this! What an utter failure to appreciate the issues of life! Forher there was no revolution, no upheaval of world-old theories, nostruggle for freedom, no great combat of the heroisms. All the passionand pain, the mortal throes of error, the glory of sacrifice, thevictory of an idea, the triumph of right, the dawn of a new era, --all, all were hidden from her behind a lump of wax. And what was true ofher is true of all her class. Having eyes, they see not; with theirears they do not hear. The din of arms, the waving of banners, thegleam of swords, fearful sights and great signs in the heavens, or thestill, small voice that thrills when wind and fire and earthquake haveswept by, may proclaim the coming of the Lord, and they stumble along, munching bread-and-butter. Out in the solitudes Nature speaks with hermany-toned voices, and they are deaf. They have a blind sensationalenjoyment, such as a squirrel or a chicken may have, but they can in nowise interpret the Mighty Mother, nor even hear her words. The oceanmoans his secret to unheeding ears. The agony of the underworld findsno speech in the mountain-peaks, bare and grand. The old oaks stretchout their arms in vain. Grove whispers to grove, and the robin stopsto listen, but the child plays on. He bruises the happy butter-cups, he crushes the quivering anemone, and his cruel fingers are stainedwith the harebell's purple blood. Rippling waterfall and rollingriver, the majesty of sombre woods, the wild waste of wilderness, thefairy spirits of sunshine, the sparkling wine of June, and the goldenlanguor of October, the child passes by, and a dipper of blackberries, or a pocketful of chestnuts, fills and satisfies his horrible littlesoul. And in face of all this people say, --there are people who DARE tosay, --that childhood's are the "happiest days. "

I may have been peculiarly unfortunate in my surroundings, but thechildren of poetry and novels were very infrequent in my day. Theinnocent cherubs never studied in my school-house, nor playedpuss-in-the-corner in our backyard. Childhood, when I was young, hadrosy checks and bright eyes, as I remember, but it was also extremelygiven to quarrelling. It used frequently to "get mad. " It madenothing of twitching away books and balls. It often pouted. Sometimesit would bite. If it wore a fine frock, it would strut. It toldlies, --"whoppers" at that. It took the larger half of the apple. Itwas not, as a general thing, magnanimous, but "aggravating. " It mayhave been fun to you who looked on, but it was death to us who were inthe midst. 

This whole way of viewing childhood, this regretful retrospect of itsvanished joys, this infatuated apotheosis of doughiness and rankunfinish, this fearful looking-for of dread old age, is low, gross, material, utterly unworthy of a sublime manhood, utterly false toChristian truth. Childhood is pre-eminently the animal stage ofexistence. The baby is a beast--a very soft, tender, caressivebeast, --a beast full of promise, --a beast with the germ of anangel, --but a beast still. A week-old baby gives no more sign ofintelligence, of love, or ambition, or hope, or fear, or passion, orpurpose, than a week-old monkey, and is not half so frisky and funny. In fact, it is a puling, scowling, wretched, dismal, desperate-lookinganimal. It is only as it grows old that the beast gives way and theangel-wings bud, and all along through infancy and childhood the beastgives way and gives way and the angel-wings bud and bud; and yet weentertain our angel so unawares, that we look back regretfully to thetime when the angel was in abeyance and the beast raved regnant. 

The only advantage which childhood has over manhood is the absence offoreboding, and this indeed is much. A large part of our suffering isanticipatory, much of which children are spared. The present happinessis clouded for them by no shadowy possibility; but for this smallindemnity shall we offset the glory of our manly years? Because theirnarrowness cannot take in the contingencies that threaten peace, arethey blessed above all others? Does not the same narrowness cut themoff from the bright certainty that underlies all doubts and fears? Ifignorance is bliss, man stands at the summit of mortal misery, and thescale of happiness is a descending one. We must go down into theocean-depths, where, for the scintillant soul, a dim, twilight instinctlights up gelatinous lives. If childhood is indeed the happiestperiod, then the mysterious God-breathed breath was no boon, and theDeity is cruel. Immortality were well exchanged for the blank ofannihilation. 

We hear of the dissipated illusions of youth, the paling of bright, young dreams. Life, it is said, turns out to be different from whatwas pictured. The rosy-hued morning fades away into the gray and lividevening, the black and ghastly night. In especial cases it may be so, but I do not believe it is the general experience. It surely need notbe. It should not be. I have found things a great deal better than Iexpected. I am but one; but with all my oneness, with all that thereis of me, I protest against such generalities. I think they areslanderous of Him who ordained life, its processes and itsvicissitudes. He never made our dreams to outstrip our realizations. Every conception, brain-born, has its execution, hand-wrought. Life isnot a paltry tin cup which the child drains dry, leaving the man to goweary and hopeless, quaffing at it in vain with black, parched lips. It is a fountain ever springing. It is a great deep, which the wisesthas never bounded, the grandest never fathomed. 

It is not only idle, but stupid, to lament the departure of childhood'sjoys. It is as if something precious and valued had been forcibly tornfrom us, and we go sorrowing for lost treasure. But these things falloff from us naturally; we do not give them up. We are never calledupon to give them up. 

There is no pang, no sorrow, no wrenching away of a part ofour lives. The baby lies in his cradle and plays with his fingers andtoes. There comes an hour when his fingers and toes no longer affordhim amusement. He has attained to the dignity of a rattle, a whip, aball. Has he suffered a loss? Has he not rather made a great gain?When he passed from his toes to his toys, did he do it mournfully?Does he look at his little feet and hands with a sigh for the joys thatonce loitered there but are now forever gone? Does he not rather feela little ashamed, when you remind him of those days? Does he not feelthat it trenches somewhat on his dignity? Yet the regret of maturityfor its past joys amounts to nothing less than this. Such regret isregret that we cannot lie in the sunshine and play with our toes, --thatwe are no longer but one remove, or but few removes, from the idiot. Away with such folly! Every season of life has its distinctive andappropriate enjoyments, which bud and blossom and ripen and fall off asthe season glides on to its close, to be succeeded by others better andbrighter. There is no consciousness of loss, for there is no loss. There is only a growing up, and out of; and beyond. 

Life does turn out differently from what was anticipated. It is aninfinitely higher and holier and happier thing than our childhoodfancied. The world that lay before us then was but a tinsel toy to theworld which our firm feet tread. We have entered into the undiscoveredland. We have explored its ways of pleasantness, its depths of dole, its mountains of difficulty, its valleys of delight, and, behold! it isvery good. Storms have swept fiercely, but they swept to purify. Wehave heard in its thunders the Voice that woke once the echoes of theGarden. Its lightnings have riven a path for the Angel of Peace. 

Manhood discovers what childhood can never divine, --that the sorrows oflife are superficial, and the happiness of life structural; and thisknowledge alone is enough to give a peace which passeth understanding. 

Yes, the dreams of youth were dreams, but the waking was more gloriousthan they. They were only dreams, --fitful, flitting, fragmentaryvisions of the coming day. The shallow joys, the capricious pleasures, the wavering sunshine of infancy, have deepened into virtues, graces, heroisms. We have the bold outlook of calm, self-confident courage, the strong fortitude of endurance, the imperial magnificence ofself-denial. Our hearts expand with benevolence, our lives broadenwith beneficence. We cease our perpetual skirmishing at the outposts, and go upward to the citadel. Down into the secret places of life wedescend. Down among the beautiful ones, in the cool and quiet shadows, on the sunny summer levels, we walk securely, and the hidden fountainsare unsealed. 

For those people who do nothing, for those to whom Christianity bringsno revelation, for those who see no eternity in time, no infinity inlife, for those to whom opportunity is but the hand maid ofselfishness, to whom smallness is informed by no greatness, for whomthe lowly is never lifted up by indwelling love to the heights ofdivine performance, --for them, indeed, each hurrying year may well be aKing of Terrors. To pass out from the flooding light of the morning, to feel all the dewiness drunk up by the thirsty, insatiate sun, to seethe shadows slowly and swiftly gathering, and no starlight to break thegloom, and no home beyond the gloom for the unhoused, startled, shivering soul, --ah! this indeed is terrible. The "confusions of awasted youth" strew thick confusions of a dreary age. Where youthgarners up only such power as beauty or strength may bestow, whereyouth is but the revel of physical or frivolous delight, where youthaspires only with paltry and ignoble ambitions, where youth presses thewine of life into the cup of variety, there indeed Age comes, a thriceunwelcome guest. Put him off. Thrust him back. Weep for the earlydays: you have found no happiness to replace their joys. Mourn for thetrifles that were innocent, since the trifles of your manhood are heavywith guilt. Fight to the last. Retreat inch by inch. With every stepyou lose. Every day robs you of treasure. Every hour passes you overto insignificance; and at the end stands Death. The bare and desolatedecline drops suddenly into the hopeless, dreadful grave, the black andyawning grave, the foul and loathsome grave. 

But why those who are Christians and not Pagans, who believe that deathis not an eternal sleep, who wrest from life its uses and gather fromlife its beauty, --why they should dally along the road, and clingfrantically to the old landmarks, and shrink fearfully from theapproaching future, I cannot tell. You are getting into years. True. But you are getting out again. The bowed frame, the tottering step, the unsteady hand, the failing eye, the heavy ear, the tremulous voice, they will all be yours. The grasshopper will become a burden, anddesire shall fail. The fire shall be smothered in your heart, and forpassion you shall have only peace. This is not pleasant. It is neverpleasant to feel the inevitable passing away of priceless possessions. If this were to be the culmination of your fate, you might indeed takeup the wail for your lost youth. But this is only for a moment. Theinfirmities of age come gradually. Gently we are led down into thevalley. Slowly, and not without a soft loveliness, the shadowslengthen. At the worst these weaknesses are but the stepping-stones inthe river, passing over which you shall come to immortal vigor, immortal fire, immortal beauty. All along the western sky flames andglows the auroral light of another life. The banner of victory wavesright over your dungeon of defeat. By the golden gateway of thesunsetting, "Through the dear might of Him who walked the waves, "

you shall pass into the "cloud-land, gorgeous land, " whose splendor isunveiled only to the eyes of the Immortals. Would you loiter to yourinheritance?

You are "getting into years. " Yes, but the years are getting intoyou, --the ripe, rich years, the genial, mellow years, the lusty, luscious years. One by one the crudities of your youth are falling offfrom you, --the vanity, the egotism, the isolation, the bewilderment, the uncertainty. Nearer and nearer you are approaching yourself. Youare consolidating your forces. You are becoming master of thesituation. Every wrong road into which you have wandered has broughtyou, by the knowledge of that mistake, so much closer to the truth. You no longer draw your bow at a venture, but shoot straight at themark. Your purposes concentrate, and your path is cleared. On theruins of shattered plans you find your vantage-ground. Your brokenhopes, your thwarted schemes, your defeated aspirations, become a staffof strength with which you mount to sublimer heights. Withself-possession and self-command return the possession and the commandof all things. The title-deed of creation, forfeited, is reclaimed. The king has come to his own again. Earth and sea and sky pour outtheir largess of love. All the past crowds down to lay its treasuresat your feet. Patriotism stands once more in the breach atThermopylae, --bears down the serried hosts of Bannockburn, --lays itscalm hand in the fire, still, as if it felt the pressure of a mother'slips, --gathers to its heart the points of opposing spears, to make away for the avenging feet behind. All that the ages have of greatnessand glory your hand may pluck, and every year adds to the purplevintage. Every year comes laden with the riches of the lives that werelavished on it. Every year brings to you softness and sweetness andstrength. Every year evokes order from confusion, till all things findscope and adjustment. Every year sweeps a broader circle for yourhorizon, grooves a deeper channel for your experience. Through sun andshade and shower you ripen to a large and liberal life. 

Yours is the deep joy, the unspoken fervor, the sacred fury of thefight. Yours is the power to redress wrong, to defend the weak, tosuccor the needy, to relieve the suffering, to confound the oppressor. While vigor leaps in great tidal pulses along your veins, you stand inthe thickest of the fray, and broadsword and battle-axe come crashingdown through helmet and visor. When force has spent itself; youwithdraw from the field, your weapons pass into younger hands, you restunder your laurels, and your works do follow you. Your badges are thescars of your honorable wounds. Your life finds its vindication in thedeeds which you have wrought. The possible tomorrow has become thesecure yesterday. Above the tumult and the turbulence, above thestruggle and the doubt, you sit in the serene evening, awaiting yourpromotion. 

Come, then, O dreaded years! Your brows are awful, but not withfrowns. I hear your resonant tramp far off, but it is sweet as theMay-maidens' song. In your grave prophetic eyes I read a goldenpromise. I know that you bear in your bosom the fullness of my life. Veiled monarchs of the future, shining dim and beautiful, you shallbecome my vassals, swift-footed to bear my messages, swift-handed towork my will. Nourished by the nectar which you will pour in passingfrom your crystal cups, Death shall have no dominion over me, but Ishall go on from strength to strength and from glory to glory.